00:00:09 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 519 for July 1st, 2024. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN and Factor.
00:00:27 ◼ ► Hi, Mike. Happy July. Happy July to you too. Yeah, we're in the deep into the Summer of Fun now, I feel like.
00:00:33 ◼ ► I feel like we really got it. We don't get to see what we're wearing, because we don't have video on
00:00:40 ◼ ► during the recording of this, but we do record the video and then post it. Yes. I'm wearing my Summer
00:00:45 ◼ ► of Fun t-shirt today. I'm... Dongle Town. OG Dongle Town, Orange Dongle Town t-shirt today. Beauty.
00:00:52 ◼ ► All right. I like it that we we often wear Upgrade t-shirts during the upgrade. I always wear Upgrade t-shirts on Mondays.
00:00:57 ◼ ► Unless I've had like a meeting or something and I'm wearing something a little nicer, I'll always wear
00:01:01 ◼ ► an Upgrade t-shirt on Mondays. I mean, what's nicer than an Upgrade t-shirt? But I get your...
00:01:06 ◼ ► You have to understand the context of it. We pre-recorded something for a future episode
00:01:10 ◼ ► on Friday, and that we did with video on for reasons that we'll get into later. We have some
00:01:18 ◼ ► special guests coming up, but when the video popped up, it revealed that Mike and I were both wearing
00:01:23 ◼ ► our Upgrade Colors R t-shirts, so that was hilarious. I love it. I have a snow talk question for you,
00:01:29 ◼ ► Jason. All right. It comes from Yoni who wants to know, "Will the 4th of July Lawn Tubeman be making
00:01:35 ◼ ► an appearance this year?" Okay, I think we need to explain this question. So I have a... This is good upgrade
00:01:40 ◼ ► law, this one, I think. Yeah, I have a blower and an inflatable Tubeman. They're called
00:01:50 ◼ ► they wave around and stuff, and I have one that is... And then you can buy like a... It's like a
00:01:57 ◼ ► sock that goes on it, and then that's the Tubeman. So the blower can have different Tubeman put on it.
00:02:03 ◼ ► So at Halloween, I have an orange one, and I put the orange Tubeman out there, and the trick-or-treaters
00:02:08 ◼ ► love it. They would... I could create a whole religion or cult out of children in my neighborhood
00:02:17 ◼ ► worshipping the Tubeman, okay? It is catnip for the kids. But... And then I have a Santa. So at
00:02:24 ◼ ► Christmas time, I will put out the Santa, and I think that's a fun little twist on it. So we talked
00:02:28 ◼ ► about the idea that maybe I would get the Uncle Sam or the Eagle or really probably the American
00:02:34 ◼ ► Flag Tubeman. He's kind of got a blue face, and then there's stars below him, and then red and
00:02:38 ◼ ► white stripes below that. And I believe when we talked about this maybe last year or the year
00:02:43 ◼ ► before, then I went to the website and saw that it was like 50 bucks. I was like, "Do I really want
00:02:48 ◼ ► that? Do I want to...?" And I just didn't have the enthusiasm to do it. So once again, the answer is
00:02:53 ◼ ► no, I will not be doing it because I didn't buy the Uncle Sam. - Why are you so enthused about
00:03:02 ◼ ► Santa and Halloween but not about Uncle Sam? - I don't know. I just got the idea that... I bought
00:03:10 ◼ ► the Tubeman because I thought it would be fun. And Jamie and I had talked for years about getting
00:03:14 ◼ ► a Tubeman, much to the consternation of Lauren. Jamie and I were like, "Oh, we could get a Tubeman."
00:03:19 ◼ ► I thought, "Yes, we could. We could." The danger of talking to me, if you're in my family, about
00:03:23 ◼ ► something that seems ridiculous but you all share a laugh about it is that in the background I'm
00:03:27 ◼ ► thinking, "I could actually do that. We could actually do that. That's hahaha. Yeah, wouldn't
00:03:33 ◼ ► it be funny if we got a Tubeman?" I could buy a Tubeman. So yeah, I don't know. I just... I'm
00:03:41 ◼ ► often... Often we are not here on the 4th of July and we are this year and I could have gotten it.
00:03:46 ◼ ► And I just... I look at the price and I think, "Do I want to do this?" And it's always after
00:03:54 ◼ ► 4th of July and I'm like, "Do I want to store this away for a future?" I should absolutely
00:03:58 ◼ ► do it though. But we'll figure it out. Oh, but Mike, you know, speaking of the 4th of July...
00:04:03 ◼ ► Yep. It's time for the American quiz. Mike, what is the capital of the United States? Is it New York,
00:04:19 ◼ ► Washington DC, Los Angeles, or Chicago? Washington DC. Alright, correct. In which year did the United
00:04:27 ◼ ► States declare its independence? Was it 1776, 1789, 1812, or 1607? 1776. That's very good.
00:04:39 ◼ ► Reference acknowledged. It was on the 4th of July. Is this happening now? Are we doing this now?
00:04:45 ◼ ► And one more for now. Which river is the longest in the United States? Is it the Mississippi,
00:04:50 ◼ ► the Missouri, the Colorado, or the Ohio? Mississippi River. Correct! Mississippi River.
00:04:55 ◼ ► You got three out of three on this portion of the Upgrade American quiz, but good news everybody.
00:05:04 ◼ ► In Upgrade Plus today, if you're an Upgrade Plus subscriber, we will continue the American quiz
00:05:12 ◼ ► with my little monkey sound that appears to have... Oh, the monkey died! Mike, you win! You're the
00:05:16 ◼ ► victor! The monkey died! Wow, we're deep in the law now. Like, so last year on Upgrade Plus,
00:05:23 ◼ ► on the 4th of July week episode, Jason surprised me with a big American quiz, which I thought... I
00:05:29 ◼ ► think it was the American citizenship test. Yeah, we've done that. I had you identify states in a
00:05:34 ◼ ► previous one. Yeah, I mean, yeah, this is what happens here. So look forward to the return of
00:05:39 ◼ ► the great American quiz... No sound, thank you... of Upgrade Plus. So you go to getupgradeplus.com
00:05:47 ◼ ► and Jason's going to try and get that horrible monkey sound to work, which upsets me greatly. So
00:05:51 ◼ ► we're just going to move on now. Thank you so much to Snout of Tioni for that Snout Talk question
00:05:56 ◼ ► as we move into some follow up. So we've got a bunch of follow up about the Vision Pro and a
00:06:02 ◼ ► cheaper Vision Pro, which was a conversation we had on the last episode. Robert wrote in and said,
00:06:07 ◼ ► "A Vision product at the $500 price point is important for a bunch of reasons, but it all
00:06:12 ◼ ► comes back to price elasticity of demand. The Vision is and will be an accessory product for
00:06:18 ◼ ► a long time. That is how Apple designed it. They don't want it to replace anything. Normal consumers
00:06:23 ◼ ► won't pay over $1,000 for an accessory to their $1,500 laptop to use software running on the
00:06:30 ◼ ► laptop. This is like the HomePod all over again." I want to read the second thing because I think
00:06:34 ◼ ► I kind of got together a little bit. Matt says, "I have to disagree with quite a few aspects of
00:06:39 ◼ ► your discussion about the Vision Pro, specifically around its job to be done and the price. Apple has
00:06:44 ◼ ► said that the Vision Pro is the future of computing. At any point in the past 20 years,
00:06:49 ◼ ► Apple's current vision of computing has cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000. Given that,
00:06:55 ◼ ► would you expect them to ever sell a $500 MacBook?" Well, so is it an accessory or is it a computer
00:07:02 ◼ ► is part of the question here. Yeah, I don't think I buy, given how they pitch it right now,
00:07:07 ◼ ► I don't really buy that it is an accessory. I think that if it was priced as a $500 device,
00:07:19 ◼ ► what Apple is grappling with, is what is it? Where does it fit? They don't know. One rumor that I saw
00:07:25 ◼ ► was that they were even considering maybe going back to the idea of having it be partially driven
00:07:31 ◼ ► by an iPhone or a Mac in the low-cost version, which is bananas to me, but like that would
00:07:38 ◼ ► certainly put it as firmly as an accessory. I think if it's the future of computing, then sure,
00:07:44 ◼ ► it would cost a lot. The problem is the reality, which is the getting people to buy a Vision Pro
00:07:50 ◼ ► as the future of computing. Right now, they're not going to do that. They're going to buy a laptop.
00:07:54 ◼ ► They're not going to buy a Vision Pro. Like, "Oh, should I buy a laptop or a Vision Pro?" The answer
00:07:58 ◼ ► is going to be almost always a laptop, right? So how do you do this in the long run? How do you
00:08:05 ◼ ► make this product something that has room to evolve over time and become whatever it needs
00:08:11 ◼ ► to be? And I think one thing, what we were talking about last time is they need more users. They need
00:08:20 ◼ ► this thing to have more activity in it. Otherwise, it will be hard for it to grow. So one of the
00:08:26 ◼ ► reasons you build a cheaper product is because the lower that price is, the more people you'll get on
00:08:32 ◼ ► board with it. Yeah, I think it's like, I understand where both Robert and Matt are coming from,
00:08:41 ◼ ► because you've got the "How is Apple talking about it and what are they actually doing with it?"
00:08:47 ◼ ► And those are actually different things. I think realistically, Vision Pro will be the future of
00:08:55 ◼ ► computing in the way that the iPad was. In the sense that for some people, for a large amount
00:09:03 ◼ ► of people, it provides a good enough experience to be their primary computer, but it doesn't
00:09:08 ◼ ► really replace en masse what came before it. And I think the Vision Pro will be a similar thing.
00:09:15 ◼ ► So yes, you would ideally want to put it into the kind of the pricing bucket of an iPad,
00:09:27 ◼ ► Threads in the feedback form about the idea of, you know, because I've said that I don't believe
00:09:36 ◼ ► that $1,500 is really a good enough price still to make a meaningful difference for the Vision Pro,
00:09:44 ◼ ► right? Like that was this price that we're talking about last week, that I'm not sure how much of a
00:09:48 ◼ ► difference $1,500 is to $3,500. And a bunch of people wrote in to say like, "Well, you know,
00:09:53 ◼ ► a laptop costs $1,500." But kind of my counterpoint to that is there, but there's a lot of stuff on
00:09:59 ◼ ► Mac OS. There's a lot of stuff, right? And there's a big inbuilt platform of apps and experiences
00:10:06 ◼ ► that are known to work in that environment. Plus there is all of the inbuilt social contract around
00:10:11 ◼ ► using a laptop, right? Where like, yeah, you could use all of your web apps inside of a Vision Pro,
00:10:18 ◼ ► but you're going to do that at the office? Like I just know at the moment, I'm not really sure that
00:10:23 ◼ ► the Vision Pro replaces it and neither is there really enough of a unique software ecosystem,
00:10:30 ◼ ► like enough of one to justify it. And I don't know if $1,500 as a price point would actually get
00:10:47 ◼ ► "Absolutely." "Apple needs to invest more in getting developers to build their apps on Vision
00:10:51 ◼ ► OS. And since the size of the near-term market opportunity sure won't, some of it inducement,
00:10:56 ◼ ► like maybe even money might be a good idea." It's like, that's, I think the thing of there needs to
00:11:01 ◼ ► be more apps. And I don't know if a $1,500 Vision Pro is going to excite enough developers more than
00:11:09 ◼ ► the $3,500 Vision Pro. I think what Apple needs to do is actually give the developer kits that
00:11:18 ◼ ► they seem to suggest they would give and they seemingly never did in a large enough kind of,
00:11:24 ◼ ► I don't think you have enough of them out basically. And I think that could be something
00:11:30 ◼ ► that could make a difference. You need more applications. Maybe a way to do that is to give
00:11:34 ◼ ► a bunch of developers free Vision Pros. Maybe that will encourage them enough to do it.
00:11:37 ◼ ► - Right. It might not even need to be a public program. It could literally be approaching
00:11:41 ◼ ► interesting app developers and saying, "We see you haven't done anything with Vision Pro.
00:11:45 ◼ ► We can get you one, please." And yeah, that would be a way, Apple Arcade is a way that you can drive
00:11:53 ◼ ► some of this 'cause that's a place where Apple actually does pay developers essentially to do
00:11:57 ◼ ► apps on their platform. I wonder though, if there should be some more, maybe even behind the scenes
00:12:02 ◼ ► deals made to induce other developers to actually make apps for the platform. And the idea here,
00:12:08 ◼ ► and productivity apps, entertainment apps, the idea here really is that have this few months into
00:12:14 ◼ ► Vision Pro, it seems like the biggest challenge for Vision Pro is content, is like you said,
00:12:21 ◼ ► you need things on it. And the chicken egg problem is for $1,500 as a user, I'll buy it for $1,500
00:12:31 ◼ ► maybe more readily than I'd buy it for $3,500. I mean, certainly that's the case, but you're still
00:12:36 ◼ ► also coming up against what's on it. And so when we talk about Apple not doing much immersive video
00:12:42 ◼ ► and that they're not being a lot of 3D video on there, and that there are not a lot of apps on
00:12:47 ◼ ► there, and that even like apps, a lot of Apple's apps aren't on there, which is part of the problem
00:12:56 ◼ ► you really need apps to be there. If you're gonna talk about entertainment, which they have talked
00:13:00 ◼ ► about some, I think it's the best thing on it, they need more content there. And the other piece
00:13:06 ◼ ► of this is they also need better game content because that's content. And again, Apple and
00:13:12 ◼ ► gaming, I know it's a complicated thing, but I'll tell you, the one thing that has sold VR headsets
00:13:18 ◼ ► to people is games, traditionally in this market, right? It emerged from games. And Apple, I think
00:13:27 ◼ ► for some understandable reasons, when they launched the Vision Pro, they're like basically saying,
00:13:31 ◼ ► "No, we're not." Famously in their demo or in their video, when they introduced it, they said,
00:13:38 ◼ ► "Look, here is an iPad game being played with a handheld controller in Vision Pro." That was
00:13:44 ◼ ► their game story. And there are some games on the platform, but the problem is there's a whole class
00:13:50 ◼ ► of games that was traditionally the best games for other VR headsets that are not on the platform.
00:13:58 ◼ ► And again, I understand why Apple released the Vision Pro with just hand tracking. And every
00:14:04 ◼ ► other VR headset comes with handheld controllers, right? Or I don't know about every other, the
00:14:08 ◼ ► Quest certainly does, right? Handheld controllers have a lot of advantages. There's precision.
00:14:12 ◼ ► You don't even need to see your hands because they have their own tracking in them. So it's very
00:14:19 ◼ ► precise about where your hands are and your hands are on controller buttons that you can use. And
00:14:24 ◼ ► there's haptic feedback so that you get responses to what you do in space. And I understand why
00:14:30 ◼ ► Apple didn't do that because they're like, "No, no, no. We have really great hand tracking." And
00:14:34 ◼ ► they do. And I think as somebody suggested to me last week, a little bit like forcing the original
00:14:42 ◼ ► Mac out without arrow keys, because it was like, "We want you to use the mouse." I think Apple
00:14:46 ◼ ► wanted to say, "This is not just a game platform because at $3,500 it doesn't make sense as a game
00:14:51 ◼ ► platform." And we're really proud of our hand tracking and it's good for productivity. And
00:14:55 ◼ ► you know, every time I put on the Vision Pro, I still am so grateful that I don't have to do
00:15:00 ◼ ► the thing I do with the Quest where I have to not just put on the headset, but get the controllers
00:15:05 ◼ ► and put them nearby and then pick them up and make sure they've got their batteries in them.
00:15:09 ◼ ► And then I'm good to go. And the Vision Pro, I just put it on and then I can run the whole thing.
00:15:13 ◼ ► And I know that the hand tracking has gotten better on the Quest. Quest 3's hand tracking is
00:15:17 ◼ ► fine. It's not as good as Apple's. But the problem is that they're missing all of the titles, all of
00:15:24 ◼ ► the software that could get ported to Vision Pro and be good because they have decided to not
00:15:32 ◼ ► either build optional hand controllers or build an API so that third parties can build hand
00:15:37 ◼ ► controllers. And what I'm saying is I understand why Apple wanted to go out the door without them,
00:15:49 ◼ ► Apple hand controllers as an option so that you could bring a load of cool, fun, interesting games
00:16:01 ◼ ► into the store. The ones that have been brought over, like the simulators, the job simulator and
00:16:08 ◼ ► all that, are kind of wonky. The Fruit Ninja one that they did, I think it's terrible. I just can't
00:16:17 ◼ ► do it. And I am coming from somebody who's used a Quest and I know how good this should be, and it's
00:16:22 ◼ ► not. And it's because, as good as Apple's hand tracking is, it's missing a bunch of things that
00:16:27 ◼ ► make these games really good in terms of precision input from your movements and from pressing things,
00:16:38 ◼ ► I understand why Apple's proud of its hand tracking, but it can't be dogmatic. I'm really
00:16:46 ◼ ► reminded of the whole idea of the Apple Pencil. Remember, if you see a stylus, they blew it.
00:16:51 ◼ ► The whole point of that was a touchscreen shouldn't have to have a stylus. It shouldn't
00:16:56 ◼ ► be mandatory. Well, a VR headset shouldn't have to have hand controllers. Absolutely true, 100%.
00:17:03 ◼ ► However, the Apple Pencil makes the iPad way better, and it's not a condemnation of the
00:17:08 ◼ ► touch on the iPad. It's because there's certain things where you want a little more precision
00:17:17 ◼ ► And if I'm looking at what they could do to Vision Pro as they're trying to get the price down to make
00:17:24 ◼ ► it more valuable, allowing hand controllers to exist for the platform so that you get a bunch
00:17:30 ◼ ► of games in there on top of your immersive video that is coming. It's coming. There's going to be
00:17:36 ◼ ► more of that and more 3D video and also, yes, productivity apps and all those things. At this
00:17:41 ◼ ► point, if you're in charge of Vision Pro, I feel like you need to be finding every possible way
00:17:47 ◼ ► to sell a $1,500 headset by the end of next year, and that includes getting a bunch of those games.
00:17:59 ◼ ► Well, could they get Vader Immortal to come over? That's a lightsaber game. You can't really do it
00:18:04 ◼ ► without hand controllers. But could they? I don't know what the contracts are with Meta or whatever,
00:18:12 ◼ ► if there are limits on that. But porting a bunch of really great games, or even knocking them off
00:18:17 ◼ ► in the case of things that are owned by Meta and aren't coming to the platform, it just seems like
00:18:27 ◼ ► I know that they're playing the long game here, but they also need some signs of life and some
00:18:44 ◼ ► Do you think that is a problem, the requirement? It's not ideal that it's not in every box,
00:18:51 ◼ ► but I had a bunch of people write to me after I wrote this article saying it's actually exactly
00:18:55 ◼ ► what happened with the Apple TV. They made it that every game that was on the Apple TV at the
00:19:01 ◼ ► beginning, other than Guitar Hero, had to use the Siri remote. Yes. Oh my god, yes. No, no, no, no.
00:19:10 ◼ ► So I get it, but if Apple's not willing to put controllers in the box and it's already a very
00:19:16 ◼ ► expensive product, that's fine. I think they need to be good with the idea that there are a bunch of
00:19:21 ◼ ► game experiences that get better if you unlock the third-party controller or the Apple controller.
00:19:33 ◼ ► selling optical inserts and other things for the Vision Pro. So why not sell some hand trackers you
00:19:41 ◼ ► can boast about that you built or you built for Belkin or whatever? So I get it, right? It's not
00:19:47 ◼ ► as clean as saying these games are available because it's these games are available asterisk.
00:19:52 ◼ ► But right now they're already having to tell the story of, well this game plays a lot better if you
00:19:56 ◼ ► pair a controller to it. Right? They literally had a paired third-party controller. Well the Apple TV
00:20:02 ◼ ► has some games that only work with a controller. For sure. Now. Yeah. Now. Currently. Now. Like
00:20:09 ◼ ► you have to have like a proper controller, right? So like there just isn't anything else. It's like
00:20:15 ◼ ► you need an Xbox controller or a PlayStation controller or whatever to play like one of the NBA
00:20:21 ◼ ► basketball games that they have in Apple Arcade or something like that. So yeah, it's not unheard of.
00:20:26 ◼ ► Right. Now if they want to get creative and have it be two pencil pros that you hold in your hands
00:20:32 ◼ ► and they have haptic and they have position, like okay, we could talk about that. But I feel like
00:20:36 ◼ ► they got to do something and this is just, again, I'm not saying, oh no, the Apple pencil or the
00:20:41 ◼ ► Apple pencil, the Vision Pro is doomed without hand controllers. That's not quite what I'm saying.
00:20:44 ◼ ► I'm saying for momentum to be built with the Vision Pro, I think at this point, as you're
00:20:50 ◼ ► going toward a $1,500, $1,000, whatever it is, lower cost version, you just got to turn over the
00:20:57 ◼ ► couch cushions and like look in there for anything that will motivate people to come to the platform.
00:21:04 ◼ ► And some of it is video content and some of it is apps and motivating developers to be on the
00:21:11 ◼ ► platform is part of the story. And this to me seems like another quick win. I'm not saying it's easy,
00:21:18 ◼ ► but I'm saying it looks like the amount of effort required to do it would probably get paid back
00:21:23 ◼ ► by the amount of software you'd be able to put on your platform. The Vision Pro is now available to
00:21:29 ◼ ► buy in China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. And pre-orders are available for Australia, Canada,
00:21:35 ◼ ► France, Germany, and the UK. So a lot of people pointing this out on Threads and Mastodon that
00:21:42 ◼ ► in the photos that Apple put in their newsroom piece for the Asian launches, all of the people
00:21:50 ◼ ► using the devices were using the dual loop band, not the solo loop band for their demos.
00:22:01 ◼ ► Apple retail that by and large, customers prefer, comfort wise, the dual loop band rather than the
00:22:07 ◼ ► solo loop band. Mark Gurman has also shared that Apple has changed the demo experience worldwide
00:22:13 ◼ ► with this release. You can now, if you go in for a demo, rather than looking at stock photos
00:22:20 ◼ ► or videos on the Vision Pro, you can send your own photos or videos to the device to look at those,
00:22:26 ◼ ► so you can get a more personal experience. And additionally, the retail employees are being told
00:22:31 ◼ ► that if a user wants to spend more time with a specific part of the experience, they're being
00:22:37 ◼ ► given more freedom to do so, to kind of go deep on, as they're calling it, on a particular app
00:22:44 ◼ ► or part of Vision OS. So they're trying to do more, it seems. Yeah, this goes back to our
00:22:49 ◼ ► conversation about the ways that Apple retail is adapting to selling the Vision Pro, right?
00:22:59 ◼ ► and they got, again, and I go back to the inception of this product, clearly there were a bunch of
00:23:12 ◼ ► And the screen that faces out is one of them, oh, we don't want to lose connection with this
00:23:19 ◼ ► product, so we're going to put eyes on the front of it and all of that. One of them was, we're going
00:23:23 ◼ ► to have a very particular way that we introduce this to people in retail stores, and we're going
00:23:28 ◼ ► to have a whole script and we're going to get everybody trained. And now they're reacting to it,
00:23:32 ◼ ► where, as we talked about a few weeks ago, they have shortened it up because they want to just
00:23:37 ◼ ► get it on everybody's head, because once you see it, you can be blown away by it. And so it's
00:23:42 ◼ ► interesting for this report that also we will find a way for you to see your photos and videos and be
00:23:49 ◼ ► blown away by that, which is pretty great. So they're learning, right? They're learning. But
00:23:55 ◼ ► when we talk about some of the technical stuff, when we talk about lack of hand controller option
00:24:00 ◼ ► or some of the other things they're doing, or trying to take things off of it like that front
00:24:05 ◼ ► face display, presumably, to make a cheaper version, I think it's all the same, which is
00:24:10 ◼ ► there were some very strong held beliefs about this product that I would say don't necessarily
00:24:17 ◼ ► make sense, but I understand how they probably emerged from an ongoing internal conversation.
00:24:23 ◼ ► And I don't want to be so reductive as to say there were a bunch of people who were like,
00:24:27 ◼ ► as reports would suggest, Johnny Ive saying sort of like very highfalutin things about,
00:24:32 ◼ ► "Oh, we don't want to cut people off and they really need to understand it." And that's part
00:24:36 ◼ ► of Apple's personality is being that kind of like controlling and visionary and not necessarily as
00:24:43 ◼ ► real realistic as maybe they should be. And then reality hits. And so it's good to see Apple
00:24:50 ◼ ► adapting and saying, "Oh yeah, maybe they should see their own photos and maybe we can't do the
00:24:55 ◼ ► full 30 minutes." And also maybe if they want to go a little longer, I mean, do you have 10
00:25:01 ◼ ► other people waiting to use the Vision Pro? Maybe let them play around a little bit longer if you're
00:25:05 ◼ ► closing the sale here. So that all, it's a good sign. I think the longer somebody uses a Vision
00:25:11 ◼ ► Pro, the more likely they are to buy one. 100%. 100% true. Yeah. I've been using mine more
00:25:19 ◼ ► since the 2.0 beta came out. I've written a bunch of articles on it. Like you, every time I...
00:25:27 ◼ ► Like when you're in it. Yeah, I suppose. And like you, I also find very much like once I'm in there,
00:25:39 ◼ ► Yeah, I like play around, like, you know, go to the apps and stuff. I'm excited that now
00:25:44 ◼ ► the UK is coming online soon. I'll be able to actually use my iCloud account, which will be
00:25:50 ◼ ► great. Or my App Store account, I should say. I also ordered a second solo band so I can do the
00:25:57 ◼ ► solo top thing that everybody does. You're gonna do solo top? All right. It's good. I really like it.
00:26:01 ◼ ► For those who don't know, that's the, there's a little 3D printed adapter you can buy on like
00:26:05 ◼ ► Etsy or whatever. And you put another solo, one of those adjustable solo bands on the top. So
00:26:11 ◼ ► you're creating a dual strap out of two of the adjustable bands. A bunch of us have done that.
00:26:16 ◼ ► And it's really nice. I understand why Apple didn't want to do it because it probably costs a lot of
00:26:20 ◼ ► money. And I'm guessing that number one thing that will be the case in the, in the low priced, lower
00:26:26 ◼ ► priced Vision Pro next year will be, they'll just use the cheap dual band. I mean, the cheap dual
00:26:31 ◼ ► band seems to... Yeah. Like, and that's another case where I think that that 3D knitted band was
00:26:37 ◼ ► very kind of over engineered and very precious and beautiful. And then people use it and they're like,
00:26:42 ◼ ► I need something more. And they're like, all right, we made this dual strap thing for you.
00:26:47 ◼ ► And then you'll have to buy a nice strap separate if you want. Yeah. There are some weird ways that
00:26:52 ◼ ► could get the price down, right? It could be like, all right, this is the starting price. It doesn't
00:26:55 ◼ ► include, it includes one band and no battery. You can plug it in, right? And keep like to power or
00:27:01 ◼ ► you can buy a battery if you want to be mobile with it. There is a bunch of weird ways that could
00:27:07 ◼ ► get that starting price down, but it would degrade the experience, but that might be what they need
00:27:12 ◼ ► to do if they want to kind of get that price down. Get more people out there. This episode is brought
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00:29:25 ◼ ► support of this show and Relay FM. It's time to lawyer up, Jason Snell. Clunk, clunk. So we
00:29:32 ◼ ► mentioned on the last episode that we were recording a few days in advance and we expected
00:29:37 ◼ ► that the European Union would be publishing something and they did. The EU has found Apple
00:29:43 ◼ ► in breach of the DMA over a variety of reasons, including their anti-steering rules. They have
00:29:50 ◼ ► also announced that they are investigating the core technology fee and all of the steps that
00:29:54 ◼ ► Apple make users go through to install alternative app marketplaces, which is another form of
00:29:59 ◼ ► steering. The European Union is essentially unhappy with the ways in which they're saying
00:30:04 ◼ ► Apple is limiting the ability for developers to freely enable alternative payment methods
00:30:09 ◼ ► and sideloading of apps without also needing to accept the new business terms, which they are also
00:30:15 ◼ ► unhappy with. When I was reading through the European Union's press release that they put out,
00:30:28 ◼ ► "We're not happy with this." And what it kept bringing me back to was the term malicious
00:30:36 ◼ ► response where for weeks me and you were sitting here on this show and picking it apart and being
00:30:41 ◼ ► like, "I don't know about that. I'm not sure about that." And this term was being used a lot online
00:30:45 ◼ ► about malicious compliance, which is like they're essentially complying with what the European Union
00:30:50 ◼ ► is asking them to do, but they're doing it in such a way that makes it very unattractive for
00:30:55 ◼ ► developers to want to opt into this or users to want to opt into this. And it seems like the
00:31:00 ◼ ► European Union is saying exactly that. Right. Yeah. I mean, this is the question is how do they
00:31:06 ◼ ► handle this? And we talked about Apple's approach here of basically doing as little as possible
00:31:12 ◼ ► and engineering things in a way that it changes what Apple does as little as possible. And I
00:31:16 ◼ ► think some of this maybe comes down to the way that the DMA is written and the way the regulation
00:31:24 ◼ ► works, where it seems like they're basically expecting a company to embrace what they've been
00:31:32 ◼ ► told to do to the fullest extent and do it. And I look at that and think, how would you expect a
00:31:40 ◼ ► company to react to that? It's unrealistic. Of course Apple's going to do the minimum it can
00:31:46 ◼ ► to fulfill the law while retaining as much control as possible. Of course they're going to do that.
00:31:52 ◼ ► And so you need a system where there's a little more clarity and they come to some agreement on
00:32:00 ◼ ► it. And that's not the system that's happening with Apple in the EU where they've come to any
00:32:04 ◼ ► agreement on anything. It's more like Apple will try to slide something through and then see what
00:32:08 ◼ ► gets flagged. And then we go from there and everybody figures out what the next steps are.
00:32:15 ◼ ► And there's somewhat of a lack of clarity. And then there's also Apple just trying to pick
00:32:19 ◼ ► apart. Right. Again, Apple's not interested in the spirit of the law. And I think that the European
00:32:24 ◼ ► Commission is interested in the spirit of the law. Apple's not. Apple's like, look, you said to do
00:32:28 ◼ ► this thing. You didn't say we couldn't add a core technology fee. So we're going to do that. And
00:32:33 ◼ ► that is the challenge in regulating them is you need to, if you're a regulator, you need to be
00:32:39 ◼ ► able to point to the language in your document and make your rulings about policy and say, no,
00:32:45 ◼ ► this is, you missed the point here. And if they are able to do that, then Apple will have to
00:32:53 ◼ ► change its ways. But this is why this is so messy is that Apple's not going to go along with it.
00:32:59 ◼ ► And I know all of us can say, look, Apple, this could all have been avoided if you had just behaved
00:33:05 ◼ ► in a different way. I think Apple's approach is no, why should we? We're just going to keep
00:33:11 ◼ ► fighting it. And I think it's different in some places like China where Apple also complies with
00:33:15 ◼ ► regulations. But I think that Apple is told what is required in China. And it's very clear.
00:33:20 ◼ ► And also China is an authoritarian state where you can't really appeal to the public in the way that
00:33:27 ◼ ► you maybe could in Europe and hope that they make changes. It's a different system. But here,
00:33:33 ◼ ► in this case, Apple's looking at the EC and the DMA and saying, well, this is how we're going to
00:33:40 ◼ ► play it. And I think it's up to the EC to provide more clarity about what they want Apple to do.
00:33:48 ◼ ► Because right now we're in this weird game where they're sort of like winking and making hand
00:33:51 ◼ ► signals and Apple's like, okay, you know, I'm not going to, Apple doesn't want to give away anything
00:33:57 ◼ ► it isn't forced to essentially. I don't begrudge in this scenario, Apple attempting to do what
00:34:05 ◼ ► they're attempting to do, right? Which is be legal, but within the ways that protect them the most.
00:34:33 ◼ ► some concessions where if you come to this in what is considered bad faith, you may be forced
00:34:38 ◼ ► to do things that you didn't want to do, which actually this just goes back to what we've been
00:34:42 ◼ ► saying on the show for years, where maybe if Apple would have made concessions earlier on,
00:34:53 ◼ ► if Apple were maybe different about the way that they run the app store, but they wanted to do
00:34:57 ◼ ► things the way that they wanted to do. And I have a statement here that was given to 9to5Mac from
00:35:02 ◼ ► Apple where they say they are confident our plan complies with the law and estimate more than 99%
00:35:21 ◼ ► the EU commissioners had their preliminary findings where they're unhappy with steering,
00:35:34 ◼ ► eligibility requirements for developers, like the membership of good standing wording they're
00:35:40 ◼ ► unhappy with, and also how complicated it is to download an alternative app marketplace,
00:35:46 ◼ ► where what they have found them in breach for is the business terms, which restrict developers,
00:35:57 ◼ ► The way that alternative payment methods have all the scare sheets, they're unhappy with those,
00:36:07 ◼ ► when you actually read through it, which again, I will credit that I said this last time, I'll say
00:36:12 ◼ ► it again, the European Union's press releases are very readable in a way that I wouldn't have
00:36:22 ◼ ► They're essentially unhappy with every single part of it. So this continues and will continue
00:36:29 ◼ ► to go on for a long time. EU competition regulator Margaret Vestager has said that Apple's decision
00:36:37 ◼ ► to withhold Apple intelligence in the European Union is a stunning, open declaration of their
00:36:43 ◼ ► anti-competitive behavior. I want to read the full quote that she gave. "I find that very
00:36:50 ◼ ► interesting that they say we will now deploy AI where we're not obliged to enable competition.
00:36:57 ◼ ► I think that this is the most stunning open declaration that they know 100% that this is
00:37:15 ◼ ► during last episode, right? When we were recording, this news dropped and that there was,
00:37:21 ◼ ► I think, as I will speak for myself, had the take of like, "Oh, this is like another card they can
00:37:26 ◼ ► play to maybe try and drum up support amongst European users to be in opposition to the DMA."
00:37:33 ◼ ► And I've been reflecting since last week's episode and my opinions have changed slightly. Like I kind
00:37:41 ◼ ► of now hold two opinions about this where I still think that Apple are using these features as a way
00:37:49 ◼ ► to maybe try and get a leg up on Europe. However, I think I can see more of some legitimate concern
00:37:59 ◼ ► from them about any new feature, big new feature that includes data of any kind or any kind of
00:38:06 ◼ ► system like an ecosystem play. They need to be very hesitant about bringing those features into
00:38:22 ◼ ► the European Union, how does Apple know if Apple Intelligence will comply with what the DMA wants?
00:38:29 ◼ ► And if the DMA would require them to change it in some way, would that be an issue for their
00:38:36 ◼ ► privacy part of like the private cloud stuff? Because at the core, the DMA is going after
00:38:44 ◼ ► Apple's interoperability. Like that's what they want to break. But so does the Department of
00:38:49 ◼ ► Justice, right? We've got to remember that case still like floating out there. Their whole thing
00:38:54 ◼ ► is wanting to break up Apple's interoperability, even with like the Apple Watch and stuff.
00:38:58 ◼ ► So I don't know. Basically, I think Apple's taken advantage of this for where they can.
00:39:14 ◼ ► especially considering like they're on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge of Apple Intelligence.
00:39:19 ◼ ► Like any more work they need to do to get Apple Intelligence out the door than they thought they
00:39:24 ◼ ► would is going to be a problem for them. So maybe they're just going to hold it off in the places
00:39:28 ◼ ► where they're not sure if they can launch it. So that's kind of my thoughts and reflection.
00:39:32 ◼ ► I don't know what you think now with a week and a bit. Well, this statement from Margaret
00:39:38 ◼ ► Bessinger is a moment where I thought like I have been very open to some of what the EC is trying to
00:39:46 ◼ ► do. Because it's a lot of addressing a lot of criticisms that we've had about Apple's control
00:39:55 ◼ ► over its market and over the App Store and some of the arbitrary rules that it sets that we think are
00:40:00 ◼ ► unfair. And so I've been inclined to say, yeah, you know, shake it up, right? Like make Apple,
00:40:06 ◼ ► you're right, these things are kind of unfair and Apple should do better. But this quote
00:40:20 ◼ ► you know, that work in this group have is much broader than that. And I think I'm deeply troubled
00:40:28 ◼ ► by it because what first off what she's saying here is anytime Apple withholds any feature from
00:40:45 ◼ ► disable competition. Everything Apple has withheld is they're doing it because it was another feature
00:40:53 ◼ ► designed to disable competition. And she's really kind of patting herself on the back here about
00:40:59 ◼ ► like protecting people from evil Apple, where everything that they do is another way using
00:41:08 ◼ ► her words of disabling competition. The problem with that is what Apple what you said is true,
00:41:16 ◼ ► what Apple is doing is trying to ship features and build features and ship them. And in this case,
00:41:20 ◼ ► with AI, they are on a desperate push to ship features quickly. And what she's saying is,
00:41:30 ◼ ► oh, it's all part of a scheme by Apple. And the truth is, no, it's a tech company building
00:41:35 ◼ ► features, in this case, very quickly. And I don't know what she wants. I think, I mean,
00:41:42 ◼ ► I don't know, because if what she wants is that Apple should, where's the competition? Apple
00:41:49 ◼ ► should allow other models access to the personal data that's being kept on your device? Or is it
00:41:59 ◼ ► other models should be able to be used instead of Apple's model? I don't know where this goes,
00:42:04 ◼ ► but I think it suggests an attitude that tech companies who have been named as gatekeepers
00:42:22 ◼ ► which sort of turns Apple's maintenance of iOS into running a public utility instead of being
00:42:28 ◼ ► a tech company that is competing with another large tech company for control and success in
00:42:36 ◼ ► this platform, in smartphones, and making Apple some sort of electric company where the idea is,
00:42:42 ◼ ► oh, well, you've got a lot of regulation and you're a public utility and everything you go
00:42:48 ◼ ► through has to be approved and all of that. Apple's shipping new features. Tech companies
00:42:52 ◼ ► can't ship new features that are just an open slot with, we don't know whether those features will
00:43:00 ◼ ► work or not. Will anyone care or not? Once you ship an API, you're sort of going to maintain it,
00:43:07 ◼ ► or do they have to maintain it forever? What if they have to change it? Is that any competitive
00:43:12 ◼ ► to change it and make all their alternatives change to sort the new API? This statement by her
00:43:26 ◼ ► thinking that they are the ones, the regulators are the ones who can tell tech companies
00:43:33 ◼ ► how to make software features work. It's, I think, delusional. We'll see what happens here.
00:43:45 ◼ ► I think the truth is that Apple, I also think they're bent out of shape because Apple announced
00:43:50 ◼ ► a bunch of features without talking to them first because Apple's not going to talk to them first.
00:43:53 ◼ ► It's going to release it on its own schedule. The risk for Apple is that this all comes to pass.
00:43:58 ◼ ► The risk for Apple is that what the EU says is, "No, you read it right. You are going to have to
00:44:05 ◼ ► internalize us and build every feature you're going to build on this plan of open competition.
00:44:13 ◼ ► That is the future. You are going to be building a public service in your operating system."
00:44:20 ◼ ► The danger is that not only do they have to do that in the EU, but then they start to have to
00:44:27 ◼ ► do that in lots of other parts of the world until ever. There's a way to say, "What's the danger
00:44:40 ◼ ► is that they build interesting features that people want to use. I'm telling you that if
00:44:46 ◼ ► what Apple has to start building are public utility features that are mandated, where it's
00:44:51 ◼ ► an empty box that you can plug something in from Apple or something else, they're going to build a
00:44:56 ◼ ► lot fewer features and they aren't going to be very good. Because that's not what Apple does.
00:45:00 ◼ ► Apple's trying to build an integrated product. What you want to stop is Apple abusing its power
00:45:06 ◼ ► in one area to break companies in other areas. But what you should not do is prevent Apple from
00:45:12 ◼ ► making features. This is what the danger is here. I was open last week to the idea of, "Oh, well,
00:45:27 ◼ ► they'll talk to the regulators and they'll say, 'Does this comply or not?'" They're giving the
00:45:31 ◼ ► regulators the opportunity to say, "You know, that screen sharing thing is fine. Don't worry about
00:45:36 ◼ ► it. Just go ahead and ship it." But when I see this comment and she's going out, she's been fighting
00:45:41 ◼ ► them a long time, I'm sure she's frustrated and she's not going to have this job much longer. I
00:45:52 ◼ ► I do not like the way that she phrases this because it comes across as, "I'm not here to
00:45:59 ◼ ► help people who are being troubled by Apple's policies." This is more like, "Oh, everything
00:46:14 ◼ ► makes me look at what they're doing more negatively than I have before. I see this statement
00:46:23 ◼ ► kind of to me is similar to an opportunity she's taking in the same way that Apple took
00:46:30 ◼ ► its opportunity to hold these features back. This is all politics, it's all grandstanding,
00:46:35 ◼ ► right? She's… Oh yeah, 100%. She's punching back. She's punching back, right? And she's like,
00:46:41 ◼ ► "Ah, look at them." But I find that there is a possibility in the statement that she's making
00:46:56 ◼ ► these AI features in the EU. And I am uncomfortable with the idea of a company being compelled to do
00:47:08 ◼ ► something from a government in that way where they can say, "If you want to have this feature here,
00:47:27 ◼ ► That's why it's so interesting and the way that Apple did this, I think it's why it's impossible
00:47:34 ◼ ► to say, "Oh, Apple just did this for technical reasons." This is an important moment because
00:47:40 ◼ ► everything up to now has been existing Apple features, existing Apple policy. This is the first
00:47:49 ◼ ► true post-DMA feature drop. And Apple is making it clear that given the DMA, they either need to
00:48:03 ◼ ► build all their features to be DMA compliant and everybody in the world is going to get that
00:48:09 ◼ ► feature the same way, which is what Europe wants, I think. I think that's what the EC wants. Or
00:48:14 ◼ ► Apple is going to build the most compelling product they can and then figure out whether
00:48:20 ◼ ► it's going to be okay in Europe or not. And the result is going to be that Europe is going to lag
00:48:25 ◼ ► behind in some of these features. Now, to be fair, this is US English only and Apple doesn't ship a
00:48:31 ◼ ► lot of things in a lot of EU countries. There's so much stuff that they don't do, right? Apple TV is
00:48:38 ◼ ► still not even available in certain countries. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. So it's more of that,
00:48:45 ◼ ► but I think it is also Apple saying, "This is how we're going to play our game is we're going
00:48:51 ◼ ► to build our features the way we want and then we'll figure out whether we need to make..." We're
00:48:56 ◼ ► not going to delay a feature for a year, especially not AI where they absolutely have to ship it.
00:49:00 ◼ ► We're not going to delay a feature in order to build it up with all of the things that we think
00:49:06 ◼ ► that the European Commission might have a problem with. That is no way to build a feature. So I
00:49:13 ◼ ► think Apple is saying, "We're just going to build our features and you tell us what's wrong with
00:49:19 ◼ ► them and then we'll see." And so then logically the regulator's response to that is to stamp her
00:49:25 ◼ ► feet and throw a tantrum because she wants Apple to do what she wants. And Apple's saying, "No,
00:49:32 ◼ ► we're not going to do it that way and we are going to withhold features." She knows that makes them
00:49:37 ◼ ► look bad. It absolutely does make them look bad because now they are put in a position of being
00:49:45 ◼ ► the ones who are not protecting European citizens from big bad Apple by making Apple reform,
00:49:52 ◼ ► but the people who are standing in the way of new features. And it may not be a big deal, but it's
00:49:58 ◼ ► a thing. And so her response, I think, is logical in the sense that it's basically punching back and
00:50:05 ◼ ► saying, "Oh, well, they're doing this. It's on them. They're doing this because they're evil,
00:50:09 ◼ ► basically, instead of they're doing this because we have a very confusing set of rules and they
00:50:15 ◼ ► don't know what to do, even if that's the case." But again, it's politics. I get it. I hope that
00:50:20 ◼ ► there's a mechanism behind the scenes for features like this, once they've been announced, to have
00:50:25 ◼ ► that conversation and say, "What do you think? Will this fly?" Because that's at the core of this,
00:50:32 ◼ ► is Apple's basically putting down features and saying, "This is our feature. And do you object?"
00:50:38 ◼ ► And there's no structure for that. Apparently, it's just backroom dealings, meetings. I don't know.
00:50:46 ◼ ► I also just wanted to note, just because I think this is an interesting thing to be aware of for now
00:50:50 ◼ ► and see where it goes over the next few months, Epic have submitted the Epic Game Store app
00:51:04 ◼ ► done that. And they're saying they're planning to launch both within the coming months in the EU.
00:51:09 ◼ ► We'll see what happens. We'll see, right? Because this is the shame of what has happened with those
00:51:15 ◼ ► emulators, is for years now, Apple has been notarizing Mac apps in a way that was... People
00:51:25 ◼ ► were worried it was going to be a de facto app store approval for all Mac apps. And they never
00:51:31 ◼ ► did it. They never did it. And when they brought it to iOS, they said, in the EU, they said, "Well,
00:51:38 ◼ ► it's going to be a little more stringent." Okay. But now everybody looks at notarization and says,
00:51:45 ◼ ► "Is Apple going to play favorites? Is Apple going to enforce app store rules outside the app store?"
00:51:49 ◼ ► Sure seems like some of that is going on with the emulators. So how do they feel about Epic,
00:51:56 ◼ ► which you know they hate? Right? So we'll see. What could be argued, the whole reason all of
00:52:03 ◼ ► this is happening in the first place, right? Is this. Yeah. Right? Right. But all eyes are on
00:52:08 ◼ ► them and there is legal history between them and they are in the 1%, not the 99% of that Apple
00:52:15 ◼ ► statement, right? About, "Oh, 99% of people won't care." And then there's the 1%. Like Epic Games is
00:52:21 ◼ ► a large portion of that percent. So yeah, we'll see what happens. They may not be able to mess
00:52:26 ◼ ► with them because it would be such a thing, but I've been surprised by Apple's behavior before.
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00:55:40 ◼ ► Room around uptime. We've got a bunch of stuff here today. It's a bit scattered. We'll start with
00:55:46 ◼ ► Mark Gurman who is reporting that Apple is working on bringing Apple intelligence to the Vision Pro,
00:55:51 ◼ ► but it won't be launching this year. Gurman says that the hardware capability in the Vision Pro is
00:55:57 ◼ ► there. So we were wondering about this, right? That like the chips in theory seem like they would
00:56:02 ◼ ► be powerful enough, but are they being overused? But Gurman says that the user interface is
00:56:07 ◼ ► actually the main challenge here, getting that design right for the Vision Pro. Reading between
00:56:13 ◼ ► the lines is also like it's not their main focus and that they are, you know. Well, it's lower
00:56:20 ◼ ► priority than the iPhone and the iPad and the Mac. But as we thought actually when they announced
00:56:28 ◼ ► Vision OS 2, I think the Vision OS track is just very different. First off, the product's only
00:56:34 ◼ ► been out for a few months and I think there's going to be more going on with Vision Pro,
00:56:39 ◼ ► hopefully over the next year. And this is a great example of that, which is Apple not comfortable
00:56:43 ◼ ► talking about Apple intelligence on Vision Pro. I'm sure it's on the list, but they don't know how
00:56:47 ◼ ► the next year is going to go. I'm sure it's on the list, right? And so this report says, yeah,
00:56:52 ◼ ► they're thinking about it too. Of course they are. But you know, number one is to get it on the
00:56:57 ◼ ► iPhone. That is number one. And then number two is the Mac and the iPad and then other stuff. So
00:57:05 ◼ ► I get it. It is good news though, right? I mean, there was some fear that it was not going to be
00:57:10 ◼ ► up to the challenge and it sounds like he did some deking and that it is up to the challenge
00:57:16 ◼ ► of supporting Apple intelligence. So speaking of the list of priorities, something that may not be
00:57:21 ◼ ► on that list at all is the HomePod. Marcus shared that Apple is currently not working on adding
00:57:26 ◼ ► these features to the current HomePods because technically it just can't, like there's not a
00:57:32 ◼ ► surprise. Not enough RAM, not enough processor. Why would you build, why would you build,
00:57:37 ◼ ► I mean like a bunch of last year's iPhones don't support it, let alone a HomePod from a while ago.
00:57:43 ◼ ► So here is a, this is a really interesting question. I think I'm going to write an article
00:57:47 ◼ ► about this. Is Siri fragmentation, right? The idea that we're going to enter an era where some of our
00:57:53 ◼ ► devices have new Siri and some don't, right? You've got, let's, maybe if you've got a qualifying Mac
00:58:01 ◼ ► and iPad and iPhone, you'll have it on all. But what if you have like an M1 Mac, but an iPhone 15
00:58:09 ◼ ► and an M2 iPad. And so like your iPhone doesn't have it, but your iPad and your Mac do. And then
00:58:18 ◼ ► you throw in the HomePod and the Apple watch and it gets even wilder, right? Maybe you bought the
00:58:23 ◼ ► latest and greatest and all of your Mac, iPad, iPhone, the trio have it. The trio, the Trinity,
00:58:33 ◼ ► the Apple Trinity, the intelligent Trinity. But who's on the other side of that, right? Who's on
00:58:38 ◼ ► the outside? Well, the HomePod and the watch are on the outside and they're both Siri driven,
00:58:42 ◼ ► at least in part devices. They're devices that where Siri matters way more than it does on those
00:58:48 ◼ ► other devices. What are they going to do? And I think it's a really interesting question that they
00:58:52 ◼ ► did not address at all. And I had a few ideas of how they could do it. They could just not do it
00:58:59 ◼ ► and say, you know what? Yeah, Siri sucks on the HomePod, sorry. Stay tuned for four years from now
00:59:05 ◼ ► when we do something there. - 16 gigabytes of Ram in a HomePod. - Well, it feels like it's not going
00:59:10 ◼ ► to happen, right? And the Apple watch is not going to have a chip. It's not gonna be able to have a
00:59:13 ◼ ► chip that's capable of doing that level of on-device. So here's my theory, or there are a
00:59:18 ◼ ► couple of them. You know the concept with the HomePod of personal requests? The idea there is
00:59:24 ◼ ► that you're linking your iPhone essentially to the HomePod and it can make requests. And it's
00:59:30 ◼ ► using, it's essentially using the information on your iPhone to do it. I wonder if there is a way
00:59:35 ◼ ► to revise the HomePod's firmware so that if there's a device on the network with Apple intelligence,
00:59:43 ◼ ► it basically farms it out, right? It basically says, hey, here's the command, give me Mac the
00:59:51 ◼ ► response and have it, and if they could do that and have it be low enough latency, that the HomePod
00:59:56 ◼ ► is basically a conduit for an iPad or a phone or even a Mac, but probably just like a phone,
01:00:02 ◼ ► that the HomePod would then be smarter. Now it does mean that if that phone leaves the house
01:00:07 ◼ ► and somebody wants to use the HomePod, it's dumb again, Siri fragmentation again, but it would be
01:00:15 ◼ ► good to do that. The other way to do it would be to adjust their thing where they, you know,
01:00:25 ◼ ► and then it figures out contextually kind of like what device is supposed to actually get that
01:00:31 ◼ ► command. You could tweak that if you were Apple so that in situations where there was a device
01:00:38 ◼ ► listening with Apple intelligence, that it would always take it over the other devices, right?
01:00:50 ◼ ► ahoy telephone, play this song and have it go to the iPhone always because the iPhone is more
01:00:59 ◼ ► capable. And maybe it says, do you want me to play that on this HomePod that's here in the room with
01:01:04 ◼ ► us? And that would be great. So I feel like there are ways that Apple can do this. And the watch
01:01:10 ◼ ► would be a similar sort of thing. The watch, if it's connected to its phone, now again, cellular
01:01:15 ◼ ► watch, that's a lot harder. Can it phone home with cellular? What are the delays there? Maybe it just
01:01:22 ◼ ► gets dumb if it's not near its phone buddy, but I feel like there's some stuff they could do.
01:01:29 ◼ ► The question is, will they do any of that? Or are they like, no, too busy, too busy on just shipping
01:01:34 ◼ ► it. We're not going to worry about those other devices. And my guess is that it's going to be
01:01:38 ◼ ► both. My guess is this is all going to ship and it's just going to be Siri fragmentation all the
01:01:42 ◼ ► way down. And that's just how it is. But I could see how maybe next year at WWDC, they say, here's
01:01:52 ◼ ► a new thing we're going to do where we're going to intelligently process based on what device you've
01:01:57 ◼ ► got, where the Apple intelligence processing happens. It's also possible that they could do
01:02:03 ◼ ► something where they send it to the cloud, right? Because that's a thing that they're not doing now,
01:02:08 ◼ ► where some devices they could, but they're not doing now the idea that right now a model will
01:02:15 ◼ ► process it right now. I mean, in the future when this actually happens, but model processes and
01:02:19 ◼ ► says, oh, this is going to be in the private cloud compute, and this is going to be local.
01:02:22 ◼ ► And all the devices are the same for that, right? The iPhone 15 Pro and an M4 iPad and an M2
01:02:32 ◼ ► Max Mac, all will just do the same thing. It'll either be on device or remote, but you could have
01:02:37 ◼ ► an update for the watch that just, if there's no phone nearby, or even if there is just does
01:02:44 ◼ ► private cloud compute for all of it. But again, they're too busy building those servers now just
01:02:49 ◼ ► to do the certain tasks. They're not there yet. So that's my guess is that they're going to do
01:02:53 ◼ ► something that allows HomePods and Apple watches to partake of Apple intelligence without actually
01:03:00 ◼ ► running it the same way that these other devices do. But it's not going to happen this cycle,
01:03:04 ◼ ► probably, because Apple is just working hard as they can to even ship it. And then maybe next June,
01:03:11 ◼ ► they're like, hey, new feature of next year's HomePod OS is they will talk to a device that
01:03:20 ◼ ► does Apple intelligence, or they'll talk to the cloud. I think that's how they're going to have
01:03:23 ◼ ► to do it. Because I don't think they're going to ship a HomePod with eight gigs of RAM and an M1
01:03:29 ◼ ► processor. I just don't think they are. I don't either, unless this really is the future of
01:03:37 ◼ ► computing and every device has to take this massive jump. Never say never. But I think that
01:03:45 ◼ ► given the cost of the HomePod and the market that it's in, they'd probably rather find a way to use
01:03:51 ◼ ► your other Apple devices at the cloud rather than put all of the hardware specs in a music player.
01:03:56 ◼ ► And the watch is another problem. The watch, just the battery, you can't. These specs are beyond
01:04:03 ◼ ► anything that a watch can do now or I think in the reasonable future. So better off finding a hybrid
01:04:09 ◼ ► approach to that, but it's just not going to be there for a while. I think we're going to have
01:04:14 ◼ ► these stories, these Siri fragmentation stories are going to happen where it's like, oh,
01:04:17 ◼ ► I said this thing and dumb Siri answered. And that's going to be a thing. It's going to happen.
01:04:22 ◼ ► I think the savior of this scenario where they have these devices that just can't do it
01:04:27 ◼ ► is that there are logical ways of dealing with this, as you laid out, which is that you either
01:04:34 ◼ ► go to the cloud for everything from a certain type of device or you find the device that can
01:04:39 ◼ ► answer the question. And it's not like, especially with the Apple watch, Apple has been here before.
01:04:46 ◼ ► That was what the Apple watch was completely and still sometimes is depending on what you want.
01:04:56 ◼ ► of saying, I need information that a HomePod doesn't have. Can I attach this? So you could
01:05:02 ◼ ► do that. Joe Steele points out the Apple TV is another example of this too. You could have that
01:05:07 ◼ ► idea of art and it would be a setting. So you'd be like, no, no, I don't want this to know about
01:05:13 ◼ ► all the stuff that's on my phone. It's like, okay, you don't have to do that. But if you set that up
01:05:23 ◼ ► either go to the cloud or go to the smart device that's in your network. That's right over there.
01:05:29 ◼ ► And in the background, say I'm using your iPhone's brain here and I'm using the semantic index on
01:05:35 ◼ ► that iPhone to answer your question, even though I'm an Apple TV or an Apple watch or a HomePod.
01:05:41 ◼ ► Mark Gurman has also shared that Apple continues to work with Google on a Gemini partnership for
01:05:46 ◼ ► iOS 18 and it could be ready to announce this fall. This feels to me like something that they
01:05:52 ◼ ► would be pretty well fit and I imagine they would probably like to try and match up to do during the
01:05:57 ◼ ► iPhone keynote, like when they reintroduce iOS 18 again, you know, so like we also now have Google
01:06:02 ◼ ► Gemini as an option as well as well as as well as ChatGPT. Although I don't think Google Gemini has
01:06:08 ◼ ► the social awareness and interest that ChatGPT has, but it's at least something else they can
01:06:15 ◼ ► offer. Google does have a hardware event next month in August. I think it's going to be really
01:06:20 ◼ ► interesting to see, because it's pixels, right? What their response is going to be with with
01:06:27 ◼ ► Gemini baked into their devices. I think that's going to be interesting. Gurman has another report
01:06:34 ◼ ► at Bloomberg saying that Meta has been ruled out from a partnership perspective that Apple believes
01:06:40 ◼ ► Meta's privacy policies are not stringent enough to be trusted through a partnership for integrating
01:06:45 ◼ ► their llama model. Yes, also they hate them. This is what it is. I mean honestly like this just
01:06:51 ◼ ► feels like something where these companies don't like each other because I don't, I would be very
01:06:56 ◼ ► keen to understand how Meta is worse at their privacy with LLMs than OpenAI, Google or any of
01:07:03 ◼ ► the other potential companies like Anthropic that they might work with. Like I don't, realistically,
01:07:08 ◼ ► like I don't know what is Meta doing that Google's not doing, for example, right, for privacy. I
01:07:17 ◼ ► don't buy this. This just feels to me very much like Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg hate each other
01:07:21 ◼ ► and that's just the way this is going to roll. I think that Apple and Apple more broadly just
01:07:26 ◼ ► views Meta as a company that doesn't value privacy at the same level that Apple does and will not.
01:07:32 ◼ ► And this is following up by the way, there was a Wall Street Journal, I think, report that said
01:07:37 ◼ ► Apple talked to Meta, which is very weird because it wasn't like when or what and then Gherman just
01:07:48 ◼ ► somebody at Meta was like, yeah, we called Apple about using our AI and we haven't heard back,
01:07:52 ◼ ► but you never know. And then Gherman's like, no, that's not, that's not going to happen.
01:07:56 ◼ ► - Moving on from Apple Intelligence, the Elec, which is a Korean website, has reported that Apple
01:08:05 ◼ ► is looking for new suppliers for the type of OLED display that they use in the Vision Pro. These are
01:08:15 ◼ ► These screens are interesting because they have Apple Silicon chips on the reverse side of them.
01:08:22 ◼ ► I think the M2 chip is on one eye and the R1 chip is on the other eye. And that is helpful for
01:08:28 ◼ ► latency and stuff like that. As long time this is the show, we know Sony is currently producing the
01:08:34 ◼ ► panels in the Vision Pro, but it has long been said that they have a production limit of like 900,000
01:08:39 ◼ ► screens, which is like 450,000 sets of screens per year with a lack of expansion opportunities.
01:08:46 ◼ ► Apple has apparently contacted both LG and Samsung's display divisions who have used to
01:08:52 ◼ ► create some new panels, but they have differing specs to what's in the Vision Pro. Essentially
01:08:57 ◼ ► larger, a little bit, quite a bit larger, but at a lower resolution. So the current panels in the
01:09:01 ◼ ► Vision Pro have a pixel density of 3,400 PPI. These new panels, it would be 1,700 PPI. So from
01:09:15 ◼ ► lower spec version of the Vision Pro. Yeah. I mean, it's possible that it's a larger panel
01:09:21 ◼ ► that they would fit in. Um, so that, and use optical things to make it even smaller in your
01:09:28 ◼ ► field of view. I mean, who knows, right? Cause pixel density doesn't say it could be a larger
01:09:34 ◼ ► thing. If it's, it's also possible that, yeah, this is make us a cheaper thing that we can ship
01:09:38 ◼ ► in volume and put in a $1,500 thing, right? Because the, one of the biggest costs as far as
01:09:44 ◼ ► we can tell of the Vision Pro in terms of hardware are those displays. So a clear way to make a more
01:09:52 ◼ ► affordable product is to make, is to use a more affordable pair of panels on the inside,
01:09:57 ◼ ► but this comes back to how does it look and is it good enough for Apple's standards? Because if you
01:10:04 ◼ ► are a company making an item and another company will buy every single one that you make,
01:10:12 ◼ ► you can charge them a lot of money for that part, right? Like the power lies with Sony in this
01:10:19 ◼ ► scenario. Like if Apple's buying all of the panels that Sony can make and they're hard to make,
01:10:24 ◼ ► Sony's going to make them expensive. Why wouldn't you do that? So interesting. Yeah. As you said,
01:10:32 ◼ ► like, I don't, I don't know. At first glance, I'd assume maybe this is for a cheaper version,
01:10:42 ◼ ► even though it's a different spec would, would be able to produce a similar result. I really don't
01:10:47 ◼ ► know, but it's interesting to see them doing this because it, and it's also interesting to me to see
01:10:53 ◼ ► that like this thing that we've been talking about for the last year or so about this, this production
01:10:58 ◼ ► kind of ceiling that they have hasn't changed at all, but also it could be potentially that,
01:11:07 ◼ ► I don't know, maybe Apple can't order more than them, the net amount anyway. So Sony isn't
01:11:13 ◼ ► necessarily that inclined because it's not that the vision pro is ever sold out. Right. So,
01:11:24 ◼ ► And Ming-Chi Kuo is reporting that Apple is working on a new version of AirPods that feature
01:11:29 ◼ ► infrared cameras. Kuo says that these cameras are specifically to be used for spatial computing
01:11:34 ◼ ► enhancements. I'm going to read a quote here from Ming-Chi Kuo's medium, because I just need to read
01:11:42 ◼ ► this quote because I don't know how to explain this otherwise. So Ming-Chi Kuo says, "The new
01:11:46 ◼ ► AirPods are expected to be used in Vision Pro and future Apple headsets to enhance the user experience
01:11:51 ◼ ► of spatial audio and strengthen the spatial computing ecosystem. For example, when a user
01:11:56 ◼ ► is watching a video of Vision Pro and wearing these new AirPods, if a user turns their head
01:12:01 ◼ ► looking a specific direction, the sound source in that direction can be emphasized to enhance
01:12:22 ◼ ► This is... Remember, we talk a lot here on the upgrade program about consider your source and
01:12:30 ◼ ► consider what they know. Ming-Chi Kuo has very good supply chain sources. Supply chains, that's
01:12:37 ◼ ► parts. So what he knows is that there is an infrared camera part that Apple is considering,
01:12:48 ◼ ► is trying out, is using in samples, is talking to a factory about doing a bulk purchase.
01:12:57 ◼ ► The hard invisible work that comes into assembling a product that ships in volume from Apple,
01:13:06 ◼ ► you've got to... They don't make a lot of those parts. They got to source them. That's why the
01:13:19 ◼ ► Maybe people were told something by Apple, but I would be surprised by that. I would think that
01:13:26 ◼ ► Apple would say as little as possible about why they're using any part, right? Because that's the
01:13:31 ◼ ► secret sauce is Apple is going to have software and it's going to integrate this and it's going
01:13:35 ◼ ► to do amazing things. And then you go to a company that makes a very small infrared camera and you're
01:13:41 ◼ ► negotiating and you're asking about the specs and you want samples, what are you going to say?
01:13:50 ◼ ► Ming-Chi Kuo talked to, or maybe it's just Ming-Chi Kuo trying to put this in a context of,
01:13:56 ◼ ► it could do this. But the actual explanation is literally a feature that already exists.
01:14:06 ◼ ► having Apple devices be able to see when they're in your pocket or when they, you know,
01:14:13 ◼ ► or on your wrist and don't have a camera, one way to do that would be to put them in AirPods.
01:14:19 ◼ ► Although you've got lots of issues there about hair and, you know, but still it's an interesting
01:14:23 ◼ ► idea to have some cameras so that your Apple intelligence iPhone, when you're walking down
01:14:30 ◼ ► the street with AirPods in, it can see? And that's probably good for some features that you could
01:14:38 ◼ ► imagine where it can actually see the world around you and interpret what you're doing.
01:14:48 ◼ ► Right. That's interesting. I, because I've been like all day, I've been like, I don't understand
01:14:53 ◼ ► what this would be for, but I guess, yeah, if you, if you're not actually taking pictures,
01:14:57 ◼ ► but you just need the device to see it like an infrared camera could do that. So I can see
01:15:03 ◼ ► and maybe with a very things see through hair, even maybe right. See through any of those
01:15:10 ◼ ► distractions and just get you a view of the world around you so that that would be another input.
01:15:15 ◼ ► It's like when we were talking about the humane pin, right? The one thing the humane pin had that
01:15:19 ◼ ► I thought was very interesting was a camera looking at the world so that it could use that
01:15:25 ◼ ► in its interpretation. You could ask it things, right? So that's interesting. That's an interesting
01:15:29 ◼ ► idea. You don't need it for spatial audio though. No, this is no, I mean, look, all right, let's
01:15:38 ◼ ► just imagine for us for a second that he's correct, right? That, that it would do this.
01:15:48 ◼ ► Even if this was the case that this enabled better sound with a vision pro, that is actually not a
01:15:57 ◼ ► good enough reason to put the sensors in AirPods. Maybe you'd put the sensors in the vision pro,
01:16:03 ◼ ► right? But like you wouldn't put them in because he also says that these cameras could assist with
01:16:08 ◼ ► in-air gesture recognition again. Sure. But like AirPods are not an essential part of the vision
01:16:15 ◼ ► pro. Like you don't need them. And so you can't, it wouldn't make any sense to, to, to do, to pair
01:16:21 ◼ ► them in that way. Right. No more likely you do gestures like the vision pro with other Apple
01:16:27 ◼ ► devices, right? That's a more likely scenario. Yes. Is that you wear these and then you can put
01:16:32 ◼ ► your hand up and go and tap your fingers together and it does something. It pauses the, the, what's
01:16:38 ◼ ► playing or something like that. So you don't even need to squeeze your earbuds. That's what it would
01:16:43 ◼ ► be for. Not vision pro. The AirPods are not going to, you're not going to put a new sensor in one of
01:16:51 ◼ ► your best selling products that is essential for one of, for your lease selling product.
01:16:56 ◼ ► It doesn't make sense. No, no, but so, so again, take the report for what it is, which is a report
01:17:03 ◼ ► from the supply chain that Apple is talking about putting infrared cameras in AirPods. What does
01:17:08 ◼ ► that mean? Which I, again, it comes from Ming-Chi Kuo. I believe it. I do believe that this is true.
01:17:14 ◼ ► Doesn't mean that it will happen, but it probably means that it's far enough along for him to report
01:17:21 ◼ ► it, which means that, yeah, it's, they probably got samples and they built samples and it's probably,
01:17:28 ◼ ► I mean, right. Because just sniffing around Apple probably does a lot of that. So it's further down
01:17:32 ◼ ► the road of product development. So I do, I, I believe that. I believe that, that Apple is
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01:18:53 ◼ ► First comes from Matthew who says, this is a big question, but I just wanted to get your, your
01:19:02 ◼ ► first thoughts on it. Do you think Apple will ever make another product as successful as the iPhone?
01:19:08 ◼ ► Um, if I have to answer yes or no, I'll say no. I would say no. I, I think the smartphone is a
01:19:19 ◼ ► generation defining product that was the logical kind of like outcome of all of Apple's work with
01:19:27 ◼ ► personal computing over the years. And while there are going to be other products, the chances of
01:19:37 ◼ ► another tech products being bigger than the smartphone and Apple being a major player at
01:19:46 ◼ ► the moment when that happens are low, not impossible. And I know Apple spends a lot of money
01:19:52 ◼ ► so that if all of us just wear computer glasses in 30 years, that they're going to be based on all
01:19:57 ◼ ► the work Apple's been doing up to now with vision pro like I get it, but I think the chances are
01:20:03 ◼ ► that it will be somebody else. And who knows how long that will even be. I don't know about what
01:20:09 ◼ ► that product, everybody wants to know. And everybody likes to imagine that it's just around the corner,
01:20:13 ◼ ► but it may be that the smartphone is the thing for a long time. So, um, I just, I, I can't,
01:20:27 ◼ ► to basically, I know not everybody in the world, but a large percentage of people in the world
01:20:34 ◼ ► having the product over an incredibly short amount of time that doesn't happen very often. And it
01:20:39 ◼ ► happened with a smartphone. I don't think it's going to happen again for a while. And if it does,
01:20:44 ◼ ► what are the chances that Apple is there? Not zero, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't bet on it.
01:20:50 ◼ ► So I'll give a little spicy take on this. All right. So I also say no. And I think Apple would
01:20:56 ◼ ► be a better company and would make better products if they were able to let go of this idea.
01:21:02 ◼ ► I also think they would be more likely to make a product as successful as the iPhone if they stopped
01:21:14 ◼ ► Apple has done on cars and on vision pro and things like that instead of their core products.
01:21:20 ◼ ► And would their core products more naturally emerge if they weren't busy playing those big
01:21:28 ◼ ► bets on the deep stuff that may never happen? I think that's an interesting take. No way to prove
01:21:36 ◼ ► it right or wrong, but yeah, there was a question like maybe Apple be an Apple. I don't think that
01:21:41 ◼ ► Apple made the iPod thinking, well, this will get us into mobile devices and rehab our brand and
01:21:46 ◼ ► eventually we'll be able to make a phone. I don't think they did that. I think they did that where
01:21:50 ◼ ► they're like, hey, do you see this hard drive? We have like a music player, right? We just bought
01:21:57 ◼ ► that music player sound jam and made iTunes. Let's do it. We can make a product around this
01:22:04 ◼ ► hard drive. It emerged from kind of nowhere and went somewhere. And similarly, right? The iPhone
01:22:10 ◼ ► was like they were trying to make a tablet computer. Right. And they couldn't do it. So
01:22:14 ◼ ► they made a phone instead, start with a phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's an argument that
01:22:19 ◼ ► there's some serendipity involved and that placing a big bet on a category that you just sort of
01:22:25 ◼ ► think might be something later is not gonna give you serendipity. Yeah. What I'm saying is stop
01:22:36 ◼ ► Jad asks, are you guys planning on giving the new Apple Mail a chance? Oh, I use Apple Mail on the
01:22:47 ◼ ► iPhone and the iPad. So I will use it there and give it a try. But honestly, if Mime stream comes
01:22:57 ◼ ► out for iOS, it might not be a try for very long. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on
01:23:05 ◼ ► Apple. That's what I say. What? No, that's not a saying. Well, anyway, I've tried Apple Mail too
01:23:13 ◼ ► many times and it's failed me too many times. And it frustrates me every time I get a new message
01:23:17 ◼ ► and I tap on it and it says, I haven't downloaded the content of the new message yet. I just get so
01:23:23 ◼ ► mad at it. So I can't see it. I've moved on from Apple Mail. So I may end up using it on my phone
01:23:34 ◼ ► and my iPad, but that's it. What about you? It's interesting. I have a currently changing
01:23:47 ◼ ► At the moment, where I'm doing my email is on my Mac and sometimes on my iPad, not on my iPhone.
01:23:55 ◼ ► And I use Spark for this. Um, the reason I use Spark initially had been for team sharing
01:24:03 ◼ ► features and I still do that, but increasingly less as my responsibilities have changed at Relay.
01:24:11 ◼ ► So like I am, initially there was a lot more conversation between me and Carrie, who deals,
01:24:16 ◼ ► who was at the time kind of like my advertising assistant about the way that things are done. But
01:24:21 ◼ ► now that Carrie is like runs that part of our business entirely, I am less involved in sharing
01:24:29 ◼ ► emails back and forth with her that I'm receiving about ads. But now I use Spark for a bunch of
01:24:36 ◼ ► other things that it does as well, like their automatic categorization of messages. Well,
01:24:42 ◼ ► Apple Mail is saying, they're saying it will do that. So that's interesting to me. And I am
01:24:48 ◼ ► intrigued about their email summarization stuff. I think that that is, it could be pretty cool. So
01:24:54 ◼ ► I'm willing, I am actually willing to give it a chance. Like I want to see what it's all about
01:24:59 ◼ ► when it, when it launches, because I think it will give me everything I need except for team sharing.
01:25:03 ◼ ► But over time, my requirement for team sharing is becoming less and less and less, where really now
01:25:09 ◼ ► I could just forward an email to Carrie like you would back in the old days, you know, but because
01:25:13 ◼ ► we don't really, we used to have a lot of in-line conversations about emails, but that is happening
01:25:17 ◼ ► way less frequently. So I'm willing to give it a shot because I think for the first time in years,
01:25:23 ◼ ► they've actually announced some genuine features from mail, which are interesting to me,
01:25:27 ◼ ► and some stuff that I've not seen other people do, like the idea of giving you the summary in the
01:25:34 ◼ ► inbox of an email instead of the first couple of lines for messages, I think is genuinely a
01:25:39 ◼ ► very smart thing to do. So I'll be willing to give it a go. All right. I mean, like I said, I use it
01:25:45 ◼ ► on my phone and my iPad. And so I look forward to seeing those features there. And I'm not so sure
01:25:53 ◼ ► about my Mac. I'll try it out for the purposes of the review, but I'm very happy with my third party
01:25:59 ◼ ► mail client at this point. I like MimeStream. I just can't use it as my only email client because
01:26:05 ◼ ► I also use iCloud email. So I just can't use it. And John wants to know, have you put on your quest
01:26:15 ◼ ► since you bought the Apple Vision Pro? I have. I have not used it as much as I actually would like
01:26:24 ◼ ► because I kind of miss some of the stuff that I used to use it with. It's just, it's very hard
01:26:29 ◼ ► for me to like find headset time in general. And then I feel like if I'm going to do headset time,
01:26:34 ◼ ► I need to do vision pro headset time, but I do miss some of the games, especially. I have tried
01:26:41 ◼ ► it though. And what struck me about it is that it's better than I thought having used the vision
01:26:53 ◼ ► pro. I think it's fine. I think for the price, it's actually kind of great. The quality isn't as good.
01:27:01 ◼ ► Obviously the hand tracking without controllers is not as good, but it's functional in a way that
01:27:11 ◼ ► when I got the Quest 2, especially, it was not. They've obviously put some work into having you
01:27:16 ◼ ► be able to use hand tracking and not use the controllers, but really it is a controller first,
01:27:21 ◼ ► I would say, experience. And they're trying more mixed reality things. It's fine. I did not
01:27:45 ◼ ► that's what I miss with the vision pro is all those games that are really enabled by precision
01:27:51 ◼ ► input that it doesn't offer. So that's like my ping pong game, Beat Saber, stuff like that.
01:27:56 ◼ ► So I had a Quest Pro, which I was using mostly for work and meeting stuff. I've not put it on
01:28:04 ◼ ► since I got the vision pro. And that was for me, the big thing is that if I use the Quest Pro for
01:28:10 ◼ ► an hour, I would get a headache. I don't know what exactly it was that was making that happen,
01:28:16 ◼ ► but it is not a thing I feel with the vision pro at all. And I have used the vision pro for much
01:28:20 ◼ ► longer periods of time, but I do miss Horizon Workrooms, which was the app that me and Grey
01:28:27 ◼ ► would sometimes use to have meetings. I like the focus that it had around working and everything
01:28:34 ◼ ► you needed was inside of the application. I know that, and I have had calls and meetings of people
01:28:41 ◼ ► using Spatial Personas, like we had one just last week, and I can replicate all of the features
01:28:46 ◼ ► individually with different apps and experiences, but Workrooms did a really good job of making
01:28:51 ◼ ► everything right there. So there was a whiteboard feature that you could just bring up inside of it.
01:28:57 ◼ ► They had these office environments that you would sit in, which just felt good. There were desks
01:29:01 ◼ ► and stuff. It felt like a meeting more than we're hanging out on the beach together, which the vision
01:29:05 ◼ ► pro is like. You're in a shared space, you could bring your computer in front of you, you could
01:29:11 ◼ ► share it with other people really easily. It was a purpose built app for meetings, which I have not
01:29:17 ◼ ► found something that replicates those features on the vision pro, but I way prefer a Spatial Persona
01:29:24 ◼ ► call and how they look and feel to how the Horizon Workrooms calls look. I don't like the avatars
01:29:32 ◼ ► and stuff like that. I much prefer actually the floating heads and hands of my friends.
01:29:41 ◼ ► - It does make a sound effect when they... If you headbutt somebody or you put your hand in
01:30:01 ◼ ► or you have some follow-up or feedback, please go to upgradefeedback.com and you can fill out
01:30:06 ◼ ► our form there and send it in. Thank you to everybody that does this every week. I appreciate
01:30:10 ◼ ► you. You can check out Jason over at sixcolors.com. You can hear his shows on Relay FM and the
01:30:16 ◼ ► incomparable.com. You can hear me on Relay FM too. You can check out my product work at
01:30:20 ◼ ► clautexbrand.com. Jason is @jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L-L. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. If you would like to watch
01:30:34 ◼ ► And also, I'm assuming there will be a clip of when Jason launched the America quiz on me. So
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