00:02:21
◼►
But like that, because that's, that's what I would worry about for you.
00:02:23
◼►
Like he ends up costing you the world series or something and then forever, it's complicated for you to wear a jersey with your own name on it.
00:02:30
◼►
Except one's like, you know, it doesn't matter.
00:03:13
◼►
If you would like to send in a Snell Talk question of your own to open a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and send one in.
00:03:34
◼►
Emulators starting to hit the app store, but it's not gotten off to a great start.
00:03:38
◼►
So over the last few days, there was an app called IGBA that hit the app store.
00:03:43
◼►
It was a Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulator.
00:03:47
◼►
And it was like the heavens had opened for people because it was like, oh, my gosh, I can play Game Boy games with ROMs that I have acquired somehow on my iPhone.
00:03:58
◼►
Then Riley Testa, who created GBA for iOS and is also the creator of Altstore and the Delta emulator and all that stuff, posted that this application appeared to have been a knockoff of his work in creating GBA for iOS.
00:04:15
◼►
And Riley was upset because they've been working on their own app.
00:04:21
◼►
Unclear right now, but if Riley will be releasing the emulator outside of Europe on the app store, but potentially, I don't know.
00:04:30
◼►
The app then got removed from the app store.
00:04:34
◼►
Initially, it wasn't clear whether the developer removed it or Apple had removed it.
00:04:39
◼►
But then Apple confirmed to MacRumors that the app was removed for, quote, violating the company's app review guidelines related to spam and copyright.
00:04:49
◼►
But also that they did not provide any specific details.
00:04:52
◼►
So what we do not know, and this is only more questions here, is was this removed because of Riley making a complaint or making a complaint online that got back to Apple?
00:05:03
◼►
Or was it removed because it was a ROM for Nintendo games?
00:05:07
◼►
Indeed, it's not a good look for Apple either way, because they accepted this and then rejected it.
00:05:20
◼►
Also, not only is it unclear, like, was this, it turns out you can't do these kinds of things in the store.
00:05:30
◼►
Breaking news, breaking news from a friend of the show, Chance Miller at 9to5Mac.
00:05:35
◼►
Apple tells me the IGBA's functionality was originally approved in compliance with the app store guidelines.
00:05:42
◼►
The app was removed, however, when Apple learned that it was a clone of GBA for iOS, a violation of the copyright and spam app store guidelines.
00:05:50
◼►
OK, so this is what I was going to say about the lack of clarity, because when Riley said this is a knockoff.
00:06:05
◼►
And the other one is, hey, because, and I'm not saying Riley would think this, but people do think this way, which is, wait, I did the Game Boy emulator.
00:06:19
◼►
And that would be a more kind of like feeling based thing, which is it feels like you're trotting on my territory, but not legal.
00:06:26
◼►
But if they literally took the code, the open source code from the emulator and then just put in a bunch of trackers and stuff, that gives Apple justification.
00:06:38
◼►
Yeah, it does appear that that's what happened, because there's even like UI elements and stuff that were very similar, are very similar to GBA for iOS.
00:06:47
◼►
And also, like, I think the developer made a public statement to the Verge, I think, and was like, I never meant for it to be like this.
00:06:55
◼►
And Riley said that they had gotten to Riley and said that it was a mistake and apologized and all of that.
00:07:02
◼►
And so I guess, you know, never mind in a way, although I will point out the thought did cross my mind that people talking about rightfully replicating or not rightfully replicating other people's work is, while talking about game emulators, is interesting, right?
00:07:21
◼►
It's, this is always what I felt about, like, do the people who make tools for piracy worry about piracy?
00:07:34
◼►
Right? Like, where's it? Oh, here, come buy my cracking tools. It's $100.
00:07:38
◼►
It's like, well, yeah, but you know what they're going to do with your cracking tools is they're going to crack them.
00:07:44
◼►
We're looking into like the, it's like a real, I don't even know.
00:07:48
◼►
Like it's like, it reminds me of the meme from community, right?
00:07:53
◼►
Of the, like when Troy walks into the pizza and everything's on fire, it's kind of how it feels like with this stuff.
00:07:58
◼►
Or you look at it for too long and you're like, well, who owns what?
00:08:01
◼►
But effectively what we, the question that I had until minutes ago was, and it's still not actually really answered, like will Apple allow emulators to play Nintendo games?
00:08:15
◼►
Will Riley put them in like Riley, Riley's got a vision OS stack of emulators now.
00:08:21
◼►
So like, is Riley going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, it's all going to be in the alt store or would Riley?
00:08:28
◼►
Cause I think, I think Riley's feeling is that this was sort of done to undercut alt store, right?
00:08:32
◼►
Oh, well, I don't, to me, there is no other option.
00:08:36
◼►
I guess there's no option. There's no other reason.
00:08:38
◼►
Like Apple have, could have done this at any point over the last like 15 years or whatever.
00:08:42
◼►
It could have, but now all of a sudden emulators are allowed.
00:08:46
◼►
Like I think this is 100% because the, the emulators in alt store are a genuine reason to use alternative app marketplaces.
00:08:55
◼►
And if they now exist in the app store, it will be a reason for people to not use alternative app marketplaces.
00:09:00
◼►
Apparently, and this is all thanks to people in our members discord.
00:09:04
◼►
Thank you members for, for participating in the show live as we record this on, we record it Monday mornings at noon Eastern.
00:09:11
◼►
Which is neither of our time zones, but I just thought I'd throw it out there because Casey, it's like the scent of Casey is still in the air.
00:09:17
◼►
So we'll talk about Eastern time for a minute.
00:09:19
◼►
Anyway, Jason and the discord says that Riley's license for his code for GPA for iOS says you can use this anywhere and modify it anywhere for any project,
00:09:30
◼►
except if you were going to submit it to Apple's app store, in which case you need my express written permission.
00:09:42
◼►
And, uh, so yeah, I'm still interested.
00:09:45
◼►
I got the IGB app and I have some ROMs, which I have acquired in the means from which I've acquired them.
00:09:52
◼►
There are these interesting devices that you can buy to rip, uh, uh, Game Boy cartridges, which I've done and it works.
00:10:00
◼►
So, you know, what I want is I want a, uh, I think, uh, I think I want a Wii emulator because we have lots of Wii games and playing them through an old Wii
00:11:00
◼►
I'll just throw it out here that at some point, as we've said all along for the last few years, uh, governments are the only ones with the power to make the tech
00:11:11
◼►
And they're very comfortable and, and, and not even really competing that hard with one another because they're all making a lot of money.
00:11:17
◼►
Um, and so how, how do we see Apple making wholesale changes in their policies?
00:11:23
◼►
The only way it's happening is because they're either being forced to do so by laws or they're preemptively doing so because of their concern about what
00:11:31
◼►
rulings or laws might be held against them.
00:11:34
◼►
Um, but, uh, we can, and we can and have frequently debated all the issues there and we'll continue to, but I will say it also makes things really interesting
00:11:43
◼►
when policy changes happen, because who knows, will it be nothing or will it be a, just like a huge sweeping change?
00:11:51
◼►
Cause this is, you put this in with the cloud gaming and it may be nothing, or it may be just a completely transformative moment.
00:11:58
◼►
I don't know, you know, or somewhere in between, I suppose, but, uh, can't wait to see what happens.
00:12:04
◼►
Speaking of regulation, Apple has made some enhancements to its repair programs.
00:12:10
◼►
So customers and independent repair companies will now be able to repair a device with a genuine used part from other devices, beginning with the iPhone later this year.
00:12:21
◼►
Activation lock will also be extended to parts. So if a device is stolen and locked, uh, its parts will also become locked.
00:12:29
◼►
So, you know, now it would be the case, cause you can see the scenario of, oh, I can use parts. Well, I can use them from stolen iPhones.
00:12:35
◼►
So they're doing these two things together to make it more parts available for different prices, I guess, for people to be able to repair devices.
00:12:43
◼►
You know, companies could take devices in, strip them for parts and use them to repair newer devices.
00:12:49
◼►
Um, and so yeah, this is all happening. I think because it seems like it's also because of a bill.
00:12:55
◼►
It's a law now. So, so this is one of those things where, you know, regulation never works, except it totally works, which is that, uh, we talked about how in California, there was a right to repair bill that Apple supported, right?
00:13:07
◼►
Well, in Oregon, there was a right to repair bill and Apple did not support it. And you're thinking, well, why, why would they not support it?
00:13:13
◼►
Well, one of the things in the bill, which is now a law, the governor of Oregon signed it into law, is that, um, this parts pairing shenanigans, uh, is, is not allowed.
00:13:27
◼►
And Apple doesn't love that because that was a way for Apple to say, well, okay, you can fix your thing, but you have to buy the parts from us.
00:13:33
◼►
And, uh, the state of Oregon said, no, and that's the law now.
00:13:38
◼►
And again, it's one of those cases where in all of these repair things, as these laws happen, Apple's like, all right, well, we'll change our policy.
00:13:46
◼►
And they put out a press release saying that they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart, but the truth is they're doing it because they have to.
00:13:50
◼►
But again, it's like, what I like about it is that Apple also doing it the right way if they're going to do it, which is because I think the activation lock thing is really important.
00:13:59
◼►
Um, because you could see a scenario where more devices could get stolen if, right.
00:14:08
◼►
And so this, this will at least hopefully curb some of that or curb the potential of that, uh, like stop and increase before it could increase.
00:14:18
◼►
Speaking of iPhones being repaired, what about where iPhones are made?
00:14:22
◼►
There was a report that was shared by 9to5Mac, which says that one in seven iPhones are now made in India.
00:14:28
◼►
I think this information came from Bloomberg.
00:14:30
◼►
So this is just basically Apple furthering its commitment to diversifying where its products are manufactured.
00:14:37
◼►
Uh, currently in India, the supply and manufacturers split between Foxconn, Pegatron and Tata.
00:14:43
◼►
And Pegatron and Tata are reportedly considering a joint venture on creating a new plant to boost their manufacturing efforts because Foxconn is currently doing the large bulk of this work split between the three companies.
00:14:55
◼►
So just a continued move that I just think is interesting to track of.
00:14:59
◼►
I think it's, it is also, it is partly Apple reducing its reliance on China, but I also think is Apple reducing its reliance on its products being made in one place, no matter where that might be.
00:16:04
◼►
And there's some others in there like, uh, Hearst has Pusmo.
00:16:08
◼►
Um, Lex Friedman has his thing that he's, Lex Friedman has apparently just decided that one of the things he's going to do is create an internet game service.
00:16:24
◼►
So is there, is there a, what is the official Lex, uh, Lex games, um, website we should, we should put that in the show notes at the very least.
00:16:35
◼►
I will find it and I'll put it in the show notes because Google did not help me.
00:16:43
◼►
Lex.games for our good friend Lex Friedman, friend of the show.
00:16:46
◼►
So you could do that too if you don't want to do it and I'll just say the, uh, the first rule of secret puzzle society is a puzzle you can't solve.
00:16:55
◼►
You can't get in, you can't get into the society.
00:17:00
◼►
Unless you solve the puzzle and then you, and, but you know, that's it.
00:17:04
◼►
This episode is brought to you in part by Wild Grain, the first ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas and artisanal pastries.
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00:17:54
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Like, uh, you got popovers at one point, we've got croissants in our freezer right now.
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Those look more like a dough, but, uh, basically the idea is you can get without actually making the thing, you can pop it in the oven and get what is a fresh baked.
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And we use that to do our meal planning, which is actually really great that we can do our meal planning based on the stock of frozen stuff.
00:18:43
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That's a lot of carbs, but it's not impossible anyway.
00:18:46
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Uh, it's really easy because you just pop it in the oven and then it gets the, you know, the it's crispy on the outside and soft and warm and wonderful on the inside.
00:18:54
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00:18:59
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00:19:03
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00:20:09
◼►
So, Mark Gurman has shared a report on Apple's plans for the M4 chip generation.
00:20:15
◼►
The first Macs of an M4 chip are expected to debut later this year going on into 2025 with the plan being that all Macs will be updated to the M4 generation.
00:20:27
◼►
This is the first time, right, that every Mac that Apple sells would be on the same chip generation.
00:20:32
◼►
So this will include in 2024, Mark is saying there will be new iMacs.
00:22:02
◼►
Apple is testing for the Studio Mac Pro the ability to go up to 512 gigabytes of RAM, which is also interesting that if the Mac Studio does not get the M4 Ultra, it means that the M4 Macs, in theory,
00:22:17
◼►
would be able to support up to half a gigabyte of RAM in a desktop machine.
00:23:15
◼►
Like, I think that it deeply overstates the linkage between one fact and a different fact.
00:23:22
◼►
And then the highlight artificial intelligence, I think given that Mark doesn't specifically report ways that these chips are totally more AI friendly.
00:23:35
◼►
I think the only way to read it is it continues to be that Apple has got neural engine and it's got a lot of GPUs and it keeps updating them.
00:23:44
◼►
They just updated the neural engine core.
00:23:46
◼►
Maybe there's a new neural engine core or more cores in the M4 than was in the M3 or the M2.
00:23:54
◼►
But the way I would read this is that they're going to promote it in a new way because that's what they're doing now is promoting their stuff.
00:24:06
◼►
But I doubt it has actually any change in the chip design itself.
00:24:10
◼►
And if it does, it would probably be, again, a new core or more cores.
00:24:15
◼►
But that's not reported by Mark Gurman.
00:24:17
◼►
He's just saying designed to highlight artificial intelligence, which I think he knows this.
00:24:21
◼►
But I think that this is just the way Bloomberg works is they want to tell these stories about how everything's connected, even if it's less juicy when the fact is it's not.
00:24:29
◼►
Because what didn't happen is late last year, Apple executives didn't like pour over a ledger somewhere and go, oh, no, Mac sales are slow.
00:24:38
◼►
Boys, pour some more AI juice in that new chip we're going to do.
00:24:44
◼►
Because also, it's not like whatever Apple announced at WWDC is only going to work on the M4.
00:24:50
◼►
So whatever they announce will work on all of the Apple silicon chips.
00:24:55
◼►
Even if they did do, I don't know, new MacBook Pros at WWDC, which I'm not going to, but even if they did, it's not like they'll be like, oh, artificial intelligence will only work well.
00:25:07
◼►
But when they get to announcing the M4s, they'll be like, and the Apple AI tools work even better.
00:25:20
◼►
What bugs me about these stories, and again, Mark Gurman's sources are great, and I think he does great work.
00:25:25
◼►
But especially since he went to Bloomberg, I mean, there is this attempt to link these facts together to stitch a story that's broader about Apple's strategy.
00:25:36
◼►
And I think it happens because Bloomberg, you know, subscribers pay a lot of money and the terminal subscribers pay even more money and they want to seem super smart.
00:25:43
◼►
They're like, oh, I get what Apple's doing.
00:25:45
◼►
And so it becomes this like portrayal of Apple as this company that is reacting in the moment to things that are going on.
00:26:06
◼►
And they may do some strategies in terms of rollout or what chip goes where or whatever.
00:26:10
◼►
But what's not happening is that a chip that was probably designed three years ago.
00:26:15
◼►
It right is like, oh, geez, we need it in there.
00:26:18
◼►
Like it just it doesn't the company doesn't have the ability to change that fast.
00:26:25
◼►
And if they did and they were doing things that were kind of wild and new in the M4 because Macs are sales are slow or because AI is important, I would have expected that to be reported and hasn't been because that's not what's going on.
00:26:41
◼►
So, I mean, new chips is always a good opportunity to sell more Macs and M4 is going to be so far out in front of them.
00:26:47
◼►
One, presumably that they can hope to tap some upgradeers from M1, whereas they have been with M2 and M3 really highlighting Intel upgradeers.
00:26:58
◼►
So, you know, there's there's a story to be told here.
00:27:00
◼►
I just I want for our upgrade listeners, especially to understand that it's complex and I don't think these things are connected.
00:27:09
◼►
I also feel like the idea of sluggish Mac sales, it's like these are things that you can point to.
00:27:18
◼►
But again, like we can look at this and be like, well, sales went bananas because of COVID and Apple Silicon.
00:27:24
◼►
That's not what Mac sales are always going to be like, no matter what Apple do.
00:27:27
◼►
And we are now returning more to where we were 20, you know, above 2019, but maybe a little higher is kind of seeing where we're going to be.
00:27:36
◼►
They've come out to a new plateau and the install base is much larger, but they're not.
00:27:41
◼►
But this also goes back to the Wall Street mindset here, too, which is what you've got to do is grow.
00:27:47
◼►
But if Apple does really does a really great job with their AI tools, right, and people go mad for them and then these M4s do do an even better job.
00:27:57
◼►
Like, yeah, sure, maybe it will boost the sales.
00:27:59
◼►
But like, as we said, it's not why they're doing it.
00:28:01
◼►
We also expect Mark Gurman knows this, but as you say, his audience requires that kind of...
00:28:08
◼►
His audience, his editors, whatever it is, it is this.
00:28:14
◼►
I mean, it's a slightly more sophisticated version of the thing where Bloomberg inserts a paragraph in their stories a few hours after they're posted indicating whatever stock price change happened in the hours after they posted it in order to imply that Bloomberg's report is what moved the market.
00:28:31
◼►
And I'm sure sometimes that happens, but most of the time...
00:28:37
◼►
I mean, when they break news, but for a lot of this stuff, it's sort of like, oh, and they were up 2% on the news.
00:28:45
◼►
I was like, was it on the news or was it just another day at Apple?
00:28:49
◼►
But it benefits Bloomberg and its business to be seen as market movers.
00:28:53
◼►
So it's all part of the same sort of thing.
00:28:55
◼►
But anyway, going back into this, I think there are a couple of things that are interesting to me.
00:29:00
◼►
One, doing the whole chip generation, like the whole all max on one chip generation is interesting.
00:29:07
◼►
I think it's continuing to tell like a story that I've found particularly interesting in the Apple Silicon transition is there kind of has not been a reliable trend of how Apple is managing the Silicon chips and their Macs.
00:29:19
◼►
Every time we think we might understand how they handle things, they do something different, which I kind of like.
00:29:27
◼►
The other is what's going on with the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro, I think is the most interesting part of this, because I think that is it's quite intriguing.
00:29:37
◼►
It would be weird to me, given what Apple has done over the last years of the Mac Pro for them to build a chip only for the Mac Pro.
00:29:54
◼►
What he says is it's only being tested with the Mac Pro.
00:29:57
◼►
It's possible that that is also going to be a Mac Studio chip, but it's also possible that they've decided that they, you know, I can see both arguments.
00:30:07
◼►
They've decided that they really need the Mac Pro or want the Mac Pro to be special in some way.
00:30:12
◼►
But it's such a low volume computer that it seems to me that a more rational thing is to also make it available in the Mac Studio.
00:30:22
◼►
So that's the part to me which is really odd, because like, you know, I'm a bit of a Mac Pro hater, I think now.
00:30:31
◼►
I don't understand it really being there anymore.
00:30:36
◼►
And maybe the M4 Ultra has something in it, which maybe they'll finally allow for external graphics cards again, and then maybe it makes sense, right?
00:30:47
◼►
But I don't think that's going to happen.
00:30:50
◼►
But then also, why on earth would you do it?
00:30:53
◼►
Like, if they do do it the way that Mark says, like, why would you have a chip only for that one machine?
00:31:01
◼►
Which is the only characteristic difference between this machine and other machines is you can put things inside the case because it's big enough.
00:31:07
◼►
But at the moment, there's nothing to put in there.
00:31:12
◼►
Look, I mean, yes, there's a rational argument that the Mac Pro shouldn't exist at all, but it does.
00:31:16
◼►
And I kind of understand why it exists.
00:31:19
◼►
But one of the reasons I say it exists is because it's a case that was already designed, and they're basically using the guts, or at least a lot of the guts of the Mac Studio.
00:31:30
◼►
And so it dramatically reduces how much extra work gets to be in this special, almost bespoke product that nobody buys.
00:31:40
◼►
So, you know, unless Apple does something illogical, which they might, it happens.
00:31:47
◼►
It feels to me like the Mac Pro as a big Mac Studio thing is the most rational thing they could do.
00:31:54
◼►
But who knows, they might have some trick up their sleeve.
00:31:58
◼►
I just, that market is so tiny and it's not going to get much bigger.
00:32:00
◼►
Like, if they grow it at all, I just have a hard...
00:32:03
◼►
Let's say they do something like support external GPUs and, you know, you go down the John Syracuse list of Mac, you know, virtues of the Mac Pro.
00:32:14
◼►
How many of them are they going to sell?
00:32:17
◼►
I mean, that market is basically gone and it's, I don't think it's coming back.
00:32:21
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So yeah, I think, I think I would probably guess that it's going to continue being what it is now, which is there will also be a compact version of it that you can get with the high end chip that's in the, that's in the Mac Studio shape.
00:33:32
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So it's more likely that what's really going to happen is that in 25, there will be an M4 Mac Studio, 25 or 26, whatever, an M4 Mac Studio.
00:33:40
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And whether it has just the Macs or it has the Ultra or whatever is kind of up in the air because they're testing it.
00:33:47
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Because again, it's the stuff that he knows they're testing it in is what he's reporting.
00:33:51
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It doesn't mean that the other stuff isn't happening.
00:33:53
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It means he doesn't know about that, so he can't report it.
00:33:56
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So that's my guess is that the Mac Studio is still going to happen because he does specifically say that it's being tested with a still unreleased M3 era chip, which has got to be the M3 Ultra.
00:34:07
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Yeah. And his newsletter, he says Apple could choose to wait until the M4 line for a new Ultra, but it's worth noting that an M3 variation does exist internally.
00:34:17
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Because if they were going to update the Mac Studio, in theory, they would have a Macs and an Ultra for it.
00:34:21
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Because it would be weird to do M3 Macs and M2 Ultra as your two.
00:34:27
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But I think the expectation is that they may not update the Mac Pro even still.
00:34:32
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It's kind of a little bit up in the air right now.
00:34:35
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But you can understand that a bit more, right?
00:34:37
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That it's the same as, like, the Mac Mini is also niche and it doesn't get updates constantly.
01:00:19
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If this product was able to integrate, we'd be having a different conversation.
01:00:25
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Like for sure we'd be having a different conversation than the one that we're having right now.
01:00:29
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Like if it was able to just understand what was on my phone and be able to handle everything,
01:00:35
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the conversation would be like, the battery life's not great, gets a bit warm and it's
01:00:39
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a little slow, but the promise is clear.
01:00:42
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And like, so you know, the people that are saying the problem, and I see it, you see it, you can see that this could work, but the table stakes are so high.
01:00:51
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I immediately thought, boy, if they do a new Apple Watch in the fall that is capable of
01:00:56
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running at least a small machine learning model and then also using Apple's back end
01:01:01
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or the phone's processor or whatever it is to essentially do what the AI pin is doing
01:01:08
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but on an Apple Watch, it's like, wow, like that's so cool.