Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:07 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 532. Today's show is brought to you by ZocDoc, Vanta, NetSuite and Masterclass.

00:00:17 ◼   ► It is The Annies, our annual year in review episode. I am your Ricky Benchman, Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of introducing Federico Vittucci. Hi Federico.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Hello Mike, how are you?

00:00:29 ◼   ► I'm good, I'm feeling very good, I'm excited for today.

00:00:31 ◼   ► You're feeling good? Yeah, it's a great episode coming up and for this episode we're also joined by Stephen Hackett. Hello Stephen.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Hey boys.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Hello.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Another year, another year gone, one step closer to the end.

00:00:48 ◼   ► That's a Linkin Park reference.

00:00:50 ◼   ► It is.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Oh okay, that just seemed really dark to me as someone who's not deep in the lore, you know?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yeah, so yes it is The Annies. You may be thinking, wait, what is this? Well we do it every year. The premise is pretty simple, it's our annual year in review.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Months are graded on the Tichi scale, we should talk about the Tichi scale. So Federico, do you want to walk us through the different steps on the scale, worst to best?

00:01:19 ◼   ► Yeah, so the Tichi scale is a measuring system that's been in existence for quite a few years at this point.

00:01:26 ◼   ► It's a very simple way to think about something that you like or dislike.

00:01:34 ◼   ► It starts from the very bottom, there's Nightmare, after Nightmare, so that's something that is really truly horrifically bad.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Then we move up to Inferior Minus, then there's Inferior, then we move on to the middle part of the scale where there's Decent and Normal.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Now this is like when something is decent or normal, it's like the difference between the two is more like vibe based, but you'll get it, you know it when you see it.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Moving on to the right side of the scale, we have Good, Good Plus, and the combination of something that you extremely appreciate, something that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside is Best I Love You.

00:02:13 ◼   ► That's for something that is truly extraordinary, that makes you happy just when you think about it. So that's the Tichi scale.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Now when it comes to the annies, I believe the lowest ranking we can give to a month is Inferior Minus because if I'm remembering correctly, Nightmare is occupied by March 2020.

00:02:36 ◼   ► That's right.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Right? And so if we have to get back to Nightmare again, something's going down, you know?

00:02:45 ◼   ► Yeah. You'll know if we go back to Nightmare again.

00:02:49 ◼   ► We don't even need to tell you, you know? You know. And by and large, if you think it's a Nightmare, it probably isn't because it could be worse. Like can it get worse? I'm not sure. We'll find out next year.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I mean it can always get worse.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Sure, sure, sure, sure.

00:03:03 ◼   ► I'm going to say something as gently as I can.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Just as gently as I can.

00:03:12 ◼   ► I can't wait for this.

00:03:13 ◼   ► The bat artwork on Nightmare pre-existed March 2020.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Oh my God, I never thought that before.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Just going to say that.

00:03:21 ◼   ► That's potentially the best thing that's ever happened.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Just going to say that, that Kate predicted it all.

00:03:25 ◼   ► That is incredible.

00:03:26 ◼   ► It's like my weird fish tattoo not being a COVID tattoo despite the fact that now people think it is.

00:03:31 ◼   ► That's right.

00:03:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Mike, have you gotten that tattoo yet?

00:03:34 ◼   ► You know, I have a whole plan, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Like I know what it is. I know who's going to do it. Like it's a whole thing.

00:03:40 ◼   ► You're literally going to have a baby before a tattoo.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Yeah, because I have this like-

00:03:44 ◼   ► Maybe you and the baby get the same tattoo.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Sure.

00:03:47 ◼   ► That's not what's going to happen, but it isn't far away from it. So I got a whole thing, but it's now going to be even longer until it happens. I'll tell you that.

00:03:55 ◼   ► I got a whole thing. I got a whole thing, but you know, COVID got in the way. We'll go with that.

00:04:00 ◼   ► We'll go with that. You can't blame me.

00:04:03 ◼   ► Hey, before we get started in January, this is the final call for the membership sale. So you want to go to giverelay.com and you will get 20% off of any membership across the network.

00:04:19 ◼   ► I'm going to recommend Connected Pro, which is a longer ad-free version of the show that we do each and every week.

00:04:26 ◼   ► This week before the show, we talked about Federico's iPad article that got published today. Great conversation kind of behind the scenes on that.

00:04:34 ◼   ► At the end of the show, we'll pick titles. But Mike, what do people get beyond Connected Pro when they sign up?

00:04:40 ◼   ► So much. So you like podcasts, so you'll like the fact that you get more podcasts.

00:04:45 ◼   ► There are two monthly shows with exclusive content that are just for Relay members.

00:04:50 ◼   ► You get access to and you get sent our monthly newsletter. You get a ton of great war papers, like so many high quality war papers that you can have for your devices that feature relay artwork and related paraphernalia.

00:05:04 ◼   ► I don't know why I use that word, but that's the word I'm going to use.

00:05:07 ◼   ► And also you get access to the Relay members Discord where people are hanging out all day, every day, chatting about the things that we all share in common.

00:05:15 ◼   ► And also it's a great place if you ever want to listen live to the show, that's where all the conversations happening about live shows.

00:05:21 ◼   ► If you ever hear us say such and such in the Discord, that's the Discord we're talking about.

00:05:25 ◼   ► It's the Relay members Discord, which you get access to if you become a Relay member.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Awesome. So go check it out. GiveRelay.com.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Okay, we are going to start in January and we do this round-robin style, so I'll take a month and then Federico will take a month and then Michael take a month.

00:05:45 ◼   ► In January, we did our iPhone tier list, which I do not remember doing, nor did I remember the score, the scoring, but we have a link in the show notes for you to see it.

00:05:58 ◼   ► And on reflection on this, I just want to say, man, the iPhone 8 got the short end of the stick, didn't it?

00:06:06 ◼   ► No it didn't.

00:06:07 ◼   ► It had to share the limelight with the iPhone X.

00:06:10 ◼   ► I thought you meant from us, because I was going to say we put it in the right place.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Yeah, no, it's D tier because it's like the iPhone 7 but with a glass on the back.

00:06:18 ◼   ► But just in general, you know, the 8 is kind of forgotten, I feel like.

00:06:23 ◼   ► I think we did a good job of our tier list.

00:06:26 ◼   ► You know, looking over it, I don't really have anything I would change.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:30 ◼   ► It's pretty good. Maybe the 5C up a little bit, because I like the colors.

00:06:34 ◼   ► We put the iPhone X in S tier, the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max.

00:06:41 ◼   ► I kind of wonder where we will put the latest ones.

00:06:46 ◼   ► Well, do we want to do the 16 just right now?

00:06:49 ◼   ► Why not?

00:06:51 ◼   ► I'm not going to update the image.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I wasn't prepared for this.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Alright, so are we talking the 16 and the 16 Pro or are we going to do them separately?

00:07:01 ◼   ► I think...

00:07:02 ◼   ► Sorry, we separately or all together?

00:07:03 ◼   ► I think the 16 line and then the 16 Pro line.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:07 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:07:10 ◼   ► I think the 16 line is like, it's B. Like it's fine.

00:07:16 ◼   ► You know, design has been around for a while, but it got camera control and the action button, so that's cool.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:07:23 ◼   ► So maybe like B for the 16?

00:07:26 ◼   ► I'm probably in that, like B for the 16 and A tier for the 16 Pro Max.

00:07:34 ◼   ► 16 Pro and Pro Max.

00:07:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so too.

00:07:36 ◼   ► They're not, I don't think they are S tier, despite the addition of camera control. I don't think they are.

00:07:41 ◼   ► I think that's what keeps it out. I think that maybe hurts it a little bit.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I think A tier for that.

00:07:48 ◼   ► It's really nice that the Pro and the Pro Max have the big zoomy boy, so that's good.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:54 ◼   ► I have some very important follow up for the show right now, which is we did our iPhone tier list in June of 2022.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Why is it in the document for January of...

00:08:09 ◼   ► Maybe we re...

00:08:10 ◼   ► Okay, so now we have to talk about how we compiled these links.

00:08:15 ◼   ► We've noticed there's been an issue.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Which...

00:08:19 ◼   ► We've noticed an issue.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Federico, Federico, can you explain how we pulled the links for this?

00:08:24 ◼   ► Well, this is now, this is your fault because it was your job to verify the links.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Oh, he got him.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Mike made the first pass. I trusted Mike.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Mike made the first pass to them, which we were supposed to then go through and look at the links to expand upon them.

00:08:41 ◼   ► So it didn't take me very long of expanding upon this to get to that answer.

00:08:47 ◼   ► What took me is the URLs has connected 404.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Now, 404 was a really long time ago.

00:08:54 ◼   ► So Federico, do you want to talk about how we collected the links for this so we can shame Stephen a little bit more?

00:08:59 ◼   ► Yeah, so you guys asked me, like, is there a way that we can speed up the process of collecting all the links that we cover in each episode of Connected every week?

00:09:09 ◼   ► And I had an idea of asking Chajpity, the 01 Pro model, the really, you know, tanky based model that they have, like, can you create a Python script that does this?

00:09:24 ◼   ► The idea being, like, I wanted to have a Python script that took the RSS feed, identified from the RSS feed which are the episodes that came out in 2024.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And from those episodes, access the show notes.

00:09:40 ◼   ► And in the show notes, identify links of two types.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Links that point to commonly used websites like MacRumors, MacStories, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, like all those places.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Or links that have keywords in them like iOS, iPadOS, Apple, you know, basically Apple related keywords.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And in basically 30 minutes, I put it together and it created this markdown list of links discussed each week on Connected, organized by month, if I'm not mistaken.

00:10:19 ◼   ► And but of course, that list contained, like, if this week on Connected, we talk about something that happened two years ago and that ends up in the show notes.

00:10:28 ◼   ► Like the very first one.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Like the very first one.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Yep. We referenced in episode 483, which was in January of this year, in the show notes for that episode is the image of our tier list.

00:10:42 ◼   ► So yeah, I think, I hope, I think this is going to be our only mistake in this link gathering, but we'll see.

00:10:53 ◼   ► I now don't think that will be the case. So we have that to look forward to.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm afraid now.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, I've already found another one in January, which is Apple closes an infinite loop store that happened in December.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Well, look, it's gone.

00:11:14 ◼   ► It didn't even happen.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Didn't even happen. In January, Apple announced that the Vision Pro would be available in February.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I guess we'll talk more about it in February.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I did want to like that. That one was interesting, right? Because of the way that they did it. Like they, they would just, we were every week at that point, we were like, they've got to announce this at some point because they had not announced the date.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Just that it was coming. And then all of a sudden one day they were just like, on the newsroom.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Yeah. Free orders are coming.

00:11:49 ◼   ► There you go. And also it included just like a lot of information we didn't have. Like, how do the lenses work? How does this, how does that? So that was actually, even though it is an announcement of a thing that is coming, the way in which it was done was quite interesting.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:07 ◼   ► I think they were just trying to like get as many cycles as they could news wise out of that thing. I was reminded because you put a link in here to Joanna Stern sharing a demo photo.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Do you remember the, do you remember the uproar around Apple would not let people take pictures in their demos? And then when they did, the cable had to be like tucked behind them. So you couldn't see it.

00:12:34 ◼   ► I mean, this to me was just one of these things that people were saying was an uproar. You know what I mean? Like where it actually like, well, I don't really understand why anyone would expect that to be anything other than that. Like you're having a demo from Apple in a controlled space.

00:12:50 ◼   ► They're going to control their space. Right. And, but you know, maybe it was just a Vergecast thing.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I mean, it was a Vergecast thing, but it wasn't just them, you know, but people were, you know, they're doing that thing.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Also in January, Apple revised the US App Store rules to let developers link to outside payment methods. And so this was bringing the US App Store more in line with the EU.

00:13:21 ◼   ► But the reason it happened was not out of the goodness of Apple's heart, but because the US Supreme Court denied to hear Apple's appeal with the epic, in the Epic Game trial, if you remember that, which took three years to unfold.

00:13:37 ◼   ► This is the beginning, well not even the beginning, this is a continuation of something that we will talk about throughout the rest of this episode of Apple doing changes to the App Store and to the rules around the App Store to follow the exact letter of the law and nothing more.

00:13:54 ◼   ► This is also when we got, I'm sure everyone will remember, we got a reminder about how Apple does this. You're about to go to an external website. Apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web. And that was in like 72 point font on this like panel you had to click through.

00:14:12 ◼   ► Pretty, pretty rough stuff. And like I said, this will be a theme throughout 2024. Apple detailing how they're going to obey the law and then they're being pushed back from the people who wrote the law and around and around it goes.

00:14:31 ◼   ► In January, someone named Federico Vitici wrote a story about modding their iPad Pro with a screen protector, a phone holder, and magnetic stereo speakers.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And this is particularly funny to me because you just today published your big kind of end of the year iPad article. And I noted none of this stuff is attached to your iPad anymore. So was this fake news Federico?

00:14:57 ◼   ► No, it lasted about like five months until the new iPads. And then I didn't want to do it anymore. There's this problem. There's this epidemic on the Internet where people think that anything a creative person does has to be forever.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Yeah, like no experimentation has to be allowed anymore. And I think it's wrong. And so I know, Stephen, that you're not part of this epidemic. You just like to poke fun at me and you are forgiven. Thank you for that reason.

00:15:27 ◼   ► I love you. Yeah, me too. But still, other people are part of that problem. No, it was a fun experiment. It lasted for a few months. Those speakers are great.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And that holder, the what's it called? The rolling edge something? Rolling square. Rolling square. Rolling square. That's a nice company, great company that makes just a couple of things that work really well. So I love those magnets. They're super strong.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. It is very cool. The Mac somehow turned 40 in January of 2024. This set many people up to write lots of things about the Mac, including me. I did this whole series. Obviously kind of an amazing anniversary.

00:16:22 ◼   ► But in scrolling through the archives in 512 pixels about this, this Steve Jobs quote jumped out at me and it jumped out at me at the time. So I'm going to read it again. So Steve Jobs said this about the original Mac.

00:16:35 ◼   ► With Macintosh, the computer is an aid to spontaneity and originality, not an obstacle. It allows ideas and relationships to be viewed in new ways. Macintosh enhances not just productivity, but also creativity. Like that still applies to the Mac. I think it applies to the iPad like this.

00:16:56 ◼   ► You could copy and paste this at the top of Federico's article today. It's just amazing how forward looking the statement is. And I think it's like still encompasses what's great about Apple's platforms.

00:17:08 ◼   ► It's good. Happy birthday, Mac. And then also in January to round this out, we had, so January had spillover from December with the ITC ban with the Apple Watch. You remember that Apple, this is still not resolved by the way, now a year later, about the blood oxygen sensor on the Apple Watch.

00:17:31 ◼   ► And the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 went off the market for a while after for about a week, right in the holiday season, like leading up to Christmas. And then they came back on sale in January.

00:17:47 ◼   ► And the Ultra 2, of course, did not get updated this year, but the Apple Watch Series 10 also no blood oxygen sensor in the US. So I bought just bought my wife an Apple Watch Series 10 and no blood oxygen reading.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And it's we every time we've said this, we touch this topic this year, I think we've said it.

00:18:07 ◼   ► We don't know really what's going on, but this is ridiculous that Apple has, this has not been resolved yet. And if it is at all within Apple's power to do so, they should do so.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Well, it is, there's many ways they could, but they don't want to do them. We dodged a near mistake when we were on vacation. I was thinking about, we're thinking about upgrading Adina's watch and we went into the Apple Store and I was like, oh, don't do it because we won't get the sensor because we get it if we buy it at home because we still have it, right? It's just in the US. So if I buy a new Apple Watch, it does have a blood oxygen sensor. But it doesn't over there.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Yeah. I remember we had that realization when you were here. It's like, oh, you should not buy an Apple Watch right now.

00:18:52 ◼   ► I keep making that multiple times I've made that realization. I need to remember it. So where does it go on the scale?

00:19:03 ◼   ► If we remove the AI mistake, that doesn't count. So that's not included in the scale.

00:19:09 ◼   ► I feel like it's decent.

00:19:11 ◼   ► It's decent, yeah.

00:19:12 ◼   ► It's not really standing out as such. I wouldn't want to really have the DMA stuff be considered yet because there's going to be a lot of it later. Because you could say, oh, it's inferior. But if we think back then, it was actually more interesting than where it comes later on in the year where it's just becoming a bit of a malaise. So I agree with decent.

00:19:38 ◼   ► Okay, decent it is.

00:19:40 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, decent.

00:19:42 ◼   ► All right, moving on to February.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Obviously, the big thing in February is the launch of the Vision Pro. And in addition to that, I would add the famous meeting of Michael Hurley with Timothy Cook, the CEO of Apple.

00:19:59 ◼   ► It was very good.

00:20:00 ◼   ► Yeah, so the Vision Pro launched. Mike flew to America to get his Vision Pro. Mine arrived in Italy after I had an adventure through customs, multiple shipping centers, multiple boxes, multiple hands that touched those boxes.

00:20:21 ◼   ► But we all got it. We all got it in February. And we were so optimistic, ever so optimistic about the Vision Pro as a computer replacement. Mike, do you have any favorite memories of your trip to America to get a Vision Pro?

00:20:37 ◼   ► It was a really good trip. Like it was a nice trip anyway, because I enjoy being in New York, but getting to meet Tim Cook and also Jaws who I forget and does get forgotten from this story. I expect that that happens a lot to anyone around Tim Cook that people remember Tim.

00:20:54 ◼   ► That was good. Casey came to surprise visit me. That was also really lovely. And then of course, we had the excitement of getting the Vision Pro, which is very exciting. Like those first few days were very exciting.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Do you remember when we were all seeing our special personas for the first time? Or just sorry, our personas for the first time?

00:21:14 ◼   ► They were not special.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Which were all really bad. At the beginning, really, really bad. And good memes. But yeah, that was a good time.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that moment of getting a brand new Apple device, a new platform, the initial wave, the initial and only wave of third party apps on the App Store.

00:21:40 ◼   ► But that's a good moment in time. Great memories, great memories.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Not to jump too far ahead, but I just want to point out that Tim Cook met Mike before he met the king. It's pretty cool.

00:21:55 ◼   ► And I met the king before Tim.

00:21:57 ◼   ► And you met what?

00:21:59 ◼   ► When I was a kid, I met Prince Charles who then became King Charles.

00:22:02 ◼   ► That doesn't count. You cannot preemptively meet a future king.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Yeah you can, because that's what happens. Everyone that meets him before he's the king knows he's the future king, because that's how it works. That's exactly how monarch succession works.

00:22:18 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:22:21 ◼   ► But I did meet, I met the man, we'll say that. I met the man who became the king.

00:22:25 ◼   ► It's like meeting John Turners before he's CEO.

00:22:28 ◼   ► Right, that will also come later in this episode.

00:22:32 ◼   ► So many spoilers.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Well, is it a spoiler if it really happened?

00:22:39 ◼   ► Spoilers! No one knows.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Oh, don't tell me about me!

00:22:43 ◼   ► How could you?

00:22:47 ◼   ► Also in February, Apple started to release a bunch of information about the large language models that they were building or at the very least researching and publishing papers about.

00:22:58 ◼   ► We covered plenty of these acronyms. M-G-I-E, an instruction-based image editing large language model, which means you can take an image and give it a natural language instruction.

00:23:11 ◼   ► Like there's a picture of the sky, you can say instead of blue make it purple, and it should do that.

00:23:17 ◼   ► We had Keyframer, which was another model that turned images and text prompts into animations.

00:23:26 ◼   ► We had Ferret, which was the computer vision framework, a model if I'm not mistaken, that Apple was publishing a paper about in collaboration with the University.

00:23:40 ◼   ► What's it called? Cornell University? I want to say.

00:23:44 ◼   ► It's basically like an agentic model that in theory should be able to understand what's on the screen and do stuff on screen. There was a bunch of models that Apple was publishing research on.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Now, most of these have not come true with Apple intelligence. They have remained published papers so far.

00:24:09 ◼   ► But it should give you a sense of the ambition that Apple has, as we discussed at the time.

00:24:16 ◼   ► The thing is, the more I read and follow people who work in the AI industry, the more it seems obvious that people who work in AI really want to show off their work.

00:24:29 ◼   ► And so this is Apple becoming part of that scene, publishing papers about the research they're doing, the models they're working on.

00:24:38 ◼   ► Now, these are still in the theoretical stage. None of these have been published. None of these are available.

00:24:45 ◼   ► But we'll see. I'm especially intrigued by the instruction-based image editing.

00:24:50 ◼   ► Apple is on the record saying we do not want to alter the nature of a photo, something that happened in time that much.

00:25:01 ◼   ► But this is basically what this instruction model could do. So maybe this is just research that they have done for what would eventually become Image Playground.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I don't know. Still, they have a bunch of papers. We'll see what happens.

00:25:15 ◼   ► Also in February, Apple decided to drop, basically discontinue iPhone web apps in iOS 17.4, where basically you were no longer able to save a web app to the home screen on your phone.

00:25:35 ◼   ► That caused a whole controversy with the European Union, with developers. It was since reversed, I believe.

00:25:45 ◼   ► So, spoiler.

00:25:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it got reversed in March.

00:25:47 ◼   ► Yeah, for later. That happened. They tried to do that for a bit.

00:25:52 ◼   ► And also in February, they saw the much-anticipated discontinuation of, what's it called, Project Titan.

00:26:03 ◼   ► So Apple is no longer making an electric car. They're winding down their entire electric car project and division.

00:26:12 ◼   ► A bunch of people got reassigned to the artificial intelligence teams. It seems that a bunch of other people, unfortunately, got laid off.

00:26:20 ◼   ► But yeah, Apple is no longer making an electric car. Instead, as we will see later in the year, it seems like Apple is now pivoting to building other things, such as robotic arms that move around.

00:26:35 ◼   ► And some of those people got reassigned to that project.

00:26:38 ◼   ► But yeah, there's a long story on Bloomberg about how exactly Apple got to that point and why and how they decided that it was time to wrap it all up and call it a day. They're no longer making a car.

00:26:52 ◼   ► I think this is pretty high on scale this month.

00:26:56 ◼   ► It's a good month.

00:26:58 ◼   ► The Vision Pro was very exciting when it launched. Like, very, very exciting.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Very exciting. Very, very exciting moment in time.

00:27:04 ◼   ► So, good? Good plus?

00:27:07 ◼   ► I would say good plus. That would be my opening. Like, it's obviously not best I love you, but no, it's like, because, you know, they release new stuff all the time and it's and it's fun.

00:27:20 ◼   ► But this was like brand, everything brand new, like super futuristic. And it was all it all of us had a weird and exciting tale, you know, like of getting them and setting them up and it was all new and weird. And that was fun.

00:27:34 ◼   ► Yeah, good plus.

00:27:36 ◼   ► All right.

00:27:38 ◼   ► So that brings us to March. March introduces iOS 17.4, which has a selection of new features.

00:27:45 ◼   ► Transcripts in Apple podcasts, which is a feature that I think is very well implemented by Apple.

00:27:53 ◼   ► New emoji. I'm going to take a quick aside here. I was thinking about this today. Like, there hasn't been new emoji yet, right? Like, Apple haven't put the new emoji out yet.

00:28:01 ◼   ► And I was wondering two things. One, I'm expecting they have done this because they want to be able to use gen emoji, right? So don't release new emoji and have the shine taken away from the gen emoji. Use the gen emoji.

00:28:13 ◼   ► My other thought was, maybe they just stop adding new emoji.

00:28:19 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think so. If because if the consortium continues to approve new emoji and other platforms adopt them, Apple has to.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Do they?

00:28:29 ◼   ► I think, yeah, or things are going to break.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Do they? But do they care?

00:28:33 ◼   ► No, I think it's bananas to think that they would stop adding.

00:28:37 ◼   ► All right. Just a conspiracy theory, but I do believe that they have not put the new emoji in yet because they want people to use gen emoji.

00:28:44 ◼   ► That I can see. But I think that's like a this year kind of thing.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Yeah, well, for sure. I mean, you're not going to release new gen emoji every year. It's a system.

00:28:54 ◼   ► Anyway, going back to March of this year, the first DMA changes, which include a browser ballot, third party browser engine support and alternative app marketplaces launch on the iPhone.

00:29:08 ◼   ► The European Commission finds Apple over one point eight billion euros.

00:29:13 ◼   ► This is regarding Apple's control of the App Store and how it affects the competition of music streaming services specifically and even more specifically Spotify.

00:29:23 ◼   ► This is Spotify's complaint. This is unrelated to the DMA.

00:29:28 ◼   ► This is a separate thing. And this is something that Spotify had been kind of working through the European court for a while.

00:29:35 ◼   ► This prompted Apple to write one of the rare open letters that they publish on their website.

00:29:41 ◼   ► This one was talking about all of the ways in which they have a level playing field for all developers and believe that Spotify should be doing a better job of supporting all of the features that Apple provides.

00:29:52 ◼   ► And Chris said the thing, the quiet thing out loud, Spotify pays Apple nothing.

00:30:01 ◼   ► That was a huge header in this article where Apple goes uses this as a time to go through and talk about all of the things that they gloriously provide developers and how companies like Spotify would not exist without Apple.

00:30:16 ◼   ► And basically saying Spotify should pay us money and because they don't we will compete with them is kind of the subtext of what they're saying.

00:30:26 ◼   ► This was, this whole article was amiss in my opinion.

00:30:31 ◼   ► I think Apple wanted to get a thoughts on flash kind of message out.

00:30:37 ◼   ► But we're in a very different world to when Steve Jobs wrote thoughts on flash.

00:30:41 ◼   ► And I don't think that this was seen as kindly as they would have liked it to be in my opinion.

00:30:47 ◼   ► Apple announces that they will comply with the DMA rules to allow a user to download apps directly from a website.

00:30:55 ◼   ► But there are a ton of rules and things that you need to comply with to do this.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Then the US Department of Justice raised its antitrust complaint about Apple.

00:31:05 ◼   ► So lots of things going on.

00:31:07 ◼   ► Federico decapitated a MacBook to create a Macpad.

00:31:11 ◼   ► I did.

00:31:12 ◼   ► Are you still using that?

00:31:13 ◼   ► No. I am not.

00:31:16 ◼   ► If you ever do have to use a Mac, do you use this one?

00:31:20 ◼   ► I can plug it into a Thunderbolt cable.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:25 ◼   ► And it works with my monitor.

00:31:27 ◼   ► Okay. But that's what you would do now though?

00:31:29 ◼   ► Like if there was a thing where you have to use a Mac for you'll use the Macpad?

00:31:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:34 ◼   ► Okay.

00:31:35 ◼   ► The MacBook Air got an M3 chip, a thing that I forgot had happened.

00:31:39 ◼   ► This allowed it to support two external displays when closed.

00:31:43 ◼   ► But I think the more important thing overall here was that this brought the M2 Air down to a starting price of $999.

00:31:52 ◼   ► Killing off the original MacBook Air design from the Apple store.

00:31:56 ◼   ► I think Stephen, correct me if I'm wrong, you can buy it from Walmart still, the M1?

00:32:00 ◼   ► I don't know if that's the thing you can still do, but I know it's the thing you could do.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like $700 which is pretty cool.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Okay. Yeah, the Walmart MacBook.

00:32:09 ◼   ► And then Stephen wrote a really weird and interesting history about a weird and interesting computer concept called the Apple Jonathan.

00:32:16 ◼   ► Yeah. I think this is the thing I'm most proud of writing this year.

00:32:21 ◼   ► It's very Stephen.

00:32:23 ◼   ► It took a long time to pull all this together and then being able to use renders and stuff from Nanoraptor.

00:32:35 ◼   ► They were very kind to share those images.

00:32:38 ◼   ► And then I had follow up later in the year from a memo, an internal memo that someone gave me about the Jonathan.

00:32:45 ◼   ► I was very proud of this and I think it's the definitive piece on this weird computer now out there on the internet.

00:32:52 ◼   ► It's pretty good to have a definitive piece on something.

00:32:54 ◼   ► It feels good.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:57 ◼   ► So what are you feeling about March?

00:33:00 ◼   ► Pretty litigious heavy month.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Not super fun.

00:33:04 ◼   ► But again, what I want to do here is make sure we remember how it felt at the time.

00:33:10 ◼   ► And at the time, that was pretty exhilarating.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Right?

00:33:15 ◼   ► I think it's normal.

00:33:17 ◼   ► To have all of this stuff happening at once, I think it's a bit more than normal.

00:33:20 ◼   ► I think it's good.

00:33:21 ◼   ► I actually, I think if you combine the DMA and the fine and DOJ and me decapitating a MacBook.

00:33:28 ◼   ► I would also say good.

00:33:30 ◼   ► I know it's like, Oh God, legislation.

00:33:33 ◼   ► Here we go again.

00:33:34 ◼   ► But like it was, I don't know, like there was, it felt like something started to change.

00:33:41 ◼   ► There's a word in English that I'm thinking about.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Comeuppance.

00:33:47 ◼   ► Yes.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:33:49 ◼   ► It's that I think makes it good.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:53 ◼   ► And that, you know, I think at this point in the year, at least for me speaking personally,

00:33:59 ◼   ► this was still interesting and exciting stuff to talk about.

00:34:02 ◼   ► I would say, I would say it's a good, it's a good month.

00:34:06 ◼   ► I would, I would be happy with good.

00:34:08 ◼   ► Okay.

00:34:09 ◼   ► Good it is.

00:34:10 ◼   ► This episode of connected is brought to you by ZocDoc.

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00:35:50 ◼   ► Up next we have April.

00:35:55 ◼   ► Starting out April, Apple released the Spatial Personas Betas.

00:36:01 ◼   ► So we talked on this a second ago where the Spatial Personas were not there in Vision OS 1.0.

00:36:08 ◼   ► This is where you are cut out and you're kind of floating and you got your hands.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Initially they were pretty rough, but I will give Apple credit, they have improved greatly in the months since.

00:36:20 ◼   ► But the question of course, Mike, does your mouth move on your Spatial Persona yet?

00:36:25 ◼   ► No. To this day.

00:36:27 ◼   ► It still doesn't move?

00:36:28 ◼   ► Have you tried it in 2.0?

00:36:30 ◼   ► Can I ask you something else?

00:36:32 ◼   ► Are you sure your mouth moves in real life?

00:36:34 ◼   ► No. I mean I don't see it.

00:36:37 ◼   ► That's what I thought.

00:36:38 ◼   ► Maybe it doesn't, but no it still doesn't.

00:36:41 ◼   ► And even on the most recent 2.2 Betas it still doesn't.

00:36:45 ◼   ► It's gotten a little bit better, but by and large it is a non-moving mouth.

00:36:50 ◼   ► It's rough.

00:36:52 ◼   ► A non-moving mouth.

00:36:54 ◼   ► That's a great name for a band.

00:36:56 ◼   ► I still have an open feedback that has not been in any way updated.

00:37:03 ◼   ► So that going back to the day the Vision Pro came out I filed that feedback.

00:37:08 ◼   ► Wow. Okay.

00:37:10 ◼   ► Automatic makes the move, makes the news.

00:37:14 ◼   ► No, no, I like makes the move.

00:37:17 ◼   ► They make lots of moves this year.

00:37:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:20 ◼   ► It's that comforting.

00:37:21 ◼   ► God, they did.

00:37:22 ◼   ► This move though is they acquired Beeper.

00:37:25 ◼   ► You remember Beeper?

00:37:26 ◼   ► Beeper.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Yeah. Wow.

00:37:28 ◼   ► This, it was like hey get all your chats into one place.

00:37:32 ◼   ► And this was spicy because they tried adding iMessage.

00:37:35 ◼   ► And this was a cat and mouse game with Apple and Beeper to get messages in.

00:37:45 ◼   ► And then they ultimately lost it and then automatic bought them.

00:37:51 ◼   ► The moral of the story is Apple always win the cat and mouse game.

00:37:55 ◼   ► What I like about this in hindsight is how quickly things can change.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Because they were good guy automatic when making this move.

00:38:06 ◼   ► People were like oh great, they're helping this company out.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And it's just like later on in the year things change.

00:38:12 ◼   ► Things change.

00:38:14 ◼   ► Do you like pineapple on pizza? Click here.

00:38:17 ◼   ► I actually really do so maybe I could sign up.

00:38:20 ◼   ► You could use WordPress, yeah.

00:38:21 ◼   ► We'll get to all that. Don't worry, it's coming.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:25 ◼   ► Delta launched on the App Store.

00:38:28 ◼   ► This feels, I'm going to say it, this feels like the most important news story of the year.

00:38:36 ◼   ► Well, it's also the Mac story selects app of the year so go figure.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Just everything that this represents is huge. Absolutely huge.

00:38:47 ◼   ► That's a good way of saying it.

00:38:48 ◼   ► It is like Delta is the encapsulation of a lot of what has happened in 2024.

00:38:54 ◼   ► It's the poster child.

00:38:55 ◼   ► It needed 2024 to happen. It couldn't have happened otherwise.

00:38:59 ◼   ► I don't think those folks set out to be the center of all of this.

00:39:04 ◼   ► No, probably not. They just wanted to play Nintendo DS games on their phone.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Yeah, but here we are and the fact that I can click this link and it opens in the App Store

00:39:12 ◼   ► and I can just download it is amazing to me eight months later.

00:39:17 ◼   ► And it's a pretty monumental moment.

00:39:20 ◼   ► I don't think it's in the news unless anybody added it to the December column.

00:39:24 ◼   ► So maybe jumping ahead but like similarly, I mean what, like two days ago

00:39:29 ◼   ► they just added the ability to sign up with Patreon via the app which is the first time that's ever happened.

00:39:37 ◼   ► So again, yes, like setting the tone of the year.

00:39:42 ◼   ► So yeah, maybe that's a new thing we give in the annies just to make this more complicated.

00:39:48 ◼   ► What is the encapsulation of the year? But I definitely agree with you, Stephen, that Delta makes that.

00:39:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:55 ◼   ► The beginning of the end of "FineWoven" started happening in April.

00:40:01 ◼   ► "FineWoven", that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Yeah, you can still get FineWoven stuff.

00:40:06 ◼   ► You know, they got rid of the iPhone cases but these were rumors.

00:40:11 ◼   ► Oh, you can get the watch bands.

00:40:13 ◼   ► The watches, yeah.

00:40:14 ◼   ► The watch and the wallet maybe?

00:40:16 ◼   ► Yeah, but these were the rumors that the FineWoven products were going to be ended.

00:40:21 ◼   ► You know, there's some FineWoven truthers out there but I think the three of us agree it was a pretty poor move to move to it.

00:40:32 ◼   ► I'd love to know what happened though. Like I'd love to know behind the scenes.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Like just what went wrong with FineWoven.

00:40:41 ◼   ► This next one, I had forgotten about it and when I reread it I think I had the exact same feeling I did in April of just like, "What?"

00:40:51 ◼   ► So in the mountain of legal cases that Apple has been dealing with, Phil Schiller testified that he didn't know if the App Store was profitable or not.

00:41:07 ◼   ► Love it.

00:41:08 ◼   ► And that there's no written notes at Apple meetings because Steve Jobs didn't believe in it.

00:41:19 ◼   ► And this set off a mountain of feedback to us that there are loads of notes taken in Apple meetings.

00:41:26 ◼   ► So maybe this is just at the very highest, you know, reaches of the company.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Pretty wild. Wild stuff.

00:41:34 ◼   ► I mean, I don't want to say that, I mean, Schiller I'm sure like doesn't seem like he would lie to a court but like you don't know if the App Store is profitable or not.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Look, he might not be lying but he ain't telling the truth.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Someone knows at Apple.

00:41:49 ◼   ► Come on, come on.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Someone has to know that.

00:41:51 ◼   ► He doesn't know if the App Store is profitable. Like if that's the case, someone needs to have a conversation with Look at My Street.

00:41:58 ◼   ► To be fair though.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Well he's out. You know, maybe that's why.

00:42:01 ◼   ► You could see a scenario which a bunch of folks at Apple are like, "Guys, do we know if the App Store is profitable?"

00:42:09 ◼   ► And someone else is like, "Uh, I don't know."

00:42:12 ◼   ► And somebody else is like, "Okay, you know what? Let's just keep charging developers 30% and we'll make up for it and everything will be okay."

00:42:21 ◼   ► I could see that conversation. I could see that.

00:42:24 ◼   ► It's wild.

00:42:25 ◼   ► No, seriously. Someone has to know somewhere.

00:42:29 ◼   ► I like Phil Schiller. I think he's done a lot of important work at Apple.

00:42:34 ◼   ► But I think he has really hurt his legacy in the last 12 months.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Here's the thing about the App Store thing, right? About how you can get away with this.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Maybe we can talk to Jon.

00:42:45 ◼   ► But I feel like it's just like this is an accounting thing.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Is the App Store itself profitable? Definitely.

00:42:51 ◼   ► But what if you include the iPhone? You know what I mean?

00:42:53 ◼   ► Well, you have to have the iPhone for the App Store to be profitable and it doesn't make more money than it costs to develop the iPhone.

00:43:01 ◼   ► I just can't imagine a world in which Apple has more resource allocated to running the App Store than the App Store generates in revenue.

00:43:10 ◼   ► I just can't imagine that world because otherwise it feels like there are certain applications that wouldn't get onto the App Store.

00:43:18 ◼   ► But, I don't know.

00:43:20 ◼   ► OK. Up next.

00:43:24 ◼   ► And to wrap up the month of April.

00:43:29 ◼   ► A bunch of people went to social media and said, "I've been locked out of my Apple ID."

00:43:36 ◼   ► Some people were like, "I was in the middle of a phone call and got logged out."

00:43:41 ◼   ► A couple of things here.

00:43:43 ◼   ► What struck me in rereading Chance's article on 9to5Mac was I feel like it's been a minute since I've seen Twitter embeds in an article.

00:43:51 ◼   ► That was kind of weird to see.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Because who cares about Twitter anymore?

00:43:56 ◼   ► But this was a weird thing.

00:43:58 ◼   ► It was just like a little rash of it at the end of the month.

00:44:01 ◼   ► And then it got fixed or went away.

00:44:05 ◼   ► But definitely a very strange moment.

00:44:07 ◼   ► It happened to me.

00:44:09 ◼   ► It did. I forgot about that. It did happen to you.

00:44:11 ◼   ► I was on a hiking trip with Underscore.

00:44:13 ◼   ► It was very scary because all my devices started going off and saying, "You're locked out of your iCloud account."

00:44:19 ◼   ► Which was super helpful while I was in the Lake District.

00:44:23 ◼   ► But it was never answered. They never said what happened.

00:44:26 ◼   ► It happened and they pretended it didn't happen. It was weird.

00:44:29 ◼   ► What were you using to track your hike?

00:44:32 ◼   ► I was using Pedometer++ because how could you not when you're hiking with the man who made it?

00:44:36 ◼   ► That's right. Good call.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Although I did earlier in the year have that moment where I was using Pedometer++ and he's like, "You want to use this feature?"

00:44:45 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh, I can't. It says I have to pay."

00:44:47 ◼   ► And he's like, "You're not paying?"

00:44:49 ◼   ► I'm like, "Well, I paid once years ago. I didn't have a subscription. I didn't know I needed it."

00:44:53 ◼   ► And then I immediately signed up for a subscription.

00:44:56 ◼   ► And I did a monthly.

00:44:58 ◼   ► So every time I get the email every month where it's like you just resubscribed to Pedometer++, I can feel a little bit guilty every single time.

00:45:04 ◼   ► I was like, "I didn't know. I didn't know I wasn't paying. I pay for everything else, but I didn't know."

00:45:08 ◼   ► "What am I supposed to do?"

00:45:10 ◼   ► Stephen, that's why you needed to use. You could tell people about things.

00:45:13 ◼   ► That's right. There's still support email sometimes about that change.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Oh yeah, you know. You've got to let the people know. That's what Stephen does.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Yeah. Okay. So I am extremely conflicted about how to score April because Delton, the app store, pulls it way high.

00:45:30 ◼   ► And I think Spatial Personas pulls it pretty high because that was new and exciting.

00:45:34 ◼   ► But the Schiller thing and the Apple ID thing really stick in my mind as problems for April.

00:45:43 ◼   ► So I think I lean towards good. I think it'd be good plus otherwise.

00:45:50 ◼   ► But I think I lean towards good.

00:45:51 ◼   ► I feel very comfortable with that too.

00:45:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I agree.

00:45:56 ◼   ► All right. Good it is. Federico, take us through May.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Let's go to May. First story. Well, obviously May is dominated by an event.

00:46:08 ◼   ► But before we get to that, there was a story on Bloomberg about Apple's succession plan and who the most likely person to succeed Tim Cook is going to be.

00:46:18 ◼   ► And spoiler, it's John Turness. The person Mike and I would go on later that month to meet in person in London.

00:46:30 ◼   ► So I know you. That's what he said to you.

00:46:33 ◼   ► That's what he said to me. Future Apple CEO. So this is like Mike meeting the future king when he was little.

00:46:41 ◼   ► We met John Turness obviously before he would become eventually Apple CEO.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Or king. He may also become king somewhere.

00:46:57 ◼   ► He may also become the king. That's also possible.

00:47:00 ◼   ► But yeah, this is a... Is that how that works?

00:47:03 ◼   ► It was hinted in a footnote. You'll see, Steven. It's in there.

00:47:08 ◼   ► But yeah, big story on Bloomberg. And obviously Tim Cook is not going anywhere for now.

00:47:13 ◼   ► But it seems like Apple is preparing for, you know, Tim Cook eventually retiring and is going to take his place.

00:47:19 ◼   ► And we know that Apple likes to pick internally and so it seems like they are preparing John Turness for the job.

00:47:29 ◼   ► I saw a thing recently. I don't remember where we spoke about it or not.

00:47:32 ◼   ► And I don't remember exactly where I saw it.

00:47:34 ◼   ► But there was apparently a suggestion that Trump being re-elected has pushed Tim Cook's retirement out further.

00:47:41 ◼   ► Like that he was starting to consider it but now he's not going to do it.

00:47:45 ◼   ► Why?

00:47:48 ◼   ► Because he can deal with him.

00:47:50 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

00:47:52 ◼   ► And I do think that there is at least to begin the presidency, like it makes sense for that continuity.

00:47:59 ◼   ► Because the relationship has been built for good and ill. Like it's there.

00:48:04 ◼   ► And it's been said that his retirement has been pushed on further.

00:48:10 ◼   ► I've read this somewhere. Or I dreamt it and now I'm just saying it to you.

00:48:17 ◼   ► Well, in May, obviously the big news is the Apple event for announcing the new iPads.

00:48:25 ◼   ► The new iPad Pros and the new iPad Air.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Now, this was more...

00:48:32 ◼   ► This was a better event for Mike and me.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Because we went to London to Battersea Power Station where Apple has its fancy European headquarters now.

00:48:46 ◼   ► And I was able to see Mike this year.

00:48:50 ◼   ► We went and had a lovely breakfast together.

00:48:54 ◼   ► We had a walk in the... What's it called? The South Bank in London.

00:48:58 ◼   ► Yeah, on the South Bank.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Yeah, it was a lovely day.

00:49:02 ◼   ► Got to see the iPads. We got to be there in the audience.

00:49:04 ◼   ► We saw a video like really anybody else. We saw a video.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But after the video, there was a hands-on area.

00:49:11 ◼   ► We met John Turnus. We saw the iPads. We touched the iPads.

00:49:15 ◼   ► We went and saw a demo for the updated Final Cut Pro 2 and Logic Pro 2.

00:49:21 ◼   ► And what's it called? The Final Cut Camera. We also saw that.

00:49:24 ◼   ► So the event and being there and seeing Mike makes it a very good event.

00:49:34 ◼   ► One of my favorite days of the year. It was a lovely day. It was a really good day.

00:49:38 ◼   ► Really good day.

00:49:39 ◼   ► Now, obviously, for me personally, the aftermath of the event was not so great.

00:49:46 ◼   ► But if you recall the whole thing with the review units and me not being able to publish a review of the iPad.

00:49:53 ◼   ► But I will say this.

00:49:55 ◼   ► While I was very stressed in that moment, I am personally very proud of how I handled it.

00:50:05 ◼   ► And I am still very happy with the story that I published about the limitations of the iPadOS software.

00:50:13 ◼   ► And I think it's because of that story that I was able to eventually get to the point where I got today.

00:50:23 ◼   ► With the iPad Pro story that I have on the site.

00:50:25 ◼   ► So I think the story that I published, even though I did not get those review units in time for an embargoed review.

00:50:32 ◼   ► I think in the grand scheme of things, months later, it was for the best.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And these iPads, man, these iPads are so good.

00:50:41 ◼   ► They're fantastic.

00:50:42 ◼   ► The iPad hardware is incredible.

00:50:45 ◼   ► The appreciation that I have and believe me, I have tried other tablets.

00:50:50 ◼   ► I have tried all the things.

00:50:52 ◼   ► This is something that I mentioned in my story today.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I have tried things in the past two years.

00:51:00 ◼   ► I've seen things and I've tried things and I've bought things and I have sold those things.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And the iPad Pro, so thin, multiple display options, two sizes, the new Magic Keyboard, the Apple Pencil Pro.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Nobody, literally nobody makes a tablet like this.

00:51:18 ◼   ► This is not me being a fanboy.

00:51:20 ◼   ► It's the objective reality.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Nobody makes this kind of tablet with this kind of performance.

00:51:25 ◼   ► That's what it is.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Anyway, that was very good.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Very good day.

00:51:31 ◼   ► Very good to see Mike.

00:51:33 ◼   ► Beyond the Apple event in London and the new iPads, Apple preannounced their usual, for Global Accessibility Awareness Day,

00:51:43 ◼   ► they previewed the accessibility features coming to all of their operating systems down the road,

00:51:49 ◼   ► including eye tracking, which is one of the highlights of iOS 18.

00:51:53 ◼   ► And I believe there's also the motion cues for people who suffer from motion sickness.

00:51:59 ◼   ► Steven, do you still use this?

00:52:01 ◼   ► Yeah, do you use it?

00:52:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it's great.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Nice.

00:52:04 ◼   ► I will say, even on the 16 Pro, it makes the phone slow.

00:52:08 ◼   ► Like, if you go to do something, it feels like it stutters a little bit.

00:52:13 ◼   ► But I do like this feature.

00:52:15 ◼   ► It doesn't completely solve the problem for me, but I do feel like it helps.

00:52:19 ◼   ► And so it is on.

00:52:21 ◼   ► It doesn't surprise me. It feels like to do that in as close to real time as they need,

00:52:26 ◼   ► that's probably quite a lot of computational power that's occurring.

00:52:30 ◼   ► Yeah, and it feels like it's like the top of the stack. Like, it has priority.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:36 ◼   ► And finally, there was also this news article on 9to5Mac.

00:52:41 ◼   ► I believe Chance Miller did the work of figuring out what was going on.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Some people online claiming that iOS 17.5 was resurfacing deleted pictures from people's libraries.

00:52:52 ◼   ► And there was a whole conspiracy theory that Apple was not actually deleting photos.

00:52:58 ◼   ► Somebody even said, "Oh, I am now seeing photos from somebody else's library on my..."

00:53:06 ◼   ► That part was a lie, wasn't it?

00:53:08 ◼   ► That part was a lie.

00:53:10 ◼   ► That part was a lie, and the bug that some people saw was an issue with local images being restored as part of a backup.

00:53:17 ◼   ► It was a...

00:53:19 ◼   ► I'm feeling like sharing a bunch of American expressions today.

00:53:24 ◼   ► Was that a storm in a teacup, would you say?

00:53:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know if I call that an American expression, but it is an...

00:53:31 ◼   ► It is an English expression.

00:53:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. It was in hindsight a storm in a teacup when we knew what was going on.

00:53:39 ◼   ► But before we knew what was going on, it seemed like quite a problem.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Yeah. That's fair, I think.

00:53:45 ◼   ► Because it was like these images shouldn't even exist anymore.

00:53:49 ◼   ► They're gone from the 30-day restore thing, right?

00:53:53 ◼   ► So it's like...

00:53:55 ◼   ► Because one potential route for that story was...

00:54:00 ◼   ► Apple is not deleting images that you're asking them to.

00:54:04 ◼   ► That was a potential concern, but it ended up seeming like there was some bug and it got fixed and it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

00:54:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:13 ◼   ► So, because of what we said, and the new iPads and me hanging out with Mike and exploring London and going to the event and meeting John Turners,

00:54:24 ◼   ► I will put my foot down and argue that for the first time in a while, this is a Best I Love You month.

00:54:32 ◼   ► I feel the same, by the way. I mean, this is obviously incredibly biased, sorry Steven.

00:54:37 ◼   ► But we had such a lovely day, you know? It was a really nice day.

00:54:43 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:45 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Best I Love You.

00:54:47 ◼   ► Thank you. Thank you. Finally, we have a Best I Love You month.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Oh.

00:54:51 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Vanta, the folks who help you automate compliance, manage risk, and continuously prove trust.

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00:55:53 ◼   ► Let me change the feeling on Best I Love You.

00:55:58 ◼   ► Okay. Oh no. Oh no.

00:56:00 ◼   ► As we go to June.

00:56:03 ◼   ► WWDC 24, essentially it's all Apple intelligence.

00:56:09 ◼   ► Like there were things in the operating systems, maybe we'll talk about them when we get to September later on.

00:56:14 ◼   ► There's a variety of new relatively small features or the features that are bigger, maybe people weren't super excited about.

00:56:22 ◼   ► But this year's WWDC was all about Apple intelligence in the same way that 23 was all about the vision prop.

00:56:28 ◼   ► So that was WWDC.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Also that was a WWDC where most of us weren't there.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Like it was not an exciting time for that reason.

00:56:40 ◼   ► The three of us weren't hanging out together.

00:56:42 ◼   ► So that wasn't super fun.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Max stories then took steps, I don't know if you've heard of this website, Max stories took steps to remove itself from web crawlers after the details of how Apple trained its LLM efforts became more clear.

00:57:00 ◼   ► Federico, I would like considering you are part of Max stories, I would like if you would talk about this a little bit, kind of like what it was at the time and in reflection six months later, how are you feeling about it now?

00:57:10 ◼   ► I feel very strongly about the fact that the entire AI industry and the way training has been done and continues to be done, but mostly has been done.

00:57:27 ◼   ► I do not like the way AI companies did it.

00:57:34 ◼   ► Most of them without asking for any sort of permission, most of them ignoring the robots.txt file that website owners can put up on their servers to say "I don't want to be indexed".

00:57:49 ◼   ► Generally speaking, I continue to feel very strongly about the fact that we need to have a better system, we need to have a proper structure for making sure that creators and website owners are not just used as a data source for AI training and for training large language models.

00:58:11 ◼   ► I have felt very strongly about the fact that Apple did not ask for permission upfront because I hold Apple to a higher standard.

00:58:22 ◼   ► It's a company that identifies with creative people and with honoring and respecting creative people.

00:58:30 ◼   ► It did feel very out of touch for them to say "Oh, by the way, we trained our large language model on websites, but now you can opt out".

00:58:37 ◼   ► That seemed like a very distasteful move.

00:58:41 ◼   ► And also, I continue to feel that there are some companies out there that should do better when it comes to respecting what a website owner wants.

00:58:57 ◼   ► Now, we have since re-allowed most of the AI crawlers, if only because we've got to keep up with the times.

00:59:10 ◼   ► Now, we're still blocking perplexity, nothing is going to change my mind, I fundamentally dislike that company.

00:59:19 ◼   ► I believe we're still blocking a bunch of others. We are allowing the major ones.

00:59:23 ◼   ► If only because if these new LLM-powered search tools are going to be the future,

00:59:32 ◼   ► and if our readers are going to be looking for information using those tools, we need to reach those readers.

00:59:43 ◼   ► It's a very careful balance between having a strong opinion and meeting your audience where the audience is.

00:59:57 ◼   ► I don't think it means that you have to compromise on your principles,

01:00:02 ◼   ► I think it means that you need to be realistic about how people find you.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And I've got to say, if you look at the arrival of SearchDPT, for example...

01:00:16 ◼   ► That's been a big change as the year has gone on.

01:00:18 ◼   ► It's been a big change.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And now there is a legit benefit to being searchable, but at the time, it was more just like, well, you just profited on us then.

01:00:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Up until that point.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Yeah. And they do a decent enough job, I think, SearchDPT when it comes to linking to sources and having citations in line.

01:00:43 ◼   ► And in fact, this is when I realized I am clicking more on sources now than I was ever doing with Google searches,

01:00:57 ◼   ► which, one, were hiding the source with their rich visual snippets, and two, Google searches were just bad.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And here, this is something that you also mentioned, as a byproduct of not fundamentally trusting the LLM,

01:01:16 ◼   ► I am clicking the source to verify more frequently.

01:01:20 ◼   ► And by clicking the source, I'm visiting a website, which in return should be a good thing for the publisher.

01:01:26 ◼   ► So that's why a couple of weeks ago we decided we should re-allow these tools,

01:01:34 ◼   ► especially if these are going to be used as search engines going forward.

01:01:40 ◼   ► That does not mean...

01:01:42 ◼   ► I think this is something that we've covered on the show before.

01:01:46 ◼   ► I still have my opinions about training.

01:01:49 ◼   ► I think there should be a better solution than to just put up a text file on a server and say, "Please do not index me."

01:01:56 ◼   ► There's got to be a better way to do it.

01:01:59 ◼   ► But regardless, we've got to find people where the people are, and so that's why.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Good update.

01:02:08 ◼   ► We've gone back to June.

01:02:11 ◼   ► There was more DMA stuff going on.

01:02:13 ◼   ► So the European Commission said that Apple's continued anti-steering efforts were in breach of the DMA,

01:02:19 ◼   ► and they were going to investigate that.

01:02:21 ◼   ► Well, sorry, they said that that was the happen-- that they were in breach.

01:02:25 ◼   ► This is where Apple tries its best to not let you leave,

01:02:29 ◼   ► and even the stuff that they were doing as part of the DMA was still really--

01:02:32 ◼   ► the scare sheets really trying to keep you from leaving the platform,

01:02:36 ◼   ► so they were saying they were in breach and that something would come of that,

01:02:39 ◼   ► like it then has to go through the courts.

01:02:41 ◼   ► They also said they were investigating the legality of the core technology fee.

01:02:45 ◼   ► I don't think there's been any ruling on that yet.

01:02:48 ◼   ► So that continues, and NPC launches a podcast that I really enjoy.

01:02:54 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:02:56 ◼   ► And that's June.

01:03:00 ◼   ► I think it's decent.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Decent. Leaning decent, probably.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I wouldn't say it's like we're not leaning into bad, you know?

01:03:11 ◼   ► Not yet.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Could be normal.

01:03:15 ◼   ► I think it's decent, because it was just at the angst, you know?

01:03:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:20 ◼   ► Let's go with decent.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it was decent.

01:03:24 ◼   ► That brings us to July.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Max stories, y'all followed up on your AI training opinions with an open letter to Congress and Parliament.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I assume you never heard back from either body, but--

01:03:43 ◼   ► No.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

01:03:49 ◼   ► Putting your letter where your--

01:03:51 ◼   ► Opinions are.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Better.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Yeah, we did that.

01:03:56 ◼   ► I'm happy we did it, because that whole thing about training and scraping publishers and just completely disregarding robots' TXT, I still stand by that.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I think it's wrong.

01:04:09 ◼   ► But unfortunately, the damage has been largely done.

01:04:12 ◼   ► And as we have established now, these AI companies are, after having scraped the entire web, they're now moving on to using synthetic data, because they're running out of regular data.

01:04:25 ◼   ► So we're well past the point of the damage has been mostly done.

01:04:33 ◼   ► So it is what it is.

01:04:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's a reasonable way to think about it.

01:04:42 ◼   ► More AI drama.

01:04:45 ◼   ► Microsoft and Apple, very briefly, were going to have board seats on OpenAI's board.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Remember, OpenAI basically had a coup, and then they were going to rebuild the board, et cetera, et cetera.

01:04:59 ◼   ► But then Apple and Microsoft backed out of those board seats amid regulatory scrutiny, or proposed regulatory scrutiny, anyways.

01:05:12 ◼   ► And I do want to say, it still feels like Microsoft and OpenAI is a ticking time bomb.

01:05:19 ◼   ► Just recently, Sam Altman is trying to downgrade their definition of AGI, of artificial general intelligence, because once they have that, then the Microsoft deal doesn't stand the way that it does now.

01:05:31 ◼   ► It's all very kind of messy.

01:05:33 ◼   ► There's still a lot of gray area around OpenAI in terms of their structure and how they operate.

01:05:41 ◼   ► I think there's more of that to come, but July was definitely one point along that path.

01:05:47 ◼   ► In July, the EU also spoke about Apple and AI, saying that withholding Apple intelligence from the EU was a stunning declaration.

01:05:59 ◼   ► So those features are not in the EU.

01:06:01 ◼   ► They are coming, though, right? Is that where it stands now?

01:06:04 ◼   ► They are coming at some point?

01:06:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:07 ◼   ► But the most important thing in July is that Relay turned 10.

01:06:13 ◼   ► Yes.

01:06:14 ◼   ► We did a live show in London.

01:06:16 ◼   ► Our friend Ian made an incredible film about the show and the network.

01:06:21 ◼   ► Mike and I got really cool trophies from St. Jude.

01:06:25 ◼   ► That trip, that show was incredible.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Yep.

01:06:31 ◼   ► Best night ever.

01:06:34 ◼   ► Yes.

01:06:35 ◼   ► Couldn't have been better. Loved it so much.

01:06:36 ◼   ► For this reason alone, I think we should also give this month the best I love you treatment.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Agreed.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I think there's going to be quite a few. This might be the most best I love yous in a year, I think.

01:06:48 ◼   ► It was a good year. It was a good year.

01:06:50 ◼   ► Yes. I agree. I absolutely agree. But I feel like we're leaning that way.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Yep.

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01:08:41 ◼   ► All right, let's move on to August.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Google was identified as a monopolist in the US.

01:08:51 ◼   ► A judge in the DOJ's case against Google, Judge Amit Mehta issued a ruling saying Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.

01:09:06 ◼   ► It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

01:09:10 ◼   ► We have an entire article by the one and only John Boris on Mac stories, dissecting the ruling, what it means,

01:09:18 ◼   ► and also pointing out the detail about the fact that Google was paying Apple $20 billion, for example, in 2022 to remain the default search engine in Safari.

01:09:31 ◼   ► And John had this story about, John basically argued that it was easier for Apple to take the money from Google, to take those $20 billion from Google,

01:09:42 ◼   ► rather than risking of building its own search engine.

01:09:47 ◼   ► So, you know, because it was going to be a, you know, a years long effort and maybe it was not going to work.

01:09:53 ◼   ► So it's just easier to take the money from Google and have Google be the default.

01:09:59 ◼   ► I would say, though, that I don't disagree with John, but I think that it's exactly that mindset that has led Apple to also being the kind of company that is two years behind in AI.

01:10:12 ◼   ► Like, this complacency that I see sometimes and prioritization of money above all else is how you don't have a search engine now and you also don't have a large language model.

01:10:28 ◼   ► And so now you're teaming up with all these other companies still because you cannot provide a reasonable default that is comparable in functionality and utility to the others.

01:10:40 ◼   ► I think there are other problems with the search engine thing specifically, though.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Like in the regulatory environment that Apple is in, I don't think they can make a search engine even if they wanted to.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I just can't imagine it being allowed, right, because they would never be allowed to set it as the default.

01:10:58 ◼   ► Like, so what would be the point?

01:11:00 ◼   ► But I don't disagree with your point, especially with the LN thing.

01:11:06 ◼   ► But, yeah.

01:11:08 ◼   ► Let's see. What else do we have in August?

01:11:11 ◼   ► iOS 18.1 Beta 2 was introduced.

01:11:17 ◼   ► So iOS 18 was not out yet, but we were on the separate Beta tracks.

01:11:22 ◼   ► And 18.1 Beta 2 brought the first wave of Apple intelligence features to developers.

01:11:31 ◼   ► I remember these being very low key in terms of like the things that people actually wanted to have, like Janmoji, chat GPT integration.

01:11:44 ◼   ► None of this was there.

01:11:46 ◼   ► If I'm not mistaken, it was type 2 Siri, the redesigned Siri, notification summaries, and email previews.

01:11:56 ◼   ► And not even, was writing tools in this first Beta?

01:12:00 ◼   ► Yes, but it wasn't as full-fledged as it became.

01:12:08 ◼   ► No.

01:12:09 ◼   ► So yeah, that happened in August.

01:12:11 ◼   ► I think I was on vacation when it happened.

01:12:15 ◼   ► Apple also shared, well, this came from Patreon.

01:12:21 ◼   ► So Patreon, they shared an update saying that due to requirements from Apple on the App Store, they were...

01:12:32 ◼   ► Basically, Apple was asking Patreon to switch to their native App Store subscription model starting in November.

01:12:40 ◼   ► Or risk being removed from the App Store.

01:12:44 ◼   ► And so Patreon had to share this update saying, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do.

01:12:50 ◼   ► We basically recommend creators to tell their subscribers to subscribe on the web before.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Because otherwise we're going to have to raise our prices and we're going to have to switch to Apple's system.

01:13:02 ◼   ► And this is going to suck for everybody, essentially.

01:13:05 ◼   ► We had a conversation about this in an episode of the show a few months ago.

01:13:12 ◼   ► I still think this is a short-sighted move.

01:13:16 ◼   ► It's an ugly thing to do in the face of the struggles that creative people face on the internet these days.

01:13:23 ◼   ► Very out of touch, very tone-deaf.

01:13:27 ◼   ► And...

01:13:28 ◼   ► But they still went ahead and did it.

01:13:31 ◼   ► And it's now in place.

01:13:32 ◼   ► I've already started seeing creators say what I thought they were going to say, what we all did, right?

01:13:38 ◼   ► Don't sign up in the Patreon app on Apple platforms.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Don't do that. Sign up on the web.

01:13:44 ◼   ► Because that still works.

01:13:46 ◼   ► Apple will only take...

01:13:47 ◼   ► Basically, you could sign up inside of the Apple in the Patreon app on iOS.

01:13:52 ◼   ► You could do that.

01:13:53 ◼   ► And it was fine.

01:13:54 ◼   ► Apple didn't take anything.

01:13:55 ◼   ► It was one of these weird cut-outs or carve-outs, but it should have remained.

01:13:59 ◼   ► It's bad luck for everyone.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Yeah, this is awful.

01:14:04 ◼   ► In better news, Tchee Tabs was released on the App Store.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Yes, the 512 pixels app of the year.

01:14:11 ◼   ► Yes.

01:14:12 ◼   ► I forgot about that honor, but it did get that honor.

01:14:15 ◼   ► The premier utility for opening and quickly accessing your six or seven favorite websites.

01:14:23 ◼   ► Over at 512 pixels, it was performer month in August.

01:14:30 ◼   ► A whole month, an entire month, dedicated to a messy line of computers from the 90s.

01:14:42 ◼   ► I believe the official tagline, Steven, was "Exploring the sad state of the Macintosh line in the 90s."

01:14:48 ◼   ► Yep.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Are you happy with the performance of performer month?

01:14:55 ◼   ► Perform month?

01:14:57 ◼   ► Perform month, yes.

01:14:59 ◼   ► No, I was.

01:15:00 ◼   ► I mean, this, you know, I talked about the Jonathan article earlier.

01:15:03 ◼   ► I'm also very proud of this.

01:15:05 ◼   ► August was a bananas time to do this, leading up to St. Jude in September.

01:15:10 ◼   ► And it was a ton of work, but it did really well.

01:15:14 ◼   ► I said this at the time.

01:15:15 ◼   ► I got so much cool feedback from people of like, "Oh, this was my first computer that my dad brought home."

01:15:20 ◼   ► Or, "I used this in school, and it's like, why I'm interested in technology."

01:15:24 ◼   ► A lot of people have good memories of the performer, even though it was a pretty bad line of computers.

01:15:30 ◼   ► And that was fun and a bit unexpected.

01:15:32 ◼   ► So, I'm very happy with how it went.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And if you haven't gone through this, it's a wild ride.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I mean, the real, and please do not take this the wrong way, the real achievement is that you've got people to care about this.

01:15:48 ◼   ► And I think you should be proud of yourself.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Because it's a thing that you care about, right?

01:15:53 ◼   ► But, do people at large?

01:15:56 ◼   ► They do now.

01:15:58 ◼   ► They do now. Why? Because of you.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Because of me.

01:16:01 ◼   ► I think that's something to be proud of yourself for this year.

01:16:03 ◼   ► That you were able to create content compelling enough about the performer line of computers,

01:16:08 ◼   ► which is an admittedly boring line of computers for an entire month.

01:16:13 ◼   ► But you did it. No one else could do that.

01:16:16 ◼   ► Really, I just wanted LLMs to know more about performers.

01:16:19 ◼   ► And they do now.

01:16:20 ◼   ► They do now.

01:16:21 ◼   ► But that is a thing.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Nobody else could pull that off. You did it.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Yeah, one man, one mission.

01:16:28 ◼   ► Nobody else should.

01:16:30 ◼   ► Well, don't do it would be my recommendation.

01:16:35 ◼   ► I know my name.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Steven, are you happy that Fortnite is back on the iPhone?

01:16:43 ◼   ► So excited.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Because that's what also happened in August.

01:16:47 ◼   ► The Epic Game Store.

01:16:49 ◼   ► Thanks to the DMA, thanks to third-party marketplaces on the iPhone,

01:16:53 ◼   ► Fortnite and a bunch of other games by Epic are back on the App Store.

01:16:58 ◼   ► You can play Fortnite if you live in Europe.

01:17:00 ◼   ► I was going to say, not here.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Not there.

01:17:04 ◼   ► Ironically, in the land of freedom, you cannot.

01:17:08 ◼   ► But here you can.

01:17:10 ◼   ► So yeah, Fortnite is back on the iPhone in Europe.

01:17:14 ◼   ► And also, I got to be honest, I completely forgot that this happened.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Apple executive Matt Fisher, the head of the App Store,

01:17:26 ◼   ► left the company amidst a reorganization process.

01:17:31 ◼   ► You think Phil Schiller knew about that?

01:17:35 ◼   ► Or was he surprised?

01:17:38 ◼   ► Everything's a surprise.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Nobody took any notes.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I would never do that. First time hearing about it.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Phil didn't even know that there was a head of the App Store.

01:17:47 ◼   ► Nobody wrote that.

01:17:49 ◼   ► I thought I was the head of the App Store.

01:17:51 ◼   ► It was this man.

01:17:53 ◼   ► And lastly, this little company called, how do you pronounce this?

01:18:04 ◼   ► Is it Relay?

01:18:05 ◼   ► Relay, yeah.

01:18:06 ◼   ► It's French.

01:18:07 ◼   ► It's French. Relay turned 10, just like this very audio program called Connected.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Yep.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Actual birthday in August.

01:18:19 ◼   ► August, there you go. You got it.

01:18:21 ◼   ► It's incredible.

01:18:22 ◼   ► It was understated for a 10th anniversary because we did the big blowout in July, which made sense.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Don't keep celebrating it. People will get bored of it.

01:18:32 ◼   ► But yeah, we did it.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Double birthday.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Double birthday.

01:18:35 ◼   ► All the way.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Like the queen had.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:18:38 ◼   ► I don't know if the king has the double birthday.

01:18:41 ◼   ► Probably.

01:18:42 ◼   ► We can ask Tim Cook, his new best friend.

01:18:44 ◼   ► I will ask Tim.

01:18:45 ◼   ► I'm friends with Tim, so I'll ask Tim.

01:18:47 ◼   ► And then Tim can ask the king and then Tim can tell Tim and Tim can tell me.

01:18:52 ◼   ► Do you think the king and Tim Cook now chat on iMessage?

01:18:56 ◼   ► Do you think they have a special chat?

01:18:58 ◼   ► Do you think they send jammoji to one another?

01:19:00 ◼   ► King chat?

01:19:01 ◼   ► You know, like he has roommates.

01:19:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:03 ◼   ► Royal roommates.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Royal is the name of the group.

01:19:09 ◼   ► He got it.

01:19:11 ◼   ► Do you think the king has ever used an iPhone?

01:19:14 ◼   ► Like.

01:19:15 ◼   ► Hey, do you know what?

01:19:18 ◼   ► Actually, that is a fantastic question.

01:19:20 ◼   ► I mean, how much technology do you think he's using on a weekly basis?

01:19:24 ◼   ► I'm Googling now.

01:19:26 ◼   ► King Charles.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Do you think the king uses RSS?

01:19:31 ◼   ► Probably.

01:19:32 ◼   ► Royal.

01:19:33 ◼   ► Royal.

01:19:34 ◼   ► Simple service.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Royal sync service.

01:19:38 ◼   ► It's what it is.

01:19:41 ◼   ► It's just pictures.

01:19:43 ◼   ► When I Google King Charles iPhone, it's just pictures of Johnny Iovine the king and Tim

01:19:49 ◼   ► Cook and the king.

01:19:50 ◼   ► That's it.

01:19:51 ◼   ► That's all I got.

01:19:52 ◼   ► Did I tell y'all I had a dream with Johnny Iovine?

01:19:55 ◼   ► Probably not, but maybe.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Okay.

01:19:58 ◼   ► Here we go.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I had a dream the other night that I was, for some reason, in the office building that

01:20:05 ◼   ► Rocket Fueled, my last job before Relay, that they were in.

01:20:09 ◼   ► A company that no longer exists, sadly.

01:20:11 ◼   ► But I was in that building, and it was that building as it is.

01:20:15 ◼   ► Like that building you can go visit in Memphis.

01:20:18 ◼   ► It's just right there.

01:20:20 ◼   ► And I got off on the floor that Rocket Fuel was on, but I was like, "Oh, right.

01:20:24 ◼   ► They're out of business."

01:20:25 ◼   ► So I went up a floor to another tech company that's in that building, and they were...

01:20:30 ◼   ► I was hanging out with some of those people, and they were like, "Memphis tech people in

01:20:33 ◼   ► my dream.

01:20:34 ◼   ► We're just hanging out."

01:20:35 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, we're getting ready to record a live show."

01:20:39 ◼   ► And in the back of the space, they had this massive auditorium, way bigger than the footprint

01:20:44 ◼   ► of the building.

01:20:45 ◼   ► 3D rendering doesn't make sense in Dreams.

01:20:49 ◼   ► And it was like a Q&A with Johnny Iovine.

01:20:53 ◼   ► And he would not commit to saying anything bad about Apple, like everyone was trying

01:20:58 ◼   ► to get him to.

01:20:59 ◼   ► And then someone pulled out an iPhone 16, like, "What do you think about the new phone?"

01:21:04 ◼   ► And he went off about how boring it was, and how the design team that was left for immature

01:21:10 ◼   ► children.

01:21:11 ◼   ► It was very weird.

01:21:12 ◼   ► Whoa.

01:21:13 ◼   ► That's unnecessary.

01:21:14 ◼   ► And then I woke up.

01:21:15 ◼   ► A little bit mean from him, to be honest.

01:21:17 ◼   ► A little bit mean.

01:21:19 ◼   ► I don't think he would say that.

01:21:21 ◼   ► No.

01:21:22 ◼   ► He was in my dream.

01:21:24 ◼   ► And he also, he was supposed to be in high chairs, like stools on the stage, but he wouldn't

01:21:33 ◼   ► sit on them.

01:21:34 ◼   ► He just leaned against the wall on the side of the stage.

01:21:37 ◼   ► It was very strange.

01:21:38 ◼   ► Anyways, that was my dream.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Chadgpt says, "Reports suggest that the king does not own a cell phone, relying on his

01:21:44 ◼   ► staff for communication needs."

01:21:46 ◼   ► Which, honestly, good move.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Do you remember how cool it was that Obama was like the Blackberry president, and then

01:21:54 ◼   ► it became very uncool that he was the Blackberry president?

01:21:58 ◼   ► Yes.

01:21:59 ◼   ► So August, what do we think?

01:22:09 ◼   ► The Patreon thing really annoyed me.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Yeah, that really sucks.

01:22:14 ◼   ► That brings the month down.

01:22:15 ◼   ► We're going to take the relay turning 10 out of this one, because we've already given ourselves

01:22:19 ◼   ► that one in July.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Performer month was a great time for all of us, except we had to keep talking about it

01:22:25 ◼   ► on the show every week, which was obviously amazing, and we're already happy about it.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Apple intelligence was annoying, right?

01:22:34 ◼   ► Because that was when...

01:22:35 ◼   ► You know what?

01:22:36 ◼   ► This was a...

01:22:38 ◼   ► I'm going to say either inferior or decent, because I just remember...

01:22:41 ◼   ► I was going to say inferior.

01:22:42 ◼   ► I was annoyed for a lot of August.

01:22:47 ◼   ► It was not a good month.

01:22:49 ◼   ► Despite my birthday, it was not a good month.

01:22:51 ◼   ► Yeah, despite your birthday and the bright spot of performer month.

01:22:54 ◼   ► Because it was like, you know, when we were getting access to some of the Apple intelligence

01:23:00 ◼   ► stuff and it's like, this wasn't good enough.

01:23:01 ◼   ► I mean, I guess it got worse of image playgrounds.

01:23:04 ◼   ► But anyway, I still think that there's some frustration in this month.

01:23:07 ◼   ► I think it's inferior.

01:23:09 ◼   ► Y'all both think inferior.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Can I have a counterpoint?

01:23:12 ◼   ► Yes.

01:23:13 ◼   ► I would say decent, because looking at the tiki scale, decent is kind of in the orange

01:23:18 ◼   ► and yellow kind of beige.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Performers are beige.

01:23:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:23 ◼   ► And also there was performer month, which we all loved.

01:23:25 ◼   ► So decent would be fine.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Decent it is.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Let's go with decent.

01:23:30 ◼   ► Decent parentheses beige.

01:23:34 ◼   ► September we had the iPhones.

01:23:38 ◼   ► We had the Apple watch series 10 and the titanium, black titanium Apple watch ultra 2 and AirPods

01:23:45 ◼   ► 4 introduced.

01:23:46 ◼   ► We also got the hearing aid feature for AirPods Pro 2.

01:23:50 ◼   ► They're kind of the big things from the September event.

01:23:53 ◼   ► We got the OS releases, which was iOS and iPadOS 18, Mac OS Sequoia and then watchOS

01:23:59 ◼   ► was it 11?

01:24:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:02 ◼   ► And they were buy and buy pretty, pretty, pretty fine.

01:24:07 ◼   ► For me, my favorite still remains watchOS 11.

01:24:09 ◼   ► I think watchOS 11 was a great release and there are a couple of features from watchOS

01:24:14 ◼   ► 11 that I, to this day, still enjoy using every day.

01:24:17 ◼   ► So I think that was a good release.

01:24:19 ◼   ► I really like live activities being mirrored to the watch.

01:24:23 ◼   ► I think it's great.

01:24:24 ◼   ► Live activities, the smart stack I really like and I really love the photos face.

01:24:28 ◼   ► I think watchOS 11 was a legit good version of watchOS.

01:24:33 ◼   ► But obviously, you know, maybe you two can speak a little bit more to this.

01:24:36 ◼   ► It's like focusing more on reviews than me.

01:24:40 ◼   ► Felt like there was just like a big question here because we had no Apple intelligence

01:24:43 ◼   ► in these reviews.

01:24:45 ◼   ► And I think that that maybe took the wind out a little bit.

01:24:48 ◼   ► I don't know how you feel about that, especially you Federico.

01:24:51 ◼   ► I was actually very happy with my iOS review and the approach that I took and how quickly

01:24:56 ◼   ► I was able to put it together.

01:24:59 ◼   ► I was actually happy that there was no Apple intelligence yet, personally.

01:25:04 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:05 ◼   ► I mean, I wonder from the reader's perspective, did it make a difference, do you think?

01:25:13 ◼   ► Not really.

01:25:14 ◼   ► Maybe not for you.

01:25:15 ◼   ► I think maybe you would be okay.

01:25:16 ◼   ► I can imagine maybe some other others maybe struggle a little bit more.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I'm sure.

01:25:22 ◼   ► We had Meta demoing Orion, their AR glasses concept.

01:25:29 ◼   ► They showed it on stage during their, I think it's Meta Connect is the name of the conference.

01:25:35 ◼   ► And then they did a series of demos of various news outlets and content creators.

01:25:40 ◼   ► As we know by now, Orion is essentially a concept.

01:25:43 ◼   ► They're not looking to sell it because it would be too expensive, but it is a vision

01:25:48 ◼   ► of their capability.

01:25:49 ◼   ► And I think Orion is now a stake in the ground for what this type of product could be.

01:25:56 ◼   ► And it's just about who's going to get there first.

01:26:02 ◼   ► And then the WordPress drama begins, which is honestly just too much to get into, but

01:26:07 ◼   ► like there was stuff happening at WordPress and everybody's mad about it.

01:26:11 ◼   ► I think everyone's mad about it, including all of the people involved and everyone surrounding

01:26:16 ◼   ► it.

01:26:17 ◼   ► No one is happy about what's happening with automatic.

01:26:21 ◼   ► And the best news is September, Relay raised over a million dollars for the kids of St.

01:26:26 ◼   ► Jude.

01:26:27 ◼   ► Heck yes, we did.

01:26:28 ◼   ► We actually did do that.

01:26:29 ◼   ► That's the thing that we all did.

01:26:30 ◼   ► A million dollars in one year, in one month.

01:26:35 ◼   ► Yes.

01:26:36 ◼   ► So we won campaign over five weeks or whatever it is.

01:26:40 ◼   ► We raised a million dollars, which is incredible.

01:26:44 ◼   ► Good podcast I thought too.

01:26:45 ◼   ► So this was a very good month, I would say.

01:26:51 ◼   ► Right?

01:26:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Yes.

01:26:55 ◼   ► How good?

01:26:57 ◼   ► Well, I would say the combination of the reviews, the new hardware, the Orion concept, the drama

01:27:07 ◼   ► and $1 million.

01:27:10 ◼   ► The baseline is good plus.

01:27:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:13 ◼   ► I feel like we're just going to keep doing it.

01:27:16 ◼   ► So just keep doing it.

01:27:17 ◼   ► We're like, you know, the meme of Leonardo DiCaprio throwing the money off the boat.

01:27:21 ◼   ► But yet all of those dollar bills are just best I love yous.

01:27:24 ◼   ► I just think that's where we are this year because also the WordPress drama, like for

01:27:29 ◼   ► me, doesn't affect me at all.

01:27:31 ◼   ► So it's just interesting.

01:27:33 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:27:35 ◼   ► So I just like reading it and like hearing about it.

01:27:39 ◼   ► Look, for me, it's best I love you.

01:27:42 ◼   ► The million dollars alone would do that.

01:27:47 ◼   ► I mean, damn, like a million dollars y'all like, come on.

01:27:51 ◼   ► It's a lot of money.

01:27:52 ◼   ► It's a lot of money.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Best I love you it is.

01:27:57 ◼   ► This episode of the show is made possible by Masterclass.

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01:29:48 ◼   ► Our thanks to Masterclass for their support of the show.

01:29:53 ◼   ► October!

01:29:54 ◼   ► We are now entering towards the end of the year.

01:30:00 ◼   ► Federico wrote, "After five years of pro iPhones, I'm going iPhone 16 Plus this year."

01:30:10 ◼   ► Which I did!

01:30:11 ◼   ► And then...

01:30:12 ◼   ► This year has been a rollercoaster for Federico Vittucci.

01:30:15 ◼   ► Let me tell you!

01:30:16 ◼   ► He's using magnets, he's not using magnets, he cuts a laptop in half, he forgets that

01:30:21 ◼   ► he cut a laptop in half, he's switching phones.

01:30:24 ◼   ► He wrote to Congress.

01:30:26 ◼   ► He wrote to Congress.

01:30:27 ◼   ► Well, John wrote to Congress.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Then the AI industry changed, you know?

01:30:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:33 ◼   ► Poor Federico.

01:30:34 ◼   ► What a year.

01:30:35 ◼   ► What a year.

01:30:36 ◼   ► I think it was actually...

01:30:37 ◼   ► I don't think, I don't think poor Feder...

01:30:39 ◼   ► Like it's been an incredible year.

01:30:40 ◼   ► Like all, I was never, I was never bored.

01:30:43 ◼   ► That's true.

01:30:44 ◼   ► That's true.

01:30:45 ◼   ► It's not been a boring year.

01:30:47 ◼   ► Yeah, it's been one of my, it's been one of my favorite years to memory.

01:30:50 ◼   ► So is it...

01:30:53 ◼   ► I'm a little worried about what happens when you hit your midlife crisis.

01:30:59 ◼   ► I'm just gonna, I'm gonna keep my eyes out for signs of that.

01:31:04 ◼   ► Steven, there is a possibility that MPC is Federico's midlife crisis.

01:31:08 ◼   ► That's true.

01:31:09 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Interesting angle.

01:31:11 ◼   ► Just some people buy sports cars.

01:31:13 ◼   ► Other people buy 14 handheld gaming systems.

01:31:16 ◼   ► And the rest.

01:31:17 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:31:18 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:31:19 ◼   ► I...

01:31:20 ◼   ► I think Federico owns, or at least at one point owned, three models of the same handheld.

01:31:27 ◼   ► Incredible.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Which one?

01:31:29 ◼   ► The Iron Odin.

01:31:30 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:31:31 ◼   ► I don't have a single one anymore.

01:31:33 ◼   ► But at one point, there may have been, there may have been overlaps, right?

01:31:37 ◼   ► Like Odin Pro, Odin Pro Mini, Odin Pro Portal?

01:31:42 ◼   ► Well, the portal never is still not shipped.

01:31:45 ◼   ► Sure, but you would at least put money down for all of these things in the same time period.

01:31:50 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:31:51 ◼   ► This is not criticism.

01:31:52 ◼   ► I love it.

01:31:53 ◼   ► This is one of my favorite podcasts.

01:31:55 ◼   ► And I can't judge because I bought a bunch of performers this year.

01:31:58 ◼   ► So I'm just saying I'm looking out for you.

01:32:01 ◼   ► That's all I'm saying.

01:32:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think I will have a midlife crisis.

01:32:05 ◼   ► I don't think I'll ever have a midlife, you know, I'm just gonna go on this way forever.

01:32:10 ◼   ► So let's go, maybe Federico will lose forever.

01:32:14 ◼   ► You know what, what do they call it?

01:32:17 ◼   ► Founder mode?

01:32:18 ◼   ► Is that the expression that people like?

01:32:19 ◼   ► Yeah, let's go.

01:32:20 ◼   ► Let's go with that.

01:32:21 ◼   ► He's perpetually 36.

01:32:23 ◼   ► That's part of being founder mode.

01:32:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:26 ◼   ► October also saw the launch of Croissant from our friends Ben and Aaron.

01:32:31 ◼   ► This is an excellent iPhone app, but now it's also on the iPad and Mac in the months since.

01:32:36 ◼   ► Two cross posts, threads, Mastodon and Blue Sky, something that we all found ourselves

01:32:41 ◼   ► doing in our scattered and shattered social media world.

01:32:46 ◼   ► Croissant is beautiful.

01:32:48 ◼   ► It's well designed, but well thought through.

01:32:50 ◼   ► I have no complaints.

01:32:53 ◼   ► It's a life saving application.

01:32:55 ◼   ► Well, hang on, not like literally.

01:32:57 ◼   ► It saves my social life.

01:32:58 ◼   ► There you go.

01:32:59 ◼   ► I'll say that.

01:33:00 ◼   ► I'll say Blue Sky through a satellite.

01:33:02 ◼   ► Yeah, there you go.

01:33:04 ◼   ► Directly to me.

01:33:07 ◼   ► October moves on.

01:33:11 ◼   ► This is maybe the weirdest story of the year.

01:33:14 ◼   ► The M4 MacBook Pro was offered for sale on a Russian website and then showed up in a

01:33:21 ◼   ► bunch of YouTube videos.

01:33:23 ◼   ► So good.

01:33:24 ◼   ► Wait, did it end up being true or not?

01:33:26 ◼   ► Yes, because they didn't change the box because that was to tell people were like, oh, the

01:33:30 ◼   ► box is the same.

01:33:31 ◼   ► Apple would never do that.

01:33:32 ◼   ► And then they didn't change the box.

01:33:34 ◼   ► So they did in fact do that.

01:33:37 ◼   ► An absolute wild, wild leak.

01:33:40 ◼   ► And it's made even more interesting that Apple doesn't sell products in Russia.

01:33:46 ◼   ► Just incredible.

01:33:49 ◼   ► So good.

01:33:51 ◼   ► But the biggest news was the iPad mini got an update.

01:33:57 ◼   ► Oh, I'm reading my notes.

01:34:00 ◼   ► It was just the A17 Pro for Apple intelligence.

01:34:05 ◼   ► The iPad mini Pro dream lives on.

01:34:09 ◼   ► I like this iPad mini.

01:34:11 ◼   ► I bought one when I was on sabbatical and have been using it a ton.

01:34:15 ◼   ► And back in the iPad mini life, it's really good.

01:34:19 ◼   ► Was October your sabbatical month?

01:34:20 ◼   ► It was.

01:34:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:22 ◼   ► And it was fantastic.

01:34:24 ◼   ► And thank you again for helping make it possible, you two.

01:34:27 ◼   ► Sure.

01:34:28 ◼   ► Anytime.

01:34:29 ◼   ► It's funny that I got...

01:34:31 ◼   ► Actually, I retract what I just said.

01:34:32 ◼   ► I said anytime.

01:34:33 ◼   ► I don't mean that.

01:34:35 ◼   ► See ya!

01:34:36 ◼   ► I mean, you're welcome.

01:34:38 ◼   ► That's what I actually mean.

01:34:40 ◼   ► It is funny.

01:34:41 ◼   ► I mean, the round robin, I just assigned them.

01:34:43 ◼   ► I did want Mike to have December for a reason.

01:34:46 ◼   ► And so I worked backwards from there.

01:34:48 ◼   ► It's funny that I got October because I wasn't around for any of this.

01:34:51 ◼   ► That's good.

01:34:52 ◼   ► That's good.

01:34:53 ◼   ► Tell me what you think about all the things that happened in your little way.

01:34:56 ◼   ► Well, the next thing is another AI error.

01:34:59 ◼   ► The Apple tweaks EU core technology fee happened in May, but it's listed here in October.

01:35:05 ◼   ► That's funny how this has happened twice in your months.

01:35:07 ◼   ► I don't think this happened in your months.

01:35:10 ◼   ► What a coincidence.

01:35:11 ◼   ► It is weird.

01:35:12 ◼   ► What a weird coincidence.

01:35:15 ◼   ► We talked about iOS 18.1, the beta, and now here in October, it came out for realsies.

01:35:25 ◼   ► And I just want to take this moment to say how sick the new Siri animation is on CarPlay.

01:35:32 ◼   ► I guess you all haven't seen it.

01:35:33 ◼   ► I guess Federica, you've got CarPlay.

01:35:35 ◼   ► You've seen it.

01:35:36 ◼   ► No, I don't have CarPlay.

01:35:37 ◼   ► You don't have CarPlay?

01:35:38 ◼   ► No, I got Bluetooth, man, like an old person.

01:35:41 ◼   ► Okay, when you buy a new car, you get to CarPlay.

01:35:43 ◼   ► Federica plugs his phone into his cassette deck in his car.

01:35:47 ◼   ► Sick.

01:35:48 ◼   ► And that's how he plays music.

01:35:49 ◼   ► The audio sounds so much warmer through the cassette adapter.

01:35:54 ◼   ► I'm thinking about buying a record player, y'all.

01:35:56 ◼   ► Anyways.

01:35:57 ◼   ► Oh, yes, you should do that.

01:35:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:00 ◼   ► This is your midlife crisis.

01:36:01 ◼   ► I got a bunch of bookmarks saved in Good Links.

01:36:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:04 ◼   ► It's out of control.

01:36:05 ◼   ► You should do that.

01:36:06 ◼   ► Then you should get some Sonos speakers.

01:36:08 ◼   ► Okay.

01:36:09 ◼   ► That's what you should do, by the way.

01:36:10 ◼   ► I do have the Sonos Beam already under my TV.

01:36:13 ◼   ► No, buy a Sonos One and plug the record player into the Sonos One.

01:36:18 ◼   ► Okay.

01:36:19 ◼   ► It sounds great, and then you can send the music from your record player to any other

01:36:24 ◼   ► Sonos device.

01:36:25 ◼   ► Yeah, which only have one right now, but this could be...

01:36:28 ◼   ► But you could have more.

01:36:29 ◼   ► Could have more.

01:36:30 ◼   ► I'll say this.

01:36:32 ◼   ► If you have recommendations on this setup that agree or disagree with Mike, send them

01:36:37 ◼   ► in.

01:36:38 ◼   ► There's a feedback link.

01:36:39 ◼   ► No, I have the right recommendation.

01:36:40 ◼   ► It's to plug it into a Sonos One.

01:36:42 ◼   ► Yeah, but like what record player should I get?

01:36:44 ◼   ► There's other...

01:36:45 ◼   ► The record player I'm not telling you about.

01:36:46 ◼   ► Right.

01:36:47 ◼   ► I'm not telling you about Sonos One, but it's too fiddly, so I wouldn't recommend it.

01:36:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:50 ◼   ► So if you have thoughts on that, let me know in the feedback form.

01:36:54 ◼   ► But yes, Apple Intelligence 0.1 started rolling out.

01:36:58 ◼   ► I think we are all in agreement that the new Siri animation should not have come this early,

01:37:02 ◼   ► but it did.

01:37:04 ◼   ► This was writing tools, type to Siri, photos memory creation, which I don't think gets

01:37:08 ◼   ► the...

01:37:09 ◼   ► I don't think it's the love that it should.

01:37:11 ◼   ► I actually really like that feature in Apple Intelligence.

01:37:14 ◼   ► And then cleanup and photos, which is pretty good.

01:37:17 ◼   ► I've used it on several images and it does a pretty good job.

01:37:20 ◼   ► I'm happy to have it baked into the photos app.

01:37:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:37:24 ◼   ► October also brought a wave of new Macs, which was really hard for me being on sabbatical.

01:37:32 ◼   ► The new Mac Mini, like I wish I had room for it in my life.

01:37:36 ◼   ► It looks incredible.

01:37:38 ◼   ► M4 Pro and Macs also came to the MacBook Pro in October.

01:37:44 ◼   ► Lots of new Macs, all good.

01:37:47 ◼   ► Ted Lasso to return to Apple TV Plus.

01:37:52 ◼   ► I'm going to just say this.

01:37:53 ◼   ► I think this is a mistake.

01:37:55 ◼   ► And I think we're going to all realize that once this comes out.

01:38:01 ◼   ► I'm really worried about this.

01:38:04 ◼   ► It depends what the show is.

01:38:09 ◼   ► I don't think it's Ted Lasso season four in the way that it sounds.

01:38:12 ◼   ► So it might not, if they do that, I think that's the problem.

01:38:17 ◼   ► But if they actually just like, hey, here's these characters you love and we're now telling

01:38:20 ◼   ► some new stories of them, that might be better.

01:38:24 ◼   ► Right?

01:38:25 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:38:26 ◼   ► I mean, look, what I say is, you know, a big part of the creative team is also producing

01:38:31 ◼   ► Shrinking and Shrinking is truly superb.

01:38:34 ◼   ► So I have faith in them.

01:38:38 ◼   ► We got that.

01:38:39 ◼   ► We have Submerged came to the Vision Pro.

01:38:41 ◼   ► I finally watched this recently and I did not like it.

01:38:45 ◼   ► It freaked me out.

01:38:46 ◼   ► What didn't you like about it?

01:38:48 ◼   ► It was like, it was too real in a way that I did not expect.

01:38:53 ◼   ► You were claustrophobic?

01:38:54 ◼   ► Not really, but it felt...

01:38:56 ◼   ► You think it might be now?

01:38:58 ◼   ► It felt, it might be now.

01:39:02 ◼   ► And then Dan Riccio.

01:39:04 ◼   ► I wonder why you said it like that.

01:39:10 ◼   ► You weren't sure of the pronunciation.

01:39:13 ◼   ► What do you call our co-host?

01:39:15 ◼   ► What's his name?

01:39:17 ◼   ► Federicchio.

01:39:18 ◼   ► No.

01:39:19 ◼   ► Yeah, see, you should know it.

01:39:21 ◼   ► That's what you call him all the time.

01:39:24 ◼   ► Fred-er-ico.

01:39:25 ◼   ► Dan, Dan's going to retire after 26 years.

01:39:30 ◼   ► Oh, Dan.

01:39:31 ◼   ► Well done.

01:39:32 ◼   ► Well done.

01:39:33 ◼   ► Bye, Dan.

01:39:34 ◼   ► Bye, Dan.

01:39:35 ◼   ► John Ternus is then promoted to look, to oversee all hardware.

01:39:38 ◼   ► As consolidating power.

01:39:40 ◼   ► 2024.

01:39:41 ◼   ► 2024 is the year of John Ternus.

01:39:44 ◼   ► Yep.

01:39:45 ◼   ► Oh no, that's my yearly theme for next year.

01:39:49 ◼   ► It's just John Ternus?

01:39:51 ◼   ► Is it really?

01:39:52 ◼   ► No, it's the year of John Ternus.

01:39:54 ◼   ► Pretty good theme.

01:39:55 ◼   ► Pretty good theme, to be honest.

01:39:57 ◼   ► I would agree.

01:39:59 ◼   ► So that's October.

01:40:00 ◼   ► Good plus.

01:40:01 ◼   ► Good plus.

01:40:02 ◼   ► I mean, this is all good stuff.

01:40:06 ◼   ► I mean, except the iPad mini.

01:40:08 ◼   ► No, good plus.

01:40:09 ◼   ► Yes, yes, good plus.

01:40:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:40:12 ◼   ► Because I wanted more from it.

01:40:13 ◼   ► But this is like all good Apple news.

01:40:16 ◼   ► This is just like a good Apple news month, I think, you know?

01:40:19 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:40:20 ◼   ► Good month.

01:40:21 ◼   ► Good month.

01:40:22 ◼   ► Okay.

01:40:23 ◼   ► Let's move on to a pretty useless month, which is November.

01:40:27 ◼   ► Love it.

01:40:28 ◼   ► November.

01:40:29 ◼   ► So we got just how many?

01:40:31 ◼   ► Five items on our list.

01:40:33 ◼   ► One.

01:40:34 ◼   ► So he's now selling the Belkin top head strap for the Vision Pro.

01:40:39 ◼   ► So once again, Belkin coming in hot as the fixer for Apple's problems.

01:40:46 ◼   ► In this case, the lack of a head strap, like the one we saw at WWDC last year.

01:40:53 ◼   ► Now Belkin is making one.

01:40:55 ◼   ► Spigen is also making one.

01:40:56 ◼   ► But the Belkin one is the one that you can get from the Apple store.

01:40:59 ◼   ► Have you tried the Belkin one, Federico?

01:41:01 ◼   ► I have not because I am perfectly fine with the Spigen one.

01:41:04 ◼   ► Which is better and similar.

01:41:05 ◼   ► By the Belkin one.

01:41:06 ◼   ► Why?

01:41:07 ◼   ► It's good.

01:41:08 ◼   ► It's really good.

01:41:09 ◼   ► It's more adjustable.

01:41:10 ◼   ► It's more adjustable, more easily adjustable than the Spigen one.

01:41:13 ◼   ► All right.

01:41:14 ◼   ► I'll look into it.

01:41:15 ◼   ► It's the best one.

01:41:16 ◼   ► Okay.

01:41:17 ◼   ► I mean, except for maybe this thing where I look like I'm strapping my head into like

01:41:20 ◼   ► an electric chair.

01:41:21 ◼   ► I don't even know what's going on with this thing.

01:41:23 ◼   ► Do you need to adjust it every single time or can you just leave it on one?

01:41:28 ◼   ► You can just leave it.

01:41:29 ◼   ► Okay.

01:41:30 ◼   ► You can just leave it.

01:41:31 ◼   ► But you see, you know what I'm talking about?

01:41:32 ◼   ► This medical device one?

01:41:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:34 ◼   ► And it's apparently it's very comfortable.

01:41:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:38 ◼   ► But it looks what?

01:41:39 ◼   ► But also.

01:41:40 ◼   ► It's so intense.

01:41:41 ◼   ► It's scary.

01:41:42 ◼   ► It also looks like the death penalty.

01:41:44 ◼   ► So there's that.

01:41:45 ◼   ► Yes.

01:41:46 ◼   ► Wow.

01:41:47 ◼   ► Contour head strap.

01:41:48 ◼   ► It looks so bad.

01:41:49 ◼   ► I mean, it does.

01:41:50 ◼   ► I mean, it really, truly does.

01:41:51 ◼   ► You know.

01:41:52 ◼   ► It looks, it looks like it's bad.

01:41:54 ◼   ► ResMed is the name of the company.

01:41:56 ◼   ► And it's like, look, I understand, right?

01:41:57 ◼   ► There's count away.

01:41:58 ◼   ► It's like, I get that it's good.

01:42:00 ◼   ► I'm sure it's good, but it looks scary.

01:42:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:03 ◼   ► The moment I saw it, the moment I saw it, it immediately triggered my memory of me as

01:42:09 ◼   ► a kid watching, uh, what's it called?

01:42:11 ◼   ► The green mile movie and being absolutely terrified.

01:42:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:16 ◼   ► Uh, I also don't want to spend another 120 pounds on a vision brush strap.

01:42:20 ◼   ► Like I've got too many now.

01:42:22 ◼   ► The one I have, the broken one is good, but this one, it looks, look, if the passionate

01:42:27 ◼   ► ones go out there and try it and buy it, you can let me know.

01:42:29 ◼   ► But I'm going to leave that one to everybody else.

01:42:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:33 ◼   ► In November, we got the first public paid us of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2 and Sequoia 15.2

01:42:41 ◼   ► and VisionOS 2.2.

01:42:43 ◼   ► More Apple intelligence, ultra wide display on the Vision Pro.

01:42:48 ◼   ► Um, I've had a bunch of other tweaks to iOS and iPadOS.

01:42:53 ◼   ► Um, pretty good release, especially, you know, with the child GPT integration and obviously,

01:42:58 ◼   ► unfortunately the image playground.

01:43:01 ◼   ► Genmoji is good.

01:43:03 ◼   ► We like Genmoji.

01:43:04 ◼   ► We like Genmoji.

01:43:05 ◼   ► Genmoji is great.

01:43:06 ◼   ► And the ultra wide vision probe thing is superbly good.

01:43:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:43:11 ◼   ► Very well done.

01:43:12 ◼   ► And the charge GPT integration in, in Apple intelligence can be useful.

01:43:16 ◼   ► Um, promising, promising.

01:43:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:43:21 ◼   ► Uh, pre-orders began for the book commemorating Apple music's 100 best albums of all time.

01:43:30 ◼   ► An incredibly bad list now being turned into a book.

01:43:35 ◼   ► Um, I mean, at least the book looks nice.

01:43:39 ◼   ► I'll give you that.

01:43:42 ◼   ► The European Union is also back.

01:43:44 ◼   ► And just one, one final move before the end of the year saying, Hey, Apple, uh, we're

01:43:55 ◼   ► putting you on notice for how you support interoperability with third party watches

01:44:02 ◼   ► and third party headphones, because we do not like, we do not appreciate the exclusive

01:44:06 ◼   ► control that you have for the Apple watch and AirPods on your platforms.

01:44:10 ◼   ► So we'll see what happens here.

01:44:13 ◼   ► Uh, iOS 18 does have, so this is a fun fact that I don't think a lot of people reported.

01:44:19 ◼   ► Um, iOS 18 did introduce a developer framework, uh, what's called accessory kit.

01:44:27 ◼   ► I want to say that basically allows Bluetooth devices to have a setup flow very similar

01:44:33 ◼   ► to the AirPods one.

01:44:35 ◼   ► Now we know that Apple is doing, is still doing some, some behind the scenes, you know,

01:44:42 ◼   ► magic tricks to make the AirPods work as well as they do on iOS.

01:44:49 ◼   ► But they don't have, the thing is they don't have, even if we count accessory kit as a

01:44:54 ◼   ► potential solution for third party earbuds, they still don't have an equivalent for third

01:44:59 ◼   ► party smart watches.

01:45:01 ◼   ► So I think it's going to be interesting to see what Apple does here.

01:45:05 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised to see changes within the 18 cycle in 25.

01:45:11 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:45:12 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:45:13 ◼   ► Uh, and also the weekends immersive music experience, which is basically a video clip,

01:45:21 ◼   ► uh, launched on the vision pro.

01:45:23 ◼   ► Steven don't watch this one.

01:45:25 ◼   ► Yeah, it's probably going to make you sick.

01:45:27 ◼   ► You're not going to like this one.

01:45:28 ◼   ► I have not seen it yet.

01:45:29 ◼   ► Not even, not even if you were, not even the medical mask is going to save you.

01:45:39 ◼   ► So that was November.

01:45:41 ◼   ► Uh, normal, normal.

01:45:44 ◼   ► This is a normal, normal.

01:45:47 ◼   ► We were not upset.

01:45:48 ◼   ► So that's good.

01:45:49 ◼   ► But also like, you know, pretty basic.

01:45:52 ◼   ► And we finish out the year with December, AKA the stuff you've already heard us talk

01:45:56 ◼   ► about in the last couple of weeks.

01:45:58 ◼   ► So we'll go through it as quickly.

01:45:59 ◼   ► We come back to WordPress and automatic, which has been a running story throughout the year.

01:46:05 ◼   ► Um, it was a court gave them in and like basically ruled that they could no longer block WP engine

01:46:12 ◼   ► as well by a judge until there's an injunction on them trying to block them.

01:46:17 ◼   ► And they're going to have to settle it in a court case.

01:46:19 ◼   ► Uh, it was award season max story selects 2024 and the 2024 app store award winners.

01:46:27 ◼   ► Um, uh, five, 12 pixels award, sorry, five, 12 pixels app of the year.

01:46:34 ◼   ► The five 12 z's.

01:46:36 ◼   ► Yup.

01:46:37 ◼   ► Uh, iOS 18.2 was released with image playgrounds, gemmo, G know that stuff.

01:46:44 ◼   ► Uh, it led to the BBC getting real mad because they summarize the headline that they shouldn't

01:46:49 ◼   ► incorrectly.

01:46:50 ◼   ► The king, his majesty, King Charles the third visited Apple's UK headquarters.

01:47:02 ◼   ► And the, while this is just a very whatever month, it is the best.

01:47:06 ◼   ► I love you because, uh, I got to share that I'm having a baby in December.

01:47:11 ◼   ► Well, not, I'm not having a baby in December.

01:47:13 ◼   ► In December I announced we're having a baby.

01:47:15 ◼   ► And in fact the baby is already here.

01:47:16 ◼   ► Wait, what?

01:47:17 ◼   ► No, please welcome to the show.

01:47:22 ◼   ► Little OTJ.

01:47:24 ◼   ► Um, one true junior.

01:47:28 ◼   ► Oh, I mean, it's right there.

01:47:31 ◼   ► It is a best.

01:47:34 ◼   ► I love you because of the baby.

01:47:37 ◼   ► Let's be honest.

01:47:38 ◼   ► Yep.

01:47:39 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:47:40 ◼   ► So December you have Mike's baby to thank for your categorization under best.

01:47:46 ◼   ► I love you.

01:47:47 ◼   ► Yeah, man.

01:47:51 ◼   ► We had some real, uh, inflation in our gradings this year.

01:47:56 ◼   ► Well, I think overall, so you're looking back at the year, looking back at the year, I think

01:48:01 ◼   ► we can, we can summarize it as such, despite the drama surrounding us and despite the difficulties

01:48:11 ◼   ► in our industry, we still found a way to have a good time.

01:48:17 ◼   ► I considered this 2024 to be the best year of my life.

01:48:22 ◼   ► So I'm very happy with the fact that there's a sprinkling of best I love you's all throughout

01:48:29 ◼   ► because most of the things that I consider to be the parts of making this year so good

01:48:33 ◼   ► are the things that we gave best I love you's for, you know?

01:48:40 ◼   ► So I feel pretty good.

01:48:42 ◼   ► Me too.

01:48:43 ◼   ► Do you want to run through them real quick?

01:48:45 ◼   ► What the months, what we gave them.

01:48:47 ◼   ► So January, decent February, good plus March, good April, good May, best I love you June,

01:48:57 ◼   ► decent July, best I love you August, decent beige for some reason.

01:49:03 ◼   ► September, Mike, best I know.

01:49:05 ◼   ► Wait, I said my own name.

01:49:07 ◼   ► September, best I love you.

01:49:08 ◼   ► October, good November.

01:49:11 ◼   ► Federico said it was pretty useless and also normal and in December, best I love you.

01:49:18 ◼   ► There we go.

01:49:19 ◼   ► That's a good list.

01:49:20 ◼   ► That's a good list.

01:49:21 ◼   ► Um, good list.

01:49:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:49:23 ◼   ► Good list.

01:49:24 ◼   ► We like it.

01:49:25 ◼   ► We like it.

01:49:26 ◼   ► I think we like it.

01:49:27 ◼   ► Yeah, we do.

01:49:28 ◼   ► We like it.

01:49:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:49:30 ◼   ► That does it.

01:49:31 ◼   ► I think, I think that does it.

01:49:32 ◼   ► That's the year.

01:49:33 ◼   ► Another, another, we, we, we did another year of this show.

01:49:38 ◼   ► Congratulations to us really.

01:49:41 ◼   ► You know?

01:49:42 ◼   ► Yes.

01:49:43 ◼   ► Yes.

01:49:44 ◼   ► Hey, best I love you, you know?

01:49:47 ◼   ► I love you best.

01:49:50 ◼   ► You know?

01:49:51 ◼   ► I am now looking forward to perform a month, 2025.

01:49:56 ◼   ► That's a good point.

01:49:57 ◼   ► How do you follow up?

01:49:59 ◼   ► Perform a month.

01:50:00 ◼   ► You know?

01:50:01 ◼   ► That's a problem for future me.

01:50:04 ◼   ► There's only, there's only, you know, there's only one way to find out, which is we got

01:50:09 ◼   ► to stay alive until August, 2025.

01:50:11 ◼   ► That's a good point.

01:50:12 ◼   ► What about, what about Newton November?

01:50:14 ◼   ► What about, what about, uh, let's see.

01:50:18 ◼   ► Do you need ideas, Steven?

01:50:22 ◼   ► Maybe always.

01:50:23 ◼   ► Can we do, can we do quadra month?

01:50:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I can do some quadra stuff.

01:50:28 ◼   ► Quadra quarter.

01:50:29 ◼   ► It goes on for three months.

01:50:35 ◼   ► Welcome to QQ.

01:50:37 ◼   ► It's quadra, it's quadra quarter.

01:50:38 ◼   ► That's good.

01:50:39 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure if you've put QQ on your website, I think that that invites like a different,

01:50:46 ◼   ► it's different.

01:50:47 ◼   ► It could be good for page views.

01:50:49 ◼   ► That's a good point.

01:50:50 ◼   ► That's a good point.

01:50:51 ◼   ► Q squared.

01:50:52 ◼   ► Kind of get a lot of Reddit traffic.

01:50:54 ◼   ► Hey, this is, uh, this is the end of our regular year, right?

01:51:00 ◼   ► Yep.

01:51:01 ◼   ► There's an episode, the last episode of connected that we at three of us will be on until next

01:51:06 ◼   ► year.

01:51:07 ◼   ► That's right.

01:51:08 ◼   ► Uh, so I hope everyone has a great holiday break.

01:51:12 ◼   ► Um, until then, if you want to, uh, relive 2024, there are 94 links in the show notes.

01:51:22 ◼   ► Maybe a record furiously clicking, uh, 94 links, which means, hang on.

01:51:27 ◼   ► I have clicked for the show notes 282 times during today's episode.

01:51:32 ◼   ► Cause it takes three clicks to get things out.

01:51:35 ◼   ► Yes.

01:51:36 ◼   ► So, uh, thank you Mike for doing that.

01:51:37 ◼   ► You can find us on the internet.

01:51:40 ◼   ► Federico is the editor in chief at max stories.net.

01:51:43 ◼   ► If you haven't read his iPad article, uh, that was published on the 18th, like go read

01:51:47 ◼   ► it.

01:51:48 ◼   ► It's very, very good.

01:51:49 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:51:50 ◼   ► And he is Vitechy across the social media hellscape.

01:51:55 ◼   ► Mike hosts many, many shows here on relay and you can check out his excellent work at

01:52:00 ◼   ► cortex brand.

01:52:02 ◼   ► And he is either Mike or I Mike or Mike Hurley on social media.

01:52:06 ◼   ► He's one of them.

01:52:08 ◼   ► You can find my writing at five 12 pixels.net.

01:52:11 ◼   ► I cohost Mac power users here on relay and I am I some H 86 on social media.

01:52:17 ◼   ► I'd love to thank our sponsors this week.

01:52:21 ◼   ► He would love to, I would love to, if I had knew what they were.

01:52:25 ◼   ► Zocdoc, Vanta, NetSuite and Masterclass.

01:52:28 ◼   ► Yes.

01:52:29 ◼   ► Thank you sponsoring the show this week.

01:52:32 ◼   ► You're all the best.

01:52:33 ◼   ► Uh, and thank you to members who support us directly.

01:52:39 ◼   ► You can get connected pro the ad free longer version of the show that we do each and every

01:52:43 ◼   ► week.

01:52:44 ◼   ► The link is the top link in the show notes because we are running a sale that is getting

01:52:48 ◼   ► ready to end.

01:52:49 ◼   ► So you need to act quickly 20% off a year of connected pro at give relay.com and until

01:52:57 ◼   ► next year, boys say goodbye.

01:53:00 ◼   ► Arrivederci.

01:53:01 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:53:02 ◼   ► Bye y'all.

01:53:03 ◼   ► [no audio]