Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Upgrade Episode 531 for September the 30th, 2024.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, DeleteMe, and KRCS.

00:00:19 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason.

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Hi, Mike. - We're back in our respective studios now.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - We are back in our home countries of UK and California. - California, yes.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Fifth largest GDP. It's probably not that anymore. Or maybe it is. Maybe it's number one.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Maybe it is. Who can tell? Who can tell? But yes, we're back in our regular places and not in Steven's air-conditioned pod cabin.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Cold. Cold cabin. - It's fine. It's very cold in there.

00:00:51 ◼   ► - I have a Snail Talk question for you. It comes from Mark who wants to know how often do you change the wallpaper on your devices?

00:00:58 ◼   ► - The answer is not very often. Not very often. My current wallpaper is shot from Milford Sound in New Zealand.

00:01:09 ◼   ► So that was my trip from a year and a half ago now. And I did catch, I think it was Steven. Was it Steven or was it you?

00:01:18 ◼   ► I think it was Steven who saw it and was like, "Oh! Oh, that's a live picture." Because this is why I kept it.

00:01:25 ◼   ► I had a really nice... It was you? It's a nice picture from the boat in Milford Sound of the beautiful sound, which is basically a fjord.

00:01:33 ◼   ► And the water is splashing on the boat and stuff. It's splashing around. And you can make live pictures into wallpapers.

00:01:40 ◼   ► And every time my phone wakes up, it plays the little water splash. And then it's the beautiful picture.

00:01:45 ◼   ► And I saw that and I was like, "Well, this is great." And so I've kept that, even though I should probably...

00:01:50 ◼   ► What I like to do is set it after a big vacation. And actually, there's a good example. My iPad wallpaper.

00:01:56 ◼   ► My iPad wallpaper is now from Scotland, from our trip there.

00:02:01 ◼   ► - Oh, lovely.

00:02:02 ◼   ► - And I showed you that last week, probably while off mic and creating very low-quality audio for the listeners, but sorry.

00:02:09 ◼   ► - Sorry about that, by the way.

00:02:10 ◼   ► - We were distracted.

00:02:11 ◼   ► - We did a bad job last week.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - We didn't have headphones and we were off target. Anyway, I had that Scotland picture and it's doing the little thing where the time goes behind the mountains.

00:02:21 ◼   ► And then I discovered that when you flip up, the time raises up out from behind the mountains and goes off the top of the screen.

00:02:27 ◼   ► I was like, "That is totally unnecessary, but it's beautiful." Anyway, so that's a lot of it.

00:02:31 ◼   ► So it's really mostly when I take a vacation and I end up with beautiful vacation shots that I can use as my wallpapers.

00:02:38 ◼   ► So for me, that's what it is.

00:02:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I usually do vacations and at most I change mine once a year, but I do use, you know, like I use the photo shuffle face in certain focus modes on my phone.

00:02:53 ◼   ► - That's nice.

00:02:54 ◼   ► - Just so I can kind of see that, you know, like if I'm doing, whenever I'm recording, I change my lock screen to photo shuffle and so I get to see more that way.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Sometimes I'll use the photo shuffle thing in standby too. And yeah, and as I've mentioned before, I adore the new photo face for Apple Watch.

00:03:15 ◼   ► But the actual, my lock screen and my kind of, like my standard lock screen and my standard home screen, once a year at most.

00:03:24 ◼   ► - All right, Lauren does the, she does the photo shuffle and it's constantly delightful of mostly, I think it's pictures of our kids.

00:03:33 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:03:33 ◼   ► - And it's great. So, but I mostly just kind of keep it. I find that, I actually find that a little distracting and it's that thing of like, I like to see the photos, but I also find it distracting to see the photos

00:03:46 ◼   ► because then I end up looking at the photos instead of doing whatever I was doing before. So I tend not to do that.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I see that, but I like it too.

00:03:55 ◼   ► - If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your snail talk question.

00:04:05 ◼   ► This is the last day of September, which means this is the last time that we're going to ask you to go to stgeo.org/relay, where you can consider donating to

00:04:14 ◼   ► St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and helping us in the fight against childhood cancer.

00:04:19 ◼   ► But today, which is September 30th, is a monumental day as today our campaign for this year passed a million dollars raised for the kids of St. Jude.

00:04:30 ◼   ► I cannot believe it.

00:04:32 ◼   ► - We did it.

00:04:34 ◼   ► - I'm beside myself right now.

00:04:35 ◼   ► - We all did. And when I say we, I mean literally everybody in this community did this.

00:04:41 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:42 ◼   ► - It's truly an incredible achievement to pass this monumental number.

00:04:48 ◼   ► And it always means so much to us.

00:04:51 ◼   ► You know, Stephen always will do a better job of explaining what this campaign actually means.

00:04:56 ◼   ► And I will put a link in the show notes to a post that he put on his website today that touches on that a little bit.

00:05:01 ◼   ► You know, like obviously we do this in honor of the work that St. Jude did for his family.

00:05:07 ◼   ► But now over time, I just think we've all gotten such a connection to this place and the work that they do.

00:05:15 ◼   ► We now do it for the institution too.

00:05:17 ◼   ► But to have achieved this in the fifth year of our fundraising, in the 10th year of Relay,

00:05:23 ◼   ► to have done this monumental thing to have passed $1 million raised is incredible.

00:05:29 ◼   ► I do believe that by the time this campaign ends, which we're actually closing at the end of the week this week,

00:05:34 ◼   ► we will also pass $4 million raised lifetime over the last five years.

00:05:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, because we started this month getting ready to go over $3 million.

00:05:44 ◼   ► And now you go a million and like you reset the clock and now you're getting ready to go over $4 million.

00:05:49 ◼   ► That's how accounting works.

00:05:50 ◼   ► I wanted to say, as a perspective on especially you and Stephen,

00:05:55 ◼   ► having been able to go to Memphis several times and go to St. Jude,

00:05:59 ◼   ► that one of the things that I think is important is for people to know that none of us take you for granted.

00:06:08 ◼   ► I can tell you, Mike and Stephen are sweating every year about this.

00:06:15 ◼   ► They are working hard and concerned and want to earn your goodwill to donate to this.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And so I'll say that.

00:06:28 ◼   ► It seems like there's more money being raised every year by Relay, and there is.

00:06:31 ◼   ► But again, everybody involved here realizes that it's asking a lot for people to donate money.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And these days, in this economy, no, I mean, it really is.

00:06:41 ◼   ► Everything is expensive and it's asking a lot.

00:06:45 ◼   ► And we make no assumptions, none of us.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And I was sitting with Stephen right before the beginning of the podcast-a-thon.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And Stephen, I don't know if you know this, Mike, Stephen sometimes has some anxiety.

00:06:58 ◼   ► - Yes, I more.

00:06:59 ◼   ► - Did you know that?

00:07:00 ◼   ► - I know that, yeah.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - And Stephen, incredibly successful person who's raised a lot of money for St. Jude,

00:07:06 ◼   ► sending him before the podcast-a-thon, he was legitimately worried.

00:07:09 ◼   ► He's like, what if it doesn't go well?

00:07:11 ◼   ► I mean, maybe we're gonna do this whole podcast-a-thon thing,

00:07:14 ◼   ► which I'll just point out broke the record for the podcast-a-thon.

00:07:17 ◼   ► And he's like, what if nobody donates it?

00:07:18 ◼   ► So that's not quite what he said, but I could get the vibe, which he was like, he's really worried.

00:07:22 ◼   ► And I find that actually incredibly charming because I think it says something important,

00:07:27 ◼   ► which is we don't take your interest in this for granted.

00:07:32 ◼   ► We appreciate every dollar that somebody has earned doing something else,

00:07:36 ◼   ► and then they're going to just give it to St. Jude instead of putting it in their pocket.

00:07:40 ◼   ► That is something that needs to be earned.

00:07:42 ◼   ► That's something that you need to actually feel like it's something that you wanna do.

00:07:45 ◼   ► It's something we put a lot of work into trying to get visibility for you

00:07:50 ◼   ► so that you will consider it and you should still consider it for the rest of the week.

00:07:55 ◼   ► But like, thank you is what I'm saying.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And we don't take this sort of thing for granted.

00:08:00 ◼   ► We are blown away.

00:08:01 ◼   ► I mean, I will also say you could sort of take a business-like approach or of Casey Liss,

00:08:06 ◼   ► who called this the bag, the big audacious goal when he suggested it.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And we're like, no, back in the spring, like, no, big audacious goal, a million.

00:08:17 ◼   ► We're like, no, Casey, no, quiet.

00:08:19 ◼   ► But like we are, it's because we know that this is hard and we don't take for granted like,

00:08:25 ◼   ► oh, it's going to be bigger next year and it's going to be bigger next year.

00:08:28 ◼   ► No, I will tell you, we are legitimately blown away that we broke a million.

00:08:34 ◼   ► It is not just a, well, yeah, oh, shucks.

00:08:37 ◼   ► No, we are legitimately, I can't believe it.

00:08:41 ◼   ► - This is a dream. - So thank you, yes.

00:08:43 ◼   ► - This is a dream for us and once again,

00:08:47 ◼   ► our incredible community has helped us live dreams.

00:08:50 ◼   ► It happens all the time and I'm so thankful.

00:08:54 ◼   ► But you can still give any amount, stjude.org/relay as well.

00:08:58 ◼   ► If you've given, you should check if your company will match your donation.

00:09:02 ◼   ► That's why we keep the campaign open for a few extra days past the month

00:09:05 ◼   ► to make sure that we collect in any corporate matches

00:09:08 ◼   ► and you can go to stjude.org/relay to learn more.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Also, I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Today, when things were picking up steam, me and Steven decided to jump on Twitch.

00:09:17 ◼   ► And so if you want to see the road to a million and the moment that we hit it,

00:09:22 ◼   ► that is now on the Relay YouTube channel, so you can go and check that out if you want to.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Thank you so much. Seriously, if you've given, if you've spread the word,

00:09:30 ◼   ► even if you've just listened to us talk about this over the last month,

00:09:34 ◼   ► we're all a part of it together. Thank you.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - Thank you. - Some follow up.

00:09:39 ◼   ► So in the last episode, which when we recorded, I mentioned that I would have loved for

00:09:45 ◼   ► the camera control to have the option to switch to the selfie camera

00:09:48 ◼   ► because you can choose between the cameras as one of the camera control options.

00:09:52 ◼   ► That was then added in iOS, the iOS 18.1 beta.

00:09:57 ◼   ► So there is now a selfie option for switching with the camera control and I think it's great.

00:10:00 ◼   ► So you can go switch between all of the cameras that are on your phone now.

00:10:04 ◼   ► So that's very good.

00:10:06 ◼   ► I'm happy that they added that.

00:10:07 ◼   ► I put 18.1 on my phone, by the way, I figured now's the time.

00:10:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I'm on 18.1 or 0.1 everywhere now

00:10:15 ◼   ► because that's where we are now is that's coming soon.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Jeff Johnson has made a Mac app called Amnesia.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Its purpose is to disable the permission prompts for screen recording apps.

00:10:26 ◼   ► I thought you'd be happy to know that such an app existed.

00:10:29 ◼   ► - I have heard through the grapevine

00:10:33 ◼   ► that the permission thing is even a lighter touch

00:10:39 ◼   ► than we thought.

00:10:40 ◼   ► I haven't been able to, 'cause it takes time,

00:10:45 ◼   ► I haven't been able to actually get the ability to see this,

00:10:50 ◼   ► but I've heard through the grapevine that it may be the case now

00:10:54 ◼   ► that if you continue to use an app

00:10:56 ◼   ► after you granted permission,

00:10:58 ◼   ► it keeps kicking the permission down the road.

00:11:00 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:11:01 ◼   ► I've only had it pop up once.

00:11:03 ◼   ► - Right, so if that's true, so if this is true,

00:11:06 ◼   ► and again, this is secondhand and I can't verify it

00:11:10 ◼   ► and I haven't been able to verify it, but if it's true,

00:11:13 ◼   ► it's actually a pretty good solution,

00:11:14 ◼   ► which is you approve it for 30 days

00:11:17 ◼   ► and you keep using that app.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And every time you use that app,

00:11:19 ◼   ► it just kicks it out to 30 days further,

00:11:21 ◼   ► which means you never see it again

00:11:23 ◼   ► if it's an app you use every day.

00:11:24 ◼   ► It's only if it's an app that you haven't used in a while

00:11:28 ◼   ► and then it'll ask you again.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Is that the right compromise?

00:11:31 ◼   ► I don't know, but it would be a better compromise

00:11:34 ◼   ► to not get in your face constantly.

00:11:35 ◼   ► - I think that's good.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Like if you don't use an app frequently,

00:11:40 ◼   ► maybe it could just say like,

00:11:41 ◼   ► hey, you know, are you sure you wanna do this?

00:11:44 ◼   ► I think that that is the right way to do it.

00:11:45 ◼   ► Yeah, if you're using it like a few times a week

00:11:47 ◼   ► or whatever, then those systems should just interpret

00:11:51 ◼   ► like, oh, this person is a user of this application

00:11:53 ◼   ► and they must know what it's doing.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, and there are arguments, you know,

00:11:59 ◼   ► for other approaches here for and against,

00:12:02 ◼   ► but it's good, yeah.

00:12:04 ◼   ► So people found out that there's,

00:12:06 ◼   ► and this feels very much like a loophole

00:12:08 ◼   ► that Apple will close,

00:12:10 ◼   ► but there's a P-list or whatever, or a database

00:12:14 ◼   ► that you can set, literally set the expiry date

00:12:17 ◼   ► to be like 20 years in the future and then who cares?

00:12:21 ◼   ► So it's great that this exists.

00:12:23 ◼   ► - Well, this MacRumors post says

00:12:27 ◼   ► it's not working on point one,

00:12:28 ◼   ► but that might just be because the app isn't,

00:12:31 ◼   ► but like, who knows?

00:12:32 ◼   ► - Because any malware that would take advantage of that

00:12:35 ◼   ► will just set it to later, right?

00:12:38 ◼   ► Like presumably.

00:12:39 ◼   ► - Yep, you think so.

00:12:40 ◼   ► But for now, this app exists.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Do you remember Massimo?

00:12:45 ◼   ► This is the company that Apple are embroiled in a fight with

00:12:50 ◼   ► about the blood oxygen sensor in the Apple Watch.

00:12:53 ◼   ► Well, Massimo's founder, Joe Chiani,

00:12:56 ◼   ► has resigned as the CEO

00:12:58 ◼   ► after he was forcibly removed from the board.

00:13:01 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:13:02 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:13:03 ◼   ► - This is, so Chiani is a real character

00:13:06 ◼   ► 'cause he founded this company and he's a real believer

00:13:08 ◼   ► and he was very angry at Apple

00:13:09 ◼   ► and is convinced that Apple has ripped him off

00:13:12 ◼   ► and ripped his company off and hired away its people.

00:13:14 ◼   ► And, you know, and there's some truth to that, right?

00:13:17 ◼   ► But like, he's also, he's just,

00:13:19 ◼   ► he's a very, very, very grumpy man.

00:13:21 ◼   ► And maybe rightfully so.

00:13:24 ◼   ► Again, not really trying to make a judgment here.

00:13:27 ◼   ► I do think it's interesting.

00:13:29 ◼   ► So what happened here is that

00:13:31 ◼   ► he only owns about 7% of the company.

00:13:32 ◼   ► And what happened is that there were people

00:13:35 ◼   ► who were unhappy with his leadership of the company

00:13:37 ◼   ► on like shareholders.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And they did a board election and his,

00:13:43 ◼   ► Chiani's slate lost and the other board people,

00:13:47 ◼   ► the other slate won.

00:13:49 ◼   ► And so basically he lost control of the board.

00:13:53 ◼   ► And even though he's the chairman of the board,

00:13:55 ◼   ► he lost control of the board

00:13:57 ◼   ► because these other people were put on

00:13:58 ◼   ► without the people he wanted there.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Apparently his policy was,

00:14:05 ◼   ► apparently his policy was that let's just ignore the board.

00:14:09 ◼   ► That was as CEO.

00:14:10 ◼   ► He was like, the board's going to tell us to do stuff.

00:14:12 ◼   ► We're just not going to do it.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Well, you're not supposed to do that.

00:14:16 ◼   ► So what happened is the board removed him from the board.

00:14:20 ◼   ► At which point he quit, you know, you can't fire me, I quit.

00:14:25 ◼   ► As CEO, he quit as CEO, but he had lost the power.

00:14:28 ◼   ► He lost the power struggle.

00:14:29 ◼   ► Basically the owners of the company who were the shareholders

00:14:32 ◼   ► decided that Joe Chiani and the path he was going

00:14:34 ◼   ► was not one they wanted to go.

00:14:36 ◼   ► And that's how you lose control of your company

00:14:39 ◼   ► that you founded is you don't own a majority of it

00:14:42 ◼   ► and the other people can turn against you and kick you out.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I mean, it's got a little Steve Jobs energy to it,

00:14:50 ◼   ► just a little bit.

00:14:52 ◼   ► I'm like, but I made this company.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Yes, but you're fired.

00:14:55 ◼   ► So we'll see what happens

00:14:57 ◼   ► because I think what's interesting from an Apple perspective,

00:15:00 ◼   ► 'cause this is not a podcast

00:15:01 ◼   ► about blood oxygen sensors in general.

00:15:04 ◼   ► Yet, but it is a question about what will happen

00:15:09 ◼   ► with Apple's presumably negotiations ongoing or stalled

00:15:14 ◼   ► with Massimo over the fact that

00:15:16 ◼   ► because of various cases that Massimo has won,

00:15:19 ◼   ► a blood oxygen sensor in the Apple Watch

00:15:21 ◼   ► is turned off in the US.

00:15:22 ◼   ► And the reason that I think that there might be something

00:15:26 ◼   ► here is just what corporate boards do, right?

00:15:29 ◼   ► What does Joe Chiani care about?

00:15:31 ◼   ► Joe Chiani cares about his legacy.

00:15:33 ◼   ► He cares about Massimo and not being pushed around

00:15:35 ◼   ► by big guys like Apple and he's gonna take it to them

00:15:37 ◼   ► and he's gonna show that they're wrong.

00:15:40 ◼   ► And I don't know whether he was being unreasonable

00:15:43 ◼   ► in his dealings with Apple

00:15:44 ◼   ► or refusing to cut a deal with Apple.

00:15:47 ◼   ► And that's why we are where we are,

00:15:49 ◼   ► but I think it's a strong possibility.

00:15:51 ◼   ► It sure seemed from his statements

00:15:52 ◼   ► that it was very personal.

00:15:54 ◼   ► And if I know anything about a board of directors

00:15:59 ◼   ► put up by a slate of shareholders is,

00:16:03 ◼   ► I don't know the details of this particular move

00:16:05 ◼   ► and exactly why.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I don't know all the politics of Massimo internally,

00:16:10 ◼   ► but I would say shareholders

00:16:12 ◼   ► just want the stock price to go up.

00:16:14 ◼   ► I mean, you could argue this is a problem

00:16:17 ◼   ► with the public company model that we have,

00:16:20 ◼   ► that in the end, their priorities are not aligned

00:16:22 ◼   ► with righteousness and truth

00:16:25 ◼   ► and all the things that Joe Chiani talks about,

00:16:27 ◼   ► but they're just like, can we just get the stock price up?

00:16:29 ◼   ► But I'll tell you, if making a deal with Apple

00:16:33 ◼   ► and calling a truce

00:16:34 ◼   ► and being able to declare some sort of victory

00:16:37 ◼   ► is perceived as being something

00:16:38 ◼   ► that will raise their share price,

00:16:39 ◼   ► they will make the deal.

00:16:40 ◼   ► So I wonder if this will just kind of clear the log jam

00:16:45 ◼   ► and allow a deal to be made

00:16:49 ◼   ► because maybe it won't be quite as personal.

00:16:52 ◼   ► I think undoubtedly it was more personal with Joe Chiani

00:16:55 ◼   ► than it will be with any other CEO or board.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Even if they believe that Apple is still ripping them off

00:17:02 ◼   ► and all of those things,

00:17:03 ◼   ► it feels like maybe there's a chance to make a deal here

00:17:06 ◼   ► and it's a little less personal.

00:17:07 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:17:08 ◼   ► - That's a very good take on all of this.

00:17:12 ◼   ► My take is silly, which is fun for me.

00:17:15 ◼   ► Like I imagine that Apple got to the board

00:17:19 ◼   ► and gotten to push him out.

00:17:22 ◼   ► That's my fun alternate history.

00:17:25 ◼   ► It's like succession style kind of stuff going on here.

00:17:27 ◼   ► I don't believe that happened or did it.

00:17:31 ◼   ► I don't, or do I?

00:17:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a really good column from Matt Levine

00:17:35 ◼   ► in Bloomberg about this called Massimo has a new boss,

00:17:38 ◼   ► but he's like, if you're a founder and CEO

00:17:40 ◼   ► of a tech company and you take the company public

00:17:42 ◼   ► and it has a single class of stock and you own 9% of it,

00:17:45 ◼   ► you work for the shareholders, right?

00:17:47 ◼   ► You're the CEO, you answer to the board,

00:17:49 ◼   ► but the shareholders don't like what you're doing,

00:17:53 ◼   ► they can fire you, even as the founder and CEO

00:17:56 ◼   ► and chairman of the board.

00:17:58 ◼   ► - And if you don't like that,

00:17:59 ◼   ► don't take your company public.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Like, if you don't like that idea, you shouldn't do that.

00:18:02 ◼   ► - Or if you have enough leverage, be Mark Zuckerberg

00:18:06 ◼   ► and sell stock or Google, right?

00:18:09 ◼   ► And sell stock that can't kick you out.

00:18:11 ◼   ► - Which is the way to do it.

00:18:12 ◼   ► I don't know why more people don't do that.

00:18:14 ◼   ► I really don't know why more people don't do that.

00:18:15 ◼   ► - I think they don't have the leverage.

00:18:16 ◼   ► I think that you've really got to have the leverage

00:18:19 ◼   ► to do that because people are going to be more skeptical

00:18:22 ◼   ► of an investment that doesn't contain governance, I think.

00:18:25 ◼   ► - I want to provide a quick correction

00:18:29 ◼   ► from a friend of the show, Dan Maron.

00:18:30 ◼   ► Hi, Dan.

00:18:31 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:18:32 ◼   ► - Dan says, "I don't think it was Jeff Johnson

00:18:34 ◼   ► "who wrote Amnesia.

00:18:35 ◼   ► "I think he came up with the terminal commands

00:18:37 ◼   ► "that enabled it.

00:18:38 ◼   ► "Jordy Bruin, who worked on Mac Whisper,

00:18:41 ◼   ► "created the app Amnesia."

00:18:43 ◼   ► I misread the Mac room's article.

00:18:45 ◼   ► - All right.

00:18:46 ◼   ► - Got to give a correct attribution, you know?

00:18:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, thanks to terminal commands,

00:18:51 ◼   ► thanks to people who put terminal commands in apps.

00:18:55 ◼   ► - I wanted to give a couple of more thoughts that I've had

00:18:57 ◼   ► having used my iPhone for a week, like my iPhone 16 Pro.

00:19:02 ◼   ► I have switched over to the gold photo style.

00:19:04 ◼   ► This is actually one of the photo style photo styles

00:19:07 ◼   ► rather than the, you know, like the mood ones.

00:19:10 ◼   ► Yeah, the undertones rather than the moods.

00:19:13 ◼   ► - Sorry, I got spanned out ballet playing in my head now.

00:19:15 ◼   ► Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

00:19:17 ◼   ► ♪ Always believing ♪

00:19:18 ◼   ► - And it does a really good job of getting images

00:19:20 ◼   ► to look the way that I want,

00:19:22 ◼   ► but what I've been very happy with is,

00:19:25 ◼   ► so even in these photo styles,

00:19:27 ◼   ► I am finding that if I take pictures of people indoors,

00:19:30 ◼   ► they still look like they have gray skin,

00:19:34 ◼   ► which is a problem I was having before,

00:19:36 ◼   ► but now the tone adjustment fixes it.

00:19:39 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting.

00:19:40 ◼   ► - So this is what I want.

00:19:41 ◼   ► I want to have the ability to be able to take photos

00:19:44 ◼   ► that I like and be able to easily edit them.

00:19:46 ◼   ► And the problem that I was having before

00:19:48 ◼   ► is even taking these photos into editing apps,

00:19:52 ◼   ► I was always dealing with the baseline

00:19:55 ◼   ► bad skin tone issue that I was having.

00:19:58 ◼   ► It was putting too much shadow and too much like,

00:20:00 ◼   ► I don't know what it was doing, but I didn't like it.

00:20:04 ◼   ► It was putting a lot of shadow on people

00:20:06 ◼   ► and making them look like 10 years older.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And I'm able to adjust that now

00:20:11 ◼   ► and it adjusts the actual image, the base image, right?

00:20:15 ◼   ► Because it's in the pipeline.

00:20:17 ◼   ► So just basically like just fiddling with the tone setting

00:20:22 ◼   ► of the photos gets rid of this issue.

00:20:25 ◼   ► So this is all I wanted.

00:20:28 ◼   ► The phone's gonna do what the phone's gonna do.

00:20:29 ◼   ► Most of the time it does a great job, but when it doesn't,

00:20:32 ◼   ► I now have even better tools to deal with it.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Also the ultra wide camera,

00:20:39 ◼   ► it does produce better high quality images

00:20:42 ◼   ► of things that are closer to my phone, right?

00:20:45 ◼   ► 'Cause it will always switch over to the macro mode.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Still doesn't look as good as the main lens,

00:20:49 ◼   ► but good enough, better, better is what I wanted.

00:20:52 ◼   ► That's how I kind of feel about this whole camera thing.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It's like, this is actually, all of it is a lot better.

00:20:57 ◼   ► And for me and what I like and the photos that I take,

00:21:00 ◼   ► this is actually quite a meaningful system

00:21:03 ◼   ► over year over year change.

00:21:05 ◼   ► Like for me and the photos that I take,

00:21:08 ◼   ► the iPhone 16 Pro is the best that it's been for many years.

00:21:12 ◼   ► So I'm very happy with it.

00:21:14 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:21:15 ◼   ► I have been enjoying my series 10 watch

00:21:18 ◼   ► and the new watchOS features as well.

00:21:21 ◼   ► I like the watch.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I really like how it feels thinner

00:21:26 ◼   ► and lower down on my wrist.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Big screen is nice.

00:21:32 ◼   ► It doesn't feel appreciably bigger to me on my wrist.

00:21:37 ◼   ► It really doesn't,

00:21:38 ◼   ► but it's always nice to have a little more room.

00:21:41 ◼   ► I still have the thoughts we had last week

00:21:43 ◼   ► about the fact that I have a watch face

00:21:45 ◼   ► that doesn't tick second by second,

00:21:47 ◼   ► even though I've got a screen that can do that.

00:21:49 ◼   ► That's just, I gotta fix that, but it's really bad.

00:21:52 ◼   ► But I'm really enjoying the fact that live activities

00:21:57 ◼   ► on my phone appear as widgets on my watch.

00:22:02 ◼   ► I turned off the feature where it automatically scrolls up

00:22:05 ◼   ► to that view when that live activity is running on my phone,

00:22:09 ◼   ► 'cause I find that kind of annoying.

00:22:11 ◼   ► I like though I can just scroll up

00:22:13 ◼   ► and see all of those things that are going on,

00:22:16 ◼   ► even though I'm not looking at my phone.

00:22:17 ◼   ► And that's really nice.

00:22:18 ◼   ► And the other day I was somewhere

00:22:23 ◼   ► where I didn't have my headphones and had a minute,

00:22:26 ◼   ► and it was just me,

00:22:27 ◼   ► but I had a minute where I had to wait somewhere.

00:22:30 ◼   ► And I played part of a podcast through the speaker.

00:22:34 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:22:35 ◼   ► - And it is not super loud, but it was audible.

00:22:38 ◼   ► It was good.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I listened to a little bit, just a little tiny bit.

00:22:42 ◼   ► Nobody was around, not annoying.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Anyway, it was like a weird use case,

00:22:45 ◼   ► but suddenly I was like, wait a second,

00:22:47 ◼   ► I could just play this through the Apple Watch.

00:22:49 ◼   ► And it actually worked.

00:22:51 ◼   ► Went to a concert this week, used the 5X camera.

00:22:54 ◼   ► 'Cause I tested the 5X camera on the Pro Max last year,

00:22:58 ◼   ► but I did not use it regularly, right?

00:23:02 ◼   ► Because I don't carry a Pro Max around.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I bought the Pro, so I didn't have the 5X continually.

00:23:12 ◼   ► So I was at a concert and I was like,

00:23:14 ◼   ► oh yeah, 5X camera, let's do that.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And it just dazzles me.

00:23:18 ◼   ► The 5X is so nice.

00:23:21 ◼   ► The photos looked really good.

00:23:24 ◼   ► I just continue to be impressed.

00:23:28 ◼   ► And I know that that's not news

00:23:29 ◼   ► for people who have the Pro Max,

00:23:30 ◼   ► but it's a really beautiful camera.

00:23:35 ◼   ► I continue to be a little puzzled by camera control.

00:23:38 ◼   ► I'm still not sure how I feel entirely about it.

00:23:41 ◼   ► I like the premise of it.

00:23:43 ◼   ► I don't love the added complexity of the extra stuff.

00:23:47 ◼   ► I feel like maybe it's a little too hard to push it down.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - Are you using your phone in a case or not?

00:23:52 ◼   ► - No, no case. - No case, okay.

00:23:54 ◼   ► - No case.

00:23:55 ◼   ► I'm not really getting used to that.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And then here's the other thing.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And I don't know if Apple is doing something

00:23:59 ◼   ► to counteract this or not,

00:24:00 ◼   ► but I will tell you I can hold my phone perfectly steady

00:24:04 ◼   ► and tap the shutter button on the screen.

00:24:06 ◼   ► And especially when you're zoomed in at 5X.

00:24:09 ◼   ► When I'm holding it by the edges

00:24:11 ◼   ► and I push down on camera control, it moves a little.

00:24:15 ◼   ► The act of pushing in a button shakes the camera,

00:24:18 ◼   ► the phone a little bit.

00:24:20 ◼   ► Tapping on the front of the touchscreen doesn't do that.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And I don't know if Apple,

00:24:25 ◼   ► I haven't done this systematically to determine

00:24:28 ◼   ► whether Apple is doing something intelligent,

00:24:30 ◼   ► like going back to the moment before I pushed the button

00:24:35 ◼   ► or finding a frame in there where the phone isn't shaking.

00:24:39 ◼   ► But if the act of pushing the button

00:24:44 ◼   ► makes me not get as good a photo, that's not good.

00:24:48 ◼   ► And that's a thing that I've noticed is,

00:24:51 ◼   ► literally it is harder to keep the camera steady

00:24:54 ◼   ► when I push the button than it is to tap on the screen.

00:24:56 ◼   ► And maybe the answer is, well, in that case,

00:24:58 ◼   ► tap on the screen, but okay,

00:25:00 ◼   ► but what's the point of the capture button then,

00:25:02 ◼   ► if that's what's happening, the camera control button.

00:25:05 ◼   ► So I don't know, I'm still thinking about that one.

00:25:07 ◼   ► I'm hoping to write review like stuff this week.

00:25:11 ◼   ► We'll see, I'm in that same point that I was last year

00:25:15 ◼   ► where after the embargo's dropped

00:25:17 ◼   ► and everybody's got their phones,

00:25:18 ◼   ► I've got review units, which is great,

00:25:20 ◼   ► but everybody's got their phones

00:25:22 ◼   ► and all the reviews are out.

00:25:24 ◼   ► So I need to take some time

00:25:26 ◼   ► and kind of consider what I wanna write about it.

00:25:28 ◼   ► So I'll get there, I'm hoping maybe this week to do that.

00:25:30 ◼   ► But it's a really interesting collection

00:25:33 ◼   ► of things that seem good

00:25:35 ◼   ► and some things that seem like curious choices,

00:25:38 ◼   ► but I'm glad they're trying this stuff.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I think we've said on this podcast many a time

00:25:41 ◼   ► that what we want Apple to do is try things, right?

00:25:45 ◼   ► That like, give it a try and you'll learn some things

00:25:48 ◼   ► and maybe you'll have to fix things later

00:25:49 ◼   ► and maybe some things will be seen as a mistake,

00:25:52 ◼   ► but you should give new, interesting things a try.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And they've definitely done that

00:25:55 ◼   ► in a bunch of areas this year.

00:25:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder about the pressing of the button.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Like if they're doing something to counteract it,

00:26:02 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - I wonder if they do that for everything.

00:26:06 ◼   ► You know, like I see family members,

00:26:09 ◼   ► they just press the shutter button too hard

00:26:12 ◼   ► and they know they're moving their phone.

00:26:14 ◼   ► - They're tapping the phone and it's shaking.

00:26:17 ◼   ► - I would like to believe

00:26:18 ◼   ► that in the computational photography pipeline,

00:26:21 ◼   ► they can use information from the accelerometer

00:26:25 ◼   ► to understand if the phone has moved.

00:26:28 ◼   ► That would be my hope.

00:26:29 ◼   ► - Right, and I don't know if the data is worse

00:26:31 ◼   ► 'cause the phone was shaking or if it can manage to do it,

00:26:33 ◼   ► but I just, it was a thing I noticed

00:26:35 ◼   ► is that I was zoomed in at 5X and press the button.

00:26:39 ◼   ► - That's when you'll see it.

00:26:40 ◼   ► - And as I press the button, the phone jiggles.

00:26:43 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, well, that's not good.

00:26:45 ◼   ► And I switched to tapping the screen.

00:26:47 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Is that what we are supposed to be doing here?

00:26:52 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like it.

00:26:53 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like it should be that way.

00:26:54 ◼   ► So I don't know, we'll see.

00:26:55 ◼   ► 'Cause the reason they have to do it this way

00:26:58 ◼   ► is that the camera starts out flat to the side

00:27:00 ◼   ► and then you depress it deeper into the phone.

00:27:02 ◼   ► And on a regular camera, the shutter button sticks out

00:27:07 ◼   ► and you press it down.

00:27:09 ◼   ► So it's a little more complex of a gesture

00:27:12 ◼   ► and I get why you don't wanna have that button sticking out.

00:27:15 ◼   ► Okay, but I don't know, we'll see.

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00:29:33 ◼   ► of this show and all of Relay.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Room around uptime.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Yeehaw!

00:29:40 ◼   ► 9to5Mac is reporting that Apple has requested

00:29:43 ◼   ► samples of displays for an upcoming Apple Vision headset

00:29:47 ◼   ► that are about half the resolution as the Vision Pro.

00:29:51 ◼   ► Some of this information comes from the Elec.

00:29:53 ◼   ► We're gonna talk a little bit later on about AR devices.

00:29:58 ◼   ► But my expectation and the expectation of these reports

00:30:02 ◼   ► is that these are for a cheaper version, like the Vision.

00:30:06 ◼   ► But I'm also like, is this a new version of the Vision Pro?

00:30:11 ◼   ► And they're just trying to make it cheaper?

00:30:13 ◼   ► Like what is this product actually gonna be?

00:30:16 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:30:17 ◼   ► - Right, I don't know.

00:30:18 ◼   ► What's their, the big question is what's their strategy?

00:30:20 ◼   ► And we can talk about this later,

00:30:21 ◼   ► but what is their strategy here?

00:30:24 ◼   ► What are their long-term goals for this product line?

00:30:27 ◼   ► Are they trying to get something cheaper

00:30:29 ◼   ► that more people will actually buy

00:30:32 ◼   ► because there's a real chicken and egg problem

00:30:34 ◼   ► in terms of the content and the apps

00:30:37 ◼   ► and the whole platform, really?

00:30:39 ◼   ► So, are they better off making a new Vision Pro

00:30:44 ◼   ► that's just as expensive?

00:30:48 ◼   ► Or are they better off trying to make something

00:30:49 ◼   ► that is $1,000 instead?

00:30:51 ◼   ► Keeping in mind that their competition has,

00:30:54 ◼   ► which is Meta, scrapped their more expensive headset.

00:30:59 ◼   ► And they're like, "We're not gonna even do that."

00:31:00 ◼   ► And they're more expensive.

00:31:01 ◼   ► - In fact, they just released a cheaper one, right?

00:31:03 ◼   ► - And they released a cheaper one, so yeah.

00:31:05 ◼   ► - Ming-Chi Kuo claims that Apple is developing

00:31:08 ◼   ► a second version of the Vision Pro,

00:31:09 ◼   ► potentially for release in late 2025,

00:31:11 ◼   ► that features an M5 chip.

00:31:13 ◼   ► The report claims that this will enable higher power

00:31:16 ◼   ► Apple intelligence features,

00:31:18 ◼   ► but there are still expectations from others

00:31:20 ◼   ► that the current version of the Vision Pro

00:31:22 ◼   ► will see some Apple intelligence features next year,

00:31:25 ◼   ► probably with Vision OS 3.

00:31:27 ◼   ► - Right.

00:31:27 ◼   ► Same question, right?

00:31:29 ◼   ► Which is, what are they doing with this product?

00:31:31 ◼   ► Like, are they, 'cause they have the ability

00:31:35 ◼   ► to just soldier on and keep updating it

00:31:38 ◼   ► and keep working on the software

00:31:40 ◼   ► and thinking, look, it doesn't matter

00:31:41 ◼   ► that it's selling in incredibly low volumes

00:31:43 ◼   ► 'cause it was always going to do that.

00:31:46 ◼   ► It's, with the price that it's got,

00:31:48 ◼   ► there was no way that this was going to be

00:31:50 ◼   ► a product that sells in high volumes,

00:31:52 ◼   ► but we've got our eyes on something in the future

00:31:56 ◼   ► that grows this.

00:31:57 ◼   ► And I felt for a while now

00:31:59 ◼   ► that what they're really trying to do

00:32:00 ◼   ► is get to the AR glasses

00:32:02 ◼   ► that they just can't make right now.

00:32:04 ◼   ► But, you know, the real question is,

00:32:07 ◼   ► what are they willing to invest in this platform

00:32:10 ◼   ► that is not very large,

00:32:13 ◼   ► but might be important in the future?

00:32:16 ◼   ► Well, now they're out in public,

00:32:17 ◼   ► but what are they willing to invest to take it there?

00:32:20 ◼   ► And that includes getting more users

00:32:22 ◼   ► and putting more content on it.

00:32:23 ◼   ► And is that another high-end model?

00:32:26 ◼   ► Is that a low-end model?

00:32:29 ◼   ► A low-end model is going to be expensive too,

00:32:31 ◼   ► but it might be more affordable.

00:32:34 ◼   ► And will people buy that?

00:32:35 ◼   ► Like, do they view this as mostly a developer system

00:32:40 ◼   ► that is about pointing the way to the future?

00:32:43 ◼   ► Or do they think that there's a chance for them

00:32:45 ◼   ► to sell a lot of these if they can get the price down?

00:32:48 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:32:50 ◼   ► - With new reporting from Mark Gurman,

00:32:51 ◼   ► here is an updated timeline for Apple Insurgence features.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So, iOS 18.1, which we know is coming in October,

00:32:59 ◼   ► that's going to have Siri understanding you more clearly.

00:33:03 ◼   ► We'll have writing tools, you know,

00:33:05 ◼   ► like the writing summaries and the changing of text,

00:33:07 ◼   ► notification summaries,

00:33:08 ◼   ► cleanup and memory movies and photos,

00:33:11 ◼   ► suggested replies and messages and mail.

00:33:13 ◼   ► The suggested replies and messages

00:33:15 ◼   ► are written by someone who's not me.

00:33:18 ◼   ► They are so bad.

00:33:19 ◼   ► I don't understand why they're this bad.

00:33:21 ◼   ► I never speak like this.

00:33:23 ◼   ► I don't know why you think I would speak like this.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Terrible.

00:33:26 ◼   ► To call that intelligent,

00:33:28 ◼   ► I don't understand what you're doing.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Phone call transcription

00:33:31 ◼   ► and the reduce interruptions focus mode.

00:33:34 ◼   ► That's all coming in October.

00:33:36 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:33:37 ◼   ► - 18.2, we think probably December,

00:33:40 ◼   ► available in more countries and languages.

00:33:43 ◼   ► This is one we'll get image playgrounds and genmoji.

00:33:47 ◼   ► Genmoji, by the way, is a feature I do want.

00:33:49 ◼   ► I've been thinking about it recently.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Like, there is like, it was raining the other day

00:33:54 ◼   ► and I thought it would be funny to make an emoji

00:33:57 ◼   ► with a rain cloud over the top.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Like, that makes sense.

00:34:00 ◼   ► I would still just prefer if it was just like,

00:34:02 ◼   ► they take two emojis and put them together

00:34:04 ◼   ► rather than like generate them.

00:34:05 ◼   ► But if they look good, then that makes sense to me.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Image playgrounds, hate it.

00:34:09 ◼   ► Can't wait to complain about it more.

00:34:11 ◼   ► And then also chat GPT integration is expected in December.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Then, early 2025 is an expectation for iOS 18.3.

00:34:20 ◼   ► The new information is Mark Gurman believes

00:34:24 ◼   ► this is when we could actually now see

00:34:26 ◼   ► the beginning of enhanced Siri features,

00:34:30 ◼   ► but we're not sure of which ones.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Now, these enhanced new Siri features

00:34:34 ◼   ► could include the personal context awareness,

00:34:37 ◼   ► on-screen awareness, so Siri can see what's on your screen,

00:34:39 ◼   ► and the deeper control of third-party apps via Intents.

00:34:43 ◼   ► If this doesn't come in early 2025 or not all of it,

00:34:48 ◼   ► the expectation is then 18.4,

00:34:51 ◼   ► which is pegged for maybe March of next year,

00:34:55 ◼   ► is when these final features

00:34:58 ◼   ► for the Siri integration will ship

00:35:00 ◼   ► and be available in more countries.

00:35:03 ◼   ► That is our current timeline.

00:35:04 ◼   ► - Right, and I would say that the core

00:35:07 ◼   ► of what we will think of as Apple intelligence

00:35:10 ◼   ► is actually personal context, on-screen awareness,

00:35:14 ◼   ► and deeper control of apps via Intents.

00:35:17 ◼   ► The rest of this stuff is sort of like coloring

00:35:19 ◼   ► around the edges with some AI sprinkles,

00:35:24 ◼   ► but your phone understanding, or your Mac or your iPad,

00:35:28 ◼   ► understanding your personal context

00:35:30 ◼   ► and having its onboard LLM be able

00:35:33 ◼   ► to search through your stuff.

00:35:34 ◼   ► I mean, Apple's already running ads with this, right?

00:35:36 ◼   ► This is the, these are those ads that are,

00:35:39 ◼   ► I don't know if you've seen any of these,

00:35:40 ◼   ► but they're things like, "Oh, what was that guy's name?

00:35:42 ◼   ► "I met him at this place."

00:35:44 ◼   ► And it says, "Oh, that was this guy."

00:35:47 ◼   ► And the person's like, "Oh, that's a relief," right?

00:35:50 ◼   ► That's what it is.

00:35:50 ◼   ► - This is, look, they have available to them

00:35:53 ◼   ► to absolutely make a massive, massive impact if it works,

00:35:58 ◼   ► right, like everything else, as you're saying,

00:36:02 ◼   ► everything else, they're doing nothing original.

00:36:05 ◼   ► It's just in the operating system, right?

00:36:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's stuff that I think

00:36:09 ◼   ► wouldn't even be branded as a thing.

00:36:11 ◼   ► This feels like it's, this is, to me,

00:36:14 ◼   ► this is what Apple intelligence is,

00:36:16 ◼   ► is personal context, on-screen awareness,

00:36:19 ◼   ► deeper control of apps.

00:36:20 ◼   ► And yeah, a Siri that understands you better

00:36:22 ◼   ► and can do a give and take, I would throw that in there.

00:36:25 ◼   ► But a lot of this stuff is like some summarizations

00:36:28 ◼   ► over here, a transcription over there.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Like, in a different environment,

00:36:34 ◼   ► those might just get released as OS features

00:36:36 ◼   ► and wouldn't be given any special names, right?

00:36:38 ◼   ► But instead it's been rolled into Apple intelligence,

00:36:41 ◼   ► but like, this is the stuff that gives them,

00:36:44 ◼   ► like you said, something that might, if they do it right,

00:36:49 ◼   ► vault them ahead because they will be able to know

00:36:54 ◼   ► lots and lots of things about you

00:36:56 ◼   ► based on the data on your phone

00:36:57 ◼   ► and use that in actionable ways.

00:36:59 ◼   ► And that has a huge amount of potential if they do it right.

00:37:02 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, we'll see.

00:37:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's an interesting rollout, right?

00:37:08 ◼   ► Like just, if you don't like what's there in this version,

00:37:12 ◼   ► just wait, 'cause there's more,

00:37:14 ◼   ► they're just gonna keep rolling this out.

00:37:15 ◼   ► But this is what we said back in June.

00:37:17 ◼   ► - I will be very impressed with them

00:37:19 ◼   ► if they're turning out features every two months.

00:37:22 ◼   ► I will be very, very impressed with them.

00:37:24 ◼   ► And I hope that it teaches them something

00:37:26 ◼   ► about what their operating system can actually be like.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Like it doesn't all need to change just once a year.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And they've obviously been moving more down this path

00:37:36 ◼   ► over time, right, as they like show off stuff

00:37:38 ◼   ► and then it comes later.

00:37:40 ◼   ► But this feels like the biggest example of that idea

00:37:45 ◼   ► if things just continuing to get updated

00:37:47 ◼   ► over a longer period of time.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - And we're gonna get, you know,

00:37:50 ◼   ► in a few weeks, 18.1 is gonna ship

00:37:52 ◼   ► and you know that very next week

00:37:53 ◼   ► there's gonna be an 18.2 beta, right?

00:37:55 ◼   ► It's just gonna roll like that too,

00:37:57 ◼   ► where the betas are gonna preview

00:37:58 ◼   ► what's going to ship to customers

00:38:00 ◼   ► and it'll just keep going.

00:38:02 ◼   ► - And they are public betas, right?

00:38:03 ◼   ► Which I think they're encouraging people to get

00:38:05 ◼   ► at this point, so. - Yeah, yeah.

00:38:07 ◼   ► - Thomas Buckley and Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg

00:38:09 ◼   ► are reporting that Apple has once again made changes

00:38:12 ◼   ► to how it's gonna be releasing movies on Apple TV+.

00:38:15 ◼   ► You need to read three quotes

00:38:16 ◼   ► from this article on Bloomberg.

00:38:18 ◼   ► Apple will now focus on making about a dozen movies a year,

00:38:21 ◼   ► most of them produced for less than a hundred million dollars

00:38:25 ◼   ► because it is worth noting that many of their movies

00:38:27 ◼   ► are significantly more than that,

00:38:29 ◼   ► as we've spoken about on the show before.

00:38:31 ◼   ► Apple's commitment to spend a billion dollars

00:38:33 ◼   ► annually on films won't change,

00:38:35 ◼   ► but the makeup of the company's movie slate

00:38:37 ◼   ► and release strategies will.

00:38:39 ◼   ► And Apple will still aim to take one or two

00:38:42 ◼   ► big theatrical swings a year

00:38:44 ◼   ► with films exceptionally approved for higher budgets.

00:38:47 ◼   ► - Right.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - This sounds like a significantly better strategy.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Buckley and Shaw compare this more to Netflix,

00:38:53 ◼   ► like they're doing more what Netflix is doing

00:38:56 ◼   ► rather than what they have been doing,

00:38:58 ◼   ► which is spending a quarter of a billion dollars

00:39:00 ◼   ► on a movie that shouldn't have had

00:39:02 ◼   ► a quarter of a billion dollars spent on it.

00:39:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I like the idea

00:39:05 ◼   ► that they're still gonna take a couple big swings.

00:39:07 ◼   ► That allows them to make deals with creators

00:39:08 ◼   ► that they wanna make deals with and maybe get to--

00:39:10 ◼   ► - Like this F1 movie,

00:39:11 ◼   ► which I do think is gonna be a success for them,

00:39:14 ◼   ► provided that it's good,

00:39:15 ◼   ► but it has the hallmark of the ability to do that,

00:39:17 ◼   ► but you can't make that movie

00:39:19 ◼   ► without spending a lot of money on it.

00:39:20 ◼   ► That's kind of the point of the movie.

00:39:22 ◼   ► - And if you do the math, what you realize is

00:39:25 ◼   ► that they're gonna make about a movie a month,

00:39:27 ◼   ► most of them less than a hundred million, it says,

00:39:30 ◼   ► and about a billion annually.

00:39:31 ◼   ► Well, I mean, you can do the math there

00:39:32 ◼   ► and you're under a hundred million.

00:39:34 ◼   ► But what I like about this

00:39:35 ◼   ► is they'll take a couple of big swings

00:39:38 ◼   ► and the rest of the movies

00:39:39 ◼   ► are gonna be mid-priced movies, right?

00:39:42 ◼   ► They're gonna be like $50 million budget movies,

00:39:44 ◼   ► $40 million budget movies.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And I really like that.

00:39:48 ◼   ► I think that that's a category of movie that is good,

00:39:51 ◼   ► which is it's not meant to be a blockbuster.

00:39:54 ◼   ► And I think maybe your chance of having success creatively

00:39:58 ◼   ► and maybe even finding audiences for that stuff is higher.

00:40:02 ◼   ► I liked the idea.

00:40:03 ◼   ► I like the idea that rather than saying,

00:40:04 ◼   ► we're only gonna make three or four blockbusters a year,

00:40:07 ◼   ► they're saying, no, we're gonna make 12 movies a year.

00:40:10 ◼   ► And they're gonna be two blockbusters

00:40:11 ◼   ► and then they're gonna be 10

00:40:12 ◼   ► kind of like mid to lower budget movies

00:40:15 ◼   ► that we're gonna do.

00:40:17 ◼   ► And I like that.

00:40:18 ◼   ► I think that that's actually healthy almost.

00:40:21 ◼   ► I mean, we'll see how it goes for them.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - And in his power on newsletter,

00:40:25 ◼   ► Mark Gorman reported on some more details

00:40:27 ◼   ► about Apple's home products initiatives.

00:40:30 ◼   ► So quote, "The most significant product in development,"

00:40:32 ◼   ► I put this quote in here for you, Jason,

00:40:34 ◼   ► is a tabletop device code named J595

00:40:37 ◼   ► that combines a robotic limb with a large iPad-like display.

00:40:42 ◼   ► - Where's the robot, Mark?

00:40:43 ◼   ► I thought you said it was a robot.

00:40:45 ◼   ► - It is a robot.

00:40:47 ◼   ► - He seems to be off the robot train.

00:40:48 ◼   ► - You can't spell robotic without robot, all right?

00:40:51 ◼   ► - With a robotic limb.

00:40:52 ◼   ► Yeah, but now they're not making a robot anymore.

00:40:54 ◼   ► They're making a robot.

00:40:55 ◼   ► No, he's getting off.

00:40:56 ◼   ► It's like he's on the methadone now, right?

00:40:58 ◼   ► It's a robotic limb.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Eventually it's just gonna be,

00:41:00 ◼   ► it's got an arm that adjusts.

00:41:02 ◼   ► - An articulating arm.

00:41:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:41:05 ◼   ► I mean, eventually it's gonna come down

00:41:06 ◼   ► to just be an arm that moves

00:41:08 ◼   ► and it's not gonna be a robot in any way,

00:41:10 ◼   ► but he's got to get off of that very slowly.

00:41:12 ◼   ► So he's backing off of,

00:41:14 ◼   ► it's a robot to being a tabletop device with a robotic limb

00:41:17 ◼   ► and we'll go from here, but it's fine.

00:41:21 ◼   ► Like this is a product that we've imagined

00:41:23 ◼   ► and it seems reasonable.

00:41:25 ◼   ► And I think what's also encouraging is that he said,

00:41:29 ◼   ► yes, they're also working on a non-robot

00:41:31 ◼   ► that is basically like an Echo Show

00:41:35 ◼   ► or a Google Home that is a screen.

00:41:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, quote, "The low-end smart display

00:41:42 ◼   ► is designed to run apps like Calendar Notes and Home

00:41:45 ◼   ► and will include an interface optimized

00:41:47 ◼   ► for controlling home appliances

00:41:48 ◼   ► and quickly seeking information.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Apple imagined the device magnetically attached into walls

00:41:53 ◼   ► or sitting atop a desk."

00:41:55 ◼   ► So yes, this is a Echo Show, a Google,

00:41:59 ◼   ► whatever they call it. - Or if you wanna think

00:42:01 ◼   ► of it this way, 'cause I think there's a lot

00:42:03 ◼   ► of mashing up going on here.

00:42:04 ◼   ► Imagine a standby phone,

00:42:08 ◼   ► a phone that's in standby mode, but bigger

00:42:11 ◼   ► and with access to more widgets and control center

00:42:15 ◼   ► and probably some apps like Apple TV kind of apps.

00:42:20 ◼   ► It feels like they could assemble this out of pieces

00:42:22 ◼   ► of software that they already have, right?

00:42:24 ◼   ► Like that's how we felt all along.

00:42:26 ◼   ► - These new products will both run Home OS,

00:42:28 ◼   ► which is adapted from tvOS and Mark Gurman expects

00:42:31 ◼   ► that these two will combine.

00:42:33 ◼   ► So the Apple TV will run Home OS.

00:42:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, makes sense.

00:42:38 ◼   ► - This is the strategy, Apple, you're doing your thing,

00:42:41 ◼   ► making a robot, which we all want.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, we all want that robot, J595, the robot.

00:42:47 ◼   ► - I'm really happy that we have a little bit more detail

00:42:49 ◼   ► about like the first thing which could come next year.

00:42:52 ◼   ► I want this device in my home.

00:42:54 ◼   ► And so I hope that they actually do it.

00:42:56 ◼   ► - Well, we talked about that robot a while ago

00:42:58 ◼   ► and I said it felt over engineered, right?

00:43:02 ◼   ► Like it felt very much like the original HomePod

00:43:04 ◼   ► where like, oh, it's gonna, it's got an arm

00:43:06 ◼   ► and it moves and it follows you and it's all these things

00:43:08 ◼   ► and it costs a thousand dollars and everybody goes, nope.

00:43:12 ◼   ► That's the end of it.

00:43:13 ◼   ► And so the idea that they're gonna have

00:43:15 ◼   ► this awesome high-end articulated arm thing

00:43:18 ◼   ► and also a screen that's kind of like

00:43:21 ◼   ► what we've always heard, right?

00:43:23 ◼   ► It's an iPad with a speaker that you can put somewhere

00:43:27 ◼   ► and like great, like whatever that thing is, smart display.

00:43:32 ◼   ► I think maybe they're going

00:43:33 ◼   ► for also the home control thing here,

00:43:35 ◼   ► which I know that Google and Amazon do that

00:43:38 ◼   ► and I find it completely uninteresting,

00:43:40 ◼   ► but maybe there's an audience for this,

00:43:43 ◼   ► but I find it uninteresting.

00:43:46 ◼   ► The idea that, oh, you can put this thing on your fridge

00:43:50 ◼   ► or on your wall and it's a touchscreen

00:43:52 ◼   ► that controls your lights and your.

00:43:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, but also it's a product that exists

00:43:57 ◼   ► that you can speak commands to.

00:43:59 ◼   ► - Oh, sure, sure.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I just, again, I kind of like, yeah, I don't know.

00:44:04 ◼   ► We'll see, we'll see how it fits in the home

00:44:06 ◼   ► and what use cases they're really trying to hit on is,

00:44:10 ◼   ► it's a good question, right?

00:44:11 ◼   ► Because I get a benefit out of asking questions

00:44:16 ◼   ► to a voice assistant and playing audio through a speaker.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I don't find myself,

00:44:22 ◼   ► like if I want to control the lights in my house,

00:44:24 ◼   ► I'll just use my phone or my watch or my iPad.

00:44:27 ◼   ► I won't go over to my Google Home and go through the,

00:44:30 ◼   ► or back in the day, my Echo Show and like,

00:44:33 ◼   ► oh, show me the Alexa interface with the things

00:44:37 ◼   ► and I just don't do that, but maybe some people do

00:44:39 ◼   ► and maybe there's some use cases there.

00:44:40 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see what use cases

00:44:43 ◼   ► they're actually trying to address with these products.

00:44:45 ◼   ► - This episode is brought to you by Delete Me.

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00:47:00 ◼   ► and Relay.

00:47:03 ◼   ► - So last week at Meta Connect,

00:47:06 ◼   ► just basically Meta's WWDC,

00:47:08 ◼   ► Meta unveiled a prototype product called Orion.

00:47:13 ◼   ► They showed this off to a selection of journalists

00:47:15 ◼   ► and content creators.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Orion is their ultimate take so far on AR glasses.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Essentially, you put these glasses on

00:47:26 ◼   ► and you can see content, right?

00:47:30 ◼   ► - It's a dream.

00:47:30 ◼   ► It's Tim Cook's dream.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - Yes. - It's the dream.

00:47:32 ◼   ► It's the dream.

00:47:33 ◼   ► They have displays in them.

00:47:34 ◼   ► They have technology in them.

00:47:36 ◼   ► You can see apps.

00:47:38 ◼   ► You can make calls.

00:47:40 ◼   ► It is what all these companies have been fighting for,

00:47:45 ◼   ► like what they're working for.

00:47:47 ◼   ► It is essentially, imagine the middle ground

00:47:48 ◼   ► between Meta Ray-Bands and the Vision Pro, right?

00:47:51 ◼   ► That's what this product is.

00:47:53 ◼   ► It's a prototype.

00:47:55 ◼   ► It is not going to ship in this exact form.

00:47:58 ◼   ► The prototype consists of glasses, a wristband

00:48:02 ◼   ► that detects hand and wrist movements for interaction,

00:48:07 ◼   ► and a wireless compute puck.

00:48:09 ◼   ► And there's a wireless connection between it

00:48:11 ◼   ► and the glasses to do a lot of the computational work.

00:48:15 ◼   ► They have an OS.

00:48:16 ◼   ► They have various apps and game experiences.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Meta have said they are many years away

00:48:21 ◼   ► from shipping a product like this.

00:48:23 ◼   ► This was a product they're working on, this exact one,

00:48:26 ◼   ► but it was going to be too expensive to make,

00:48:28 ◼   ► so they decided they would show it as a prototype.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Meta has said, sorry, Meta haven't said this,

00:48:34 ◼   ► but it has been said in the reporting of this

00:48:37 ◼   ► that it would cost like $10,000

00:48:39 ◼   ► if they were to sell it in this form today,

00:48:41 ◼   ► which is why they have decided that they would wait longer,

00:48:45 ◼   ► but they wanted to show it off.

00:48:48 ◼   ► Very impressive work.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And what they have shown, I think, is really cool.

00:48:53 ◼   ► And I am of the thinking.

00:48:56 ◼   ► There are lots of takes here.

00:48:57 ◼   ► I liked your piece a lot.

00:49:01 ◼   ► I would just want to put my thoughts out there

00:49:03 ◼   ► and then we'll talk about it in much more detail.

00:49:05 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - I think this was a smart marketing move for Meta

00:49:09 ◼   ► because they have established themselves as-

00:49:14 ◼   ► - In the game.

00:49:15 ◼   ► - In the game.

00:49:15 ◼   ► They are not just in the game,

00:49:17 ◼   ► to the world they're leading

00:49:20 ◼   ► because no one knows what anyone else is doing, right?

00:49:22 ◼   ► - To the world, to their investors,

00:49:25 ◼   ► and I'll mention a detail that I thought was a core detail

00:49:29 ◼   ► of what they were talking about,

00:49:31 ◼   ► which is they said, we've got custom optics

00:49:34 ◼   ► and custom silicon that we're building in this product.

00:49:37 ◼   ► You're like, okay, they're boasting, right?

00:49:39 ◼   ► But it's more than that.

00:49:40 ◼   ► They're also saying, we know what Apple can do,

00:49:44 ◼   ► but we can do it too.

00:49:46 ◼   ► And I think that's important, right?

00:49:47 ◼   ► Because I think with Apple, you just assume like,

00:49:49 ◼   ► of course, they're gonna have custom things

00:49:51 ◼   ► and they're gonna build their own chips

00:49:52 ◼   ► and they've got, that's a huge Apple advantage

00:49:54 ◼   ► is their custom silicon.

00:49:56 ◼   ► And so Meta saying, no, no, we're doing that too,

00:49:59 ◼   ► is kind of blunting,

00:50:01 ◼   ► they're trying to blunt one of Apple's perceived advantages

00:50:04 ◼   ► about this while also taking advantage of the fact

00:50:06 ◼   ► that Apple is never gonna pre-announce a product

00:50:08 ◼   ► or show a tech demo to the public.

00:50:12 ◼   ► They don't do it, they just don't do it.

00:50:15 ◼   ► So they've got some advantages there.

00:50:16 ◼   ► But I think that they,

00:50:17 ◼   ► them boasting about their custom stuff

00:50:20 ◼   ► is also sending that message to everybody,

00:50:22 ◼   ► including again, the investors who are looking at this

00:50:24 ◼   ► and saying, you're spending what on reality labs?

00:50:26 ◼   ► How much money are you pouring into this?

00:50:27 ◼   ► Like, this is why we're doing this

00:50:29 ◼   ► is 'cause we think that this is gonna be a product

00:50:32 ◼   ► people are gonna want in,

00:50:34 ◼   ► I mean, and they didn't say this part too loudly,

00:50:36 ◼   ► but in the 2030s, 'cause that's what this is about.

00:50:39 ◼   ► - But I am also in the camp of people

00:50:42 ◼   ► that believe that Apple has a version of this

00:50:44 ◼   ► in a lab somewhere.

00:50:45 ◼   ► I cannot imagine a scenario where Meta has done this

00:50:50 ◼   ► and Apple have not done this.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Maybe that makes me a fan boy, I don't know.

00:50:54 ◼   ► And maybe Apple's isn't as good,

00:50:56 ◼   ► but I just can't imagine a scenario

00:50:59 ◼   ► where Apple haven't gotten to something.

00:51:02 ◼   ► That would be weird to me.

00:51:03 ◼   ► - This is what makes me mad about this story.

00:51:06 ◼   ► And my piece, I am trying to be super balanced.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I point out that I own multiple Meta headsets.

00:51:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you did a good job.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - I think that there's a lot,

00:51:16 ◼   ► I think what Meta did was smart for them

00:51:18 ◼   ► and that they're taking advantage of an area

00:51:20 ◼   ► where Apple doesn't have,

00:51:23 ◼   ► they will not show something like this

00:51:26 ◼   ► five, three, four, five years in advance.

00:51:28 ◼   ► They just aren't gonna do it.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Never would they do that.

00:51:31 ◼   ► And you could argue, in fact, maybe they should,

00:51:33 ◼   ► but they don't, they're not gonna do it.

00:51:36 ◼   ► But what bugs me is when people are like,

00:51:39 ◼   ► well, look how much further Meta is ahead

00:51:41 ◼   ► because Meta has this and Apple still got the Vision Pro.

00:51:44 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, well,

00:51:44 ◼   ► the Vision Pro was announced more than a year ago

00:51:47 ◼   ► and shipped earlier this year.

00:51:49 ◼   ► And you can go take one off the shelf right now for $3,500.

00:51:53 ◼   ► This thing costs at least 10 grand

00:51:55 ◼   ► and doesn't exist and won't ship ever.

00:51:58 ◼   ► And whatever like it will ship,

00:52:00 ◼   ► even Meta says three to five years,

00:52:02 ◼   ► which I just say, okay, 2029, 2030

00:52:06 ◼   ► is what we're talking about here.

00:52:07 ◼   ► So it's not like you have to compare it to what Apple has.

00:52:10 ◼   ► And we don't know what Apple has

00:52:11 ◼   ► 'cause Apple's not gonna tell us.

00:52:13 ◼   ► And so could this mean Apple is behind?

00:52:16 ◼   ► It could, but it doesn't necessarily mean that.

00:52:19 ◼   ► And what I would say, and I'm not, look,

00:52:21 ◼   ► we have been very critical on this show

00:52:23 ◼   ► of Apple's sluggish attention to Vision OS as a platform.

00:52:27 ◼   ► If it's supposed to be this big future thing,

00:52:29 ◼   ► why are you not pouring more visible resources into it?

00:52:31 ◼   ► And maybe the answer is 'cause they're pouring

00:52:33 ◼   ► more resources into the hardware behind the scenes

00:52:35 ◼   ► or maybe they're lost and they're confused.

00:52:37 ◼   ► And it's certainly a possibility that that's the case.

00:52:39 ◼   ► However, what do we know?

00:52:41 ◼   ► We know that Tim Cook believes

00:52:42 ◼   ► that they're on a path for an AR product.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Like that's the whole reason they did this.

00:52:46 ◼   ► The goal was never to build a VR,

00:52:48 ◼   ► the goal was to build an AR product, AR glasses,

00:52:51 ◼   ► just like what was shown.

00:52:52 ◼   ► - It's really mind blowing to me

00:52:54 ◼   ► that I feel like there are people

00:52:56 ◼   ► that I believe should know better

00:53:00 ◼   ► to understand Apple is not building a VR.

00:53:04 ◼   ► They have built a VR headset, yes.

00:53:06 ◼   ► But it's an AR product so obviously,

00:53:11 ◼   ► but they can't do it yet.

00:53:13 ◼   ► It's weird to me.

00:53:14 ◼   ► - So look, Ben Thompson got to use this

00:53:16 ◼   ► and he was blown away by it.

00:53:16 ◼   ► And I believe him at how amazing the experience was.

00:53:20 ◼   ► I believe him and I think that has power.

00:53:22 ◼   ► We know how blown away we were

00:53:23 ◼   ► when we put the Vision Pro on, I get it.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - It sounded a lot like that, right?

00:53:27 ◼   ► Like the people that saw this,

00:53:28 ◼   ► it sounded a lot like how we were.

00:53:30 ◼   ► - And then think about it, in Vision Pro,

00:53:31 ◼   ► you've got your kind of limited field of view

00:53:33 ◼   ► and it's with those pass-throughs.

00:53:34 ◼   ► And on this thing, you're just seeing the world

00:53:36 ◼   ► and the things are overlaid on it.

00:53:38 ◼   ► It's pretty amazing, right?

00:53:39 ◼   ► But what bugs me about Ben's take is that he's like,

00:53:43 ◼   ► oh, Apple spent, he's kind of conflating what Meta's doing

00:53:47 ◼   ► with one product with also what they're doing with the Quest,

00:53:49 ◼   ► which is like, oh, Apple invested so much money

00:53:51 ◼   ► in pass-through and all these big cameras

00:53:53 ◼   ► and you can still see the pixels and all that.

00:53:56 ◼   ► But to me, the reason the Vision Pro

00:53:59 ◼   ► is so focused on pass-through

00:54:01 ◼   ► is because Apple's acting like it's an AR product.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Apple's acting like it's glasses.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And the reason they're doing that is because

00:54:09 ◼   ► that's the product they wanna make.

00:54:10 ◼   ► They don't wanna make a VR headset.

00:54:12 ◼   ► They don't wanna make something

00:54:13 ◼   ► that closes you off from the world.

00:54:14 ◼   ► It's why they have the dumb display

00:54:16 ◼   ► with your eyeballs on the outside.

00:54:17 ◼   ► - I do believe they also wanna make that.

00:54:20 ◼   ► But I think ultimately these are two separate devices.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - I'm not entirely convinced that they, in the long run,

00:54:29 ◼   ► even want to make something that's VR,

00:54:31 ◼   ► although ultimately it doesn't matter because--

00:54:33 ◼   ► - They've made a really good product though.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Like the VR stuff is actually really good,

00:54:37 ◼   ► like the environments and stuff like that.

00:54:38 ◼   ► I could imagine them still making something that does that.

00:54:42 ◼   ► - And it's possible, but I would say,

00:54:43 ◼   ► if you look at what the CEO's vision is,

00:54:46 ◼   ► the goal of all of this,

00:54:48 ◼   ► you may get a computer that you can wear

00:54:51 ◼   ► that's higher performance than the glasses

00:54:53 ◼   ► that you wear at home,

00:54:55 ◼   ► or it's just another thing that happens

00:54:57 ◼   ► when the technology improves

00:54:58 ◼   ► that you can shut out the world if you want to.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And it's like those sunglasses

00:55:02 ◼   ► in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

00:55:04 ◼   ► that black out your vision when something scary

00:55:06 ◼   ► is in front of you so you don't have to see it.

00:55:09 ◼   ► You could do stuff like that, that's true.

00:55:11 ◼   ► But I think the primary goal of this whole project

00:55:14 ◼   ► is to get to the AR glasses,

00:55:15 ◼   ► literally what this Orion prototype is.

00:55:17 ◼   ► So if we're talking about,

00:55:18 ◼   ► like does Apple have something like this?

00:55:20 ◼   ► I'll also point out, and I linked to it in my story,

00:55:23 ◼   ► in January of 2023,

00:55:25 ◼   ► Mark Gurman reported that they had

00:55:27 ◼   ► the AR glasses project at Apple,

00:55:29 ◼   ► and they set it aside to ship Vision Pro

00:55:32 ◼   ► because they decided that it was not a product

00:55:35 ◼   ► that they could ship right now.

00:55:36 ◼   ► And by right now, I think we literally mean like by now,

00:55:40 ◼   ► by 2024, 2025, they realized they couldn't do it.

00:55:44 ◼   ► And what I pointed out in my story is,

00:55:47 ◼   ► Apple and Meta learned the same lesson, right?

00:55:50 ◼   ► Which is, this is not a product that's ready yet.

00:55:52 ◼   ► We don't have the technology

00:55:53 ◼   ► to make this a product that people could buy.

00:55:55 ◼   ► And the difference is that Apple went

00:55:57 ◼   ► and made a product that is also unreasonable

00:56:00 ◼   ► for almost anybody to buy and incredibly expensive,

00:56:03 ◼   ► but at least sort of like it gets their platform out there,

00:56:06 ◼   ► which didn't exist before.

00:56:08 ◼   ► And there are all the issues

00:56:09 ◼   ► that we've detailed with the Vision Pro,

00:56:11 ◼   ► but it's interesting that they kind of did that.

00:56:13 ◼   ► What Meta did, again, I would say for understandable reasons

00:56:18 ◼   ► is show it to the world and say,

00:56:22 ◼   ► we can't ship this, but imagine.

00:56:24 ◼   ► And I see two companies going to the same place

00:56:28 ◼   ► and racing each other there,

00:56:30 ◼   ► but they just take different paths.

00:56:31 ◼   ► And the fact is a lot of people,

00:56:34 ◼   ► because they want a fun narrative or because they,

00:56:38 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't know, let's not even say why.

00:56:41 ◼   ► A lot of people repeatedly throughout decades

00:56:46 ◼   ► have looked at a promised product that doesn't exist

00:56:50 ◼   ► and isn't gonna ship for years, if ever,

00:56:52 ◼   ► and compare it to what Apple is shipping

00:56:54 ◼   ► and say, look, Apple is behind.

00:56:57 ◼   ► But the problem is that Apple is not playing that game.

00:56:59 ◼   ► Microsoft used to do this, everybody has done this,

00:57:02 ◼   ► where they know Apple's not gonna release anything.

00:57:04 ◼   ► So they announced something that's never gonna ship,

00:57:06 ◼   ► but say, look how cool we are.

00:57:08 ◼   ► And then eventually something ships

00:57:09 ◼   ► and it's way more expensive and way less useful

00:57:11 ◼   ► and many more years later.

00:57:14 ◼   ► And I mean, you can even go back to something like,

00:57:16 ◼   ► is Apple behind?

00:57:17 ◼   ► Apple missed the boat on big phones, right?

00:57:20 ◼   ► They were years, it was 10 years ago now

00:57:22 ◼   ► that they finally made larger iPhones.

00:57:24 ◼   ► They missed the boat where Samsung had big phones

00:57:28 ◼   ► for a couple of years and they didn't.

00:57:30 ◼   ► But that was something where they missed.

00:57:34 ◼   ► They weren't having a big skunkworks project

00:57:37 ◼   ► where the CEO was convinced that big phones were the future.

00:57:40 ◼   ► And two years pass and like, it doesn't matter.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Like it doesn't matter 'cause Apple ships big phones

00:57:46 ◼   ► and they do really well.

00:57:47 ◼   ► And there's a whole history of Apple being behind

00:57:50 ◼   ► and then they ship something and everybody, the iPhone.

00:57:53 ◼   ► I don't know if you remember this, Mike,

00:57:54 ◼   ► but for like three years before the iPhone was announced,

00:57:57 ◼   ► people were like, where's the Apple phone?

00:57:58 ◼   ► Apple's falling behind.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Treo's out there, you know, Sony's got their thing.

00:58:03 ◼   ► Like Apple's missing their opportunity here.

00:58:06 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that that's going

00:58:08 ◼   ► to repeat itself necessarily.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Again, I'm just saying it's a little frustrating

00:58:12 ◼   ► that people read Apple silence as that they've got nothing.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And I think with Apple intelligence, we can read it now

00:58:18 ◼   ► and say, ah, they kind of got caught flat-footed.

00:58:21 ◼   ► But Tim Cook has been talking about AR forever

00:58:25 ◼   ► and all the reports suggest that this kind of product

00:58:28 ◼   ► is Tim Cook's dream.

00:58:29 ◼   ► They set it aside in order to ship something

00:58:32 ◼   ► because I think they felt that there was a value

00:58:34 ◼   ► in shipping something and getting the platform warmed up.

00:58:38 ◼   ► But even when you look at Vision Pro,

00:58:40 ◼   ► I think you can see this is from a company that wants AR

00:58:43 ◼   ► and is less concerned with VR than they are AR,

00:58:46 ◼   ► which is why they focused on the pass-through.

00:58:48 ◼   ► - And all of the apps that they make, right?

00:58:50 ◼   ► Like they make apps that are windows

00:58:53 ◼   ► and these windows sit in the real world.

00:58:55 ◼   ► - And that's an advantage that Apple has

00:58:57 ◼   ► because they have a platform

00:58:58 ◼   ► with all the kind of productivity apps and not VR games,

00:59:00 ◼   ► which is interesting that now Meta

00:59:04 ◼   ► is embracing Android apps because it gets them that,

00:59:07 ◼   ► which I think actually makes a lot of sense for them too.

00:59:10 ◼   ► I think both these companies are doing things

00:59:11 ◼   ► that make sense for them.

00:59:13 ◼   ► But if Mark Gurman is reporting early last year

00:59:16 ◼   ► that Apple had already decided that their AR glasses

00:59:19 ◼   ► were not going to be shippable in the next couple of years,

00:59:23 ◼   ► doesn't that sound familiar?

00:59:24 ◼   ► The difference is they didn't tell anybody,

00:59:25 ◼   ► except I guess Mark Gurman,

00:59:27 ◼   ► somebody said something to Mark Gurman about it.

00:59:29 ◼   ► But it's a very,

00:59:32 ◼   ► both these companies know that this is where they wanna go

00:59:34 ◼   ► and they think there might be something there

00:59:37 ◼   ► and it's not practical today.

00:59:39 ◼   ► So what I got out of this is,

00:59:41 ◼   ► I do hope that Apple has kept its eye on the prize,

00:59:45 ◼   ► the kind of lackadaisical approach

00:59:48 ◼   ► that Apple has taken to Vision Pro since they launched it.

00:59:50 ◼   ► And I know nobody's buying it, right?

00:59:52 ◼   ► I know it's a very low volume product,

00:59:54 ◼   ► but I believe the only solution to that

00:59:57 ◼   ► is to keep investing in it.

00:59:58 ◼   ► And you just gotta try to get some momentum

01:00:02 ◼   ► so that as you move closer to your ultimate destination,

01:00:05 ◼   ► your platform has some momentum

01:00:07 ◼   ► and doesn't feel kind of just dead

01:00:10 ◼   ► and there's tumbleweeds rolling through it.

01:00:12 ◼   ► So that's all true, but they are going,

01:00:15 ◼   ► they seem to be going to the same place,

01:00:17 ◼   ► just doing it in private.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And then the details of this meta thing

01:00:22 ◼   ► are really interesting, right?

01:00:23 ◼   ► Like it's hard not to look at the puck in the pocket

01:00:27 ◼   ► that does all the compute and the thing on your wrist

01:00:30 ◼   ► that does all of the sort of like detection of movement

01:00:33 ◼   ► so that you can control the interface and not think,

01:00:35 ◼   ► I mean, Apple has products that do that today, right?

01:00:37 ◼   ► That's an iPhone and an Apple Watch.

01:00:39 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that Apple AR glasses

01:00:41 ◼   ► would require an iPhone and an Apple Watch,

01:00:44 ◼   ► but I mean, they totally could.

01:00:46 ◼   ► The Apple Watch requires an iPhone.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Why not have the glasses require an iPhone and an Apple Watch

01:00:51 ◼   ► to do that?

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like Apple has a lot of this tech already.

01:00:54 ◼   ► They just don't have the glasses

01:00:55 ◼   ► because nobody has the glasses

01:00:57 ◼   ► 'cause they're not a thing

01:00:58 ◼   ► that anybody can ship at any price.

01:00:59 ◼   ► So what I get out of this is one,

01:01:03 ◼   ► I'm disappointed that people look at a prototype

01:01:05 ◼   ► and over-hype it as something.

01:01:07 ◼   ► And I'm not saying like Ben Thompson did this.

01:01:08 ◼   ► He disclaimed everything,

01:01:10 ◼   ► but there's so much of like,

01:01:11 ◼   ► let's compare this thing that meta has.

01:01:13 ◼   ► That's not a thing and they don't have it, right?

01:01:15 ◼   ► It's not a thing they can ship.

01:01:17 ◼   ► And if they could ship it,

01:01:18 ◼   ► nobody would buy it 'cause it would be too expensive.

01:01:20 ◼   ► And there are lots of pieces of it

01:01:22 ◼   ► that are probably not even there in terms of the demo.

01:01:25 ◼   ► The software is not in a position

01:01:27 ◼   ► to ship to consumers or anything.

01:01:28 ◼   ► It's a tech demo.

01:01:29 ◼   ► So let's take it for what it is.

01:01:31 ◼   ► - But they did do it. - What it is, yeah.

01:01:34 ◼   ► But if we take it for what it is,

01:01:36 ◼   ► what it is is by all accounts, incredibly impressive.

01:01:41 ◼   ► It makes me think that this product category

01:01:43 ◼   ► is more likely to exist sooner than I thought it would be.

01:01:47 ◼   ► I thought it would be more like a decade

01:01:49 ◼   ► before a product like this really shipped.

01:01:50 ◼   ► And now, based on what meta is saying,

01:01:53 ◼   ► 'cause Apple's not gonna talk about it,

01:01:54 ◼   ► I think, oh, maybe end of this decade

01:01:57 ◼   ► is more realistic for it.

01:01:58 ◼   ► Although, and I'm excited by that.

01:02:01 ◼   ► I think it's a really cool idea.

01:02:02 ◼   ► The idea that you would have an interface,

01:02:03 ◼   ► their interface is very Vision Pro-like as well.

01:02:06 ◼   ► And the idea that you would just have

01:02:08 ◼   ► little Vision Pro windows kinda hanging around wherever

01:02:11 ◼   ► in your vision as you move around the world,

01:02:13 ◼   ► but you're seeing the actual world,

01:02:15 ◼   ► like, of course, that would be way better.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I just wanna put, as enthusiastic as I am about that though,

01:02:21 ◼   ► I gotta put a cap on it, which is when this thing ships,

01:02:23 ◼   ► when these things ship, they're gonna be really expensive.

01:02:26 ◼   ► And there's gonna be a lot of controversy and think pieces

01:02:29 ◼   ► about like, do we really want overlays on the world

01:02:32 ◼   ► and all of that.

01:02:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'm still in that camp.

01:02:37 ◼   ► Like, I'm not sure I need notifications in my eyes.

01:02:42 ◼   ► - In my face all the time.

01:02:43 ◼   ► - I don't know if I want that.

01:02:45 ◼   ► - I mean, we'll see, we'll see.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Maybe your AI agent will take care of it and it'll be fine.

01:02:49 ◼   ► - I mean, but maybe though, right?

01:02:50 ◼   ► Like maybe, I mean, this is the thing, right?

01:02:52 ◼   ► So I mean, I've been talking about for a while, right?

01:02:55 ◼   ► Like when Vision Pro was coming, it was like, well, this,

01:02:59 ◼   ► I'm not sure that this is what people will want,

01:03:02 ◼   ► but this is the thing that technology companies

01:03:05 ◼   ► have identified as the place they can go to, right?

01:03:08 ◼   ► Like we need to continue making the next iPhone.

01:03:12 ◼   ► So what is it?

01:03:13 ◼   ► Well, let's make VR AR products, right?

01:03:17 ◼   ► Apple was doing it, Manta was doing it.

01:03:18 ◼   ► Then AI came around and it seemed like everyone was like,

01:03:22 ◼   ► oh, forget about that.

01:03:23 ◼   ► We're going to go over here now.

01:03:25 ◼   ► But now having seen Orion,

01:03:27 ◼   ► the conclusion that I have drawn like others have

01:03:31 ◼   ► is actually the next thing is the combination

01:03:35 ◼   ► of these two pieces of technology.

01:03:38 ◼   ► - Sure, because that thing's also going to have

01:03:39 ◼   ► an intelligent agent that's voice driven

01:03:41 ◼   ► or that you can control with your hands

01:03:43 ◼   ► if you don't want to speak out loud

01:03:45 ◼   ► and it's going to all be AI enriched.

01:03:47 ◼   ► So it's all going to have the dream of,

01:03:50 ◼   ► and I know AI is very divisive, but I will just say,

01:03:52 ◼   ► the dream is that you have a personal assistant

01:03:54 ◼   ► that understands you and can do your tasks.

01:03:56 ◼   ► And that's where Apple's trying to go

01:03:57 ◼   ► with the personal context is that same thing.

01:03:59 ◼   ► It's like, it knows everything about you.

01:04:01 ◼   ► It's private on your device.

01:04:03 ◼   ► It's an interface to draw things up for you.

01:04:05 ◼   ► You don't have to do as much drudgery

01:04:07 ◼   ► in terms of like manipulating apps.

01:04:09 ◼   ► - And being glasses and the way that these products work,

01:04:12 ◼   ► it can see what you see.

01:04:14 ◼   ► That is very, very powerful.

01:04:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh, absolutely.

01:04:18 ◼   ► Super important.

01:04:19 ◼   ► That's why I think Apple should make

01:04:21 ◼   ► the equivalent of the meta-ray bands

01:04:23 ◼   ► is that you pair those with an iPhone

01:04:25 ◼   ► and you've given your AirPods essentially a camera.

01:04:27 ◼   ► And there's so much more you can do

01:04:30 ◼   ► if the device can see what you see

01:04:33 ◼   ► and know what you're looking at

01:04:34 ◼   ► and know where you are and all of that.

01:04:38 ◼   ► Anyway, my wet blanket comment here is

01:04:42 ◼   ► even if they ship this thing

01:04:43 ◼   ► and it costs $3,000 or $2,500 or $4,000

01:04:47 ◼   ► and it's 2029 or 2030, whoever ships it,

01:04:50 ◼   ► I think it'll be more expensive than you want it to be.

01:04:53 ◼   ► And it will be a 1.0 product.

01:04:56 ◼   ► I mean, I think that the truth is that Meta and Apple

01:04:59 ◼   ► are both shipping existing VR platforms now

01:05:02 ◼   ► so that they can do the software development

01:05:04 ◼   ► for this in public, right?

01:05:05 ◼   ► That's essentially what they're both doing

01:05:07 ◼   ► is it'll be based on their OS's, Horizon and Vision OS,

01:05:11 ◼   ► and it will come.

01:05:13 ◼   ► And even then we'll have all those think pieces

01:05:16 ◼   ► and the battery life will be bad and it'll be weird

01:05:20 ◼   ► and it'll be expensive.

01:05:21 ◼   ► And if it is going to become a hit product

01:05:24 ◼   ► where people actually want these things,

01:05:26 ◼   ► I haven't even mentioned the fact

01:05:27 ◼   ► that a lot of people are resistant to wearing glasses

01:05:29 ◼   ► if they don't wear glasses.

01:05:31 ◼   ► - Well, I wear glasses, but glasses for me

01:05:35 ◼   ► are an item that I want to be fashionable.

01:05:39 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:05:40 ◼   ► - And like I have the Meta Ray-Bans,

01:05:42 ◼   ► I really like them as sunglasses,

01:05:44 ◼   ► but for how I want to look,

01:05:47 ◼   ► they are not what I want to wear as glasses.

01:05:50 ◼   ► - Right, so there's some fashion challenges

01:05:51 ◼   ► even if you are willing to wear glasses,

01:05:54 ◼   ► are you willing to wear these glasses?

01:05:55 ◼   ► There's a lot going on.

01:05:56 ◼   ► What I'm saying is if this is the next iPhone,

01:05:59 ◼   ► my most optimistic guess that this would become something

01:06:03 ◼   ► that would really have momentum

01:06:04 ◼   ► and that lots and lots of people were buying it,

01:06:06 ◼   ► my optimistic guess would be 2035

01:06:09 ◼   ► and my realistic guess would be 2040.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Long time away.

01:06:14 ◼   ► I think that's just the way it's going to be.

01:06:16 ◼   ► And I'm saying that as somebody who's enthusiastic

01:06:18 ◼   ► about this product category, so it's just going to take time.

01:06:21 ◼   ► And that's, you know, the truth is we live in an era

01:06:24 ◼   ► where companies have so much money

01:06:26 ◼   ► that they can preemptively work on future products

01:06:29 ◼   ► because they don't want to get beaten

01:06:32 ◼   ► in a key product category.

01:06:34 ◼   ► They have so much money that they just want to make sure

01:06:36 ◼   ► that they win or don't lose.

01:06:38 ◼   ► And that's what Apple's doing and that's what Meta's doing.

01:06:39 ◼   ► So, 'cause Meta missed the smartphone revolution

01:06:43 ◼   ► and they don't want to do that again.

01:06:44 ◼   ► They want to be there.

01:06:45 ◼   ► And right now it's shaping up like they're

01:06:47 ◼   ► the strongest players

01:06:49 ◼   ► 'cause they were willing to spend the money,

01:06:50 ◼   ► Apple's willing to spend the money.

01:06:52 ◼   ► And if this is a product category as a hit,

01:06:54 ◼   ► they will both benefit probably for decades to come.

01:06:57 ◼   ► It's worth the investment, I think.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - I don't know that Meta has or Mark Zuckerberg

01:07:04 ◼   ► has new marketing and PR people,

01:07:06 ◼   ► but I really think that he does.

01:07:08 ◼   ► 'Cause like, since Threads came out,

01:07:11 ◼   ► he is a different person.

01:07:13 ◼   ► His image, the way he speaks.

01:07:16 ◼   ► - Everything seems a little less weird.

01:07:17 ◼   ► - Everything's less weird.

01:07:18 ◼   ► He seems like a more of a normal dude.

01:07:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, he was very, very Howard Hughes-like

01:07:23 ◼   ► where it's like, oh, weird rich dude

01:07:25 ◼   ► gets weirder by the year.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And now it's sort of like, oh yeah, it's Zuckerberg.

01:07:29 ◼   ► He's a character, just like Steve Jobs was a character.

01:07:31 ◼   ► But yes, yeah, I agree.

01:07:35 ◼   ► There has been a little bit of a shift there.

01:07:37 ◼   ► - I think this is part of it,

01:07:39 ◼   ► where they're like, oh, why don't we now

01:07:40 ◼   ► just establish ourselves as a market leader?

01:07:45 ◼   ► And they did it in a great way too, I think.

01:07:47 ◼   ► - I would say that what Meta has,

01:07:50 ◼   ► that Google also has is a core business

01:07:52 ◼   ► that is incredibly profitable.

01:07:54 ◼   ► It's not cool.

01:07:58 ◼   ► It's boring, but it's incredibly profitable.

01:08:00 ◼   ► And you use that money to fund your other things.

01:08:03 ◼   ► And Meta, for a long time, I felt like

01:08:06 ◼   ► kind of didn't do that.

01:08:07 ◼   ► They were a business that was incredibly profitable

01:08:09 ◼   ► and just kept doing the same thing

01:08:10 ◼   ► or buying other people's things.

01:08:12 ◼   ► But they seem to have turned the page a little bit now,

01:08:16 ◼   ► where with the VR stuff and what their vision is

01:08:18 ◼   ► for AR stuff, and the Ray-Bans, and Threads,

01:08:23 ◼   ► and I feel like they are, they feel,

01:08:27 ◼   ► I mean, when Steven and I were doing download,

01:08:30 ◼   ► it was during all of the kind of Facebook controversies

01:08:33 ◼   ► and all of that.

01:08:33 ◼   ► And it was so dispiriting and crushing.

01:08:35 ◼   ► And I felt like Facebook was just a force

01:08:37 ◼   ► to make the world terrible.

01:08:39 ◼   ► And now, and I'm not saying they're a force

01:08:42 ◼   ► to make the world good,

01:08:43 ◼   ► but I'm saying now they feel like a tech company.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Now they feel like a tech giant.

01:08:47 ◼   ► They don't feel like a parasite

01:08:49 ◼   ► that's just trying to ruin the world

01:08:50 ◼   ► while it generates money for its owners.

01:08:53 ◼   ► They feel like Google.

01:08:55 ◼   ► They feel kind of like that.

01:08:57 ◼   ► They've got products.

01:08:58 ◼   ► And I look at some of their decisions and I go,

01:09:00 ◼   ► well, that's real weird.

01:09:01 ◼   ► But others, I go, oh, that's very interesting.

01:09:04 ◼   ► And I see how, from a meta perspective, that makes sense.

01:09:07 ◼   ► So they, yeah, there's interesting pivot there.

01:09:10 ◼   ► - I think the main thing that changed for them

01:09:12 ◼   ► is they don't really seem to talk about Facebook anymore.

01:09:16 ◼   ► - Oh, that's absolutely true.

01:09:18 ◼   ► That's absolutely true. - The company is Meta,

01:09:20 ◼   ► which great rebrand for them.

01:09:22 ◼   ► They talk about Instagram, they talk about Threads,

01:09:25 ◼   ► and they talk about the Horizon products,

01:09:29 ◼   ► the Horizon labs, reality labs.

01:09:31 ◼   ► I'm sure they spend time talking about Facebook

01:09:34 ◼   ► when they need to, but I am very plugged in to technology,

01:09:38 ◼   ► right, obviously, and I listen to a lot of interviews

01:09:43 ◼   ► that Zuckerberg gives.

01:09:44 ◼   ► It's so rare for them to really spend time

01:09:47 ◼   ► talking about Facebook.

01:09:49 ◼   ► And I think that that is key to the company.

01:09:51 ◼   ► I think they're trying to move beyond Facebook, right?

01:09:55 ◼   ► And what he has clearly wanted,

01:09:57 ◼   ► and I think during their struggles over those years,

01:10:00 ◼   ► and the reason they didn't invest in stuff

01:10:02 ◼   ► like what they're doing now,

01:10:04 ◼   ► is he was flailing trying to find a platform, right?

01:10:08 ◼   ► He wanted his iPhone, and I think he's found it.

01:10:13 ◼   ► Now, wherever he can convert that, that's what I mean.

01:10:17 ◼   ► I think he has found the thing

01:10:19 ◼   ► that he thinks he can do, right, legitimately,

01:10:21 ◼   ► where he's not following.

01:10:23 ◼   ► - I mean, honestly, the AI stuff they're doing

01:10:25 ◼   ► is also very interesting,

01:10:27 ◼   ► where they might be more of a player there

01:10:29 ◼   ► than people understood.

01:10:31 ◼   ► I think it's interesting, you're right,

01:10:33 ◼   ► as silly in some ways as the meta rebrand was,

01:10:36 ◼   ► I actually think that it's been pretty successful,

01:10:38 ◼   ► in that it allows them to not be Facebook

01:10:40 ◼   ► and not talk about Facebook.

01:10:41 ◼   ► And it's successful in a way,

01:10:42 ◼   ► I wanna just draw a parallel here,

01:10:44 ◼   ► successful in a way that Google's wasn't.

01:10:45 ◼   ► - I was just gonna say that, yeah.

01:10:47 ◼   ► 'Cause Google wants to be Alphabet,

01:10:49 ◼   ► or wanted to be Alphabet, and they're not,

01:10:52 ◼   ► they're still Google,

01:10:53 ◼   ► which means that everything else that goes on

01:10:56 ◼   ► is seen through the lens of Google and Google search

01:10:58 ◼   ► and Google ads and all of that,

01:11:00 ◼   ► which is totally not what they wanted, right?

01:11:02 ◼   ► They wanted it to be like a bunch of different products,

01:11:06 ◼   ► including Google, so you could not think about Google

01:11:08 ◼   ► if you didn't want to,

01:11:09 ◼   ► and thought about just this amazing tech company

01:11:12 ◼   ► that has Google as one of its products,

01:11:13 ◼   ► and they failed at that.

01:11:14 ◼   ► And I would make the argument that they failed at that

01:11:18 ◼   ► for a very Microsoftian reason,

01:11:21 ◼   ► which is in the Steve Jobs, or Steve Jobs, sorry,

01:11:25 ◼   ► Steve Ballmer era, developers, developers, developers,

01:11:27 ◼   ► Steve Ballmer era of Microsoft,

01:11:29 ◼   ► everything had to be Windows.

01:11:31 ◼   ► And it was destructive to Microsoft's brand,

01:11:34 ◼   ► because everything had to be tied to Windows,

01:11:36 ◼   ► even if it wasn't related to Windows,

01:11:38 ◼   ► and Windows was very successful,

01:11:40 ◼   ► but it was distorting Microsoft's strategy

01:11:45 ◼   ► and its brand identity.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And with Google, I see a similar thing.

01:11:49 ◼   ► Not only are there product development things

01:11:51 ◼   ► all over the place and they keep destroying,

01:11:53 ◼   ► they launch things, they shut things back down,

01:11:56 ◼   ► makes people very sad and very angry,

01:11:58 ◼   ► but they can't let go of Google.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Like they just, they can't let go of Google as a brand.

01:12:03 ◼   ► So there's so many things that are just, it's Google this,

01:12:05 ◼   ► like they bought Nest, what is Nest now?

01:12:07 ◼   ► It's Google, it's Google, Google Home, it's Google.

01:12:12 ◼   ► And like Android, it's like, it's Android,

01:12:17 ◼   ► but it's Google.

01:12:19 ◼   ► They didn't create a different brand,

01:12:21 ◼   ► they didn't lean into Android, they just, they,

01:12:23 ◼   ► so it's interesting that Google tried to get out

01:12:26 ◼   ► from under Google and then it just gave up,

01:12:28 ◼   ► it seems to me, it just gave up.

01:12:29 ◼   ► Meta, even though AI turned out to be more important

01:12:33 ◼   ► than they thought, and that the metaverse original idea,

01:12:37 ◼   ► Mark Zuckerberg had, which I think was more VR oriented,

01:12:40 ◼   ► has sort of faded in the background,

01:12:41 ◼   ► it seems to become more interested in this AR with Orion,

01:12:45 ◼   ► Meta seems to have done a better job of bearing,

01:12:48 ◼   ► probably because they're not as proud of Facebook

01:12:50 ◼   ► as Google is of Google search, right?

01:12:52 ◼   ► That would be my guess,

01:12:53 ◼   ► is Facebook is just an embarrassing product.

01:12:56 ◼   ► That is nothing but controversies.

01:12:58 ◼   ► It's old, it's old media, it's social media for old people.

01:13:02 ◼   ► It's not, it's very profitable,

01:13:04 ◼   ► but it's kind of embarrassing.

01:13:05 ◼   ► And then they've had numerous scandals

01:13:07 ◼   ► and they kind of want you to forget about it.

01:13:09 ◼   ► And Google, like Microsoft with Windows, like,

01:13:12 ◼   ► no, no, this is core to who we are.

01:13:14 ◼   ► You don't, you can't forget Windows.

01:13:15 ◼   ► You can't forget Google.

01:13:17 ◼   ► Or Meta is like, Facebook?

01:13:20 ◼   ► Oh, I suppose, that's a name I haven't heard

01:13:22 ◼   ► in quite some time, right?

01:13:23 ◼   ► I suppose that's still a website that's available

01:13:25 ◼   ► that we own, but we're focused

01:13:27 ◼   ► on all these other products too.

01:13:29 ◼   ► And you know, I guess kudos to them

01:13:31 ◼   ► to try to skate away from that one.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - Overall though, I like what they did here.

01:13:38 ◼   ► I think they, I think this is good.

01:13:39 ◼   ► I think it's exciting and interesting.

01:13:41 ◼   ► And I'm not saying they should, but if I was at Apple,

01:13:44 ◼   ► I would at least consider it like more than before.

01:13:48 ◼   ► You know, like, would it be beneficial to do,

01:13:51 ◼   ► to give someone an exclusive?

01:13:52 ◼   ► To be like, this is what our vision for the next 10 years?

01:13:56 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't know.

01:13:57 ◼   ► - It's, what I ended up saying in the piece is,

01:14:00 ◼   ► a lot of different ways to play this game.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Meta's playing by one set of rules, it's set of rules.

01:14:03 ◼   ► App is playing by its set of rules,

01:14:05 ◼   ► but they're playing the same game and game on.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Although really game on is when somebody ships

01:14:09 ◼   ► a pair of glasses, 'cause otherwise it's all pregame.

01:14:12 ◼   ► It's all like everybody jockeying for position.

01:14:15 ◼   ► - They're setting the rules of the game right now.

01:14:16 ◼   ► There isn't actually a game.

01:14:18 ◼   ► - But like it's on, it's on.

01:14:20 ◼   ► And that, I think that's good.

01:14:22 ◼   ► There was a time before Steve Jobs came back to Apple

01:14:25 ◼   ► where Apple would occasionally do kind of exclusive things

01:14:28 ◼   ► where they would show you some of the stuff

01:14:30 ◼   ► that they were doing.

01:14:31 ◼   ► It was a bad time for Apple.

01:14:32 ◼   ► And it felt like they were kind of trying to justify

01:14:34 ◼   ► the existence of their R&D labs

01:14:36 ◼   ► by showing you ridiculous things that would never ship.

01:14:38 ◼   ► And it's not very Apple.

01:14:40 ◼   ► I do wonder though, if there is a discussion to be had,

01:14:43 ◼   ► at this point, it would almost sound like a me too

01:14:46 ◼   ► with them is the thing.

01:14:48 ◼   ► But I wonder if there's a marketing discussion to be had

01:14:50 ◼   ► of like, why wouldn't we maybe next year at WWDC,

01:14:54 ◼   ► do a session that's like a special preview

01:14:57 ◼   ► of where Vision OS technologies are going

01:15:00 ◼   ► that drops a bunch of really heavy hints

01:15:03 ◼   ► about what Apple's got in its lab,

01:15:05 ◼   ► just to make it clear what Apple's vision is for Vision OS.

01:15:10 ◼   ► Because that is, you know,

01:15:13 ◼   ► there'll be two years on from announcing Vision Pro

01:15:16 ◼   ► with maybe no new announcements

01:15:18 ◼   ► other than Vision OS updates.

01:15:20 ◼   ► It might be useful for them to either,

01:15:23 ◼   ► under their own control or with a friendly media partner,

01:15:27 ◼   ► do a kind of what's Tim Cook's idea

01:15:31 ◼   ► of where Apple is going with these products

01:15:33 ◼   ► that allows them to kind of counter the perception

01:15:35 ◼   ► that meta's on this, is Apple doing this or not?

01:15:40 ◼   ► - I would maybe go a little further in my ideal.

01:15:43 ◼   ► The reason being is the Vision Pro is partly out there

01:15:47 ◼   ► to encourage development, right?

01:15:49 ◼   ► So that when Apple, as Apple continues down this road,

01:15:53 ◼   ► they will have a very good suite of products

01:15:56 ◼   ► like software to produce, it's not happening, right?

01:15:59 ◼   ► Like for reasons we detail,

01:16:01 ◼   ► for many reasons it's not happening.

01:16:03 ◼   ► Another way to maybe get this to happen is to be like,

01:16:06 ◼   ► oh, by the way, there is a really good reason

01:16:09 ◼   ► why you might wanna consider developing for this platform

01:16:12 ◼   ► so you'll be ready for the next one.

01:16:15 ◼   ► 'Cause look, I think Apple's usual desire to keep quiet,

01:16:20 ◼   ► this is maybe one of the only times

01:16:22 ◼   ► when I think they've been pushed hard enough

01:16:24 ◼   ► that it might be worth responding, 'cause--

01:16:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, in some way. - In some way.

01:16:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, in some way. - Last point,

01:16:30 ◼   ► and then we'll move on from this.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Obviously the big thing here is what meta has produced

01:16:35 ◼   ► is a pair of glasses, a wristband, and a compute device.

01:16:39 ◼   ► The issue they have here is that is Apple Glasses,

01:16:44 ◼   ► Apple Watch, iPhone, that's what that is for Apple,

01:16:48 ◼   ► which is why if both companies produce this technology

01:16:53 ◼   ► and it's the same idea, Apple has a significant leg up,

01:16:56 ◼   ► because a lot of people already have both of those things.

01:16:59 ◼   ► That is the uphill battle that they're gonna fight.

01:17:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, unless meta, and this is an interesting question,

01:17:05 ◼   ► like in the long run, does meta partner

01:17:07 ◼   ► with Android phone makers to be the compute device for it?

01:17:12 ◼   ► - Possibly, or that I hope the Department of Justice

01:17:16 ◼   ► can sort it out for me. - Well, I was gonna say,

01:17:18 ◼   ► if you could tie into the Apple Watch

01:17:21 ◼   ► because there's some sort of API thing

01:17:23 ◼   ► where they're forced to open it up, then maybe,

01:17:26 ◼   ► but you could also just use Android smartwatches

01:17:27 ◼   ► and Android phones and create a kind of an alternate path,

01:17:31 ◼   ► because yeah, I think Apple has an advantage

01:17:33 ◼   ► in that people have iPhones and Apple Watches already,

01:17:36 ◼   ► and they could use those, they could build those,

01:17:38 ◼   ► and it's not unbelievable at all to imagine

01:17:43 ◼   ► that that would be what Apple would do

01:17:46 ◼   ► is this works with your iPhone and your Apple Watch,

01:17:48 ◼   ► and then you put these glasses on,

01:17:49 ◼   ► and they're like our old glasses,

01:17:52 ◼   ► you know, the ones that just had a camera and speakers,

01:17:55 ◼   ► but these now have an overlay, right?

01:17:57 ◼   ► Because presumably at that point,

01:17:58 ◼   ► they'll have a product like that,

01:17:59 ◼   ► and then this one has the AR overlay,

01:18:02 ◼   ► but they're, you know, 'cause any other glasses,

01:18:04 ◼   ► any meta Ray-Ban style glasses that Apple did

01:18:07 ◼   ► would almost certainly work with iPhone and Apple Watch,

01:18:11 ◼   ► right, and that would all be part of the equation anyway.

01:18:15 ◼   ► - Friend of the show, Austin Evans, got one of these demos,

01:18:17 ◼   ► and he produced a video, and he had a detail in his video

01:18:20 ◼   ► that I'd not seen anywhere else,

01:18:22 ◼   ► so he sat down with Andrew Bosworth, so Bos, meta CTO,

01:18:27 ◼   ► and as part of their conversation--

01:18:28 ◼   ► - Jaws Bos, we're gonna get a Jaws Bos battle,

01:18:31 ◼   ► Jaws Bos battle. - Indeed, Jaws Bos,

01:18:32 ◼   ► Jaws versus Bos fight.

01:18:34 ◼   ► As part of the conversation,

01:18:35 ◼   ► they're looking at a previous prototype version,

01:18:38 ◼   ► which is also the like translucent plastic,

01:18:41 ◼   ► and Austin picks up the compute model and he's like,

01:18:43 ◼   ► is that a camera?

01:18:46 ◼   ► And Bos is like, oh, yeah, we were thinking about

01:18:49 ◼   ► maybe doing other things with this,

01:18:50 ◼   ► but we're not doing that now.

01:18:52 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, so there was a previous version of this

01:18:55 ◼   ► where they tried to put more technology into compute thing,

01:18:58 ◼   ► so like you could use it.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Obviously, one of these was like,

01:19:01 ◼   ► should we make a phone again, I expect, is part of--

01:19:04 ◼   ► - Also, it's a phone.

01:19:05 ◼   ► I mean, it's a phone without a display.

01:19:08 ◼   ► I mean, it's a phone, right?

01:19:09 ◼   ► It's a compute, oh, a module that has lots of computing power

01:19:13 ◼   ► that you carry in your pocket.

01:19:15 ◼   ► What could that be, right?

01:19:16 ◼   ► - Mark, don't make a phone, don't do it.

01:19:19 ◼   ► I know the temptation is there, but don't do it again.

01:19:21 ◼   ► I don't think you can make that work,

01:19:24 ◼   ► but you could maybe try and find a way

01:19:26 ◼   ► to make this work otherwise.

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01:20:47 ◼   ► Let's finish out with some Ask Upgrade questions.

01:20:51 ◼   ► Prathramesh asks, "Should the iPad get the camera control?"

01:20:58 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting, interesting.

01:21:04 ◼   ► I am not a big fan of the controls on the iPad in general.

01:21:08 ◼   ► I very rarely, I mean, I'll use the volume button

01:21:10 ◼   ► to make sure the volume is down or up,

01:21:12 ◼   ► but like, I don't even use the sleep/wake button that much

01:21:16 ◼   ► because I have a cover on it, so I don't know.

01:21:19 ◼   ► I mean, I guess, I mean, I guess something,

01:21:24 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I mean, iPads are used,

01:21:26 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of how you'd hold it

01:21:28 ◼   ► and it seems like not great, not, yeah.

01:21:32 ◼   ► - I would prefer an action button on the iPad.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Sooner than I would want a camera control on the iPad.

01:21:40 ◼   ► I just don't take enough photos of my iPad.

01:21:42 ◼   ► And I do like take photos with my iPad,

01:21:45 ◼   ► like when I'm doing design work, like I do it.

01:21:47 ◼   ► But I just think with the way in which,

01:21:49 ◼   ► especially the 12.9,

01:21:51 ◼   ► the way I've got to hold that device to take a photo,

01:21:54 ◼   ► I just don't think the camera control

01:21:55 ◼   ► it would be ergonomically good.

01:21:57 ◼   ► Like in the way we were talking about it earlier.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Imagine, imagine that, you know,

01:22:02 ◼   ► you're holding this big iPad screen

01:22:04 ◼   ► and you're like trying to get your hand up

01:22:06 ◼   ► just so you can like, I don't think that would work.

01:22:08 ◼   ► - No.

01:22:10 ◼   ► - Steven asks, Mike, how is your search going

01:22:12 ◼   ► for new headphones since the disappointing

01:22:14 ◼   ► non-announcement for AirPods Max?

01:22:16 ◼   ► So I did a little Googling around

01:22:19 ◼   ► and basically where I landed is the Sony's are the,

01:22:23 ◼   ► the Sony over-ear noise canceling headphones

01:22:26 ◼   ► are the product that everybody likes,

01:22:28 ◼   ► but they haven't had a new model in a while, it seems like.

01:22:30 ◼   ► So I think now I'm going to wait for

01:22:34 ◼   ► whatever is deemed to be like a really great pair

01:22:38 ◼   ► of over-ear noise canceling headphones

01:22:40 ◼   ► and I'm going to jump in on those.

01:22:42 ◼   ► I love my AirPods Max, like when I was traveling,

01:22:46 ◼   ► you know, I was watching them,

01:22:47 ◼   ► I find those things very comfortable.

01:22:49 ◼   ► I love the Apple's noise cancellation and transparency.

01:22:52 ◼   ► I love how easily it connects to all my devices,

01:22:55 ◼   ► but it just feels like a product in the lineup

01:23:00 ◼   ► and I don't really necessarily want to be on that,

01:23:03 ◼   ► especially with like flimsy cable that I have to use.

01:23:09 ◼   ► And I want to be able to use a pair of headphones

01:23:12 ◼   ► more easily.

01:23:14 ◼   ► So like, for example, when I travel,

01:23:16 ◼   ► my over-ear headphones also become my podcasting headphones.

01:23:20 ◼   ► And so I'm looking for a pair of headphones

01:23:22 ◼   ► that actually do a better job for that

01:23:24 ◼   ► than the AirPods Max do.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Like the way that you have to connect the lightning cable

01:23:29 ◼   ► to the 3.5 millimeter, like I just don't like that.

01:23:32 ◼   ► I actually had a cable die on me on this last trip.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Luckily I have a spare for just in case this happens.

01:23:38 ◼   ► So these are definitely on the way out for me,

01:23:40 ◼   ► but I'm not sure where to go yet.

01:23:44 ◼   ► I'm waiting for a product revision.

01:23:46 ◼   ► I did have my eye on the Sonos Ace.

01:23:48 ◼   ► They look interesting, but I want to wait for Sony

01:23:53 ◼   ► because Sony have always been market leaders

01:23:55 ◼   ► in this category.

01:23:56 ◼   ► And so I want to see what happens there.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Just got a good question in the Discord

01:24:01 ◼   ► that I wanted to bring out actually from Tony

01:24:02 ◼   ► who asks if I brought my Vision Pro on the trip to Memphis.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Didn't even think about it and was really annoyed

01:24:07 ◼   ► that I didn't think about it.

01:24:08 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause you got solo international flights.

01:24:11 ◼   ► You could have brought it and like watch movies and stuff.

01:24:13 ◼   ► - I was on my own on this trip.

01:24:14 ◼   ► And so in the evenings, it would have been great

01:24:16 ◼   ► to watch movies and TV on my Vision Pro,

01:24:18 ◼   ► but I didn't even think about it.

01:24:20 ◼   ► I was really annoyed about that.

01:24:21 ◼   ► I won't make that mistake again on a trip like this

01:24:24 ◼   ► because I did really want it, but I forgot about it

01:24:27 ◼   ► 'cause I'd never done it.

01:24:28 ◼   ► - I watched a college football game in my hotel room

01:24:32 ◼   ► on the Vision Pro actually.

01:24:34 ◼   ► - See, this is what I wanted to do.

01:24:35 ◼   ► It's just like for context, this is the first time

01:24:38 ◼   ► I've gotten on a plane since I bought it.

01:24:40 ◼   ► I have not taken any more trips this year.

01:24:44 ◼   ► And so it didn't even cross my mind, but next time--

01:24:48 ◼   ► - You keep it at work and you were at home

01:24:49 ◼   ► and so it was like-- - Exactly.

01:24:51 ◼   ► 'Cause I wasn't at home for, I'm sorry,

01:24:54 ◼   ► I wasn't at the studio for like three days before I left.

01:24:57 ◼   ► So like it wasn't really on the line.

01:24:58 ◼   ► - So you would have had to think that far in advance

01:24:59 ◼   ► about taking it and you didn't do it and all that.

01:25:01 ◼   ► No, I brought, I didn't use it on the plane.

01:25:03 ◼   ► I did think about using it on the plane

01:25:04 ◼   ► and on that long flight back.

01:25:06 ◼   ► But the fact is what I discovered is a long flight

01:25:10 ◼   ► is a great time to watch a movie.

01:25:11 ◼   ► But for me, you're not gonna believe this, Mike.

01:25:14 ◼   ► It's a great time to read a book.

01:25:17 ◼   ► - No way.

01:25:18 ◼   ► - I read like four books on my trip to and from Memphis.

01:25:20 ◼   ► Like it's a great, and I think that's my happy place

01:25:23 ◼   ► is AirPods in, noise canceling on, music playing,

01:25:26 ◼   ► reading a book on my Kobo.

01:25:28 ◼   ► I very rarely watch movies and TV shows on planes.

01:25:34 ◼   ► And so even though I had my Vision Pro both ways,

01:25:37 ◼   ► I didn't bother because I was just enjoying reading a book.

01:25:40 ◼   ► So, but I did enjoy watching the college football game

01:25:43 ◼   ► in my hotel room.

01:25:43 ◼   ► That was great.

01:25:44 ◼   ► I mean, it was bad in the sense that my team lost.

01:25:49 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:25:50 ◼   ► - But it was great that it was like a huge screen

01:25:52 ◼   ► and I was able to watch, you know,

01:25:54 ◼   ► the big screen just on the wall of my hotel room.

01:25:57 ◼   ► That part was great.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - I still don't know if I could bring myself

01:26:01 ◼   ► to wear a Vision Pro on a plane.

01:26:05 ◼   ► I don't think I could do that yet.

01:26:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you gotta be that guy.

01:26:09 ◼   ► - I'd be too embarrassed.

01:26:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, could be.