00:00:00 ◼ ► I'm coming in hot this week, again. This time, my desktop audio setup is one of those, like, you know, the desk is very clean, at least when it's not covered in other crap. But, like, my desk is very clean, and it looks like I have a very simple audio setup. Three boxes, all next to each other, with all, like, neatly tucked away cables.
00:00:24 ◼ ► One of them is a Zoom, I think it's the F1, yeah, the Zoom F1, which serves as my kind of backup hardware recorder for podcasting.
00:00:39 ◼ ► And to the left of that is the American audio amplifier company named after a swear word that looks German but isn't.
00:00:53 ◼ ► They have a product called the Jottenheim that I've used as my headphone amp and speaker volume control, and there are switches in the front of it so I can switch between podcasting, which uses a different input and stuff like that.
00:01:30 ◼ ► Like, there's a certain smell, like I think the magic smoke is where, like, you know, a blown power supply has a certain smell.
00:01:46 ◼ ► Like, it smells almost like slightly melting plastic or slightly melting, you know, metallic stuff.
00:01:59 ◼ ► I'm looking around, sniffing around upstairs, and I finally come to my desk, and I'm like, it smells strongest in my office.
00:02:15 ◼ ► And audiophile amplifiers are often very power inefficient compared to, like, you know, a standard kind of, like, you know, Class D, kind of dynamic switching kind of stuff that most modern, like, compact low-power amps are made like.
00:02:28 ◼ ► The old-style amps, because they tend to sound better this way, use electric topologies that, and forgive me, I'm not an electric only new year, so I don't know how any of this stuff works.
00:02:55 ◼ ► I took out a little thermal camera to measure because that was the most convenient thermal measuring device in my office.
00:03:09 ◼ ► Like, this is, like, touch it, and you should not leave your hand there because you'll get some kind of minor burn after a while kind of hot.
00:03:19 ◼ ► I'm, like, then, you know, I move on with my day, trying, you know, got to make dinner and everything.
00:03:44 ◼ ► So, you know, and I could, all I need to do is plug my headphones in so I can hear myself and you.
00:03:50 ◼ ► But because I have, like, the Zoom recorder, I have, like, a kind of split two-channel output where, like, I'm in one ear and you guys are in the other ear for the purpose of the recorder.
00:04:10 ◼ ► And it took me a very long time to finally get the, like, rushing, like, pulling cables out of my closet, pulling boxes and bins out.
00:04:26 ◼ ► Like, I finished the setup as we were, you know, starting the pre-show discussing the topics and stuff.
00:04:51 ◼ ► It looks like somebody ransacked my office looking for an audio cable because that's basically what happened and it was me.
00:05:00 ◼ ► The only thing you have left is learn how to pronounce the name of that product that you keep talking about.
00:05:25 ◼ ► It is my self-anointed position on the show to call attention to new immersive content on the Vision Pro for the three of you that have Vision Pros.
00:05:35 ◼ ► And so, for all three of you, I'm telling you now that there is a new boundless immersive episode called Arctic Surfing.
00:05:40 ◼ ► These are probably my least favorite of all the different things that they do, to be completely honest with you.
00:05:55 ◼ ► Or we're going to talk for a few minutes, in this case, about surfing, where it's really freaking cold in Norway.
00:06:11 ◼ ► And I don't recall if I brought this to the show or not, but they did a rodeo one like a couple of weeks ago.
00:06:34 ◼ ► They also are doing some kind of immersive documentary film based on Bono's autobiography book thingy.
00:06:42 ◼ ► You're watching people Arctic Surfing and doing a rodeo, but you're not going to listen to Bono do his...
00:07:02 ◼ ► All the stuff you're watching, you'll watch anything except for something that you might have some familiarity with.
00:07:23 ◼ ► I had seen that fly by, and honestly, I didn't pay any attention to it because, again, U2 is kind of whatever for me.
00:07:51 ◼ ► We were talking last episode, I believe, in the after show, excuse me, in overtime, about humanoid robots.
00:07:59 ◼ ► Yeah, something I forgot to mention that I meant to in the last show, and I actually didn't hear from anyone as feedback as well.
00:08:07 ◼ ► Part of the overtime was discussing this whole trend of the humanoid robots that lots of companies are talking about or investing money in.
00:08:13 ◼ ► Either officially, they're doing press releases, or unofficially, they're investing in companies, or super unofficially.
00:08:25 ◼ ► And one of the questions I was asking in overtime is, are we on the verge of some kind of technological breakthrough that makes humanoid robots suddenly much more possible than they were previously?
00:08:36 ◼ ► Because it doesn't seem like we're very close to it, but everyone's investing in it, so what's the deal?
00:08:40 ◼ ► And I don't think we came up with any answers in overtime about like, oh, there is some technological breakthrough, and here's what it is.
00:08:49 ◼ ► And that's why, even though it seems like humanoid robots are impossible, actually, next week they're going to be here.
00:08:55 ◼ ► We didn't come up with anything, but I have an idea of how I would imagine that it's possible that there is some kind of breakthrough making humanoid robots.
00:09:06 ◼ ► Or robots in general much more possible than they used to be, that is actually founded in real things.
00:09:30 ◼ ► All we got to do is add this smart LM-powered software to a bunch of servo motors, and voila, we're two steps away from human or robots.
00:09:37 ◼ ► But I think the plausible angle, which, again, not necessarily true, but could be true, is it's the same as I mentioned with Google and its data centers, sort of driving the proprietary Unix workstation server vendors out of business.
00:09:55 ◼ ► The innovation there was, what if we take cheap, crappy commodity hardware that was previously unviable in the data center because it was cheap, crappy, and commodity, and not purpose-built and unreliable?
00:10:09 ◼ ► And what if we apply software to that problem such that the software can manage and corral all this crappy hardware, expecting it to fail, but building a software layer on top that will manage all that by saying, well, it doesn't matter if things fail.
00:10:28 ◼ ► I'll just bring up new ones, and we'll just, you know, it'll be sort of a software layer on top of crappy hardware.
00:10:32 ◼ ► And as computing and software improves, I always think that maybe there's a possibility that all the problems about, like, mechanical devices that, you know, move like living things or able to navigate our world, it's such a hard problem.
00:10:46 ◼ ► A lot of it, sometimes when I look at them, again, like the Boston Dynamics robot thingies, it's like, but they're trying to do it the hard way.
00:10:54 ◼ ► Like, you know, let's have very precise, careful machines that are precision made and are strong and reliable and sturdy, and then have computers control them very precisely by having an awareness of their surroundings.
00:11:08 ◼ ► And what if the other approach is, let's have crappy hardware that barely works and breaks half the time, and just have really smart software surrounding it to make up for that?
00:11:19 ◼ ► Kind of like the drone revolution, where if you look at the hardware on a drone, it's a bunch of motors and plastic fans.
00:11:31 ◼ ► And the software is like, give me something that vaguely spins blades around and has some adjustability, and it's just a question of putting in the right sensors and putting in the right control systems so that it takes this crappy hardware and says, well, like, you can take a drone and, like, snip off a piece of one of the propellers and it'll still kind of figure out how to stay upright, because it's a control system.
00:11:47 ◼ ► It's like, give me crappy commodity hardware and some smart software, and I'll figure out, oh, how much more power does this need?
00:11:56 ◼ ► Because there's something constantly thinking, what do I need to do to stay level, to go up, to do the thing that I want to do?
00:12:02 ◼ ► It's like, if we can get software that can take hardware that is bad, that, you know, doesn't, a servomotor that you can't precisely control, it doesn't turn to the exact angle instantly, that sometimes slips or fails or whatever, and just put smarts in it, kind of like smarts in our decrepit bodies, that just says, well, it doesn't work perfectly.
00:12:24 ◼ ► It doesn't have infinite strength, and as you get older, it gets less coordinated and creakier, but you have the knowledge and experience.
00:12:30 ◼ ► To control that body to know how much more force do we have to put in all these things, you know, with constant feedback from all the sensors.
00:12:37 ◼ ► So that's just what I wanted to throw out there, that, like, if there is a humanoid robot revolution, I see it being, like, you know, sort of the opposite of the perfect welding robots in a car factory, where it's, like, precision stuff, where it moves down to the millimeter very quickly with expensive motors and everything.
00:13:29 ◼ ► Why macOS didn't get the same treatment is unknown to me, but John's probably right that it's a cost issue.
00:13:36 ◼ ► So, first of all, this was one anonymous email regarding employment that allegedly ended in 2012.
00:13:48 ◼ ► And secondly, there's, you know, the asterisk of, like, well, what does it mean to have a QA team?
00:13:55 ◼ ► Like, could they, like, how were they managing testing and quality and things like that?
00:14:00 ◼ ► There could be some kind of weird technicality where it's like, well, we didn't call it QA, but actually it was this role being served here.
00:14:12 ◼ ► This is in the context of reliability of software and how much testing, like, features that don't get looked at for years and years get, like, the buried corners of macOS that no one looks at.
00:14:27 ◼ ► Who's checking whether they break and the Unix compliance process being one of the few things, according to a previous person who sent us feedback, one of the few things that actually is testing some of the dark corners of macOS on a regular basis.
00:14:48 ◼ ► In fact, we've heard stories of, like, there's certain applications that Apple always makes sure don't break as part of a new OS update.
00:14:57 ◼ ► Just from the outside, it seems like there's not enough of it for macOS because it is the less popular OS with fewer resources and it makes less money and yada, yada.
00:15:06 ◼ ► But I still feel like overall there's some baseline of reliability that Apple needs to maintain in all its software.
00:15:14 ◼ ► And macOS is very large and very complex and has a lot of moving parts and a lot of legacy stuff.
00:15:35 ◼ ► I had implied that he did because he was suggesting that he thought that Netflix should integrate with the Apple TV app.
00:15:41 ◼ ► And I said, well, for people like Joe who like the Apple TV app, he says, I don't like it.
00:15:55 ◼ ► Tabs are now sidebars, which is a reference, a very old reference that some people will get.
00:16:01 ◼ ► And then finally, from his not another WBC wish list from 2024 at JoeSteel.com, Joe-Steel.com, he wrote, and I quote, the Apple TV app still sucks butt.
00:16:13 ◼ ► So, I asked him, if you don't like the Apple TV app, then why are you rooting for Netflix to integrate with it?
00:16:25 ◼ ► Its absence annoys customers rather than weakening Apple's position to a substantial degree.
00:16:33 ◼ ► I don't know if you've tried the TV app integrations for Prime Video, et cetera, but they're an absolute joke.
00:16:37 ◼ ► Apple has no ability to steal consumer behavior in the TV app or everyone would be subscribed to Apple TV Plus and using Apple Channel's add-on.
00:16:44 ◼ ► So, he's basically saying it should be there because it's convenient and don't worry, it won't give Apple any more power.
00:16:49 ◼ ► And speaking of that Netflix and Apple TV integration, Serena writes, I wouldn't use the Apple TV app even if Netflix was integrated,
00:16:55 ◼ ► but it would be nice to have Netflix results integrated into the Apple TV search features.
00:16:59 ◼ ► Yeah, we got a lot of feedback about that of saying, like, it's not about using the app.
00:17:05 ◼ ► But it's really annoying that when you try to do, like, the cross-service search, Netflix results are not included there.
00:17:11 ◼ ► Daniel Luce writes, regarding Netflix, I agree with everything you said, but there's another thing I consider important.
00:17:21 ◼ ► I have two third-party channels and I'm not subscribed to Apple TV Plus, yet I've never seen fewer than half of all trailers and banners in the highlights of the TV app pointing me to Apple TV Plus originals.
00:17:34 ◼ ► I have to tap down 10 times to get to the For You section where it finally recommends something from another channel.
00:17:39 ◼ ► When Casey says his mental model is that the TV app is just the place to watch Apple TV stuff, I certainly understand because this is what the app is primarily designed for.
00:17:47 ◼ ► If Apple legitimately wants to be the central hub for all content in the Apple TV, they need to treat all sources fairly.
00:17:52 ◼ ► It would be one thing if the only privilege Apple TV Plus had was an exclusive tab, but even the main screen is just ad upon ad for a service I don't subscribe to, while the content I'm paying for is buried deep.
00:18:03 ◼ ► Slight conflict of interest when the app is run by a company with its own streaming service.
00:18:10 ◼ ► I didn't put any specific person's feedback in here, but I feel like I saw a lot of feedback that if I recall correctly and understand correctly, a lot of people had said,
00:18:35 ◼ ► Is the term for, they show above the grid of icons, there's actionable buttons where different, whatever app you currently have highlighted will give you additional options of things to do.
00:18:47 ◼ ► And I guess a lot of people use the Apple TV app to basically aggregate, okay, what should I watch right now?
00:19:05 ◼ ► But basically, by hovering your cursor, if you will, over the Apple TV app, the stuff above there is the stuff that you're most likely to want to watch.
00:20:13 ◼ ► That's not how, someone coming from TiVo or any other service that gives you some better
00:20:19 ◼ ► If you're watching one or two things and the same people are watching that, then maybe it's
00:20:23 ◼ ► But if you have sort of more demanding needs, you're either switching users constantly with
00:20:36 ◼ ► And the show you want to watch isn't even in the list anyway, because something of three
00:20:43 ◼ ► And even if it was, you know, an interface that I enjoyed, it just doesn't work right for
00:21:04 ◼ ► And then finally from Anonymous, I implemented Apple TV app integration for a streaming service.
00:21:14 ◼ ► You need to one, get a special entitlement from Apple and put it in your app to use a special
00:21:18 ◼ ► API that's available only if you have the entitlement to mark your app as a video provider.
00:21:22 ◼ ► Three, report users playback activity with NS user activity using custom keys for write a
00:21:33 ◼ ► Well, of course, five, agree with Apple on a deep link format, which you can, which can
00:22:01 ◼ ► This is something that both Netflix and Apple have clearly implemented and just it's not
00:22:10 ◼ ► But I think this is just Netflix being a smart company and saying, look, if we ever decide
00:22:17 ◼ ► And maybe they implemented it years ago and it's just been sitting there in a turned off
00:22:27 ◼ ► I don't know who accidentally turned it on, but it seems like Netflix doesn't want it turned
00:22:58 ◼ ► This will be completely unedited and done in real time so you can see the responsiveness.
00:23:32 ◼ ► That depends a bit on the specific model, but most standard bun commercial coffee pots hold about 12 cups.
00:24:16 ◼ ► One of the possible implications of this name and putting it as part of the 16 family is,
00:24:27 ◼ ► Will every family of iPhones have an E model that is the less expensive one with the older technology?
00:24:54 ◼ ► Now that seems unlikely to me because the economics and purpose and role of the 16E are very much like the SE as the less expensive phone.
00:25:01 ◼ ► I don't see why they would make a 17E, but the name does nudge things slightly in that direction.
00:25:09 ◼ ► So that's something to watch for when the 17 family, which we will discuss later, hopefully, 17 family arrives.
00:25:16 ◼ ► Watch to see if, I don't know, six months later, whatever the weird gap is, that another member of the 17 family arrives and it's the 17E.
00:25:29 ◼ ► So we got a handful of feedback about potential uses or target audiences, I guess I should say, for the 16E.
00:25:35 ◼ ► And there were a lot of people that said, oh, you know, either I have a pacemaker or I know someone with a pacemaker.
00:25:43 ◼ ► And I, Casey, have no idea how this works, but these people were saying that, oh, if you have something with magnets near pacemaker, that's very, very bad.
00:25:52 ◼ ► And then we got various flavors of the same message, but Patch wrote in, and I think this one is the best or most concise summary.
00:26:23 ◼ ► Enterprise does not care about AirTag finding, multiple cameras, Dynamic Island, or MagSafe.
00:26:28 ◼ ► It's also been about three years since last SE released, where a lot of businesses will be looking to start to cycle out their devices for new ones.
00:26:42 ◼ ► But to me, this is aimed squarely at enterprise purchasing managers who will be buying these in lots of hundreds or thousands.
00:26:54 ◼ ► But like Apple really doesn't make products of the size of even the smallest iPhone with the enterprise as the main target.
00:27:05 ◼ ► I mean, yeah, whatever the cheapest phone is, enterprise is going to be interested in that.
00:27:10 ◼ ► And I agree that enterprise is more likely to not care about the lack of MagSafe or AirTag.
00:27:42 ◼ ► I think maybe Gruber had the quote where someone asked like, what does the E stand for on iPhone 16E?
00:27:47 ◼ ► And the Apple, the official Apple response was, the E doesn't stand for anything, but we think it's the phone for everybody.
00:28:24 ◼ ► I think it was John Voorhees was the first person I saw who said, oh, maybe it's like a clearance or fitment issue or something along those lines.
00:28:43 ◼ ► So reading from a Macworld post that we'll put in the show notes, Apple's confirmed to Macworld that the C1 modem is not responsible for the decision to leave MagSafe charging off the new 16E.
00:28:54 ◼ ► Additionally, from 9to5Mac, Apple confirmed that the C1 has nothing to do with the omission of MagSafe and the iPhone 16E.
00:29:01 ◼ ► The new testing conducted by iPhone case accessory manufacturer and shared with 9to5Mac adds more detail to the situation.
00:29:08 ◼ ► The case manufacturer conducted tests on whether a MagSafe-enabled case and charging puck impaired cellular data speeds.
00:29:14 ◼ ► The tests confirmed that there is no difference between the C1 modem in the iPhone 16E and the MagSafe magnets.
00:29:22 ◼ ► So Apple says no, and people tested it, and they say no, so that's not a thing, apparently.
00:29:31 ◼ ► Reading from there, Apple's new C1 modem in the iPhone 16E is just the start, said chipmaking chief Johnny Surugi in an interview with Reuters.
00:29:40 ◼ ► We are going, this is a quote from Johnny, we're going to keep improving that technology each generation so that it becomes a platform for us that will be used to truly differentiate this technology for our products.
00:29:51 ◼ ► The C1 modem is manufactured with a 4nm process, and the transceiver is manufactured with a 7nm process.
00:29:57 ◼ ► According to Surugi, he said the modem is the most complex technology that Apple has ever built, and it was tested with 180 carriers in 55 countries to ensure reliability for core functionality like phone calls and mobile data.
00:30:08 ◼ ► Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today said the iPhone 17 Air will also be equipped with the C1 modem.
00:30:16 ◼ ► Yeah, and this is like, most of us I don't think really fully appreciate quite how complicated a cellular modem is, because like the reality is like when we think of modems, we think of like these basic things from a thousand years ago, you know, that translated signals pretty simply and receive them pretty simply.
00:30:35 ◼ ► Cell networks today and all the different tricks they have to use to cram a whole bunch of data into a limited frequency and limited spectrum and share the space with other phones and all the different coding schemes and everything.
00:30:53 ◼ ► And there's all sorts of, you know, just analog complexity, digital complexity, computational complexity.
00:31:02 ◼ ► So, in fact, I'll link to this Wendover video from a few years ago, which kind of goes over like some of the basic ideas of like how cell service encodes multiple users into certain frequencies and everything.
00:31:18 ◼ ► And this, like, it's just a high level overview the same way it was like, well, computers represent, you know, digits by ones and zeros and here's how they add on a basic level.
00:31:26 ◼ ► And it's like, if you compare that to what computers do today, it's like, yes, that is true.
00:31:41 ◼ ► And there is, and it touches so many different types of sciences and systems and needs.
00:32:02 ◼ ► Like, they've made their own version of those for a long time now, you know, relatively speaking.
00:32:09 ◼ ► Like, they could do an entire processor, an entire GPU stack before they could do a cell modem.
00:32:19 ◼ ► That's why this is such a big deal, and I think there's a lot of potential here for Apple to kick butt over time.
00:32:27 ◼ ► You know, we'll see how the, you know, first one is here, but I'm sure they have taken it very seriously.
00:32:34 ◼ ► The same way, like, the very first Apple Silicon processor, they took that really seriously.
00:32:54 ◼ ► It seems like they have tackled this with, you know, as much discipline and investment as they did processors and graphics cards.
00:33:15 ◼ ► Interestingly, for both of the things you mentioned, or actually for all three of the things you mentioned, Apple did this by acquiring companies.
00:33:51 ◼ ► And so, maybe that's why the cell phone stuff has, again, according to rumors, been delayed, you know, delayed from when.
00:34:07 ◼ ► But I feel like PA Semi was more up to the job than Intel's failing cell modem business.
00:34:15 ◼ ► But in all those cases, it came down to smart strategic acquisitions at the right time and then a multi-year wait to get to the point where they can produce something that's ready to be in an Apple product.
00:34:30 ◼ ► From a cellular point of view, the C1 seems to have all the bells and whistles, bands, and MIMO.
00:34:39 ◼ ► It's like simultaneous transmission on different frequencies, I guess, or antennas or something.
00:34:43 ◼ ► There are not many countries with millimeter wave, and you do need line of sight and to be close to the radio to get maximum throughput.
00:35:03 ◼ ► If you have worse sensitivity and interference resilience, then you can end up using higher transmission power, and that's where power consumption is the most impactful on battery life.
00:35:13 ◼ ► It really takes a lot of courage from Apple to put out a new cellular radio on an iPhone.
00:35:22 ◼ ► I always tell people that a cellular radio with negative 105, what is it, millidecibles?
00:35:32 ◼ ► Anyways, with negative 105 dBm sensitivity translates into decoding a signal that is about 31.6 femtowatts.
00:35:47 ◼ ► To be clear, the measurement that Pedro cited, 31.6 femtowatts, that is 0.0000000000000000316 watts.
00:35:59 ◼ ► We will put that number in the show notes so you can see how preposterously small this number is.
00:36:04 ◼ ► It is effectively immeasurable as far as I'm concerned, and yet that is the level of information that this chip gets in order to try to make heads or tails of it.
00:36:15 ◼ ► Having majored in computer engineering in college, which is actually just electrical engineering with some computer stuff added in, I had to take courses that explained what was then state-of-the-art, like in the 90s, state-of-the-art cell radio stuff.
00:36:29 ◼ ► And all the different technologies that go into it and the competing networks for code division multiplexing and old time division multiplexing and stuff.
00:36:37 ◼ ► We went over all the different technologies, and it was like, here's what they're doing.
00:36:43 ◼ ► Here's, and, you know, do you do problems and, you know, exercises of like, if you have this number of devices in this amount of area and they require this much power and how could they blah, blah, blah.
00:36:55 ◼ ► And it was nothing compared to the number of phones that are out there, like the number and density of phones that are out there now and how amazing it is that we get signal in so many places.
00:37:07 ◼ ► It was like, how can we come up with a system where, you know, we've seen it ourselves back in the Wi-Fi days.
00:37:24 ◼ ► And the things we were doing in undergrad in the 90s talking about, like, what if you have 100 people in a room?
00:37:43 ◼ ► You're like, you're annoyed when you don't get enough bars and you can't load your thing.
00:37:56 ◼ ► I also wanted to call attention to Andrew Edwards, who is a YouTuber in our same space.
00:38:02 ◼ ► He got an exclusive tour, behind-the-scenes tour, with Tsurugi for the C1, like, manufacturing process and information about the C1 and 16e and so on and so forth.
00:38:13 ◼ ► I want to read to you a little section of what he said in his video, which will be linked in the show notes.
00:38:26 ◼ ► In there, Andrew says, the tight integration between the C1 and A18 allows the modem and processor to communicate in real time.
00:38:34 ◼ ► So, for example, if your phone encounters a congested network, John, here's your football stadium, the A18 can signal to the C1 to prioritize critical packets.
00:38:41 ◼ ► Maybe you just opened up messages and you're trying to send a photo or video to someone.
00:38:45 ◼ ► The A18 can direct the C1 to prioritize what you're actively doing so things don't feel like they're bogging down.
00:38:50 ◼ ► This dynamic traffic management not only improves the connection speed, but also makes your device feel incredibly responsive under heavy network loads.
00:39:01 ◼ ► Well, when I hear things like that from Apple when they're talking about stuff, especially when I'm not well-versed in the technologies they're describing, I say, that sounds great.
00:39:15 ◼ ► But the larger point is, like this is Rudy saying, it's like, look, now that we're making this, once we get good at it, which they're probably not great at yet, but once we get good at it, we'll be able to make it, you know, like with Apple Silicon, exactly the chip that we want to make.
00:39:31 ◼ ► But, like, I trust that they will be able to do better than Qualcomm eventually because Qualcomm has many customers.
00:39:39 ◼ ► And it's a contentious relationship, kind of like it was with Intel, where Apple would make demands.
00:39:43 ◼ ► Intel, we want chips to do X, Y, and Z, and Intel would be like, oh, all right, and we'll do this.
00:39:51 ◼ ► And I hope that same thing, I expect that same thing to happen with the modem chips, even if the first gen one isn't that great.
00:39:56 ◼ ► Like, what Pedro was getting at is, like, this may be the most power efficient, but there's, like, being power efficient at standby is great.
00:40:03 ◼ ► But if it's less power efficient when transmitting because they're just not as good as Qualcomm yet, you will burn your battery faster if you're actually using the cell network versus just sitting there sipping the data.
00:40:26 ◼ ► Anonymous writes in, in this week's episode, number 627, which I guess was last week, actually, some guy Casey says that Apple won't need to pay Qualcomm cellular license royalties on phones that do not use a Qualcomm chip.
00:40:38 ◼ ► As Casey himself discussed in ATP episode 476 in March 2022, at around the 40-minute mark, this is not correct.
00:40:46 ◼ ► Qualcomm generally collects royalties regardless of whether an OEM gets the modem chip from Qualcomm or someone else.
00:40:52 ◼ ► Quoting from page 15 of the FTC versus Qualcomm court decision from 2020, OEMs are required to pay a per-unit licensing royalty to Qualcomm for its patent portfolios regardless of which company they choose to source their chips from.
00:41:08 ◼ ► From Reuters in 2018, quote, Qualcomm said it would cap the phone price that is the basis of the revenue calculation at $400.
00:41:15 ◼ ► More expensive phones, which can sell for $1,000, would still be treated as $400 for the purpose of the Qualcomm license fee.
00:41:21 ◼ ► Then finally, CNET said that they actually dropped that fee a little bit later in 2018, I believe.
00:41:30 ◼ ► I did not remember what I said darn near three years ago, which makes sense because I can barely remember what I said three hours ago.
00:41:35 ◼ ► Someday those patents will expire, and by then maybe Apple will have a bunch of its own patents that it can charge people for from its C-17 chip.
00:41:44 ◼ ► And then finally on this topic, Mark Gurman says with regard to future chips, Apple has a long modem roadmap ahead of it, with the company already testing the so-called C2 and C3.
00:41:58 ◼ ► When the C3 appears the following year, Apple hopes to be able to outdo Qualcomm's modem capabilities.
00:42:05 ◼ ► That's always the question with these chips that as Apple makes them, hey, it had to be a separate chip on Qualcomm made it.
00:42:21 ◼ ► Obviously, there is some issues there with the radio frequency parts of it, and I'm assuming that's why part of it has made it seven nanometers and part of it's made it four.
00:42:49 ◼ ► But it's interesting to see that the rumor is that they're thinking the C3 is when they will be passing Qualcomm a couple years from now.
00:42:57 ◼ ► And that integration is on the table, which I think would be really useful for phones, for larger things like Macs that we want to have cellular.
00:43:12 ◼ ► Reading from Mac rumors, Apple will use its own custom-designed Wi-Fi chip in all upcoming iPhone 17 models, according to industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
00:43:20 ◼ ► Jeff Poo, another analyst who covers companies within Apple's supply chain, said in November 2024 that only the iPhone 17 Pro models will be equipped with an Apple-designed Wi-Fi 7 chip.
00:43:31 ◼ ► We talked about this Wi-Fi chip, Wi-Fi slash Bluetooth chip, a while ago in the context of lesser products.
00:43:53 ◼ ► I would imagine they were going to roll out the Wi-Fi Bluetooth chip on lesser products as well.
00:44:07 ◼ ► Now, if you recall from the last ad break, I'm asking Gemini Live a question on the air to show some of the ways that it can be useful.
00:44:16 ◼ ► Here's a question I had recently, and as you heard in the last one, you can interrupt the response.
00:44:25 ◼ ► What are some established VoIP services in the U.S., and which ones are good for small businesses that can support old analog phones?
00:44:36 ◼ ► Some good established VoIP services that are great for small businesses include RingCentral, Vonage, and Nextiva.
00:45:02 ◼ ► But the good news is that you keep the same number so your customers don't have to know anything's changed.
00:45:18 ◼ ► In the meantime, go download the free Gemini app and start having your own conversations.
00:45:35 ◼ ► And I think it was John that put this summary in the show notes, which is just chef's kiss.
00:45:44 ◼ ► So Riley writes, looks like Apple changed the wording of notarization emails to no longer say approved.
00:46:13 ◼ ► Now, obviously, in this in this in the previous sentence, the following app has been approved.
00:46:19 ◼ ► Obviously, this is a passive voice usage and there is no actor in this sentence who has approved the following app.
00:46:30 ◼ ► If they were more direct, they would say Apple has approved the following app for distribution.
00:46:36 ◼ ► But they have now made it even worse from it's been approved to the following app is ready.
00:47:04 ◼ ► So for Apple to then approve it and to then say, your app is ready as the notification of that.
00:47:14 ◼ ► This is, you know, Apple's gross, stupid policy having some gross euphemistic language tweaks put on top of it, right in line with exactly the kind of behavior that we come to expect around this.
00:47:31 ◼ ► I think this change is super dumb because like, as I tried to emphasize last time we discussed this, any reasonable person looking at this from the outside understands the two different contexts and meanings of the word and approve.
00:47:45 ◼ ► You didn't have to change the wording to somehow avoid something like you could have just left it as approved.
00:48:08 ◼ ► No one disagrees about what happens when you submit an app and who decides whether like there's no mystery.
00:48:17 ◼ ► And yeah, like someone changing this, they're doing nothing except for making themselves look even more foolish because no one is confused by that word that nothing hinges on that word.
00:48:29 ◼ ► You know, this is this is them trying to weasel out of the mess they have created and continue to maintain for themselves.
00:48:54 ◼ ► This is them trying not to own what they are doing with linguistic cowardice like that.
00:49:14 ◼ ► It could do like the the miracle on 34th Street thing where if there's a court case, you
00:49:19 ◼ ► just have developer after developer and you just call now that the seven hundred thousandth
00:49:23 ◼ ► developer on the stand when you send an application, who decides where they get through?
00:49:37 ◼ ► OK, so the letters to Santa is less, maybe less admissible as evidence except in the movies.
00:49:43 ◼ ► But like, again, I think there is no shortage of witnesses to tell you how this process.
00:50:21 ◼ ► So every about every year, they change this phrasing of what it means for your app to be
00:50:29 ◼ ► And every year it confuses me because I'm like, like my app is eligible for distribution.
00:50:50 ◼ ► But like it and every every year or two, they change the phrasing to be even more obtuse.
00:51:00 ◼ ► And then actually, like maybe a year or two ago, remember when they changed App Store Connect
00:51:14 ◼ ► So sometimes, sometimes you think, oh, they just change the language and then you'll be
00:51:19 ◼ ► And you realize, no, now there's a second step where you have to like really, really submit
00:51:32 ◼ ► It's a never changing world of rule changes and releases and buffs and nerves, mostly nerves.
00:51:41 ◼ ► And then finally, and I we it would be we would be wise not to go on a long time about this.
00:51:50 ◼ ► It has removed advanced data protection from the UK after the alleged orders from the king
00:51:58 ◼ ► Reading from Bloomberg, advanced data protection is no longer available in the UK for new users.
00:52:02 ◼ ► This layer of security covers iCloud data storage, device backups, web bookmarks, voice memos,
00:52:08 ◼ ► Customers already using advanced data protection or ADP will need to manually disable it during an
00:52:23 ◼ ► Apple writes, we are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be
00:52:29 ◼ ► available to our customers in the UK given the continuing rise of data breaches and other
00:52:33 ◼ ► ADP protects iCloud data with end to end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the
00:52:42 ◼ ► As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our
00:52:55 ◼ ► Like, that's, that's, there's no ambiguity left there, which, and honestly, this, like, look,
00:53:06 ◼ ► You know, from what I just said two minutes ago, I'm happy to call Apple out if they do
00:53:32 ◼ ► Continuing from Bloomberg here, just to make this clear, and this is what so many people
00:53:35 ◼ ► got wrong about this, what Bloomberg writes, which I think is true, is the move to pull
00:53:40 ◼ ► its encryption feature rather than complying with building a backdoor is a clear rebuke
00:53:47 ◼ ► By pulling advanced data protection, as we noted last time, if that verge story was true,
00:53:53 ◼ ► The UK government wanted them to put a backdoor so that they had access to everyone's iCloud
00:54:05 ◼ ► So they did something, but they basically did the thing that they're willing to do, which
00:54:09 ◼ ► is kind of like what they do in China and other places is like, look, if you want to screw
00:54:15 ◼ ► We can do that, but we will never give you the backdoor to every single Apple customer's
00:54:41 ◼ ► So that, I mean, and you know, we'll see what that means, but you know, I think it's important
00:55:01 ◼ ► And, and for most people, they probably shouldn't enable it by default because this is the situation
00:55:08 ◼ ► where if you forget your password and lose access to all of your devices and things like that,
00:55:25 ◼ ► The number of people who lock themselves out of their Apple accounts all the time is way higher
00:55:32 ◼ ► Apple is constantly dealing with that kind of support need in their stores and in their other
00:55:38 ◼ ► So the default always has to be Apple has a key to your data that they can use if you or they need
00:55:47 ◼ ► That's also used to respond to warrants from law enforcement agencies around the world.
00:55:52 ◼ ► So what they did with advanced data protection is give you an option to optionally close that door
00:56:12 ◼ ► In the context of a mass market consumer device and platform, I think the right default is to
00:56:25 ◼ ► The rest of the privacy and encryption and end-to-end stuff, the rest of it that was there before
00:56:36 ◼ ► They will still be able to respond to law enforcement requests just like they were before.
00:56:40 ◼ ► But for the most part, most of the other privacy protections are all still there because, again,
00:56:46 ◼ ► this is only removing the option to enable or continue to use advanced data protection, which
00:56:56 ◼ ► Yeah, the interesting twist on that, as Casey read there, like they can't, Apple can't disable
00:57:02 ◼ ► So if there are people in the UK who have this enabled because it was available in the UK
00:57:08 ◼ ► It just basically says Apple can no longer offer advanced data protection in the United Kingdom
00:57:16 ◼ ► Like the statement is like, if these people want to keep their iCloud accounts, they have
00:57:26 ◼ ► you ever need to get into the account, they're like, oh, I'll just turn off advanced data
00:57:38 ◼ ► But at a certain point, they have to manually turn off advanced data protection on one of their
00:57:49 ◼ ► And if they don't do it, all of their iCloud syncing backup stuff or whatever is just going
00:57:58 ◼ ► So I wonder how that will go in terms of people coming to an Apple store and saying, my stuff's
00:58:02 ◼ ► not syncing and saying, oh, you got to turn off the security feature, which you can never
00:58:06 ◼ ► In terms of the defaults, like I feel like it's just a simple calculation of like, what is
00:58:13 ◼ ► Someone hacking you and stealing all your data or you locking yourself out of your account?
00:58:17 ◼ ► If you are a government official or a celebrity, you may make a different choice than if you're
00:58:25 ◼ ► Most people are not specifically targeting you like state actors are probably not specifically
00:58:41 ◼ ► And so you really just have to decide that for yourself, which is the problem that's more
00:58:52 ◼ ► Again, government officials, celebrities, or just people who are really super serious about
00:58:59 ◼ ► It's why I don't have advanced data protection on because I fear losing my data more than I fear
00:59:05 ◼ ► Then Burbacay writes, could you put out a call to all UK listeners to contact their local
00:59:10 ◼ ► MP regarding the Investigative Powers Act and Apple's decision to remove ADP from UK phones?
00:59:19 ◼ ► And meanwhile, in the US, we're trying to make sure that our dumb government doesn't try to
00:59:32 ◼ ► And as I said two weeks ago or last week, I think ultimately we're going to lose this battle.
00:59:36 ◼ ► I think in most first world countries, we are likely to not have major platforms permitted
00:59:45 ◼ ► to give us end-to-end encryption tools that they can't decrypt with law enforcement requests.
00:59:50 ◼ ► That's just the culture of, you know, look, law enforcement, it's very hard for politicians
01:00:09 ◼ ► I mean, let's be clear, like, what law enforcement agencies want and feel incredibly entitled to
01:00:15 ◼ ► is access to everything all the time, often without warrants or kind of outside the bounds
01:00:21 ◼ ► of, you know, like, they do not like, look, the entire US Constitution was designed to help
01:00:42 ◼ ► We have already lost it in so many ways that we already have, like, you know, secret courts
01:00:48 ◼ ► and, you know, warrants that for, you know, monitoring our communications and everything and systems
01:00:57 ◼ ► It's only a matter of time before no major platform can offer end-to-end encryption and
01:01:02 ◼ ► that we have to rely on, like, you know, apps that kind of do it on a smaller scale for that
01:01:10 ◼ ► I think the things in the Constitution regarding rights to privacy and everything will probably
01:01:21 ◼ ► I know what you're saying about, like, national security, like, if there's any kind of, like,
01:01:31 ◼ ► and people are the most afraid, that's when people pounce and put in all these terrible laws
01:01:38 ◼ ► Oh, this is only, we only need this because of terrorism, except we're now going to use it
01:01:44 ◼ ► So it's, you know, but still, historically speaking, I feel like the trend, I feel like,
01:01:51 ◼ ► I don't feel like they'll be able to breach the firewall of the Constitution, assuming that
01:01:55 ◼ ► document still stands and remains relevant, because there are such strong protections against
01:02:02 ◼ ► The UK is already far, it's a very different environment, like, they're not as surveillance
01:02:07 ◼ ► cameras they have in that country, and they don't have the same type of Constitution that
01:02:10 ◼ ► So that's why we have held up better than them, and I think we will hold up better than
01:02:17 ◼ ► That could totally happen, but I'm slightly more optimistic that on the long scale, assuming
01:02:22 ◼ ► the U.S. survives as a going concern and the Constitution remains roughly as it is now, that
01:02:27 ◼ ► this battle will, not that it will be won, but that we will still be doing better than countries
01:03:27 ◼ ► Imagine being able to sync up playback with your friends so you can all listen together, even if you're not in the same room.
01:03:37 ◼ ► On a totally separate note here, what are some surprising things people can ask you that they might not expect you to be good at, but you are good at?
01:03:51 ◼ ► For example, you could ask for a poem, a song, a script for a play, or even a computer program.
01:03:57 ◼ ► I can also translate things into different languages or create summaries of factual topics.
01:04:10 ◼ ► You can't fit too much in a two-minute ad read, even though I did have it just basically write its own ad read there at the end.
01:04:30 ◼ ► There's been an incredible bit of news this week, a phenomenal, exciting bit of news this week, coming from one John Syracuse.
01:04:50 ◼ ► There are lots of Mac apps out there that will find duplicate files on your system and then give you back disk space by deleting some of the duplicates.
01:04:58 ◼ ► The tricky bit about Hyperspace is that we'll find duplicate files and give you back disk space without removing any of the files.
01:05:20 ◼ ► It's been in beta testing for a while with ATP members for finding a great testing service.
01:05:35 ◼ ► But if it's going to save you a bunch of space and you want that space, then you've got to pay to get that space back.
01:05:53 ◼ ► So, just to interrupt you here for a minute, is there more documentation than there is code for this app?
01:06:13 ◼ ► But, yeah, one of the things about the documentation is that, like, it has evolved over the course of testing.
01:06:21 ◼ ► Like, everything in that document is there because some beta tester had a question about it or because I found myself answering the same question.
01:06:33 ◼ ► Like, on launch day, if anyone has some question about something, I can just link them directly to the part of the documentation that addresses it.
01:06:42 ◼ ► As I said before to all of the ATP members who are on the test flight, now that the app is out, the test flight will be ending.
01:06:49 ◼ ► Probably by the time you listen to this, I will have expired the last test flight build for ATP members.
01:07:04 ◼ ► But, if you are not sick of being a tester and you actually enjoy testing it and you've been providing good bug reports or whatever and you want to be on the real test flight, not the one for ATP members, but the real test flight, to get on that, you have to give me your email address because I don't have it.
01:07:19 ◼ ► Even though you're on the ATP members test flight, that was done with the public link and so it's all anonymous.
01:07:25 ◼ ► If you want in on the real test flight, send an email to hyperspace at hypercritical.co and tell me you want on the test flight and then I will add you to the list.
01:07:38 ◼ ► I mean, I hope you've all figured that out from being on the beta for, like, it's the one that doesn't work right.
01:07:47 ◼ ► Like, but if you're game for that, like, I had a lot of good testers and a lot of them already moved to the real test flight.
01:07:54 ◼ ► And if you have, if you're on the test flight or not, but if you have purchased the app and you think it's good, app store ratings would be appreciated.
01:08:25 ◼ ► The very first build, the one point, very first 1.0 build I submitted, I was watching it.
01:08:59 ◼ ► the app store metadata description, it links to the documentation, which explains this.
01:09:05 ◼ ► If you launch the app, the first thing you see is a window that describes how the app works and links to the documentation, which explains this.
01:09:11 ◼ ► If you select the help top item from the help menu in the app, it links to the documentation, which explains this.
01:09:16 ◼ ► Like, I don't know how you could literally look at or do anything with my app without having the answer to the question that was asked staring you in the face.
01:09:26 ◼ ► They looked at the app and I guess, I don't know, read the tagline and said, I don't get this.
01:09:35 ◼ ► So I replied with a link to my documentation and said, if you read this, it will explain it.
01:09:46 ◼ ► I should have said, if you launch the app and read the window that appears in front of your face and then whatever.
01:09:52 ◼ ► It was, you know, turnaround time of like an hour and then they put it back in review and then it went through and it was fine.
01:10:02 ◼ ► And that rejection, both of you should be able to tell me what it is based on the complete inconsistency of the app store plus your experience with the app store.
01:10:27 ◼ ► Or is it that giant like disclaimer that you're supposed to have in your app description that's documented almost nowhere?
01:10:34 ◼ ► You have to have a link to the terms and conditions and privacy policy in your app's description.
01:10:47 ◼ ► Just to make things clear, and I know we've been around this block once before, but it is so frigging bananas that we have to do it again.
01:11:08 ◼ ► So I don't know what freaking purpose this serves, but they will reject you every time if you do not have a URL pointing to your privacy policy in your description.
01:11:20 ◼ ► They will not reject you every time because I, of course, knew about this thing being in the description.
01:11:28 ◼ ► I said, oh, when I have my first output in-app purchase, I got to remember to do this thing.
01:11:40 ◼ ► Like, it's not like the terms and conditions of privacy policy aren't in a million different places already.
01:11:55 ◼ ► You know, aside from that one thing where they didn't understand how my app worked because they didn't bother reading anything, I guess I got all the metadata right.
01:12:02 ◼ ► No, on the third version, the third submission, then somebody says, oh, you got to have privacy policy terms.
01:12:14 ◼ ► But the nice thing is they did actually let me do the thing of saying, hey, if this is a bug fix update, you can do that fix in the next update.
01:12:30 ◼ ► Like, there's no way, even if you play the game perfectly, which I did not, you will be confounded by the results.
01:12:45 ◼ ► It's like as soon as 1.0 comes out, it's like now I have a big change, a big dangerous change I want to make.
01:12:51 ◼ ► So, yeah, I'm in the middle of testing a big dangerous change to the internals that I had put off.
01:13:10 ◼ ► So I did a couple of minor bug fixes, and now I'm doing some major surgery for the real test flight.
01:13:16 ◼ ► I've reverted to a build that doesn't actually do the reclamation for real, but does everything up to that step just so people can test it better.
01:13:41 ◼ ► For all the test flight people, obviously, when you're on the test flight, you can, like, quote, unquote, purchase the app for free.
01:14:02 ◼ ► And the solution to that, as far as I've been able to tell, everybody who I've suggested this to has told me they have followed these steps,
01:14:15 ◼ ► Two, you probably don't have to do this, but I always throw it in there for good measure.
01:14:26 ◼ ► And if the settings window still tells you that it thinks you own the app, even though you know you didn't buy it for real,
01:14:31 ◼ ► click on the text that's telling you that it's, like, unlocked forever or whatever, click on that text.
01:14:37 ◼ ► And if it prompts you to sign in with one of those janky Apple sign-in things, sign in.
01:14:46 ◼ ► Everybody who has tried those steps has found that now you have convinced that you don't own it.
01:14:58 ◼ ► Because I can tell you from experience in many, many test flights, buying the test flight does not entitle you to the finished application in any way, shape, or form.
01:15:18 ◼ ► No, when I talked about it on the show at the end of December, I basically had gone from zero to a bare-bones working app that week that we recorded.
01:15:36 ◼ ► Most of that time was spent just, like, being incredibly cautious about, like, you know, as you know, I only turned on the feature that this app supposedly exists for, like, in the last few weeks.
01:15:51 ◼ ► It's not too complicated, but it is an app that needs to be developed very carefully, and hopefully I have done so.
01:16:29 ◼ ► The reason I didn't do Lifetime Unlock is because I want to actually just, like, I did the one month because I want to actually keep going back to this over time.
01:16:48 ◼ ► That's, you know, obviously, I know we talked about the business model options in earlier episodes, and Casey and I were unable to convince you to do, like, a tiered set of, you know, space-based options about how much space you were recovering.
01:17:03 ◼ ► But it does feel kind of odd that, like, I paid such a small amount to get so much value.
01:17:09 ◼ ► So instead, I will just run it, you know, once a year on all my computers and see where I get.
01:17:27 ◼ ► Apparently – I mean, not surprisingly – the pricing things that I offer are confusing enough that people who write about it all tend to make the same mistake,
01:17:36 ◼ ► which is they think that the app is available for a one-time lifetime unlock or subscription.
01:17:41 ◼ ► That's true, but there's a third option that is too subtle for people to know because Apple's UI for it is confusing.
01:17:47 ◼ ► And I tried my best to make it clear, but there are auto-renewing subscriptions, which will keep charging you over and over again until you cancel them.
01:18:12 ◼ ► That is a thing that Apple offers that seems like very few apps actually offer, but mine does.
01:18:21 ◼ ► But everyone who writes about it is like, oh, it's a subscription or you can pay for it.
01:18:29 ◼ ► And, of course, all the buttons in Apple's UI say subscribe, and people are like, oh, I don't want to subscribe.
01:18:40 ◼ ► But to be clear, you can pay for a single month as a one-time purchase or a single year as a one-time purchase.
01:18:58 ◼ ► I'll probably end up eliminating some of these choices when I see which ones people don't like.
01:19:07 ◼ ► It's actually pretty even with the exception of the Lifetime Unlock, which is obviously going to be super popular with the people who are buying the app on day one because they're, like, people listen to the show and want to support me and blah, blah, blah.
01:19:17 ◼ ► But we'll see how this – you know, after the initial launch and all the people who actually, you know, listen to the show and are interested in the app by it, we'll see what the long tail of this is.
01:19:27 ◼ ► My expectation is that this app will be a slow type of thing because regular people, honestly, should really not be interested in this app until it's been out for a year and not destroyed too many people's hard drives, right?
01:19:40 ◼ ► Like, it would have to, like, build up a reputation as a thing that it is safe to run and that you're aware of.
01:19:56 ◼ ► Tune in a year from now and we'll see, like, it really needs to build up trust in the community for it to be a thing that people turn to to use.
01:20:04 ◼ ► And I think for the early adopters and fans of the show and fans of me, yeah, sure, buy on day one.
01:20:09 ◼ ► But for people who've never heard of me or the show, I don't expect them to even discover this app until next year.
01:20:31 ◼ ► Leaker Majin Boo has shared CAD renders of what are purported to be the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and the rumored iPhone 17 Air.
01:20:47 ◼ ► The new CAD renders show the rear camera bars on the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models stretch to extend their currently square design, now reaching across the entire upper body.
01:21:01 ◼ ► The iPhone 17 Air features a similar design, albeit with only a single rear camera lens.
01:21:05 ◼ ► According to these renders, the camera module on the standard 17 model will be largely unchanged, differentiating it from the premium models.
01:21:15 ◼ ► So imagine the 16, but the Camera Mesa, copyright John Syracuse, extends the entire width of the back of the phone.
01:21:25 ◼ ► Then the standard iPhone 17 is the same basic idea as the iPhone 10, where there's the two lenses, one above the other, with, I think it's, it's not LiDAR, is it?
01:21:43 ◼ ► Two cameras, one on top of the other, on a lozenge-shaped Mesa with the flash off to the right.
01:21:49 ◼ ► Then the 17 Pro and Pro Max, the way this CAD rendering has been rendered is that what I presume to be metal is a gold color.
01:22:06 ◼ ► So, there's gold that runs through the Mesa area, but it also goes down all the way to the bottom of the phone.
01:22:13 ◼ ► And I think that's metal, but there's a maroonish, reddish, brownish sort of section that's most of the back of the phone, with the exception of the Mesa.
01:22:27 ◼ ► So, to reiterate, the shell of the phone is all metal, including just a little bit of the back of the phone.
01:22:35 ◼ ► But then there's a large glass section as well, presumably for Qi charging and MagSafe and for the radios and whatnot.
01:22:46 ◼ ► And so, this may be a best of both worlds situation from a robustness standpoint, because you won't find it quite so easy, if I'm reading this right, you won't find it quite so easy to crack the corner of the back glass, because the corner of the back glass is actually the back steel or titanium or whatever the flavor du jour is.
01:23:07 ◼ ► All that being said, and I'm very happy about the theories I've got here, if they come true, all that being said, the enlarged camera may still look freaking ridiculous, and I really don't like it.
01:23:21 ◼ ► First, let's start with the 17 Air, far left in this picture, if you follow the link in the show notes.
01:23:46 ◼ ► I think it's a Mesa, because if you look at the right-hand side of the phone, or the right-hand side is presented on this image, it looks like there's a little bit of depth there to me, but I hear what you're saying, and I may have this wrong.
01:24:23 ◼ ► The camera, of course, sticks out a little bit, but given what camera bumps have looked like for the past several years, the 16E is a breath of fresh air.
01:24:34 ◼ ► It's also got one camera because there's not room for any more and blah, blah, blah, whatever.
01:24:39 ◼ ► And then they put a pixel-like iPhone Mesa that spans the entire width of the phone, which I think really takes away from the slimness of this.
01:24:49 ◼ ► There's also some photos of what is supposedly the physical reality of the 17 Air case, and it doesn't look much better there.
01:24:57 ◼ ► There's someone's rendering, I don't know, I have a link to this, but you two can look at it, the rendering of how big the Air is supposed to be, 5.5 millimeters, as compared to the 8.25 millimeter 16 Pro Max.
01:25:07 ◼ ► Like, it does look slim, but then there's the usual camera Mesa and camera bump thing or whatever.
01:25:38 ◼ ► The whole rest of the phone is so thin, I bet maybe there is some part of the Face ID component assembly kind of thing that's right in the middle there that maybe that is going to require that kind of thickness.
01:26:08 ◼ ► And I've been saying for years and years and years that they're well past the time where Apple should stop pretending that their cameras are in the corner of their phone and instead do something that uses the whole width of the phone.
01:26:19 ◼ ► And if this is to be believed, and I put this in here because I think we're kind of at the point where, like, the CAD renders are probably, like, the real thing and not just, like, people making stuff up.
01:26:27 ◼ ► So if this is to be believed, they heard my years of complaining, you know, hypothetically, about pretending their cameras exist in the corner of their phone.
01:26:40 ◼ ► We'll leave the cameras exactly where they are and just make the Mesa the full width of the phone.
01:26:46 ◼ ► And you may be thinking to yourself, well, at least this solves the problem of the phone wobbling on the table, right?
01:26:52 ◼ ► At least now you won't have this thing where there's a lump on one corner and it's just, you know, like a table that's not even or whatever.
01:27:06 ◼ ► So all of these phones, even the ones that have a camera Mesa that expands, extends the entire width of the phone, all of them have camera lenses that stick out from the Mesa.
01:27:28 ◼ ► I mean, I get what Casey's saying about, like, the metal being sturdy around the edges and just having a small glass region for radio transparency.
01:27:49 ◼ ► I wonder what they're going to use that space for because those phones aren't as thin as the 17 Air.
01:28:05 ◼ ► I was hoping all of the, like, the fake renders that people had on these stories based on the descriptions, I was hoping that they were just entirely wrong.
01:28:12 ◼ ► But now, when the, quote-unquote, CAD renders come out, presumably leaked from, like, case manufacturers or people who are machining in these cases or whatever, at this point, I'm starting to believe.
01:28:22 ◼ ► And, yeah, there's things you can do with surface treatments to make this look less gross.
01:28:34 ◼ ► But that stupid, like, pixel-like lozenge is really throwing off the balance of the Air to me.
01:28:41 ◼ ► So, I guess I'm kind of glad that next year is not my year for cameras, but really, for phones.
01:28:46 ◼ ► But really, it doesn't matter, because if things go as they have gone for the past many years, even though I'm not buying an iPhone 17, when the 18 family arrives, chances are good that the 18 family will look a lot like the 17 family.
01:29:02 ◼ ► Because Apple does not change their cases every single year, or hasn't recently, anyway.
01:29:06 ◼ ► You know, assuming this is all true, which at this stage is probably true, this whole family of phones looks, I think, fairly hideous from the back.
01:29:31 ◼ ► So, I'm not really seeing, like, the back plate of the phone, you know, but I do see the part where the camera pokes out.
01:29:36 ◼ ► So, okay, if I get one of these, then the part where the camera pokes out will be much bigger and span across the whole back of the phone.
01:30:05 ◼ ► So, as much as I can look at all these and say, ooh, that's kind of hideous, the way I actually use my phone, which I think is fairly common, with some kind of case on the back, and almost never seeing the back, I think it's fine.
01:30:19 ◼ ► And, you know, in the case of the 17 air, which, at the moment, I don't think I will get a 17 air, but I think there's a chance that once I handle one, I will have to have it.
01:30:46 ◼ ► And we will, you know, the same thing that we said when the camera Mesa got bigger every time over the years.
01:31:01 ◼ ► I think they should have slightly less wobble, because the Mesa does extend the full width.
01:31:06 ◼ ► So, even though the camera lenses do jut out farther, there will be, it will be closer to being even than it was before.
01:31:12 ◼ ► But the other thing to consider on the 17 Pro and Pro Max is, there are now things, important things, in a region where there weren't before.
01:31:24 ◼ ► Because, like, right now on a 16 Pro, the, like, light sensor and flash thing are, like, above and below the third camera, but within the little square that you can draw around them, right?
01:31:36 ◼ ► But now, like, because in my current phone, if I put my finger over, like, the area that's next to the camera Mesa, it's not blocking anything.
01:31:47 ◼ ► But now, on both of these phones, if you put your finger anywhere that's, like, across from the cameras that would previously be blocking nothing, it will be blocking, potentially, the flash or the light sensor thingy.
01:31:59 ◼ ► And so, you may have to do a little bit of, uh, change your grip on these phones to not do that.
01:32:19 ◼ ► Well, anyway, there's potentially another area on the back of the phone where you can't cover stuff with your fingers.
01:32:34 ◼ ► I was kind of excited about this year, both because of the air and because of the rumors about them changing the camera arrangement.
01:32:40 ◼ ► And I'm kind of really disappointed to see that it's just, like, a Photoshop stretch of the camera Mesa on the existing Pro phones.
01:32:48 ◼ ► Then, finally, for this week, Apple has announced on their newsroom that they will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next how many years, you ask?
01:33:01 ◼ ► Reading from their newsroom post, Apple Today, which was Monday, the 24th, announced its largest ever spend commitment with plans to spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.
01:33:13 ◼ ► This new pledge builds on Apple's long history of investing in American innovation and advanced, high-skilled manufacturing and will support a wide range of initiatives that focused on artificial intelligence, silicon engineering, and skills development for students and workers across the country.
01:33:26 ◼ ► As part of this package of U.S. investments, Apple and partners will open a new advanced manufacturing facility in Houston to produce servers that support Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that helps users write, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:33:36 ◼ ► Apple will also double its U.S. advanced manufacturing fund to create an academy in Michigan to train the next generation of U.S. manufacturers and grow its research and development investments in the U.S. to support cutting-edge fields like silicon engineering.
01:33:52 ◼ ► Well, if you go back four years, you will find a very similar announcement that adjusted for inflation gives similar numbers with Apple saying from 2021-ish, I believe, in the next four years, we're going to spend $400 billion, blah, blah, blah.
01:34:04 ◼ ► So this actually isn't particularly unprecedented, but I will say this about Apple's seemingly every four years announcement of how much money they're going to invest in the United States.
01:34:18 ◼ ► As we've harped on for many years now, Apple's reliance on China for everything is so problematic for multiple reasons, but one of them is that it's not an easy thing to fix.
01:34:37 ◼ ► And I'm not saying Apple should switch to manufacturing everything in the United States.
01:34:41 ◼ ► That's not going to happen, but trying to become less reliant on China means investing in places that are not China.
01:35:20 ◼ ► And seeing a number that just looks like an inflation-injusted version of the number that they had four years ago is not reassuring.
01:35:27 ◼ ► It's almost like they're just, I mean, I'm not saying $500 billion is trivial, but like, it's not, I would like to see a trend line going up, right?
01:35:35 ◼ ► And this is completely setting aside politics and who's going to use this as a political football.
01:35:40 ◼ ► Just forget about all that and just say, if you're just in charge of Apple, from a business and technology perspective, having all your eggs in one basket, whatever that basket is, is not good.
01:35:51 ◼ ► Having all your eggs in a basket that is very not friendly to many things that Apple stands for, including encryption and other things that they're not allowed to do in China, is also not good.
01:36:04 ◼ ► And Apple has been branching out doing more manufacturing in India, which also has its own kind of rightward lurching problems going on, and more manufacturing in other countries, and the U.S. should be one of those.
01:36:14 ◼ ► So I'm kind of disappointed to see this announcement, and it just seemed like business as usual with the usual rah-rah USA, here's another $500 billion, see you in four years.
01:36:27 ◼ ► You know, Apple PR has a track record of issuing self-flatulence inhaling press releases that mostly just try to promote in a new way things they were already doing or have already done.
01:37:06 ◼ ► They clearly, like, have committed to invest, like, $100 billion-ish a year for the past, like, 8 to 10 years, right?
01:37:17 ◼ ► So it's like, if they had done something like, oh, like a $1 million program to help school kids learn to be advanced manufacturing people, well, that's nothing.
01:37:26 ◼ ► I just, my question is, is like, I don't even care about them trying to use it as a political football.
01:37:42 ◼ ► It just doesn't, it doesn't send a message to me that they are, like, it's baffling to me that they would be willing to spend this much money but not have it be part of a strategy to increase their spend over time or decrease it or whatever, whatever direction they want to go in.
01:37:58 ◼ ► This is not really news because this investment was, like, this is just what they were already going to do anyway for their own expansion.
01:38:13 ◼ ► They didn't decide, like, we're suddenly going to spend $500 billion because of this brand new plan that we have, you know, out of the goodness of our hearts and investing in America.
01:38:23 ◼ ► No, they were going to do this anyway just for their own expansion and here we have some candy coating on top of it to please the administration.
01:38:32 ◼ ► Well, I mean, so doing it for their own expansion, like, they can choose where they expand.
01:38:35 ◼ ► Like, yes, they're growing over time and, you know, like, making these announcements every four years makes it seem like it's an every four years thing but it's just, like you said, it's an ongoing thing.
01:38:43 ◼ ► Every year they spend X amount of dollars on whatever they're going to do and that X hasn't really changed that much other than ramping up with inflation.
01:38:51 ◼ ► Like, you can make these announcements to try to make political hay out of it but, like, you're saying they're going to do this expansion anyway.
01:39:04 ◼ ► They're taking $500 billion of their, you know, worldwide expansion money and they're doing $100 billion a year in the U.S.
01:39:12 ◼ ► And, like, that's, like, but it's just, it's strange to me that they would put so much money in and do all these announcements every year without a trend in one direction or another,
01:39:26 ◼ ► So, you know, I don't, I don't fault them for trying to, you know, score political points with it.
01:39:47 ◼ ► And, you know, I was on Upgrade earlier this week filling in for Mike and Jason and I talked about it.
01:39:52 ◼ ► And his point was the same as yours is that, look, Apple's been doing this for a long time in similar ways.
01:40:02 ◼ ► Plus, I believe, I'll try to remember to put a link in the show notes, but I believe that some of the things that they swear they're doing,
01:40:14 ◼ ► that if I understand correctly, I don't think anything is really actually happening with it yet or something like that.
01:41:27 ◼ ► Also, like with the North Carolina Data Center, like that's the problem with these big projects.
01:41:31 ◼ ► Like there's always so much to them and they get so entangled with like local and state governments
01:41:35 ◼ ► and, you know, changing investment landscape, like just keeping track of all this money
01:41:47 ◼ ► We talked about before, like how incredibly complicated and difficult a problem that is.
01:41:51 ◼ ► Advanced manufacturing, like the stuff that builds Apple products is not the type of thing
01:41:56 ◼ ► where you're going to say, oh, we'll just build a factory and then we can make iPhones in it.
01:42:03 ◼ ► that produces the little screws and the machines that make the screws and the machine and the machines
01:42:10 ◼ ► And that's before you even get to the workforce and all the transportation systems and shipping.
01:42:19 ◼ ► And so if you want to get anything like that type of advanced manufacturing somewhere that's not China,
01:42:28 ◼ ► And if you're going to spend tons of money and tons of time, maybe you want to spend some of that in your own country.
01:42:35 ◼ ► And there are lots of other problems in terms of being far away from the people who make all the parts and so on and so forth.
01:42:42 ◼ ► It shouldn't be totally an Apple move to have like a multi-decade strategy of diversifying their manufacturing.
01:42:54 ◼ ► And I think in some other countries around that area, which granted are a lot closer to China and it makes it a little bit easier.
01:42:59 ◼ ► But every time I see a U.S. investment, it's like, are you in this or are you out of it?
01:43:03 ◼ ► Like, do you are you are you trying to create advanced manufacturing with this like advanced manufacturing fund?
01:43:18 ◼ ► The best we've got is like enticing TSMC to make two year old chips in Arizona for us, which there's a whole bunch of stuff about that lower in the show.
01:43:50 ◼ ► In overtime this week, which is our weekly bonus topic exclusively for members, we're going to be talking about Sigma's new camera that they announced, the Sigma BF.
01:45:28 ◼ ► In fact, some people have explicitly said, I don't even like your app, but I like the icon.
01:45:41 ◼ ► I have collected icons for my entire computing life because icons have been a thing since 1984 for me.
01:45:58 ◼ ► There were multiple classic macOS applications whose only job was to be libraries for icons.
01:46:14 ◼ ► Obviously, there was a big change from the 32 by 32 pixel app icons of classic to the what was then massive, I think 128 by 128 in the first version of macOS 10 icons that were like photorealistic and just like it changed the whole landscape of icons.
01:47:01 ◼ ► Now, when you launch it, it shows a dialogue that says Candy Bar is a 20 year old application.
01:47:14 ◼ ► And so when it comes time to make icons for my own Mac apps, I have very strong opinions.
01:47:18 ◼ ► If you go to my website and go to the apps section, you will see my three apps, my three
01:47:24 ◼ ► weird little apps, which is kind of an awkward arrangement because there's three of them instead
01:47:44 ◼ ► Uh, it's, it's kind of amazing that I was able to make an icon out of the window UI of my
01:47:52 ◼ ► Like I could fit, I could fit like one-to-one non-scaled pixel accurate representations of
01:48:04 ◼ ► Uh, my second icon was made by a talented artist, uh, at my request based on a design that I
01:48:18 ◼ ► Big Sur rounded rectangle thing that Apple said that all Mac apps should have, uh, front and
01:48:49 ◼ ► Um, and so then I had hyperspace, uh, and my, the test flight icon was just a stock art picture
01:48:57 ◼ ► I said, the icon is temporary, but I had an idea for the icon, uh, and I knew I wasn't going
01:49:07 ◼ ► Icon factory, uh, maker of some of those classic Mac OS apps that we use to collect your
01:49:11 ◼ ► icons maker of tons of the free icons that I downloaded from their website and put into
01:49:17 ◼ ► Uh, and either the original maker of candy bar or the eventual owner of candy bar, I forget
01:50:02 ◼ ► Uh, uh, and my original idea was that the hard drive spaceship would have the same surface
01:50:12 ◼ ► Uh, and as I said in the concept document, this may be a terrible idea because it actual
01:50:27 ◼ ► Uh, I know some of those folks from years ago and they know us, they did some art for one
01:50:32 ◼ ► of our, uh, ATP t-shirts, the, the big, uh, angel of death, uh, trashcan Mac pro one that
01:50:40 ◼ ► So anyway, um, uh, work together with an artist at icon factory on this icon and going through
01:50:52 ◼ ► the road where it was like, do we want to go in the direction of millennium Falcon kind
01:51:01 ◼ ► Anyway, the little knurly things that are on the top of the millennium Falcon, do you want
01:51:07 ◼ ► And in the end I chose shiny, even though that wasn't my original concept, just because as
01:51:25 ◼ ► It's, this is the, all my apps are weird, but this is the most mainstream of any of my apps.
01:51:34 ◼ ► And so I figured if ever I'm going to go normie and use the stupid squircle Mac OS icons now
01:51:40 ◼ ► would be the time because I had a background idea, like the hyperspace, like the stars and
01:51:50 ◼ ► When I say we, I mean, I got a factory artist and me, he's doing all the work and I'm just
01:52:11 ◼ ► Uh, it was difficult to make this design work at all as an icon because it is very busy and
01:52:22 ◼ ► But I'm happy to see that most people who have seen this icon understood it and got it and think
01:52:31 ◼ ► And I also kind of like how I have three apps with three icons that look nothing like each
01:52:53 ◼ ► point, maybe when I get back into doing like fun stuff, uh, Mac apps can have alternate
01:52:59 ◼ ► Even if the Mac OS APIs do not expose those icons to other apps, there's multiple feedbacks
01:53:20 ◼ ► Ivory, a Mac app has a thing in its settings to say, Hey, what icon do you want to use for
01:53:33 ◼ ► do with reclaiming disk space and everything to do with just being fun, just like the ever
01:53:36 ◼ ► So I figured I would use the test flight icon, which I have some fondness for, even though
01:53:44 ◼ ► I've first put the real icon, but there were some other concepts that I want to spoil what
01:53:49 ◼ ► they are, but there were some other concepts that we explored early on in the icon factory
01:53:57 ◼ ► I may actually re-engage icon factory at some point in the future and say, Hey, let's do
01:54:06 ◼ ► And then I would have at least three icons to choose from and we would see how it goes.
01:54:09 ◼ ► One of the things with the launch in terms of how things do financially, like again, I don't
01:54:28 ◼ ► Now we just need one more person to buy something, but no worth every penny because like, honestly,
01:54:35 ◼ ► I'm as someone who's so obsessed with icons, having a really good icon or at least an icon
01:54:42 ◼ ► And even though people might look at my other icons and think they're just like ugly or nothing
01:54:51 ◼ ► It's, it's so important to, to me personally, but also I just think in general, the first
01:55:19 ◼ ► Uh, you know, if you go too far down that road, you end up at James Thompson, but of course
01:55:28 ◼ ► Uh, I'm never going to achieve that level of awesomeness, but I do in the very traditional
01:55:37 ◼ ► I just have to like time box them and be like, you are not allowed to spend more than 1.5 days
01:55:43 ◼ ► on this before you get back to doing the actual app because nobody cares about this, but it was
01:55:48 ◼ ► something I used to distract myself during, uh, development and I may return to that well
01:56:17 ◼ ► The other joke is like you go buy a cup of coffee and then the person says to you, psst,
01:56:21 ◼ ► psst, they have my family hostage and they're going to kill them if you don't give me a 10.
01:56:26 ◼ ► Like every, every, like every single thing I buy, someone says, oh, and by the way, thanks.