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575: I Love to Accelerate a Roadmap

 

00:00:00   We'll see you next time.

00:00:30   We did everything today. Jingles.

00:00:31   We just did a little...

00:00:32   Yeah, it's true. We have those.

00:00:33   I was just doing a little...

00:00:35   You're like, oh, hi, Jason.

00:00:36   I'm like, hey, it's my buddy Mike.

00:00:38   It's my pal Mike.

00:00:39   We're just talking.

00:00:39   We're just chatting.

00:00:40   We would like to thank friend of the show,

00:00:42   podcaster Lex Friedman,

00:00:44   not the Friedman.

00:00:46   Other one.

00:00:46   The other one, for making our jingles.

00:00:49   Lex made our jingles last year.

00:00:51   We love these jingles so much.

00:00:52   We want to use them again.

00:00:53   As well as being a wonderful podcaster and friend,

00:00:55   Lex also makes wonderful word games

00:00:58   over at lex.games.

00:01:00   We should recommend people go and check those out

00:01:01   as a thank you for Lex making these wonderful jingles for us.

00:01:04   It is the money time.

00:01:06   So we're talking about Apple's earnings today.

00:01:08   That's why we're doing it.

00:01:09   Because that's the breakout hit of the jingles.

00:01:12   Yeah.

00:01:12   And yesterday we were like,

00:01:13   why don't we just break out all the jingles?

00:01:15   So Jason, why don't you take it away?

00:01:17   Oh yes, we have our first jingle.

00:01:20   Okay.

00:01:20   I'm not supposed to introduce the jingles.

00:01:22   They're just supposed to happen magically,

00:01:23   but I'm a little rusty here.

00:01:25   Okay.

00:01:25   I'm a little rusty.

00:01:27   Hey Jason, what do you think?

00:01:29   It's time for Snell Talk.

00:01:31   As the jingle says, it is in fact time for Snell Talk.

00:01:35   And I have a question here from Bruce who wants to know,

00:01:37   Jason, on the Apple Results YouTube video

00:01:39   that you and Dan made last week,

00:01:41   you were drinking what appeared to be tea with no dairy.

00:01:44   Was that green tea?

00:01:45   Regular orange pico tea?

00:01:48   If it was the latter,

00:01:49   do you drink regular tea without milk?

00:01:52   I had to look up orange pico

00:01:54   because it's apparently a kind of tea

00:01:55   that is labeled on the box of like Lipton tea

00:01:58   or something in America.

00:01:59   The tea I drink does not have that as a descriptor.

00:02:04   I don't know.

00:02:06   I'm not a tea expert to say what the difference is

00:02:08   between these different ways of making tea.

00:02:10   But the answer is on the $6 video,

00:02:13   I think it was a Darjeeling,

00:02:15   but usually I am drinking an English breakfast.

00:02:17   And although when I started drinking tea,

00:02:19   it was as a honey delivery mechanism.

00:02:21   Today, I have no honey in it.

00:02:25   It's just black.

00:02:26   There's no dairy.

00:02:27   My wife has milk in her tea, but I don't.

00:02:29   That's the answer.

00:02:31   You drink like English breakfast tea without milk.

00:02:34   Or honey.

00:02:35   Yes, correct.

00:02:36   Wow.

00:02:37   That is pretty hardcore.

00:02:38   I don't think a lot of people do that.

00:02:40   I mean, I like,

00:02:42   I like Earl Grey,

00:02:43   which I drink with no milk,

00:02:45   which is the way to drink Earl Grey.

00:02:47   But I don't often hear of people drinking

00:02:51   kind of just like English breakfast tea black.

00:02:54   So that's pretty cool.

00:02:54   You're a tea fan.

00:02:55   Big tea fan.

00:02:56   Well, that was an easy way

00:02:58   to cut some sugar out of my diet

00:03:01   was the honey.

00:03:02   And I thought I could do that.

00:03:03   I can probably just will myself

00:03:05   to not have honey with the tea.

00:03:06   And it turns out I can.

00:03:07   And I did.

00:03:08   And so I don't have honey in my tea anymore.

00:03:10   You'll have to see it.

00:03:11   If you'd like to see,

00:03:12   if you'd like to ask a question

00:03:14   and see your question be answered

00:03:16   if you watch this on YouTube,

00:03:17   you can go to upgradefeedback.com

00:03:19   and you can send in your question

00:03:21   just like Bruce did.

00:03:24   Just drink some tea.

00:03:25   Should we do some follow-up?

00:03:27   Yeah, let's do it.

00:03:29   We don't have a jingle for this,

00:03:31   but the prompt did so.

00:03:32   Follow-up.

00:03:33   There it is.

00:03:34   Thank you so much.

00:03:34   You've put this in here.

00:03:36   There is a Paramount Plus Sonic logo.

00:03:39   That's the follow-up.

00:03:39   There is a Paramount Plus Sonic logo.

00:03:41   So memorable that I forgot that it existed.

00:03:44   The challenge here is some,

00:03:45   like Disney Plus plays you the song

00:03:47   when you launch the app,

00:03:50   but most of them it's just a pre-roll.

00:03:53   And Paramount Plus doesn't do it.

00:03:55   So, but it does a pre-roll

00:04:00   and I just forgot.

00:04:01   So here it is.

00:04:02   Whoa, that's dramatic at the end there.

00:04:09   It's got an orchestra hit at the end,

00:04:10   which I really admire.

00:04:11   And it has actually kind of a melody.

00:04:13   I think this is actually a pretty decent thing

00:04:15   because it's not just a,

00:04:16   maybe this is why I didn't think of it.

00:04:18   It's not just a gaseous cloud

00:04:19   with like a throb in the middle of it,

00:04:23   which so many of these things are.

00:04:24   So I don't know.

00:04:26   Hang on a second.

00:04:26   Hang on a second.

00:04:27   Right?

00:04:28   Where it's like a gaseous cloud

00:04:30   with a throb in the middle of it.

00:04:32   Yeah.

00:04:32   That's how we describe these Sonic logo.

00:04:34   That's how I decided to describe it there.

00:04:35   Yeah.

00:04:35   Because there's, right?

00:04:36   There's this like thing

00:04:38   and then there's like a bong

00:04:40   or a woo

00:04:41   or whatever it is,

00:04:43   just some kind of thing in the middle.

00:04:46   Let's move on, Jason Snell.

00:04:48   Do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

00:04:49   Bing!

00:04:50   Yeah.

00:04:51   All right.

00:04:52   Anyway, I had to give some audio follow-up on that one.

00:04:55   So I am happy that I did it.

00:04:57   Get on the right side of the law

00:05:03   with Lawyer Up.

00:05:05   Gosh, those horns are aggressive.

00:05:09   I know.

00:05:10   I love everything about them.

00:05:12   I've forgotten about the aggressive horns.

00:05:14   Apple has officially filed their response

00:05:16   to the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit

00:05:19   against their claim

00:05:20   that the company is a monopoly power in smartphones.

00:05:22   They kind of have five points

00:05:25   and I think these are the five points

00:05:26   that the DOJ made

00:05:27   and Apple have made kind of five points of their own.

00:05:30   I want to kind of just summarize their points

00:05:33   because it's like very legally.

00:05:34   So they say that super apps

00:05:37   do exist on the App Store.

00:05:39   So that's not a bad thing

00:05:41   that they block super apps.

00:05:43   A lot of the discourse when this got filed

00:05:45   was people pointing out

00:05:45   that some of these arguments seem strange

00:05:47   because it seems like Apple

00:05:48   either never outlawed them

00:05:50   or had recently stopped outlawing them.

00:05:53   And so it's very funny here

00:05:57   that most of...

00:05:58   I mean, Apple's responding in a way

00:05:59   that I think a lot of us did

00:06:01   which is it felt like that

00:06:02   the DOJ's filing was a little bit out of time

00:06:06   in that they had done these five things

00:06:08   four of which they weren't doing anymore.

00:06:12   if they had ever done them, but yeah.

00:06:14   There was something like that

00:06:15   but for example,

00:06:16   this one with the super apps thing,

00:06:18   Apple made a guideline change a month later

00:06:21   that would allow them.

00:06:23   So the DOJ suit was filed in March of 2024

00:06:29   and then in April of 2024,

00:06:31   Apple allowed for mini games and mini apps

00:06:34   to be in the App Store.

00:06:36   Yeah, but I think also

00:06:37   if I recall correctly,

00:06:39   there were also a couple examples

00:06:40   in other countries

00:06:41   where there were super apps

00:06:43   that were actually in the App Store.

00:06:45   Yes.

00:06:45   Like in Singapore, I want to say.

00:06:47   Oh, there were ever...

00:06:48   Like in Asia, like everywhere,

00:06:49   like WeChat, Line.

00:06:50   Yeah, super apps.

00:06:51   They exist,

00:06:53   but it's one of these things

00:06:54   it's like they exist

00:06:55   but technically breaking the guidelines?

00:06:57   Technically not allowed,

00:06:58   but they have to be there

00:07:00   because you can't not have Line.

00:07:01   So then Apple changed the guidelines

00:07:03   which is a theme of...

00:07:05   Yes, it is a recurring theme.

00:07:06   They say that they do in fact

00:07:08   allow game streaming apps

00:07:09   but they didn't at the time.

00:07:11   They didn't.

00:07:11   But they have since.

00:07:12   They say that third-party messaging apps

00:07:15   are widely available

00:07:16   and Apple is not degrading them.

00:07:18   Yeah, that was always kind of a dumb one.

00:07:21   Yeah, that one doesn't make any sense.

00:07:22   They say that third-party smartwatches

00:07:25   do have access to data

00:07:26   especially when paired with a companion app

00:07:28   and that they can share some functionality

00:07:31   that Apple has developed

00:07:33   and they are continuing to expand features

00:07:35   to make this work better.

00:07:37   This is the one...

00:07:39   Yeah, this is the one

00:07:40   where they're kind of full of it.

00:07:41   This is...

00:07:42   You know, they want to put up

00:07:43   their strongest argument

00:07:44   but I think Eric Pebble

00:07:46   did the best job

00:07:47   on like listing off all the ways

00:07:49   that the Pebble was not going to work

00:07:50   on the iPhone

00:07:51   like it works on Android

00:07:52   and that's because Apple withholds

00:07:54   all these things

00:07:54   that the Apple Watch can do

00:07:56   that other smartwatches cannot do.

00:07:58   And this isn't just smartwatches either, right?

00:08:01   It's like a whole category

00:08:03   of wearable devices.

00:08:04   Fitness trackers

00:08:06   and yeah, all sorts of stuff

00:08:07   that don't have the same access

00:08:09   that the Apple product does.

00:08:10   The Meta Ray-Bans

00:08:11   like they work way better on Android

00:08:14   than they do on the iPhone.

00:08:15   In fact, Apple's response here

00:08:18   so you summarized it

00:08:19   as they are continuing

00:08:20   to expand the features.

00:08:21   I read this as

00:08:22   yeah, but we got some of it

00:08:24   and we're working on it.

00:08:25   like that was sort of

00:08:26   what they're saying.

00:08:27   Get off our back about it.

00:08:28   We're working on it.

00:08:30   I'm working on it here.

00:08:31   So yeah.

00:08:32   They also say

00:08:33   that they are not holding back

00:08:35   digital wallet

00:08:35   and tap-to-pay functionality

00:08:37   from the NFC chip

00:08:38   and again

00:08:39   they like

00:08:40   five months later

00:08:42   had a press release.

00:08:43   So here's my question.

00:08:44   If the Department of Justice

00:08:46   sues you

00:08:47   over something

00:08:48   and then

00:08:50   you

00:08:51   change your behavior

00:08:51   change a bunch of things.

00:08:54   I mean

00:08:55   we don't

00:08:55   I mean

00:08:55   I guess you probably don't know.

00:08:56   We're going to have to get the lawyers in here

00:08:58   but

00:08:58   Because it's like

00:08:59   if I stole a bunch of stuff

00:09:02   and then

00:09:03   and then

00:09:04   and then

00:09:04   I was asked to go to court

00:09:06   and then I just gave it back

00:09:07   I still committed

00:09:09   the crime, right?

00:09:10   My feeling here

00:09:12   is that what

00:09:12   is that there are two things

00:09:14   on the line, right?

00:09:15   There's financial penalties

00:09:16   for behavior

00:09:17   and there's

00:09:18   demand to change behavior

00:09:21   and

00:09:22   and I feel like

00:09:23   what Apple's doing here

00:09:24   is saying

00:09:24   we've changed our behavior

00:09:26   so these

00:09:26   these changes aren't relevant

00:09:28   and I think what they're arguing is

00:09:29   don't

00:09:30   we don't need

00:09:32   to be forced

00:09:33   by the court

00:09:33   to change our behavior

00:09:34   because we changed our behavior

00:09:36   and we'll see how that plays

00:09:38   but

00:09:38   I do think

00:09:39   the other part of this is

00:09:40   Apple could be fined

00:09:42   for their previous behavior

00:09:44   right?

00:09:44   There could be a fine

00:09:45   based on their previous behavior

00:09:47   but their behavior has changed

00:09:49   so that

00:09:50   that isn't

00:09:51   you know

00:09:51   maybe it isn't as severe

00:09:52   or whatever

00:09:53   or maybe

00:09:53   they get fined

00:09:54   but they don't

00:09:55   and

00:09:55   and if this leads to a settlement

00:09:57   I mean

00:09:57   Apple's argument here

00:09:58   is very much like

00:09:59   we

00:10:00   don't tell us what to do

00:10:02   because we're already doing everything

00:10:03   and then

00:10:05   you know

00:10:05   maybe they write them a check

00:10:06   and then they're done

00:10:07   we'll see

00:10:08   but

00:10:09   I think

00:10:09   I think

00:10:10   this

00:10:10   this response

00:10:11   it's Apple

00:10:12   right?

00:10:12   And

00:10:12   and there

00:10:13   I saw some

00:10:13   hilarious analysis

00:10:14   where people are like

00:10:15   there's a paragraph

00:10:16   where

00:10:17   the DOJ

00:10:18   has listed facts

00:10:20   about Apple

00:10:20   like literally

00:10:21   Apple makes these products

00:10:23   and

00:10:24   the Apple response is

00:10:25   Apple denies all allegations

00:10:27   about this

00:10:28   it's like

00:10:28   you deny

00:10:29   statements of fact

00:10:31   about your company

00:10:32   bananas

00:10:33   so

00:10:34   good

00:10:34   good for you

00:10:35   lawyers

00:10:35   but

00:10:36   but I think that

00:10:37   that it is telling

00:10:38   isn't it

00:10:39   that

00:10:39   as we thought

00:10:40   at the time

00:10:41   and certainly

00:10:42   in the subsequent months

00:10:43   Apple was already

00:10:44   moving in this direction

00:10:45   with a lot of stuff

00:10:46   that the DOJ

00:10:46   was alleging

00:10:47   because of pressure

00:10:48   often from other groups

00:10:50   in other parts of the world

00:10:51   and so

00:10:52   like yeah

00:10:52   but you're right

00:10:53   the question here is

00:10:55   is this enough?

00:10:58   is getting sued

00:10:59   and Apple going

00:11:00   oh no

00:11:00   sorry

00:11:01   we fixed it

00:11:02   we're working on it

00:11:03   is that enough

00:11:04   or not?

00:11:05   I wonder

00:11:06   I don't really know

00:11:07   obviously I have no idea

00:11:08   I don't really know

00:11:09   where this case is going to

00:11:10   end up

00:11:11   I do want

00:11:12   here's my conspiracy

00:11:13   theory

00:11:14   for you here

00:11:15   I love conspiracy theories

00:11:16   when it comes to this kind of stuff

00:11:17   so

00:11:18   from here

00:11:19   this case moves to discovery

00:11:21   and discovery

00:11:22   has been really damaging

00:11:24   for tech companies

00:11:25   right

00:11:25   in the last little while

00:11:26   I wonder if

00:11:28   they made some of these changes

00:11:30   because they know

00:11:31   as soon as it gets to discovery phase

00:11:32   it's all going to start to fall apart

00:11:34   like

00:11:35   that there is

00:11:36   conversations

00:11:37   where they're like

00:11:38   by all means

00:11:39   we can never open the NFC

00:11:41   because it will destroy

00:11:42   the benefit of Apple Pay

00:11:44   and so they're like

00:11:45   oh this is going to be busted open

00:11:46   so we should change this

00:11:47   we also don't know

00:11:48   like

00:11:48   this is the Department of Justice

00:11:50   it's not the Department of Justice

00:11:51   that filed the claim

00:11:52   right

00:11:52   it's the Trump Department of Justice

00:11:55   and

00:11:55   is there a great appetite

00:11:57   to

00:11:57   beat Apple up

00:11:59   beat a great American company up

00:12:01   oh yeah

00:12:01   it was the previous administration

00:12:02   right

00:12:03   is what you're saying

00:12:03   over yeah

00:12:04   over something like this

00:12:05   or

00:12:06   or does this lead to a

00:12:08   a

00:12:09   a settlement

00:12:10   of some sort

00:12:11   um

00:12:12   I don't know

00:12:13   money for the library

00:12:14   I don't know how they're feeling about this

00:12:14   oh my god

00:12:15   I'm gonna have money for the library

00:12:16   we'll take care of it

00:12:17   that's all it takes

00:12:20   yeah

00:12:21   president Trump

00:12:23   has announced

00:12:23   that the US

00:12:24   will impose

00:12:25   a 25% tariff

00:12:26   on goods from India

00:12:28   uh

00:12:28   who knows

00:12:30   right

00:12:30   like with the tariff stuff

00:12:31   it's just like

00:12:32   you never really know

00:12:33   you know

00:12:33   Mike

00:12:33   Mike last Thursday

00:12:35   because we're gonna talk about

00:12:35   Apple results in a little bit

00:12:36   last Thursday

00:12:37   Apple kept talking about

00:12:38   well like

00:12:39   we're gonna offer some guidance

00:12:40   but this is only if things don't change

00:12:41   and I woke up the next morning

00:12:43   to headlines

00:12:45   about how things have changed

00:12:46   so yeah

00:12:49   who knows

00:12:50   who knows

00:12:51   the reason we mention this

00:12:52   is because this is now like

00:12:53   a running

00:12:54   uh

00:12:55   question

00:12:55   of like

00:12:56   where and how iPhones

00:12:57   will be made

00:12:58   because

00:12:58   uh

00:13:00   the US government

00:13:01   would love it

00:13:02   if iPhones were made

00:13:03   in America

00:13:04   uh

00:13:05   they would love to bend

00:13:06   the laws of physics

00:13:07   and reality

00:13:07   to make that happen

00:13:08   it's

00:13:09   not gonna happen

00:13:10   um

00:13:11   so

00:13:12   there's a bunch of

00:13:14   tariffs on China

00:13:15   and so Apple

00:13:16   were like

00:13:16   hey we're gonna make

00:13:17   our iPhones

00:13:18   uh

00:13:19   in India

00:13:19   and now

00:13:21   no one

00:13:21   I guess nobody knows

00:13:23   where they're gonna be made

00:13:24   I will say

00:13:24   I was reading about this

00:13:25   I was wondering like

00:13:26   what is the effect

00:13:26   um

00:13:27   and I wanted to see

00:13:28   if anybody had made

00:13:28   any statements

00:13:29   and the best that I could

00:13:30   come up with was

00:13:31   uh

00:13:32   there was a Reuters report

00:13:33   where they were talking

00:13:34   where like

00:13:34   some analysts

00:13:35   were talking to them

00:13:36   about what potentially

00:13:37   might happen

00:13:37   and they said

00:13:38   I want to read this quote

00:13:39   despite the tariffs

00:13:40   manufacturing iPhones

00:13:41   in India

00:13:41   would continue to remain

00:13:43   cost competitive

00:13:43   of expenses

00:13:44   lower than when

00:13:45   Apple began production

00:13:46   there eight years ago

00:13:47   narrowing the cost gap

00:13:49   with China

00:13:50   and Sarva

00:13:51   uh

00:13:52   in the Discord

00:13:52   posted a link

00:13:53   to a story

00:13:54   that points out

00:13:54   that

00:13:55   uh

00:13:56   they

00:13:56   exempted

00:13:58   a bunch of

00:13:58   categories

00:13:59   from tariffs

00:14:01   okay

00:14:02   um

00:14:02   at some point

00:14:03   and that

00:14:03   that

00:14:04   but like

00:14:04   this is the thing

00:14:05   it's like

00:14:05   so does that

00:14:06   exemption continue

00:14:07   even though

00:14:07   there's now a tariff

00:14:08   because the tariff

00:14:09   there's all this

00:14:10   kind of complexity

00:14:10   about like

00:14:11   what's getting tariffed

00:14:12   and what's not

00:14:13   and it's a whole

00:14:14   it's a whole thing

00:14:15   and and Apple

00:14:17   we'll get to it

00:14:17   in a little bit

00:14:18   but like

00:14:18   this is starting

00:14:19   to hit Apple

00:14:19   and Apple

00:14:20   is talking about it

00:14:21   and um

00:14:22   they are careful

00:14:23   to talk about it

00:14:24   in a really kind

00:14:25   of neutral way

00:14:26   of

00:14:27   their headwinds

00:14:28   right

00:14:28   like they're just

00:14:29   it's like

00:14:30   I don't know

00:14:30   where they came from

00:14:31   they just blew

00:14:31   it off the ocean

00:14:32   and we got to

00:14:33   deal with them

00:14:33   right

00:14:33   and that's

00:14:34   which is probably

00:14:35   the smartest way

00:14:35   to deal with that

00:14:36   when you're talking

00:14:37   publicly about

00:14:38   about tariff stuff

00:14:39   but it's uh

00:14:40   it's starting to affect

00:14:41   things I mean

00:14:41   I know a lot

00:14:42   of the Nintendo

00:14:43   stuff is made

00:14:43   in Vietnam

00:14:44   and they just

00:14:45   raised the price

00:14:45   of all the

00:14:46   Nintendo hardware

00:14:47   not the Switch 2

00:14:48   pricing for the

00:14:49   Nintendo Switch 2

00:14:50   system remains unchanged

00:14:52   the accessories

00:14:53   went up again

00:14:54   that's the second

00:14:54   time they've gone up

00:14:55   and all the other

00:14:56   Nintendo stuff

00:14:56   every other Nintendo

00:14:57   thing has gone up

00:14:58   in value

00:14:59   so so

00:15:00   that's interesting

00:15:01   all right

00:15:02   well so it's

00:15:02   so it's everything

00:15:03   but but but

00:15:04   everything else

00:15:05   and we'll see

00:15:05   how it goes

00:15:06   and it's a good

00:15:07   point about like

00:15:07   they got that

00:15:08   exemption right

00:15:09   but that exemption

00:15:09   was always felt

00:15:10   like a for now

00:15:11   exemption right

00:15:12   like it was like

00:15:12   oh yeah who knows

00:15:13   it could be it

00:15:14   could be undone

00:15:15   at any time

00:15:15   and if it gets

00:15:16   undone there's now

00:15:17   a 25% tariff

00:15:19   potentially on goods

00:15:20   from India

00:15:20   so while the

00:15:22   reporting that I'd

00:15:23   read still said

00:15:24   that like the

00:15:25   the previous iPhones

00:15:26   like the iPhones

00:15:27   currently on sale

00:15:28   between I think

00:15:29   like March and

00:15:30   May basically

00:15:31   all came from

00:15:31   India for America

00:15:32   it's gonna be

00:15:33   interesting to see

00:15:34   because I mean

00:15:34   there was also

00:15:35   that reporting a

00:15:35   while ago right

00:15:36   of like they

00:15:37   were struggling

00:15:38   to make newer

00:15:39   products because

00:15:40   all of the

00:15:41   engineers from

00:15:41   China were being

00:15:42   recalled to China

00:15:43   from India

00:15:43   from the Foxconn

00:15:44   factory it's like

00:15:45   I don't even it

00:15:46   would be intriguing

00:15:47   to like where do

00:15:47   the iPhone where

00:15:48   does the iPhone 17

00:15:49   for US customers

00:15:50   actually end up

00:15:51   coming from like

00:15:52   that's gonna be

00:15:53   an interesting

00:15:54   world will there

00:15:55   be there won't

00:15:56   be another okay

00:15:59   so I have a

00:15:59   question for you

00:16:00   the with the

00:16:01   earnings stuff

00:16:02   because it always

00:16:02   works on a little

00:16:03   bit of a delay

00:16:03   the iPhone

00:16:05   earnings is that

00:16:07   the next report

00:16:09   or the one

00:16:10   almost not at

00:16:10   all almost not

00:16:11   at all there

00:16:12   will be there

00:16:13   will be a couple

00:16:14   weeks of iPhone

00:16:15   sales probably in

00:16:16   the next quarter

00:16:17   they will be able

00:16:18   to characterize

00:16:19   and forecast how

00:16:20   iPhone sales are

00:16:21   going because they

00:16:22   will they will

00:16:23   actually announce

00:16:23   that in what

00:16:25   November so

00:16:26   they will they'll

00:16:27   have like six

00:16:28   weeks of sales

00:16:29   data but the

00:16:30   numbers themselves

00:16:31   will only contain

00:16:33   a couple weeks

00:16:34   of sales data

00:16:34   so they'll be

00:16:36   able to

00:16:36   characterize it

00:16:37   but you won't

00:16:37   necessarily see it

00:16:38   in the charts

00:16:39   and as a huge

00:16:40   change until the

00:16:41   holiday quarter

00:16:42   so if there was

00:16:43   a tariff impact

00:16:44   on the iPhone

00:16:45   17 they would

00:16:47   communicate that

00:16:48   in the next

00:16:49   results call

00:16:51   they might

00:16:52   would be the

00:16:53   expectation

00:16:53   they might

00:16:54   they might

00:16:54   wait and see

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00:18:51   all of relay

00:18:52   money money money

00:18:56   money who has

00:18:58   all the money

00:18:58   money money money

00:19:01   money who has

00:19:02   all the money

00:19:03   money money money

00:19:05   money who has

00:19:06   all the money

00:19:07   it's apple

00:19:10   they do in fact

00:19:12   have all the

00:19:13   money in fact they

00:19:16   got themselves in

00:19:17   Q3 2025 94

00:19:19   billion dollars of

00:19:20   revenue have they

00:19:21   done a hundred has

00:19:23   that happened before

00:19:23   on on that quarter

00:19:26   no on holiday

00:19:27   quarters absolutely

00:19:27   on holiday

00:19:28   quarters yeah

00:19:29   yeah I'd forgotten

00:19:30   about that yeah

00:19:31   what Dan what Dan

00:19:32   Morin was observing

00:19:32   that I thought was a

00:19:33   really great when we

00:19:34   did this video on

00:19:35   Thursday night after

00:19:36   the results it's on

00:19:37   YouTube people can

00:19:38   watch it watch me

00:19:39   drink tea without

00:19:40   milk is when

00:19:44   when you're boring

00:19:45   quarters are 94 95

00:19:46   billion this was

00:19:47   94 which is a

00:19:49   record for the

00:19:50   third fiscal quarter

00:19:51   we are perilously

00:19:53   close to Apple

00:19:55   routinely boringly

00:19:57   having hundred

00:19:58   billion dollar

00:19:59   quarters right

00:20:00   just the average

00:20:01   like the app

00:20:02   just just the

00:20:03   regular quarter

00:20:04   yeah and just

00:20:06   just to compare

00:20:07   like a couple

00:20:10   years ago was

00:20:11   81 right and

00:20:14   this is the it's

00:20:15   this creeping up I

00:20:16   wrote about this on

00:20:17   six colors is like

00:20:17   the ratchet that

00:20:19   like when you're

00:20:21   not noticing

00:20:22   because they're

00:20:22   small amounts

00:20:24   but Apple so huge

00:20:26   now that even

00:20:26   small percentage

00:20:28   increases all add

00:20:29   up and you know

00:20:31   the business just

00:20:32   gets bigger and

00:20:33   bigger and bigger

00:20:34   and it has more

00:20:34   room to spread

00:20:36   because it's

00:20:38   it's so huge

00:20:40   and it's got you

00:20:40   know so many

00:20:41   users who are like

00:20:42   iPhone users and

00:20:43   they always say this

00:20:44   every every quarter

00:20:44   it's like half of

00:20:46   Apple watch buyers

00:20:47   were new to the

00:20:48   Apple watch it's

00:20:49   like well that

00:20:50   seems bananas but

00:20:51   also you have to

00:20:51   keep in mind the

00:20:52   vast number of

00:20:54   iPhone users out

00:20:55   there and most of

00:20:56   them probably haven't

00:20:57   bought an Apple

00:20:57   watch and it's a

00:20:59   natural place for

00:21:01   them to go or

00:21:02   they had a huge

00:21:04   boost in Mac sales

00:21:05   in China and I

00:21:06   thought well that's

00:21:07   another consequence

00:21:08   of you sell a lot

00:21:09   of iPhones in China

00:21:10   and then people need

00:21:11   to buy a computer

00:21:11   and they're like well

00:21:12   I love my iPhone I'm

00:21:13   gonna get an Apple

00:21:14   computer too and they

00:21:16   get a Mac so I

00:21:18   think you see like

00:21:19   when they talk about

00:21:20   their install base

00:21:20   being an all-time

00:21:21   high like this is

00:21:23   one of the ways that

00:21:23   Apple just kind of

00:21:24   keeps increasing its

00:21:25   revenue and just

00:21:26   growing in a way

00:21:28   that is not dramatic

00:21:29   but it just keeps

00:21:30   growing because

00:21:31   there are so in

00:21:33   most in most

00:21:34   product categories

00:21:35   there's plenty of

00:21:36   room for Apple to

00:21:37   sell more products

00:21:38   right like there

00:21:39   there are plenty of

00:21:40   iPhone users who

00:21:41   don't have Apple

00:21:42   watches and don't

00:21:43   have Macs for

00:21:44   example and then

00:21:45   yes there are also

00:21:46   plenty of smartphone

00:21:48   users who don't have

00:21:48   iPhones so that's an

00:21:49   opportunity for them

00:21:50   too but there's lots

00:21:52   of room around the

00:21:52   margins for them to

00:21:53   just keep picking up

00:21:54   selling an additional

00:21:55   product to people who

00:21:56   only have an iPhone

00:21:57   or something like that

00:21:58   I know this like

00:21:59   what you're saying

00:22:00   there is making me

00:22:00   think of a thing

00:22:01   which is obviously

00:22:01   painfully clear but

00:22:04   it's just like

00:22:04   fascinating when you

00:22:06   think of it in these

00:22:06   terms that Dan has

00:22:07   put forward of like

00:22:08   every iPhone customer

00:22:10   will buy another

00:22:11   iPhone right right

00:22:13   and so you're slowly

00:22:16   bringing more people

00:22:17   in yes but then you

00:22:18   just keep selling more

00:22:19   and more iPhones

00:22:20   forever and ever

00:22:21   and ever like you

00:22:22   just keep selling

00:22:23   them like I know

00:22:24   it's such an obvious

00:22:25   point but like when

00:22:26   you put it so clearly

00:22:27   of like why do they

00:22:28   keep making so much

00:22:29   money was because

00:22:30   they bring in more

00:22:30   customers and then

00:22:32   those people will buy

00:22:33   more iPhones and you

00:22:35   just keep getting

00:22:36   bigger and bigger and

00:22:37   bigger forever and a

00:22:39   certain percentage of

00:22:41   people who have an

00:22:41   iPhone will eventually

00:22:43   buy an Apple watch

00:22:44   yes to the point

00:22:46   and the numbers are so

00:22:47   large the numbers are

00:22:48   so large of iPhone

00:22:50   buyers that they can

00:22:51   toss off a figure like

00:22:53   half the Apple watches

00:22:54   we sold last quarter

00:22:55   were to people who had

00:22:56   never bought an Apple

00:22:57   watch before 10

00:22:58   years on they're

00:22:59   still finding an

00:23:01   enormous number of

00:23:02   Apple watch buyers

00:23:03   who are only coming to

00:23:04   the Apple watch now

00:23:05   you know and that's an

00:23:07   iPhone accessory so

00:23:08   they have to be iPhone

00:23:09   users or you'd be

00:23:10   really sad I mean I

00:23:11   guess you could always

00:23:12   buy one but it would

00:23:13   suck yeah it would be

00:23:15   it would be not so

00:23:16   good so so I just think

00:23:19   that that has something

00:23:19   about Apple scale in it

00:23:21   that there are so many

00:23:21   people if you if you

00:23:22   did the math of like

00:23:23   how many people out

00:23:24   there are iPhone users

00:23:26   who haven't bought an

00:23:27   Apple watch yet it would

00:23:28   be an enormous amount

00:23:29   this is what I always say

00:23:29   about the Mac like I

00:23:30   love the Mac but you

00:23:32   have to understand that

00:23:34   if you look at the scale

00:23:35   there are like the

00:23:37   majority of iPhone users

00:23:38   don't have a Mac because

00:23:39   they can't yeah they

00:23:41   can't they're way more

00:23:41   iPhones than Macs in use

00:23:43   right like you can't it

00:23:45   doesn't work that way and

00:23:47   so yeah it's it's a it's

00:23:50   just interesting to see

00:23:51   so and that was just

00:23:52   where my thoughts went

00:23:53   when Dan pointed out

00:23:54   like wow this is a

00:23:54   routine quarter that was

00:23:55   almost a hundred billion

00:23:56   it's like yeah to

00:23:57   illustrate that point of

00:23:59   like the growth and how

00:24:00   it grows faster and

00:24:01   faster so I think part of

00:24:03   the reporting here was

00:24:04   that like Apple was

00:24:05   sharing they've produced

00:24:06   their three billionth

00:24:07   iPhone it was like a

00:24:08   news beat that was I

00:24:09   think around the

00:24:11   earnings right and I've

00:24:12   got a quote from

00:24:13   Allison Johnson's

00:24:14   piece on this on the

00:24:15   verge the iPhone the

00:24:16   original was introduced

00:24:17   in 2007 and the

00:24:19   company reached one

00:24:20   billion iPhones sold

00:24:21   nine years later in

00:24:22   2016 getting to two

00:24:24   billion took five

00:24:25   years from there it's

00:24:27   been four years to sell

00:24:28   another billion so like

00:24:30   it just keeps increasing

00:24:32   so like in theory they

00:24:34   get to four billion

00:24:35   iPhones in three years

00:24:36   from now and five

00:24:38   billion iPhones in two

00:24:39   years right like it's

00:24:40   just exponentially

00:24:41   growing

00:24:42   infinite iPhones

00:24:43   yeah

00:24:44   yeah yeah I mean this

00:24:45   is the thing because

00:24:46   because even if I

00:24:47   mean there's there's

00:24:48   some reduction because

00:24:49   the cycle has

00:24:50   lengthened but you

00:24:51   also have growth and

00:24:52   as long as you have

00:24:53   growth and you have

00:24:54   renewal of the existing

00:24:55   install base and

00:24:56   they're mostly happy and

00:24:57   they're mostly buying new

00:24:58   iPhones then it just

00:25:00   keeps accelerating and

00:25:02   so yeah they they

00:25:03   announced that on the

00:25:04   analyst call that they

00:25:05   produced their three

00:25:07   billionth iPhone which

00:25:10   Dan and I were

00:25:11   speculating during the

00:25:12   during our video you

00:25:16   know what what happened

00:25:17   to the three billionth

00:25:17   iPhone do they

00:25:18   intercept it or does it

00:25:19   like go out and I

00:25:20   thought like Willy Wonka

00:25:21   like maybe there's like a

00:25:22   golden ticket inside and

00:25:23   you get to come to

00:25:24   Cupertino and buy your

00:25:26   own lunch at Cafe Max or

00:25:27   something like that I

00:25:28   don't know but as we'll

00:25:30   get to in a in a in a

00:25:32   further segment on this

00:25:33   episode there was a like

00:25:34   an all hands the next day

00:25:36   at Apple and Tim Cook

00:25:38   had the three billionth

00:25:38   iPhone oh that's a good

00:25:41   tidbit so they intercepted

00:25:42   it do you reckon that

00:25:44   that that iPhone is now

00:25:45   kept like essentially

00:25:46   Apple have bought that

00:25:47   iPhone and like they're

00:25:48   not actually going to

00:25:49   ship that to a customer I

00:25:50   mean my understanding is

00:25:51   that at the at the all

00:25:52   hands he said what what do

00:25:54   you think we should do

00:25:54   with it

00:25:54   I can't wait to see what

00:25:57   you do with it

00:25:58   it belongs in a museum

00:25:59   I guess so

00:26:01   I guess so

00:26:02   do you remember I just

00:26:05   came up on the on a

00:26:06   quizzes on connected

00:26:07   recently like you're

00:26:08   saying about what do they

00:26:08   do when Apple used to get

00:26:10   to like the billionth song

00:26:12   on iTunes they give like a

00:26:13   $10,000 gift card away

00:26:15   right maybe they should do

00:26:16   that maybe they should put

00:26:17   a $10,000 gift card in

00:26:19   that and put it in a

00:26:20   museum it's like we did

00:26:21   it but no one ever gets

00:26:22   good luck yeah no one no

00:26:23   one gets it but they

00:26:24   intercepted it I think

00:26:25   that's really interesting

00:26:25   they're like we'll take

00:26:26   that we did we dubbed

00:26:27   this one the three

00:26:27   billionth sorry we're

00:26:29   keeping it so the

00:26:30   revenue for the quarter

00:26:31   was at 94 billion

00:26:32   dollars which is up 10

00:26:33   percent year over year

00:26:34   which is quite a big

00:26:35   jump we'll get in I

00:26:36   think and we'll get

00:26:37   into why is a good

00:26:38   reason for this I think

00:26:39   the iPhone is 44.6

00:26:42   billion dollars up

00:26:43   13 percent year over

00:26:44   year the Mac was eight

00:26:46   billion dollars up 15

00:26:47   percent year over year

00:26:48   so this is the reason

00:26:50   right iPhone a Mac and

00:26:52   it was mentioned that a

00:26:53   lot of this was what do

00:26:54   they call it pull

00:26:55   forward because people

00:26:56   were worried about

00:26:56   tariffs

00:26:57   yeah so in starting in

00:27:00   April Apple stores got

00:27:02   busy because people

00:27:03   started buying and so

00:27:04   there's a feeling that

00:27:04   there's an accelerated

00:27:05   cycle caused by tariffs

00:27:07   for fear that Apple is

00:27:09   going to raise its

00:27:09   prices which hasn't

00:27:10   happened but there's

00:27:12   that feeling that in

00:27:13   the US in iPhone and

00:27:16   Mac they saw extra

00:27:18   sales that would have

00:27:20   otherwise happened

00:27:20   later because people

00:27:22   are like oh well maybe

00:27:23   I should buy a new

00:27:25   computer now and I

00:27:27   heard that from you

00:27:28   know I've heard that

00:27:29   just anecdotally from

00:27:30   people in my life where

00:27:31   they're like oh yeah

00:27:32   maybe I should just get

00:27:33   one now I'm thinking

00:27:34   about it and that's

00:27:36   really what happens is

00:27:36   like you hear about the

00:27:37   tariffs and you're like

00:27:38   oh prices may be going

00:27:38   up and you're like

00:27:39   yeah I've been putting

00:27:40   off I've been pondering

00:27:41   whether I should buy a

00:27:42   new laptop in the next

00:27:43   year maybe I should just

00:27:44   pull the trigger now and

00:27:45   some percentage you know

00:27:47   10% or something I think

00:27:48   they said of their sales

00:27:50   were like that so yeah

00:27:51   so this would have been a

00:27:53   very different quarter

00:27:53   wouldn't it it would not

00:27:55   have been so dramatic

00:27:56   well it's 10% of sales I

00:27:59   mean in in remember this

00:28:00   is a US only thing and

00:28:02   the US is the biggest

00:28:02   market but they had

00:28:05   success across the world

00:28:06   so it would have been

00:28:08   slightly less dramatic but

00:28:10   I think it would have

00:28:11   still been more or less

00:28:12   what it was I don't think

00:28:14   it's a I think maybe for

00:28:15   the Mac if the pull forward

00:28:16   only happened in the US

00:28:18   well they specifically they

00:28:19   specifically said it was

00:28:21   only in the US hmm I

00:28:23   wonder because I mean not

00:28:25   to the same level but I

00:28:26   just want people in the

00:28:27   UK worried I mean

00:28:29   nowhere else is affected

00:28:30   by US tariffs it's the

00:28:31   US you say that you're

00:28:33   correct but I don't think

00:28:35   it's necessarily how

00:28:36   people think like their

00:28:38   news is just full up of

00:28:40   people telling them that

00:28:41   tariffs are going to be on

00:28:42   their products and I'm

00:28:43   not really sure that

00:28:44   necessarily is fully

00:28:45   understood I could be

00:28:46   completely wrong I'm just

00:28:47   pulling this out of

00:28:48   nowhere Apple specifically

00:28:49   said they saw Mac and

00:28:50   iPhone in in the US

00:28:53   oh I don't doubt that

00:28:54   don't know that at all

00:28:54   the iPad did not get

00:28:57   this six point six

00:28:58   billion dollars down

00:28:59   eight percent year over

00:29:00   year yeah tough compare

00:29:01   as they say because they

00:29:03   released new iPads last

00:29:04   year in this quarter and

00:29:05   they didn't this time

00:29:06   the iPad pro and what

00:29:08   the iPad iPad maybe

00:29:10   came out when they have

00:29:13   this time last year do

00:29:14   they call them easy

00:29:15   compares or like

00:29:16   favorable compares

00:29:17   because they know they

00:29:18   just say we killed it

00:29:19   they just say we killed

00:29:20   it we killed it what are

00:29:22   we supposed to do yeah

00:29:24   we can't choose when we

00:29:25   release products they just

00:29:26   happen I don't know

00:29:27   right well I noticed this

00:29:29   time that when Tim spoke at

00:29:30   the very top of the call

00:29:32   he was like crowing about

00:29:34   the categories that were up

00:29:36   by a percentage and then

00:29:38   when the when he gets to

00:29:38   iPad he just doesn't

00:29:39   mention it he just says oh

00:29:41   iPad made this revenue and

00:29:43   it was great and and just

00:29:45   and and doesn't do the

00:29:46   doesn't say down and then

00:29:48   the Kevin Parick the CFO

00:29:49   follows him up and and

00:29:51   goes through the

00:29:51   categories again in more

00:29:52   detail and he's the one

00:29:54   who has to say it was

00:29:55   down that's that's iPad

00:29:57   revenue was down 8% year

00:29:59   over year due to a tough

00:30:00   compare uh he throws that

00:30:01   all in there but Tim is

00:30:03   Mr. Good News he's Mr.

00:30:04   Happy News uh wearable

00:30:07   home and accessories is at

00:30:08   7.4 billion dollars down

00:30:10   9% year over year category

00:30:13   that was rocketing for quite

00:30:14   a while and has been in the

00:30:16   doldrums for two and a

00:30:18   half three years now um

00:30:21   what's going on this is the

00:30:22   Apple Watch category and

00:30:24   AirPods but it's this is

00:30:26   well that's what I'm saying

00:30:27   this is the Apple Watch

00:30:27   category it's the Vision

00:30:28   Pro category but I think

00:30:31   it's the AirPods category

00:30:32   and that the AirPods Pro is

00:30:34   the winning product in this

00:30:35   category and they haven't

00:30:37   released a new version of

00:30:38   the AirPods Pro in quite a

00:30:39   while and let's you know

00:30:42   again it's a composite

00:30:46   category this is a category

00:30:47   that was called other

00:30:48   before so it is what it is

00:30:50   it's a whole bunch of stuff

00:30:51   it's accessories they

00:30:52   mentioned accessories revenue

00:30:53   was a tough compare in part

00:30:55   because the iPad came out

00:30:56   last year and you're like

00:30:57   wait what but the answer is

00:30:59   like Apple Pencil Magic

00:31:01   Keyboard there's so many

00:31:02   accessories that go along

00:31:03   with a new iPad and those

00:31:05   don't fall in the iPad line

00:31:06   they fall in the wearables

00:31:07   home accessories line and so

00:31:09   that makes it a tough

00:31:10   compare too but this is just

00:31:11   this this category has

00:31:12   gotten punched the last

00:31:14   two or three years and I

00:31:15   think it's a combination of

00:31:17   things but I keep coming

00:31:18   back to the AirPods like

00:31:19   they're wildly successful I

00:31:21   feel like AirPods Pro 2 is

00:31:23   the flagship of this entire

00:31:24   category and where is

00:31:27   AirPods Pro 3 probably this

00:31:29   fall I think that will be

00:31:30   really good for this

00:31:30   category but you know it

00:31:32   it also once you have that

00:31:33   explosive growth and you get

00:31:35   up to 15 billion in a

00:31:36   quarter you know I think

00:31:39   it's hard to sustain that

00:31:41   right it's hard to sustain

00:31:42   that and so there's just a

00:31:43   little bit of a letdown

00:31:44   happening here

00:31:45   yeah the AirPods Pro 2

00:31:48   were released in September

00:31:50   of 2022

00:31:51   and yeah the product category

00:31:55   has been down

00:31:56   from actually it was it went

00:32:00   up 10% for that quarter and

00:32:02   then it's been down since

00:32:03   and then it's been down ever

00:32:04   since yeah yeah we'll see I

00:32:06   mean some of it is probably

00:32:07   inflation of Apple Watch sales

00:32:10   and all sorts of other

00:32:10   things I I don't doubt that

00:32:12   this is a complicated

00:32:12   category but it also is a

00:32:14   category that had a huge

00:32:16   amount of growth and looked

00:32:17   like it was going to be a big

00:32:18   growth potential category for

00:32:19   Apple and instead it looks

00:32:21   like it found its level or

00:32:23   it overshot its level a little

00:32:24   bit and has come back I think

00:32:26   my guess is what happened was

00:32:28   that was the popularity of

00:32:29   AirPods taking off right and

00:32:32   now it's there and now it's

00:32:33   there and so it just goes up

00:32:35   and down now depending on yeah it

00:32:36   reminds me of the iPad in a way

00:32:38   right where like the iPad

00:32:39   initially saw so much growth and

00:32:42   then it stopped and I think

00:32:44   AirPods could be a similar thing

00:32:46   where like they had a real

00:32:47   moment and now they're just a

00:32:49   product that people have and it's

00:32:50   not like going to find a bunch

00:32:52   more new people all of a sudden

00:32:53   the truth about product cycles

00:32:55   outside the context of a Wall

00:32:59   Street analyst is the like the I the

00:33:04   iPad everybody was like oh boy

00:33:06   this is going to be huge because

00:33:08   there was this huge initial

00:33:09   interest right but you know that's

00:33:11   not how reality works it actually

00:33:13   it found its audience they sold

00:33:15   all of them and then they all kept

00:33:17   their iPads for five years and so it

00:33:19   looked like there was this initial

00:33:21   surge and then it fell off a cliff

00:33:22   and was dead that's not actually

00:33:25   what happened what happened is

00:33:26   everybody who wanted an iPad bought

00:33:27   one and then they didn't need a new

00:33:29   iPad for five years correct and then

00:33:32   and because the iPad has proved to

00:33:34   be a pretty reliable business for

00:33:35   Apple but that can get washed out in

00:33:38   the excitement where people are

00:33:39   like oh my god it's growing so fast

00:33:41   we got to invest in Apple now and

00:33:42   then oh no the year over year is

00:33:44   down we've got to get out it's a

00:33:45   flop and like that is all that is

00:33:48   true but I think it misses the point

00:33:50   sometimes of what's going on in a

00:33:51   product category I think you're

00:33:52   right and services is at 27.4

00:33:57   billion up quite a substantial 13

00:33:59   percent year over year yep who

00:34:02   knows why right like who knows

00:34:05   severance no probably not right no

00:34:09   it's I mean look it's services has

00:34:12   been up double digits low double

00:34:15   digits every quarter for the last

00:34:18   what two years there was before that

00:34:25   there was a period of enormous growth

00:34:27   and then a year where it was single

00:34:30   digit growth mostly because they I

00:34:34   think it tough compare as I would say

00:34:36   it would because you follow

00:34:38   exponential growth with not

00:34:39   exponential growth and it looks bad

00:34:41   even though that's not necessarily

00:34:42   that but like yeah for two years now

00:34:45   they have they have tuned the the

00:34:46   services engine where you know I I

00:34:50   guess the average for the last two

00:34:51   years it's probably like 12 or 13

00:34:53   percent growth year over year per

00:34:54   quarter it's it's pretty amazing and

00:34:57   they haven't they haven't even been

00:34:58   down sequentially in like three

00:35:00   years in one quarter like they just

00:35:02   it number goes up like they say

00:35:04   forever yeah there's some interesting

00:35:08   stuff it's interesting quotes uh from

00:35:10   the earnings call uh thank you to

00:35:13   jason and doing a service to the

00:35:15   entire blogosphere by transcribing the

00:35:18   call um cfo kevin parak says as we

00:35:24   move into the september quarter i'd like

00:35:26   to review our outlook importantly the

00:35:28   color we're providing assumes that the

00:35:30   global tariff rates policies and

00:35:31   application remain in effect as of this

00:35:33   call the global macroeconomic outlook

00:35:36   does not worsen from today and the

00:35:38   current revenue share agreement with

00:35:40   google continues that last part is the

00:35:43   important part i bet that yeah because i

00:35:46   can imagine there is some element some

00:35:49   version of this that always occurs right

00:35:51   which is like a similar thing of like yes

00:35:53   oh we're going to see what those trade

00:35:55   winds are doing and you know forex and

00:35:57   all that stuff yep yep they they talk

00:36:00   about a lot of that stuff right the the

00:36:02   the the financial uh headwinds uh and how

00:36:07   they face them in various ways but that

00:36:08   last item of like oh yeah i'm you know

00:36:11   y'all know about that rev share deal with

00:36:12   google because we don't stop talking

00:36:14   about it so you must know about it like

00:36:16   you understand you get it right but

00:36:18   they're always talking about you know

00:36:20   but i don't think they've ever called

00:36:21   it out in a call before as a as a real

00:36:24   serious threat to their revenue

00:36:25   but it is and it is it is because that's

00:36:29   an enormous amount of money and it's all

00:36:31   profit yep which means it's not just a

00:36:34   hit to your revenue it's a hit to your

00:36:36   margins um it's a hit to your profit

00:36:39   it's a it's a big deal now you know

00:36:43   totally separate conversation but i believe

00:36:45   that that it doesn't go to zero if the if

00:36:48   something like this happens but it

00:36:49   certainly would be a tumultuous moment

00:36:51   and apple would have to scramble to

00:36:53   replace some of that revenue um but yeah

00:36:56   like uh i mean this says it all like

00:36:59   tariffs are an issue and the global

00:37:03   macroeconomic outlook is an issue and what

00:37:07   happens with google is an issue and these

00:37:08   are these are the big threats that apple

00:37:10   sees in terms of their forecast for the

00:37:12   next quarter i mean we just spent a few

00:37:14   minutes talking about the reliability and

00:37:16   you and you're saying apple tuning the

00:37:18   services segment so that it keeps

00:37:21   throwing out these low double digit

00:37:23   numbers meanwhile this is where the

00:37:25   google thing hits and how much of an

00:37:27   impact is it do we see a decline do we

00:37:29   see a it get cut in half like there is

00:37:33   going to be an impact i agree with what

00:37:35   you're saying they will find a way to

00:37:36   fill it but i don't think that's going

00:37:39   to be an immediate thing that they're

00:37:41   able to do no no it's going to take it's

00:37:43   going to take time and it's probably not

00:37:44   going to measure up i think those things

00:37:46   are both true and so you know like that

00:37:48   that is going to be if this happens this

00:37:53   that will be a very dramatic earnings call

00:37:55   because you know we said it certainly is

00:37:58   so the services is like this is the what

00:38:02   the stock market loves to see it's the

00:38:04   infinite growth segment which look i mean

00:38:07   oh i think in time we've maybe lost

00:38:10   track

00:38:11   services is 29 percent of apple's revenue

00:38:16   now

00:38:16   yes like it was small at first so it's

00:38:21   essentially 30 percent and the iphone is

00:38:23   just over 45

00:38:24   yeah it's a huge it's a huge portion of

00:38:27   of what they do although i will say the

00:38:30   good thing about growing services is that

00:38:33   the percentage of google referral money

00:38:36   that's part of the services line is much

00:38:39   less than it used to be

00:38:40   maybe still i think so i don't think i

00:38:45   don't think that the google search revenue

00:38:46   has grown

00:38:47   at the pace of the category is my my gut

00:38:51   feeling is that it's probably shown some

00:38:54   growth but and and right it may even be

00:38:56   static or down now but that apple has

00:38:59   built so much uh around it in terms of

00:39:02   other services revenue the other thing i

00:39:04   wanted to say about this and i did i did

00:39:06   mention this on the youtube stream with

00:39:07   dan um just as a little little shorthand

00:39:11   here there are people out there who talk

00:39:13   about services revenue and they say like

00:39:15   apple's becoming a services company and i

00:39:17   have a i have a chart that i started a

00:39:18   year ago which is one of these quarters

00:39:20   apple's going to make more profit from

00:39:22   services than hardware

00:39:23   yeah and i think it's interesting but

00:39:26   that can be you can read in too much

00:39:28   into that and say um oh apple's just a

00:39:31   services company now but that's not what

00:39:34   the services line is but i'm going to

00:39:36   state this as clearly as i can the

00:39:39   services line is a way for apple to make

00:39:43   additional revenue from its existing

00:39:45   customers

00:39:45   the services line doesn't exist without the

00:39:48   iphone

00:39:49   the services line is at least half

00:39:52   iphone based revenue if not much more

00:39:55   because half of the revenue is the iphone

00:39:57   apple's customers are primarily iphone and

00:40:00   as a result the services line is about

00:40:04   apple taking a hardware product that you

00:40:07   buy and then you use for one two three

00:40:09   four five years and then on top of it

00:40:12   selling you with a margin with a you know

00:40:14   whatever 30 40 margin and then on top of

00:40:16   that getting another hundred dollars a

00:40:20   year out of you at 95 margin that's what

00:40:25   the services is so services the right way

00:40:28   to think about services is services is

00:40:30   making more money at a higher profit margin

00:40:34   from hardware customers because you know

00:40:38   every now and then i see somebody who kind

00:40:40   of gets untethered and thinks apple

00:40:42   services business is not not tethered to

00:40:45   their hardware and it's not true it is

00:40:48   incremental high profit revenue being

00:40:51   generated so that instead of selling

00:40:53   somebody a nine hundred dollar iphone every

00:40:57   three years and saying they're worth three

00:40:59   hundred dollars a year to us suddenly

00:41:01   they're worth five hundred dollars a year

00:41:03   to you or four hundred or six hundred and

00:41:06   the last one or two or three hundred of

00:41:08   that is much more profitable than the phone

00:41:11   and so that's what services is is like the

00:41:14   services requires a healthy app store which

00:41:17   requires investment in the iphone yeah it

00:41:20   requires a healthy app store it requires

00:41:22   upselling apple care which they just added a

00:41:25   new apple care product that is more like

00:41:27   this it is it is it is selling icloud

00:41:30   storage it is selling services like fitness

00:41:33   and news and and tv plus music it it is and

00:41:36   music it's all of those things and it's the

00:41:39   google search revenue sure it's that too but

00:41:41   it's a lot of other stuff too i just you know

00:41:43   just keep in mind like it's built on the back

00:41:45   of primarily the iphone and so you know in a

00:41:49   i'm sure some analyst has done this but like

00:41:52   you could make an estimate of where what the

00:41:55   composition of apple's install base is in

00:41:57   terms of do they have an iphone only do they

00:41:58   have iphone and like and what are they paying

00:42:00   in terms of services you could probably somebody

00:42:02   could probably do this as a research project so

00:42:04   i leave it out there for one of those

00:42:05   analysts one of those financial analysts who's

00:42:08   just waiting three months to be on a call again

00:42:10   um i'm sure somebody could estimate what

00:42:14   portion of that revenue could be allocated to

00:42:18   iphone ipad mac and i i mean i'm i'm pretty sure

00:42:22   they could do that and uh and the answer would

00:42:25   be that the iphone would seem even larger than

00:42:27   it is

00:42:27   good point i have a few quotes from tim cook

00:42:30   talking about ai in response to some of the

00:42:33   questions from the analysts on the call

00:42:34   first up we're significantly growing our

00:42:37   investment we did during the june quarter we

00:42:39   will again in the september quarter

00:42:41   i'm not putting specific numbers behind that

00:42:43   at this point but you can probably tell in the

00:42:45   guidance that things are moving up

00:42:46   we're also reallocating a fair number of

00:42:48   people to focus on ai features the features

00:42:51   within the company we have a great team and

00:42:53   we're putting all of our energy behind it

00:42:55   and then continues we've acquired around seven

00:42:58   companies this year and that's companies from

00:43:00   all walks of life not all ai oriented we're

00:43:03   very open to m&a mergers and acquisitions

00:43:06   that accelerates our roadmap we are not stuck

00:43:08   on a certain size company although the ones

00:43:11   that we have acquired thus far this year are

00:43:13   small in nature basically we ask but basically

00:43:16   ask ourselves whether a company can help us

00:43:19   accelerate a roadmap

00:43:20   yeah i love to accelerate a roadmap you take

00:43:23   a roadmap and you throw it

00:43:25   the metaphors i mean there was comment in

00:43:29   the in the member discord about tough

00:43:31   compare it's like you know you could your

00:43:33   head will explode if you try to parse

00:43:35   uh this kind of language you just kind of

00:43:37   have to translate it for humans it just it

00:43:39   is it is it just means whatever it means

00:43:41   accelerate a roadmap um and i love it

00:43:44   actually the person who asked that question

00:43:45   said accelerate your roadmap and then tim

00:43:47   picked it right up because they're speaking

00:43:48   the same language anyway yes good point i will

00:43:51   accelerate my roadmap so what what is what

00:43:54   is tim what is tim saying here well one

00:43:57   thing is it's talking he's trying to set a

00:43:59   narrative about how apple is doing ai

00:44:02   investment so they're like they're increasing

00:44:04   their investment in r&d uh in the current

00:44:07   quarter and then in or in the past quarter

00:44:09   and in the current quarter um things are

00:44:13   moving up in terms of the rd budget he says

00:44:15   we're also reallocating our people to focus

00:44:17   on ai features so we're doing that and then

00:44:19   somebody says what about m&a what about

00:44:21   buying companies and tim's almost a little

00:44:23   offended because he's like look we've

00:44:25   already bought seven companies this year he

00:44:27   actually said i think you didn't quote he's

00:44:28   like we buy a company every several weeks

00:44:31   right like we're on it we're buying companies

00:44:32   all the time you guys don't talk about it but

00:44:34   we're buying companies people are asking

00:44:37   about but what he says here and i think

00:44:40   this is i think this is true and i think this

00:44:43   is it is both spin and narrative building and

00:44:47   true which is he wants to explain how apple

00:44:50   buys companies and why apple buys companies and

00:44:53   i think this is i think this is really good this

00:44:55   is one of those rare little moments where you

00:44:57   figure this is how apple behaves from observation

00:45:00   and then you see them kind of phrase it in a

00:45:03   certain way in a call where you're like see

00:45:04   there there it is they're saying what we

00:45:07   observe and so what he said is we sorry for

00:45:12   using these terms again but we're open to m&a that

00:45:16   accelerates our roadmap we ask ourselves whether a

00:45:19   company can help us accelerate our roadmap so

00:45:22   what does this mean i'll translate it now into

00:45:24   human apple wants to buy a company that helps

00:45:27   further its plans and i think that's important

00:45:32   because what apple doesn't like to do is buy a

00:45:35   company that has its own plans and then make

00:45:38   those its plans apple apple and you could say

00:45:41   this right or wrong for ai by the way i think it

00:45:43   cuts both ways here but what apple is the way

00:45:46   apple looks at buying companies is will that

00:45:49   company take us where we want to go not we don't

00:45:53   know where to go let's buy this company and

00:45:55   they'll take tell us where to go that is not

00:45:57   what apple does so i think that's worth thinking

00:46:00   of the next time you hear about apple buying a

00:46:02   company because most of the acquisitions apple

00:46:04   does are very much like oh we need to do this

00:46:06   thing there's a company that does this thing

00:46:08   let's just buy them and now they are doing that

00:46:11   thing for us and not uh i don't know what we're

00:46:14   going to do next let's just buy a let's buy a

00:46:16   company and they'll tell us what to do that's just

00:46:18   not how they approach it but they do buy companies and

00:46:21   he is also saying here doesn't have to be a small

00:46:23   company i think that apple wants to make that

00:46:25   clear that occasionally they will spend a huge

00:46:28   sum sum of money on a big company but mostly they

00:46:30   don't and i think he's trying to reassure them

00:46:32   that if they want to buy an ai company an ai

00:46:36   company that is going to take apple where it feels

00:46:40   it needs to go strategically they'll do it and i think

00:46:44   that's what wall street wants to hear honestly but i

00:46:47   think he wanted to put it in the context of like how

00:46:49   apple approaches that thing which is you know we

00:46:52   will do what we need to do to further our goals and um you

00:46:57   know leaving all the accelerated roadmaps out of

00:46:59   it i think that's what they're what they're always

00:47:01   trying to do i do think they're on the hunt for the

00:47:04   ai companies though i think so i think in talking

00:47:07   about this in this way to me i i agree with what

00:47:10   you're saying but to talk about it in this way uh even

00:47:13   referencing like accelerating a road map what roadmap you

00:47:18   know and so i think that they're trying to signify that

00:47:21   they are on the lookout and they will buy but i would say

00:47:25   this never say never this is like so the baseball trade

00:47:30   deadline was last week too and everybody's like

00:47:31   everybody's already got got this amazing trade that they're

00:47:34   going to do where a big you know star is going to come to their

00:47:37   team and a blockbuster and most of the trades are boring

00:47:39   and i want to say that it's it's a little like this too which is

00:47:42   everybody's going to talk about what if apple buys company you've heard of

00:47:46   and maybe they will like like tim cook said you know

00:47:49   it it could happen but i would say the most likely scenario is that apple will buy

00:47:58   ai companies you haven't heard of that are startups that are doing interesting

00:48:03   things with interesting talent that is fitting with what apple wants to do and i

00:48:08   don't know enough about this space to know who those people are either but like i would

00:48:12   say if there are if there are companies that are building interesting models efficient models models

00:48:19   models that really want run well on um on phone hardware and pc hardware that don't need uh you know that are more efficient or that they had a breakthrough in terms of efficiency those are things apple's going to be interested in

00:48:34   um but and my you know my guess is that there are a bunch of ai startups out there

00:48:41   will that please wall street and will that solve some of apple's real problems with brain drain

00:48:47   and with strategy i don't know right like and they could if they really want to go buy

00:48:52   you know if they're for sale buy a big company you've heard of maybe they'll do that too but

00:48:57   i would say best guess is they will continue to buy companies you've never heard of but that

00:49:05   maybe somebody who's been focused on ai will be like oh that's i see what they're doing there that's smart

00:49:10   yeah um and and that's because that's their that's generally their playbook not roadmap playbook is

00:49:16   accelerate the playbook that you can accelerate the playbook by buying a uh smaller companies

00:49:21   you know and so yeah we'll see but but i mean he feels the pressure right cook feels the pressure

00:49:26   he has to say something like that out loud uh it's because people are asking everyone is asking are

00:49:32   you gonna buy ai stuff and he the two together is like look we're working on ai stuff we're spending

00:49:37   more money on r&d we're retasking our people and sure we buy companies all the time and if it fits

00:49:42   with what we're doing we will look at it because that's what we do um and he's trying to reassure

00:49:46   investors that that's what apple is doing with their ai strategy and you know take it for what it's

00:49:50   worth i mean this i'm just i'm just telling you what they're saying uh you can believe them or not

00:49:54   like they're not lying but they're they're spinning for the street they want to say we're on it and you

00:50:00   can you can decide if you think they're actually properly on it or not but i think that's what

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00:52:19   mark german reported on the aforementioned in this episode one hour all hands meeting that apple held

00:52:26   last week apparently a meeting of this type is rare um to have like a big all hands for such a long

00:52:33   period of time uh it included a bunch of executives i have information here about stuff that tim and

00:52:39   craig fitterighi said so a couple of quotes for you tim said that the ai revel this is quoting mark

00:52:45   german um so there's some quotes some like right some of mark german's color on this so tim said that

00:52:52   the ai revolution is as big or bigger as the internet smartphones cloud computing and apps apple must do

00:52:59   this apple will do this this is sort of ours to grab we will make the investment to do it all right now

00:53:05   i i want to i want to stop you there just to say he's talking to apple he's talking to everybody at

00:53:12   apple and so we all can debate where the ai revolution slots and is it overhyped and all those things and

00:53:20   again my standard is it is overhyped and also huge both of those things are true i'm in the middle on

00:53:27   this i think that it's i think it's big but i think that also there are a lot of people trying to make

00:53:32   a bubble and you know get a lot of investment and cash out and i think there's a lot of hype but i

00:53:37   still think it's huge however none of that matters this is a pep talk this is a pep talk where at where

00:53:44   apple's ceo is telling all apple employees that he thinks that this is as big or bigger as any of the

00:53:53   other tech product cycles that have happened and that apple has to be on it because this is an

00:53:59   opportunity for apple and that apple has to do it and i i mean say what you will about how apple has

00:54:05   handled ai stuff up to now but like for apple to succeed doing ai stuff there needs to be organizational

00:54:14   alignment about it and that means the ceo has to come to the employees and say hey this is huge and it

00:54:20   matters and we're going to take this right like we're going to do it if he doesn't do that if he

00:54:24   pooh poohs it then that's a different story but like if you're if you're going for it you gotta you gotta

00:54:29   get the employees all worked up about it i will i completely agree what you're saying i will add to it

00:54:36   though that nobody no effective internal communications team creates a presentation like this today

00:54:44   without knowing it will get out so he is speaking of course to apple but he's also speaking to people

00:54:52   that pay attention he's also speaking to bloomberg readers and he knows it he knows it because if they

00:54:58   wanted to get this out they're different i mean if they wanted to be secret they wouldn't put it in

00:55:02   you know like absolutely i'm sure mark german got 70 versions uh i'm sure he did of this call all

00:55:10   recorded uh tim spoke about how apple is rarely first to a market so he spoke about the ipod spoke about

00:55:17   the iphones right these are products that we were late to the market for mp3 players we were late to

00:55:21   the market for smartphones uh but they end up excelling he he said in these instances that apple invented the

00:55:28   modern products and feels that they would do the same for ai i don't know what that means

00:55:36   realistically but i do like the sentiment like i like the sentiment right like if you believe you're

00:55:44   going to do this like if apple believes that they have because it isn't what they're shipping i'll tell

00:55:48   you that right like it's not yeah so if if they believe that they are on the path to to doing like

00:55:56   the good version of ai quote-unquote right like i am really intrigued to see what they think that is

00:56:02   yeah and and the um i think there's a couple things going on right it is a pep talk if and so you want

00:56:08   to give people hope you want to say like what do i have to offer at apple maybe you know if chat gpt did

00:56:12   this already if open ai is already on it like what google's on it what do i even have to offer here

00:56:17   maybe i should go somewhere else make a difference and tim cook is like no we're going to do what apple

00:56:22   does which is we're going to come in with our uh special skills and we're going to redefine this and

00:56:27   that's the thing that i think as the ceo you need to say and you're trying to rev up your people and

00:56:32   we've talked a lot about like what is the unique apple spin on some of this ai stuff and i keep coming

00:56:38   back to the idea that apple makes products that people use and that those products run software

00:56:45   including other people software and apple software and like if apple can productize ai in a lot of

00:56:51   different ways where it changes features of apps and they get siri up and running with a proper

00:56:56   ai framework and they and they build a a thing that uses ai technology but in a really integrated way

00:57:05   there's a huge opportunity for them and also work with partners so like there's a path forward here

00:57:11   but if you're doing a pep talk you have to this is what you have to say

00:57:14   it is something where it's like uh like hearing hearing you say that it's like it's disappointing

00:57:20   in a way like at that apple intelligence shipped in the way that it did because i remember we were

00:57:26   talking like this before right like before wwdc last year where it was like oh like they're gonna

00:57:32   come in and they're gonna be late to this but they're gonna like do the apple thing and like they

00:57:37   right they fail and they well they had the they had the attitude of doing it but their their models

00:57:41   couldn't back it up yeah and we have more about that in a minute but yes yeah that's that's why

00:57:46   every time apple talks about or uh bloom bloomberg and german report about people leaving the

00:57:51   like he's literally reporting one at a time as people leave the the foundation model team and i on the

00:57:57   one hand brain drain is real and scary on the other hand every time he says oh the foundation model

00:58:01   team lost another member i'm like again just from the outside what is the fund foundation model team

00:58:06   done for anybody i just i'm sorry but like the embarrassment of apple intelligence in a lot of

00:58:12   ways was the fact that the models weren't good they were way behind now maybe this makes it worse but

00:58:17   like that's part of the challenge here is that they got to make it they got to make it better and

00:58:21   shipping apple intelligence also keep in mind the thing that was the most apple of all those

00:58:25   announcements is the one they didn't ship yeah which is using your personal information and parsing it

00:58:30   and having that all happen on device and all that and they couldn't get it to work and they

00:58:33   couldn't ship it let's talk about that maybe in the coming year right we've got a bit more

00:58:37   information about that and we'll go back to tim so craig veterigy spent some time in this presentation

00:58:41   talking about the personalized siri project so at wwdc they were talking about like having these two

00:58:48   paths right that they could have gone down and they took one path and it was the wrong path and that was

00:58:53   kind of like the only information that they were giving and he was giving a version of that story

00:58:58   to a bunch of outlets well now they've actually giving they've given a little bit more about what

00:59:03   that was so this wrong path that they went down was trying to build two architectures for siri that

00:59:10   worked side by side one for standard tasks like setting reminders and one for llm based tasks and that

00:59:17   they would operate simultaneously on your device and that the system would work out what you needed and

00:59:22   like this is a thing that like is this is actually a problem with a lot of the the assistants on devices

00:59:28   like my understanding is like gemini on android is like really bad and like can't set timers like so

00:59:34   they have to also have google assistant still to do that kind of thing and you operate with them

00:59:39   slightly differently from each other so but apple were like oh we're gonna we're gonna fix this by

00:59:45   having two different systems that operate together but it seems like it failed now they have been

00:59:52   working on something that is fully integrated and this is a quote from craig the work we've done on

00:59:57   this end-to-end revamp of siri has given us the results we needed this has put us in a position to

01:00:02   not just deliver what we announced but to deliver a much bigger upgrade than we envisioned there is no

01:00:08   project people are taking more seriously and he also goes on to give a big shout out to mike rockwell

01:00:16   basically saying this man saved this essentially

01:00:19   yeah great i mean great i hope i hope so i like i like them saying um and this goes back to the

01:00:28   consequences of apple intelligence stuff not shipping is that as we've all noted all they really announced

01:00:34   at wwdc is stuff that's in the betas and it seems very much that the the only announced stuff that

01:00:40   they were ready to ship which means that what we're probably going to have over the course of next year

01:00:45   is new announcements of features that will go in the os's in midstream yeah but that we don't know

01:00:53   about now because they weren't willing to promise them until they were further along and so this

01:00:58   suggestion a much bigger upgrade than we've envisioned um who knows when that will come and if it will work out

01:01:05   but it's possible the next spring they will have an os update that will have you know more than just that

01:01:12   more personalized siri that they talked about but had maybe maybe that siri entirely getting replaced who knows

01:01:19   but i i like i mean again proof is in the pudding but i do like them saying at least that they're taking

01:01:25   it seriously that mike rockwell is on it and they feel like they've got like has given us the results

01:01:29   we needed is a pretty big statement right it's like literally it works so let's go back to tim

01:01:37   uh tim also spoke about their ai investment here as well so we were referencing that they were talking

01:01:43   about it in the earnings call uh so tim said that apple was hired 12 000 people in the last year

01:01:51   40 of these people were in research and development roles with the implication i guess that they are

01:01:59   ai majority mostly ai yeah but like they don't say that but you you kind of guess right well they're

01:02:07   not they're not going to break it out but you know i i assume that there's lots of r&d going on in all

01:02:11   sorts of areas in terms of hardware and stuff like that too but they want the implication is that they

01:02:15   have hired a lot of people um and that ai is a top priority in r&d so therefore you can do the math

01:02:23   but they're not going to tell you and also tim urged employees to use ai more in the work that they are

01:02:30   doing so this is a quote from tim all of us are using ai in a significant way already and we must use

01:02:36   it as a company as well to not do so would be to be left behind and we can't do that

01:02:42   but i wonder what ai a lot of people inside of apple can actually truly use like from a security

01:02:49   perspective right like can you just well they i mean they've got the they've got all the stuff like

01:02:54   for developers they've got all the xcode stuff yeah which is shipping and that and that is that is safe

01:02:59   um as far as they're concerned so i i think look again it's a pep talk i think what he's saying is

01:03:07   i mean honestly don't be afraid of this and honestly what got them into this was poo-pooing

01:03:13   yeah ai yeah yeah and being like no no no no that's the big story not not for me and it's like no you

01:03:19   need to you need to use it and understand it that doesn't mean i know there are people out there who

01:03:23   really hate ai who are going to say this is really gross apple's apple's being gross and i don't like

01:03:29   it i'm like well it's a pep talk and i i would also say one of the important things if you're going to be

01:03:35   a technologist and you're going to be doing this stuff is to try this stuff and understand where it's

01:03:39   good where it's bad be knowledgeable about it it's a little bit like like saying i don't read but i write

01:03:49   novels it's like what are you doing like you you you are in case you're gonna not do a good job

01:03:55   of being a writer if you don't read because you need to understand what writing is and how it works

01:04:02   and what's going you know you you need to be a person who understands your subject matter and uh if

01:04:09   you're a technology person at apple if you say oh i don't just i just don't do ai stuff you are failing

01:04:18   it doesn't mean you have to love it it doesn't mean you have to embrace it and everything but it

01:04:23   means you need to understand it and understand where it works well and where it doesn't work well

01:04:27   and where it might go and how that relates to your products that you're working on that is important so

01:04:32   it is a pep talk but i think that that's what he's going to here he's not saying hey from now on all

01:04:37   apple icons should be generated by ai he's not saying that but he's saying um not only can ai lead to

01:04:44   productivity boosts in some cases where it can in some cases but also you need to understand it

01:04:50   so going back to mark german uh there is a more information about something else this is kind of

01:04:58   that's what kind of wraps up the uh yes speaking speaking of mike rockwell taking over siri and

01:05:03   doing amazing things whatever happened to robbie walker who was the guy who was in charge of siri

01:05:08   so mark german is reporting that apple is building a new answers knowledge and information

01:05:14   aki team to create their own world knowledge lm for the iphone world knowledge would essentially be

01:05:22   competing with what they have chat gpt doing so answering questions essentially this team is being

01:05:27   run by robbie walker who previously worked on jane andrea robbie was the executive who held that leaked

01:05:33   meeting in may about the delayed siri features um that's where that was the you know we're trying

01:05:38   to go to hawaii but we never got there yeah that's that we're still in the ocean uh quote from mark

01:05:43   german while still in the early stages this team is building what it calls an answer engine a system

01:05:48   capable of crawling the web to respond to general knowledge questions a standalone app is currently under

01:05:53   exploration alongside new back-end infrastructure meant to power search engine capabilities in siri spotlight

01:05:59   safari yeah yeah i mean they should have this they shouldn't be relying on another company to do this

01:06:04   absolutely 100 like they can but they shouldn't try they shouldn't accept that they should be trying

01:06:10   to do their own thing i agree there should be a choice the customer should be able to choose um

01:06:14   i mean they should also be able to choose for more than just open ai which is the thing that should

01:06:19   have happened by now but seems not to have not yet um but the default should be apple the default

01:06:25   should not be churchy pt sure yeah apple should be able to do this themselves and um they don't

01:06:30   i i i think it's the classic thing which is like there should be a default that that is not charging

01:06:36   you or whatever there should be a default that that is provided by apple yeah and then ideally there should

01:06:42   be options if you have a preferred provider to choose the preferred provider but the default

01:06:48   should be good and by apple i would say maybe a european regulator would disagree but i think that

01:06:55   part of apple's whole model is that they have built something for their users in their software

01:07:00   and then you know what you really want is to let people use something else if they want to

01:07:04   not that apple can't make one so i think this is yeah and and bottom line right we talk about the

01:07:10   foundation models and people leaving that group and that they kind of let apple intelligence down

01:07:14   last cycle the fact is i think apple needs to be building good models right like they they've gotta

01:07:20   be building good ml models that's that's the name of the game right now in so many different product

01:07:28   categories so they need to be on it it feels like especially from that all hands meeting

01:07:35   it kind of feels like they've woken up to this now oh yeah right and and that like they also want

01:07:45   they do want the world to know that like like we're on we're on now the question is like how did they

01:07:53   how does it differ from last summer when they did the apple intelligence announcement and they said hey

01:08:00   hey we're on it because they really needed to because they felt enormous pressure my feeling is that

01:08:06   they tried to smile through it yeah last summer they were trying to swing their arms around and like

01:08:14   say that they were under they they like had this and they had the best system ever yeah and they

01:08:19   couldn't deliver ready they just weren't ready and now and i would i would say it's a little like

01:08:24   remember remember when iphone sales slowed down and uh we got all the all the information from

01:08:31   apple retail about how like it this is simplifying it basically like apple retail realized it needed to

01:08:38   make an effort to sell the iphone yeah deals deals deals they had spent years just like iphones are in

01:08:44   boxes here and would you like one and that's it and then they're like oh and and which is brilliant

01:08:49   if you create a hit product and you don't have to do and make any effort to sell it awesome

01:08:54   but then the sales slowed and they're like oh we need to make an effort to sell iphones for the first

01:08:59   time well this feels a little like that to me where apple was like hey it's apple we're doing it it's

01:09:07   going to be great and now it feels like no we need to make an effort we need we need we need to try

01:09:12   it turns out we can't just be apple and solve this we have to task the whole company and this is not

01:09:20   quite a bill gates you know we're going to make the all of microsoft into you know internet focus

01:09:25   but it's it's in that direction of tim cook saying no ai is super important to this company and we need

01:09:32   to focus on it and and we need to pay attention and i i just there's some level of understanding of

01:09:39   the size of the challenge that i feel i'm not saying that people didn't feel it last year but i feel

01:09:46   emanating from the company now versus last year and so in a way i would say like last year was about

01:09:53   making a big play while not being able to back it up just to say you were in the game and this year

01:10:02   is the realization that they couldn't back it up and they need to start um and that's good i mean

01:10:09   can't say anything you know about where this will lead and whether it will be enough and whether they

01:10:14   will execute right but i would say all of this is a sign of these are things that apple absolutely

01:10:22   needs to do if they're going to do this right don't know if they will but like this seems to me to be on

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01:11:43   sometimes you just don't know the answer you don't know what to do

01:11:51   your friends mike and jason might have some advice for you

01:11:59   just ask upgrade

01:12:03   gets longer every time i listen to it yeah yeah yeah maybe he added an extra verse and you

01:12:17   didn't tell anyone amazing the flag just grew thank you again to lex friedman for providing these

01:12:21   incredible jingles for us to use during the summer of fun which i think now will be an annual tradition

01:12:26   because they're just too good to use so good thomas writes in and says mike always talks about the

01:12:31   photos watch face when i try to use the watch face the people list as a subset of the people on my phone

01:12:36   how many photos do you sync to the watch how do you set what set what photos to sync then how do you

01:12:42   configure the watch face itself to get more photos all right so there's a bunch of stuff going on here

01:12:46   because this is a complicated system which shouldn't be as complicated as it is i was complaining about

01:12:50   just a little bit after my baby was born so there's a couple of different things that the photos watch

01:12:54   does first off you can just choose a bunch of photos of your own and just load them on there

01:12:58   you just choose what photos you want to have and just they'll just shuffle through them this is not

01:13:02   what i do uh i choose the shuffle like the actual photo shuffle you can go into the photos watch face

01:13:08   and you can choose photos or you can choose shuffle right and that's what i this is what i do right

01:13:14   so i i want it to shuffle between them and i choose between uh photos of my wife and my child

01:13:19   and their options that i have however for some reason which is completely unknown to me

01:13:25   the people that you see are people that have been identified in the photos app but it's not everyone

01:13:32   and it seems like a completely random system at times as to which people it shows you that you can

01:13:41   choose from like it took weeks and weeks of me having hundreds of photos of my daughter before

01:13:47   she would show up as an option and then further weeks until after she actually showed up as an option

01:13:52   that i would actually get photos of her on my watch face

01:13:55   so i can't speak exactly to the list that you're getting but that's what you're getting

01:13:59   so you're going in you're saying oh i want to have these two people

01:14:02   then what happens is your watch loads

01:14:06   new images every day

01:14:09   they're random

01:14:11   the amount is random

01:14:14   some days i get 10 photos of just my wife

01:14:19   some days i get 6 photos and they're mixed

01:14:22   some days i get 3 photos and they're just of my child

01:14:25   i don't know what the logic is for how this is decided

01:14:28   i don't know if charging has got anything to do with it

01:14:32   maybe it's just loading them on when the watch is charging

01:14:34   i don't know

01:14:35   i also don't know what time

01:14:37   uh it does this but every day i have a new set of images that are chosen from those two people so

01:14:43   that's what i recommend doing go to photos watch face choose shuffle you can choose between people

01:14:47   or places or cities and you'll get new uh photos every day

01:14:51   and my recommendation if you're having trouble with that is photos is really weird about when it updates like the

01:14:58   people that it lists so you could also go into photos and look there at the photo shuffle for lock screens and see

01:15:04   um if you can you know even if you're just browsing around it may kick it into life

01:15:09   because it's unclear like i had this happen where like it took a week before it provided me with the people

01:15:15   who i had starred as my people it's like why would you not prioritize those i don't know if they fix some of that stuff by now but sometimes it just takes time for that to do that

01:15:25   at least they i haven't tried in ios 26 but in ios 18 uh it was a problem uh as of even a couple of months ago

01:15:32   i hope they fixed it

01:15:33   uh writes in and says uh my it was actually like there's like 25 a's this person is in our discord uh but i only read five that was five a's

01:15:44   uh my 79 year old dad has an aging windows laptop which is crashing frequently i've finally convinced him

01:15:52   that a macbook air would be good because he wants all of his iphone stuff to sync and this has been a constant pain point

01:15:58   and i'm tired of doing windows tech support my question is should we wait until mac os 26 is released

01:16:06   so he starts learning mac os with the latest redesign or should i get him the laptop now and we cross that bridge when we get to it

01:16:13   just get the laptop now first off you don't actually have to update to 26 right away

01:16:17   and it'll be fine and also having used

01:16:20   mac os 26 for

01:16:22   this summer um it's not that different

01:16:25   it's slightly it looks slightly different but it's mostly not that different

01:16:28   the conventions are the same right

01:16:30   yeah it's pretty much yeah a new coat of paint in some places but

01:16:34   you know it it works the same it's all

01:16:36   that's this is why what i say people are worried about

01:16:39   upgrading to tahoe because they've heard all these horror stories about liquid glass it's like

01:16:43   it's perfectly functional even if you don't like the look of some stuff it all works just fine

01:16:49   so i'd say go now yeah

01:16:51   uh michael writes in and says recently jason mentioned a shortcut that automatically converts

01:16:57   heek images on his desktop to jpeg this is absolutely brilliant could you share the steps

01:17:04   please jason how how do you how did you make this shortcut

01:17:07   um it is let's see i mean in tahoe so before i think i was doing something slightly different but

01:17:15   uh it shortcut i'm gonna do an audio shortcut here this is very exciting yeah so um it's two steps

01:17:23   or i guess technically it's three steps so it's uh you you're taking input um when you run this

01:17:31   uh in tahoe you would actually just say um you know if file type is image or file extension is

01:17:39   heek whatever the next step is convert that item to jpeg and the next step is save it to wherever

01:17:48   this is desktop screenshots wherever you save it and then the next one is and then delete it

01:17:53   right that's it and then it just does it and that's very convenient you're setting an automation

01:18:00   right yeah so it's in on my desktop folder or in my downloads folder it's like if this triggers and

01:18:06   it's an image in this format save a jpeg out of it and then delete it right and then it just runs

01:18:12   and it's very uh it's it's great i mean this is one of those and and these are the understandable

01:18:18   shortcuts in a lot of ways right where it's like it's not that many steps you don't have to set a lot

01:18:22   it's really just like take this image and if you do it without the automation and just have it be

01:18:27   something that runs from hazel or something like that it's even easier because it's literally just

01:18:33   take the input turn it into a jpeg save it and then delete the file at the input and then you're done

01:18:40   and andrew writes in and says i know i've asked this before but with the iphone 17 around the corner

01:18:47   for uk iphone users who are currently using physical sim cards should we now be switching to

01:18:52   e sims i am happy with the e physical sim in my iphone 16 pro max but when i upgraded to the 17

01:18:58   pro when i upgraded to the 17 pro max well i have no choice but to switch and if so should i do it now

01:19:04   or hold on until i have to well okay part one is we don't know right we don't know that they will be

01:19:09   e um e sims only uh my assumption is it's going to happen at some point and i've said this last time

01:19:16   i think to andrew writing in you should absolutely do this rather than having to stick a little thing

01:19:23   into the side of your phone and move a piece of plastic around e sims works so great it's gotten

01:19:27   even better over the years like i had this problem in in years past uh when they started doing the e sims

01:19:34   because i uh get my uh iphone when i'm out in the states because that's when they launch i'm always out

01:19:39   there uh for saint jude and then i like couldn't move my sim over anymore and because it moved to

01:19:45   e sim and i would have to wait until i got home and could connect to my network my home net like the home

01:19:51   cell provider ee uh to do the transfer but last year it did the transfer without needing to do that so

01:19:58   apple has improved the process i somehow uh where it's actually just it's not even needing to connect

01:20:03   to ee anymore um but it's so simple that you you know you go it you can do it all in the app right

01:20:09   i'm assuming that other cell carriers are the same and you can say i want to just transfer my sim to an

01:20:14   e sim and it goes yeah great no problem and then your sim card is essentially dead uh and then you just

01:20:20   move around from phone to phone each year and you do it as part of the setup process i really recommend

01:20:26   this to people um and also i will tell you if apple does it like it removes the sim card from your

01:20:34   location you will be happier having set it up before new iphone day i'll tell you that right like going

01:20:42   through the kit because when i originally did it e sims are very new in the uk and not a lot of people

01:20:48   had them because you didn't need them so it was a bit of a pain to do my initial setup but i just did

01:20:53   one recently um i have have an old sim uh and i was moving it to my google pixel fold and i did it

01:21:01   via an e sim and it was incredibly easy to do like e has made the process easier because it's happening

01:21:06   more and more people are doing it more and more so i recommend it i think you should do it uh at some

01:21:12   point apple is going to remove this um i would expect uh but even if they don't it's an easier life

01:21:18   and then you don't have to be dealing with sim card ejection tools anymore which is just like a

01:21:23   great world to be in yeah i i don't regret it and the transfers are easy so simple it's very easy

01:21:30   because i have to review a bunch of phones right so i have to do transferring of a service and it's fine

01:21:35   it's very easy they we live in that world now uh if you'd like to send in a question for us to

01:21:41   answer on a future episode of the show it's really easy to do that go to upgrade feedback.com

01:21:47   you can also send in your follow-up and questions there uh thank you to our members who support us

01:21:52   upgrade plus uh you go to getupgradeplus.com this time i want to actually answer a question that came

01:21:57   from an upgrade plusian uh in upgrade plus um the question i'm going to read the question jason but

01:22:03   people can have to sign up to get the answer how about that how about that that's like i'm like the

01:22:07   this is like the rest is history like plugging yeah that's right the question was from matthias

01:22:12   who asks i have upgrade plus so i don't hear your ads but from the intros it seems that you have more

01:22:17   advertisers is this just a coincidence or is the ad crisis over ad crisis if you would like to get

01:22:24   the answer to that question go to get upgrade plus and you can sign up and you'll also be supporting

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01:22:34   upgrade podcast if you'd like to watch this episode is probably good to watch at least in

01:22:38   parts to see how me and jason dance to the jingles um because don't get your hopes up i know that we

01:22:45   are i mean there's movement there's at least movement um yeah so i would like to thank our sponsors for

01:22:50   this week the fine folk over at oracle delete me and squarespace once again for the final time thank

01:22:56   you to lex friedman uh for providing these jingles go to lex.games and check out lex's games

01:23:01   we'll be back next week thank you for listening until then say goodbye jesus now goodbye mike harley

01:23:07   you