00:00:00 ◼ ► from relay this is upgrade episode 593 for december 8th 2025 today's show is brought to you by century
00:00:17 ◼ ► fitbod and udacity my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by on location jason snell hi jason snell
00:00:28 ◼ ► we've got him standing outside apple park he's at the exit gates just checking if anyone's going to
00:00:32 ◼ ► leave today watching watching to see who leaves yeah sure could be could be i have a snell talk
00:00:39 ◼ ► question for you and it comes from mark this was sent to me by a text message as sometimes
00:00:44 ◼ ► snell talk questions come in mark wants to know do you have any favorite curling related songs or tv
00:00:51 ◼ ► or media in general for me it's got to be tournament of hearts by the weaker thans both because i love
00:00:58 ◼ ► that song but also because i don't know of any other songs about curling i just want to give
00:01:03 ◼ ► it to mark here because i don't know any at all so mark wins by one and i don't i don't have any
00:01:08 ◼ ► favorite curling related song tv media anything uh nothing has has raised to the level where i found
00:01:16 ◼ ► that uh lauren really enjoyed there's a podcast no about a curling about a curling scandal it's a it's
00:01:23 ◼ ► actually like a narrative podcast uh uh about um and then i watched uh broom game it was a i think
00:01:32 ◼ ► yeah that's it she enjoyed it i mean there can't be other ones right i mean it must be that one it's
00:01:38 ◼ ► like no it's a different one you'd be surprised that's probably it yeah that's probably it thanks
00:01:44 ◼ ► to the cbc yeah of course canada's on it that's true i guess if anyone's gonna get it they're gonna
00:01:51 ◼ ► get it and and i will just say to forestall all the uh all the recommendations for the movie men
00:02:03 ◼ ► i don't i don't need a list of curling related media i'm actually watching the olympic qualifying
00:02:08 ◼ ► tournament on streaming this week i'm watching actual curling so so that's your favorite curling
00:02:14 ◼ ► media is olympic is watching curling yeah that makes sense uh if you have a snow talk question you would
00:02:22 ◼ ► like us to answer in a future episode if you have my personal contact information you can send them to
00:02:27 ◼ ► me although i would prefer in general even if you do to go to upgradefeedback.com and send that in
00:02:34 ◼ ► it's a good idea we have some follow-up so last week we spoke about how the indian government was
00:02:39 ◼ ► looking to mandate the install of an app that could essentially be used to track citizens they wanted
00:02:45 ◼ ► apple to do this uh we spoke about it wonder what apple would do well apple refused um reuters was
00:02:51 ◼ ► reporting that apple was going to officially tell the indian government that they would not do this they
00:02:56 ◼ ► would not uh install uh mandatorily an app on everybody's iphones in india uh this then led to
00:03:04 ◼ ► the indian government completely scrapping the entire program but there has since been a second
00:03:12 ◼ ► proposal to mandate that gps is enabled on every iphone sold in india with no option for disabling it
00:03:19 ◼ ► now that doesn't sound too bad on the face of it but they then want there to be no notification of
00:03:26 ◼ ► any kind that would inform a user if a cell carrier wanted to access that location information
00:03:31 ◼ ► again is expected that apple will deny this request via reporting from reuters and others
00:03:37 ◼ ► because they had already formally opposed a similar proposal back in july of this year so the timeline i
00:03:44 ◼ ► think is that the indian government recommended this then went and suggested the app the app has been a
00:03:49 ◼ ► no so now they're going back to this other request but apple's going to say no again so i guess we'll see
00:03:54 ◼ ► what happens i guess we'll see it's interesting they're they want you know the indian government wants
00:04:00 ◼ ► personal information right they want to be able to track i mean really what they want is the ability
00:04:05 ◼ ► to track any person anywhere at any time and when you think about it that way doesn't sound great to
00:04:10 ◼ ► me no and remember as well they wanted to be able to tie encryption apps to um sim cards which they
00:04:17 ◼ ► could then tie to individuals via their id so of course the indian government they are really taking
00:04:23 ◼ ► some steps here but it's not going very well for them so far uh analyst jeff who expects that intel
00:04:31 ◼ ► may reach a deal with apple to produce some non-pro iphone chips starting in 2028 following up on the
00:04:38 ◼ ► story from ming chi quo about the m chips that we talked about now this is one of those things where
00:04:43 ◼ ► i see analyst reports and i i never really know how to take them like ming chi quo is an analyst but
00:04:50 ◼ ► we're familiar with quo's sources which are the supply chain i'm and i see jeff who's name mentioned a lot
00:04:58 ◼ ► and i'm sure we've covered some of their reporting in the past but the report that i've seen it doesn't
00:05:03 ◼ ► necessarily say where this is coming from but if people are well respected analysts which i don't know
00:05:08 ◼ ► who is and people pay attention to what they have to say you assume that they're not just pulling
00:05:13 ◼ ► things out of thin air it's coming from somewhere um and this would actually make a lot of sense to me
00:05:20 ◼ ► that they that they if they're going to have intel produce the m chip why not also the a chip like the
00:05:26 ◼ ► standard a chip that goes in you know what would i think be the iphone 20 and the iphone 20e why not
00:05:32 ◼ ► do that as well it's the same theory if not even more needed in the long term is iphone chips more than
00:05:39 ◼ ► mac chips it's like what's that important to apple yeah i think that uh i mean what their sources
00:05:48 ◼ ► i mean intel probably probably yes yeah um i uh it's not unreasonable i mean this is just a different
00:05:56 ◼ ► data point that maybe somebody wanted to get out there um or that was unreported by ming chi quo and
00:06:02 ◼ ► so they wanted to score a little point here but the the larger story hasn't changed which is apple is
00:06:07 ◼ ► exploring the possibility according to all these reports of fabbing some of their chips on intel but
00:06:12 ◼ ► probably starting with um chips that are uh not at the cutting edge because that's a good place to
00:06:18 ◼ ► start because intel is not at the cutting edge of tsmc and um and so they don't you know they can't
00:06:24 ◼ ► really go there but they do want to start building a relationship with another fab because it's a u.s
00:06:29 ◼ ► company and they've got fabs in the u.s and intel is willing to do this in a way that they uh previously
00:06:34 ◼ ► were not so um this is just sort of like another uh another little piece of color to that uh story
00:06:48 ◼ ► that lando congratulations to lando ah see i knew it i knew it it's good to know i did my research
00:06:55 ◼ ► uh when the season ended apple's promotional uh machine continues right because now they are the
00:07:02 ◼ ► home of formula one in america and they put out a kind of sizzle reel um yeah a little hype video
00:07:07 ◼ ► little hype video now in this video there there were some screens of what could i'm going to say
00:07:15 ◼ ► potentially be sure the functionality that they may have on apple tv so they showed some things like
00:07:22 ◼ ► you know here's some promotion for a race but then they also had like tiles that you could tap on for
00:07:28 ◼ ► the different drivers with driver cams and multi-view interface mock-up they had an interface
00:07:34 ◼ ► mock-up and it showed driver cams and it showed multi-view yeah and i so indicating potentially
00:07:40 ◼ ► the kinds of features that people would want i say this is very much a mock-up until we see it i think
00:07:46 ◼ ► apple will definitely have this functionality but it may be via the f1 tv app i i don't know right like
00:07:53 ◼ ► i think that people were like oh they've they've shown off what the app's going to look like and i
00:07:57 ◼ ► just don't know that i would really like totally hang my hat on this mock-up of like what exactly
00:08:05 ◼ ► will be in the apple tv app i i may use this as a hat rack we'll see um i don't know where my hat is
00:08:16 ◼ ► going i might place my hat on it or near it only in the sense that i think this is apple stating their
00:08:21 ◼ ► intention for what they want this interface to be yeah but they could change their mind
00:08:24 ◼ ► my point is i i i am sure they want to have this but if you know it's like one of these things where
00:08:32 ◼ ► they could get there eventually and i'm sure they will but it is not imperative that they do because
00:08:41 ◼ ► f1 tv has all this stuff in it so like you know right we'll see i i think that i think what we see
00:08:49 ◼ ► here is that apple wants to bring an elevated experience to the tv app so that it can provide
00:08:55 ◼ ► whizzy fun features to people who are not going to go download an additional f1 app because that's the
00:09:00 ◼ ► even harder core people and that they want to sort of like i think they're in in fact i would say they're
00:09:05 ◼ ► envisioning the espn audience coming to apple and offering them some whizzy new tech stuff beyond that
00:09:12 ◼ ► knowing that that audience is not paying for f1 tv and may not even think about going there they're
00:09:18 ◼ ► they're interested but they're not that hardcore but again i think it's a statement of intent i think
00:09:23 ◼ ► they intend to ship all of the things they showed yeah but you never know how it's going to go also
00:09:26 ◼ ► f1 is not off very long right when's the when's the first race of the next season much yeah i mean
00:09:33 ◼ ► it's right just around the corner so it's much closer than um you know maybe some sports off seasons
00:09:39 ◼ ► that go on for you know six months or something like that yeah so we'll see i mean we'll absolutely
00:09:44 ◼ ► see i will say like i i agree with what you're saying this driver on boards is a pretty hardcore
00:09:52 ◼ ► feature though like it's not i don't think it is a very common feature but it's absolutely something
00:09:58 ◼ ► that apple should provide because they have the availability for it okay so i mean just to be clear
00:10:04 ◼ ► um it's a hardcore feature but um what i'm saying is they're going to get non-hardcore people who just
00:10:11 ◼ ► are coming from espn who are going to be in the app and you want to show them whizzy technology and
00:10:15 ◼ ► on boards is whizzy technology absolutely even if they don't use it it's cool to have it right like you
00:10:20 ◼ ► can go around and look at it if they say we have whizzy technology in another app that's run by f1 and
00:10:27 ◼ ► that is an apple it is an apple showing off their whizzy technology right so i and i think apple wants to
00:10:32 ◼ ► show they're going to have the streams so i think they want to show them and i think multi-view is a
00:10:36 ◼ ► great example where they have multi-view and they've implemented it and they've got f1 so i'm sure there
00:10:41 ◼ ► was a meeting yeah to be fair actually to be fair you are right they they do already have a multi-view
00:10:47 ◼ ► technology so it's essentially pointing the the the cameras like the feeds at their technology that
00:10:55 ◼ ► already exists right if i were eddie q i would say what are we doing here if we have multi-view on
00:11:00 ◼ ► apple tv and we have access to multiple video streams and we're not offering people multiple
00:11:05 ◼ ► video streams yeah so i i think that's what's going behind that but i think it will be i don't think
00:11:10 ◼ ► they're going to replicate f1 tv inside of apple tv but i think this shows that they're going to try to
00:11:13 ◼ ► do more in part because i think they want to push like this is software we can do more than espn could
00:11:20 ◼ ► um you know we're not going to tell you to press the red button uh but we might tell you to go into
00:11:25 ◼ ► multi-view yeah right or or or click to enter a multi-view that we picked for you there is a bunch
00:11:30 ◼ ► of things they can do like that that are like i don't want to say like baby stuff but you know what
00:11:36 ◼ ► i mean like the the super hardcore isn't going to do it but they might hold somebody's hand and say
00:11:41 ◼ ► oh this might be a fun way to watch f1 that's slightly different than you're used to and doing
00:11:45 ◼ ► it that way plus they just kind of even if nobody uses it it's showing off the technology so um
00:11:50 ◼ ► interesting we'll we'll see but it won't be that long march soon yeah also what i found
00:11:55 ◼ ► interesting was in that clip they use the commentary from alex jacks or jack who is the f1 tv main
00:12:06 ◼ ► commentator which suggests to me they will be using it this is a strongest indication to me that they
00:12:13 ◼ ► will just be using the f1 tv commentary team as their commentary team could very well they made that
00:12:19 ◼ ► choice in the same way that they are showing what we hope will be in the tv app they chose to use
00:12:25 ◼ ► commentary audio from alex jack yeah my only uh my only warning there is if they have a announcer team
00:12:34 ◼ ► announcement that they're gonna make yeah they wouldn't do it here so they'd use existing um
00:12:40 ◼ ► existing commentary instead they don't need to use commentary at all though right like they can just
00:12:45 ◼ ► show clip so we'll see i mean also that well i i expect more likely that they have a kind of track
00:12:51 ◼ ► side team that it will be theirs as opposed to the commentators to the actual announcers all right well
00:12:57 ◼ ► i'm just saying i'm not throwing my hat on this hat rack that hat rack no it's a big hat rack this one
00:13:05 ◼ ► uh apple has announced that fitness plus will be expanding to 28 new markets over the next few months
00:13:11 ◼ ► with a new language dubbing option to spanish german and japanese so they're expanding to a bunch of
00:13:18 ◼ ► different territories but they're not expanding the languages right so everywhere that fitness plus is
00:13:23 ◼ ► has been in english but now they will be adding a generated voice this is an ai voice in spanish german
00:13:30 ◼ ► and japanese where they will be dubbing the existing content but it seems like the dubbing is rolling out
00:13:36 ◼ ► like it's going to be something they're going to be i guess making sure works and is good and embedded in
00:13:41 ◼ ► the videos um i mentioned all this because we've been talking about like you know what is going to
00:13:46 ◼ ► happen to fitness plus well currently they're expanding it i guess that's one way to try and make the
00:13:51 ◼ ► service uh more worthwhile to them is have it available in more countries and with some new language options
00:13:57 ◼ ► sure sounds good and we'd like to offer our congratulations to previous upgradey award-winning
00:14:08 ◼ ► ah congratulations we we we gave them an award first yes and we may it's very likely we will give
00:14:16 ◼ ► them an award very likely we'll give them award again i i i just wanted to point out the what happens
00:14:24 ◼ ► when you become apple's standard bearer of something yeah which is they did um they did a photo shoot
00:14:33 ◼ ► there's shots of tom and dominic the host of the show with the an apple podcasts award um they did a
00:14:42 ◼ ► what i think is a special episode of the rest is history that includes their thanks and a quick
00:14:49 ◼ ► ranking of the five history's five best apples that is i think only in apple podcast i mean i didn't get
00:14:56 ◼ ► it in overcast no i i so i think that's really interesting i listened to it in apple podcast because
00:15:02 ◼ ► that's where it was and they mobilize they have um there's an apple news and conversation podcast that
00:15:09 ◼ ► apple does um and so it's an interview podcast and that episode this week was with tom and dominic
00:15:15 ◼ ► and it was actually those bonuses were a lot of fun and i really enjoyed both of them but i also had
00:15:19 ◼ ► that moment of like and then also actually on the on the site or in in apple podcasts um you know many
00:15:26 ◼ ► tiles for rest is history um and then they built out and they built out a huge thing that includes you
00:15:33 ◼ ► know playlists basically of of various topics uh which spotify has had for a while but but uh apple
00:15:39 ◼ ► built that out i you know did gold hanger build that or did apple i think i think you could do some of
00:15:45 ◼ ► that in their cms but like uh apple did it up special yeah but i love this like i think obviously we love
00:15:53 ◼ ► this show and something i like you know how i am uh it's even referenced in the press release that they
00:15:59 ◼ ► are the first uk based show to be named this and they seem very proud of that fact too which i enjoy
00:16:05 ◼ ► it's a very patriotic podcast it really is it's one of my favorite things about it in the bonus
00:16:10 ◼ ► in the bonus they mention how you know americans still owe 250 years of back taxes yes it's a it's just
00:16:18 ◼ ► tax dodgers point of contention speaking of the upgradies uh i would like to thank everybody who has
00:16:24 ◼ ► sent in their nominations who have hundreds and hundreds of nominations sent in so far but we would
00:16:28 ◼ ► like yours too if you have not submitted your uh nominations for the 12th annual upgradies awards you
00:16:35 ◼ ► can go to upgradies.vote or you can click a link in the show notes and you can uh send your nominations
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00:17:37 ◼ ► throw your hat on our hat rack that is a great point yes there's lots of we have this podcast is a hat
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00:18:01 ◼ ► uh we're gonna give some reaction to netflix's attempt i will say now because the news kind of
00:18:07 ◼ ► change before we've got on the uh phone today uh netflix attempts to buy warner brothers i want to
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00:20:17 ◼ ► so out of i would say out of nowhere uh last wednesday okay no because nobody was expecting this news
00:20:25 ◼ ► uh mark german reported at bloomberg that alan dye apple's head of user interface design will be leaving
00:20:31 ◼ ► the company and joining meta where he will become the head of a new creative studio in the reality labs
00:20:37 ◼ ► this is mostly ai and physical products that meta is developing like the um ray bands and stuff like
00:20:46 ◼ ► that i think okay all right uh dye is taking with him a small number of designers potentially more but
00:20:52 ◼ ► there was a couple listed uh this move was apparently a surprise to apple uh with tim cook providing a
00:20:59 ◼ ► statement to bloomberg about dyes departure and his replacement steven lemay lemay has worked at apple
00:21:05 ◼ ► since 1999 has a background in interface and direction design less focused on pure visuals as
00:21:11 ◼ ► die was and more on kind of like how things feel to in use tim cook providing that statement to mark
00:21:17 ◼ ► german is one of the most fascinating details of this whole endeavor this whole thing to me um the fact
00:21:22 ◼ ► that it was tim that did it not a you know a name person at pr um and that it was also provided
00:21:30 ◼ ► to mark german so you kind of get the impression that mark found out about this contacted apple
00:21:35 ◼ ► pr and apple scramble to get a response that's how i imagine that went down because i think it's pretty
00:21:41 ◼ ► clear where mark got that information from yeah and it's meta side yeah and and it shows that they're
00:21:46 ◼ ► actually trying to do damage control because it is a problem especially in you know we're going to talk
00:21:51 ◼ ► about this in the second half of this discussion a week that was being bookended by departures
00:21:57 ◼ ► at apple and then right in the middle of it alan die it quits surprise extra departures oops what is it
00:22:03 ◼ ► oops all departures all departures there you go yeah uh so this move was apparently a surprise to apple
00:22:10 ◼ ► right this is the thing that we're leaning on that seems like die told them i'm leaving uh john gruber
00:22:17 ◼ ► published a big article that focuses on some things that he has heard from apple employees many of them
00:22:22 ◼ ► excited about this move that die has departed and lemay is stepping in i'm sure you're in a similar
00:22:27 ◼ ► boat that over the last it feels like a week but it hasn't been half a week i've heard from people i
00:22:34 ◼ ► know apple who share these sentiments um of course they're excited about this and this is something that
00:22:39 ◼ ► uh they're they're looking forward to and that stephen lemay is a good guy yeah yeah uh in a later
00:22:46 ◼ ► report mark german states that tim cook is taking on more responsibility for overseeing a design
00:22:53 ◼ ► overseeing design i should say a role that was held by uh jeff williams until he uh reparted uh
00:22:59 ◼ ► retired reparted i like that that's a retired departure that's when you retire and leave
00:23:06 ◼ ► immediately because sometimes they retire and stick around and you're getting it still not looking at
00:23:11 ◼ ► anybody but yeah uh you wrote an article about this uh in a major coup for someone a coup for someone
00:23:17 ◼ ► because which i found interesting uh how are you feeling about this you you seem to be on the i'm
00:23:22 ◼ ► happy about this side of the of the fence yeah i mean my whole piece is like i don't want to make it
00:23:30 ◼ ► personal um because i think that we make mistakes when we take our grievances and then put them on one
00:23:35 ◼ ► person when we don't know actually what's going on on the inside i think um alan die has been such a uh
00:23:43 ◼ ► a visible leader and and and a leader of this part of it that um it's fair for him to get some personal
00:23:49 ◼ ► criticism because he's he's the leader of this but it's a complex issue and i think that uh making it
00:23:55 ◼ ► personal is a mistake i what i would say is i think apple has had a rough time of it in terms of a lot of
00:24:03 ◼ ► their priorities in terms of software design for a while now and um so change from the relief
00:24:12 ◼ ► standpoint i think change is good basically just change is good because i think that that uh it isn't
00:24:20 ◼ ► going great and the priorities seem a little out of whack and so maybe getting some change in the
00:24:25 ◼ ► organization is good i also want to say i feel like this goes back to the original sin which we've talked
00:24:32 ◼ ► about a lot here which is when steve jobs died apple was really desperate to show that they hadn't lost
00:24:39 ◼ ► their mojo and one way they decided to do that was pump up johnny ive and so they made him chief design
00:24:46 ◼ ► officer and put him in charge of software design and that was you remember scott forestall got fired
00:24:51 ◼ ► all those things were going on in this era and um i don't think that johnny ive was the right person
00:24:58 ◼ ► to have a say on software design i think that was probably a mistake and i think that uh alan dye is
00:25:05 ◼ ► an example of johnny ive putting a visual designer in charge of something that's probably a little more
00:25:09 ◼ ► technical again i don't want to boil this down we all come with our own baggage right tim cook
00:25:15 ◼ ► is not just an operations guy but he does come from a perspective of operations and it's going to
00:25:22 ◼ ► influence how he works as ceo alan dye spent many many years on software design so just because he
00:25:29 ◼ ► came from designing packaging and advertising and things like that as a visual designer doesn't mean
00:25:34 ◼ ► he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about interaction but he also brought the perspective
00:25:40 ◼ ► of a visual designer to it and i think that it's you it's possible to look at some of apple's missteps
00:25:47 ◼ ► and say maybe that uh vision was misaligned with what that job actually should be um that also could
00:25:55 ◼ ► be completely wrong and it's just a vehicle for people to heap all of their scorn on and then set
00:26:01 ◼ ► it on fire the day that he leaves i think it's more complicated than that but at the same time i also think
00:26:06 ◼ ► it's fair to say alan dye was the prominent representative of a part of apple that didn't
00:26:13 ◼ ► really work great for a while and didn't seem to be getting better um and just uh one other thing i'll
00:26:21 ◼ ► throw on onto the pile here which is when i say change is good um and this may be true for all of apple
00:26:28 ◼ ► or large parts of apple but i'll say it for the design group especially i feel like johnny i've built this
00:26:33 ◼ ► very tight design group of people and they were there a very long time i think johnny got burned
00:26:37 ◼ ► out but stayed too long um i think his a lot of his lieutenants were looking for new challenges a lot
00:26:43 ◼ ► of them have left now alan dye leaving i feel like is a little bit like that and leaving aside
00:26:51 ◼ ► any crimes that they're alleged to have committed against design or usability or whatever i think that a
00:26:59 ◼ ► problem at apple is apple got so big so fast and was so successful and made so much money
00:27:05 ◼ ► that there are parts of apple where you've got people who have been in the same jobs for a very
00:27:09 ◼ ► long time and there are other talented people below them who would like to take a step up and can't
00:27:14 ◼ ► because there's nowhere to go and what ends up happening is you have a brain drain at a lower
00:27:18 ◼ ► level where people have to leave apple people you've never heard of because there's nowhere for them
00:27:23 ◼ ► to go because those people have been in that job for 20 years or 15 years or 10 years and they're
00:27:28 ◼ ► never going to go anywhere because they've got so many stock options and you're trapped so you have to
00:27:32 ◼ ► leave because that's the only way through and i think that's unhealthy and i actually think that's the worst
00:27:37 ◼ ► brain drain that apple faces is having these static organizations run by people who've been there so long
00:27:44 ◼ ► that they are set in their ways and they want the way they want it and new ideas aren't really going
00:27:50 ◼ ► to be welcome and and so without alleging that about it because it's human nature more than anything else
00:27:56 ◼ ► what i will say is i look at a departure from the design uh group and the elevation of somebody who's
00:28:02 ◼ ► been at apple a long time into a role of authority and presumably all of the things that happen underneath
00:28:08 ◼ ► that to bring them up um and give everybody else in that group opportunities to step up as well as
00:28:15 ◼ ► making the whole group a little more dynamic because it's not just kind of the same people at the top for
00:28:20 ◼ ► the last decade and a half i think that's healthy and i could point at probably different groups but the
00:28:26 ◼ ► software design is a an area i would point to at apple and say you know what a little refresher there
00:28:32 ◼ ► is probably a good idea i don't think it's healthy for any organization to to be that um static for that
00:28:39 ◼ ► long especially one that as an outside observer looks like they're having some trouble so that's my
00:28:44 ◼ ► surprise it's a nuanced take i'm not trying to burn anybody in effigy but i also think it's fair for
00:28:49 ◼ ► alan die to take uh some criticism because he is um the prominent representative of that part of
00:28:57 ◼ ► apple's business and that apple has elevated him and his visibility so but but i wouldn't go too far
00:29:04 ◼ ► with it right like we don't know exactly what the deal is from behind the scenes but um anyway that's
00:29:10 ◼ ► that's what i think what do you think yeah i think i'm i'm not like excited about this i think that there
00:29:17 ◼ ► are a lot of people in our broader community listeners uh fellow podcasters who are very excited
00:29:23 ◼ ► about this news um i mean one i i have found the way that people talk about alan died to be really
00:29:29 ◼ ► distasteful anyway like i felt this for since june um i i think people they speak about him in very
00:29:36 ◼ ► derogatory terms which i i don't fully understand before june i would i would say that yeah i i think
00:29:42 ◼ ► i think it really it really took off with 26 it got worse but i mean yes it's this this ding dong the
00:29:49 ◼ ► witch is dead kind of thing that's going on and whereas what i'm saying is i think change is
00:29:54 ◼ ► probably good and yeah and this is a good change and it's a positive change because uh i think
00:29:59 ◼ ► shaking things up is a good idea but that that i i'm that's how i'm approaching it a lot more than
00:30:06 ◼ ► ding dong the witch is dead yeah yeah i mean as well though like i do feel like in the last week
00:30:10 ◼ ► there i'm hearing a lot of people talking about like how terrible apple software design has been for a
00:30:15 ◼ ► while and i just don't feel like i have experienced this criticism before june like i i it did not feel
00:30:24 ◼ ► to me that there was like a you know like a hardware you know mac hardware of 20 i don't know 18 level
00:30:34 ◼ ► concern about software but it feels like people are talking like that now it's been bubbling under the
00:30:38 ◼ ► surface a lot of uh developers have felt that way and that you know there's a feeling about uh some
00:30:44 ◼ ► of the design that it's been more about visual appeal than functionality for a while now i'm i'll go back
00:30:50 ◼ ► to my again not the most important thing in the world by far even at apple but i'll say um remember
00:30:57 ◼ ► the settings app on the mac where they completely redid it and yeah it's terrible and they had an
00:31:02 ◼ ► opportunity to make it good and they did okay so i'm gonna jump ahead here a little bit like to my
00:31:07 ◼ ► because i have a bunch of things i want to say in the middle but yes you brought up something that
00:31:11 ◼ ► i think is really important and i think your perspective here is astute yeah which i i think
00:31:16 ◼ ► people are getting too excited about a potential future here that that like because steven lemay is
00:31:22 ◼ ► an interface like interaction designer he's going to come in and fix all the things we don't like i just
00:31:27 ◼ ► think that this isn't i i believe that there are some fundamental things that are happening inside
00:31:34 ◼ ► of apple that have led to the scenario where the settings app becomes an iphone app and the and
00:31:41 ◼ ► like ios 26 is what it is and what it is on the mac is what it is and and i don't think that if your
00:31:47 ◼ ► thing is aha alan dyes gone the mac is going to get more attention i'm just not sure that we can draw
00:31:55 ◼ ► these lines here like this is what i mean about not making it personal is even if he's in charge
00:31:59 ◼ ► the company and its priorities dictate a lot of what his priorities are and that includes the thing
00:32:08 ◼ ► that i keep coming back to which is apple is the iphone company first and foremost it's the iphone
00:32:12 ◼ ► company and ios is going to get the lion's share now i i and that yes i i would say don't think that
00:32:19 ◼ ► your pet uh issue like i for example i don't think that because steve lemay is in charge they're going to
00:32:24 ◼ ► fix the mac settings app and make it good i don't think that what i do think is that change means
00:32:31 ◼ ► the design group at apple might have somewhat different priorities that might make it more likely
00:32:38 ◼ ► that things like that don't happen or get fixed along the way whereas the previous leader had made it
00:32:45 ◼ ► clear apparently that it was never going to happen so it's more about hope than anything else or if this is
00:32:52 ◼ ► bad let's try let's try something different but this is this is the thing in the end there there is the
00:32:57 ◼ ► universe in which um steve lemay will live which is still whatever the executive priorities are and
00:33:03 ◼ ► like i said i feel like just like tim cook is an is is more than an operations guy but views apple from
00:33:08 ◼ ► an operations perspective first and foremost because that's where he came from any positivity that you're
00:33:14 ◼ ► going to get out of this new leadership is probably going to come from the fact that steve lemay has a
00:33:20 ◼ ► different perspective than alan dye or and this is kind of the wild one when we talk about um something
00:33:26 ◼ ► like john turnus replacing tim cook or the old leadership was never going to go back on a decision that they
00:33:36 ◼ ► made but new leadership could because it's new leadership and so you you can can kind of break
00:33:43 ◼ ► the logjam in the example i think i gave last week is you know tim cook loves steve jobs and said all
00:33:47 ◼ ► these great things about steve jobs and steve is the best and tim cook's first day on the job he put um
00:33:52 ◼ ► he put donation matching back in as a policy at apple and because that's literally like steve was never
00:33:57 ◼ ► going to do it and tim was like well that's done let's do it and and and it wasn't like tim was rebelling
00:34:02 ◼ ► against steve but once tim tim thought that that was something something relevant and steve did not
00:34:09 ◼ ► and so he reversed a steve jobs decree on day one it gives a new leader has freedom to do stuff like that
00:34:15 ◼ ► but uh he's still the same it's still the same job with the same issues and priority and resources and all
00:34:22 ◼ ► of those things so what you know hope for huge change i think is probably misplaced but hope for
00:34:30 ◼ ► change i think is is not unreasonable just change this this is not a referendum on liquid glass right
00:34:38 ◼ ► alan die left alan die was not fired like nothing that he has done has led to him losing his job now
00:34:46 ◼ ► there are some scenarios which i want i want to touch on of maybe why he's left that could be a part of it
00:34:50 ◼ ► but this isn't i do not believe that we're gonna see some like huge change in ios 27 no or even ios 28
00:34:58 ◼ ► because it would be such a bad decision to do another redesign like it's not gonna happen
00:35:04 ◼ ► that's not that's not happening they'll continue to tweak it and there'll be big tweaks because
00:35:08 ◼ ► that's what would have happened anyway yeah um but you're right i mean i thought one of the funniest
00:35:13 ◼ ► weirdest things about mark german's report was that um that they were taken aback by it which which
00:35:19 ◼ ► suggests that because he was not fired he left and he and it was a surprise that he left but you alluded to
00:35:26 ◼ ► it there are other scenarios here right like we've all seen i've certainly seen in my career
00:35:31 ◼ ► somebody is going to has an impending like new boss that they don't want to report to or they think
00:35:37 ◼ ► they're better than or they don't get a title that they wanted there are lots of things that are not
00:35:42 ◼ ► you're fired or not that we're down on you that are you're not i mean what i said in my article was
00:35:48 ◼ ► you often in situations like this see a mismatch between how valuable the employee thinks they are
00:35:55 ◼ ► and how valuable the company thinks the employee is and that doesn't mean they they don't think you're
00:36:03 ◼ ► valuable it means you think you deserve more than they are willing to give you and if that's the
00:36:10 ◼ ► case people do leave because of that like i wanted that title they wouldn't give it to me i wanted i
00:36:16 ◼ ► don't want to report to to to tim you know i like reporting to jeff and i am i gonna have to report to
00:36:23 ◼ ► john turnus in a year and can't i be chief design officer like johnny was and i'm just spitballing those
00:36:28 ◼ ► ideas but like my expectation is when jeff left he wanted to take a c-suite position and was told no
00:36:34 ◼ ► and then started looking elsewhere that's what i think has happened because that chain of events
00:36:39 ◼ ► makes perfect sense to me if i had to guess about what happened based on no information which is kind
00:36:44 ◼ ► of where we are other than that that he gave notice it's this sounds like somebody who didn't get
00:36:51 ◼ ► forced out but didn't feel sufficiently appreciated and mark zuckerberg is over there offering
00:36:57 ◼ ► me a huge amount of money and complete leadership over design for meta's whole thing and well he
00:37:03 ◼ ► appreciates me and i've been here a long time and a lot of my people have left and like that all gets
00:37:08 ◼ ► baked in there too but that's my gut feeling um and i'll put i'll put something else in in the mix here
00:37:14 ◼ ► which is this apparently was i'm leaving and then he left if that's the case first thing is did they try
00:37:24 ◼ ► to keep him and the story suggests they didn't but that implies that there was an ongoing conversation
00:37:30 ◼ ► about what role he was going to have and that he was dissatisfied with how that conversation went so i
00:37:36 ◼ ► think that's the most likely scenario is he wanted you know again he valued himself more than maybe apple
00:37:41 ◼ ► valued him which is not the same as apple saying get out well possibly but the conversation could have
00:37:47 ◼ ► said cook i'm leaving and there's nothing you can do to like that there you can go in and like
00:37:54 ◼ ► completely close the door right but that's what i'm saying is is i feel like those those conversations
00:37:59 ◼ ► have probably already happened like he knew what the lay of the land was he knew what their offer was
00:38:04 ◼ ► yeah and so he's not going to say i'm going to leave unless you give me this because he already tried
00:38:08 ◼ ► that's presumably right so instead it's just like okay well then i'm leaving and it's and it's like oh
00:38:13 ◼ ► okay i i think that's yeah i think that's the most likely scenario which is it's interesting and i think
00:38:20 ◼ ► it suggests that um based on everything we've heard from people inside apple the way i would almost phrase
00:38:25 ◼ ► it is i think that the the major executives at apple thought all and i was fine maybe not the
00:38:33 ◼ ► greatest thing ever to be in the c-suite but fine just fine in a way that we that a lot of
00:38:38 ◼ ► the commentators out here do not um but i do get the sense that inside apple at the level of the lower
00:38:46 ◼ ► like the tech the developers and other people at apple not in the c-suite that alan die was not as
00:38:53 ◼ ► appreciated yeah um which is not surprising that that that he was not as appreciated and that the new
00:38:59 ◼ ► guy is more appreciated um but i don't think that's what got him out now i i will throw out
00:39:03 ◼ ► my outlandish suggestion here which is if you think alan die is actually not that great and you think that
00:39:09 ◼ ► liquid glass is kind of a mess and he's messed it up one thing you could do is say okay alan you're going
00:39:15 ◼ ► to be the face of this and if it flops you're going to be the face of this and that's why alan die
00:39:19 ◼ ► was the face of it at wwdc i don't think that's probably true but i'm just going to say
00:39:26 ◼ ► that is a thing that would happen in that scenario so but i don't think so i think they were proud of
00:39:30 ◼ ► it and i think they were proud of him and i think that was in fact i would even go to say that if
00:39:34 ◼ ► there are discussions about alan die's role and he was feeling like he was chafing and wanted more
00:39:39 ◼ ► responsibility and a bigger title and all of those things one thing you could do to try to make him
00:39:45 ◼ ► feel better as an employee was give him a higher visibility role and put him at the centerpiece of
00:39:53 ◼ ► your wwdc roll out and say you can own this yeah exactly and i think that's probably more likely
00:39:59 ◼ ► again i think you know i think that's the most likely scenario here is that he wanted more than
00:40:03 ◼ ► apple was willing to give him and so he left i'm still also like considering a theory that the ios 26 was
00:40:11 ◼ ► rushed i still think there is a possibility that that is the case the liquid glass was rushed out because
00:40:17 ◼ ► they were trying to save face on uh the flop of apple intelligence the year before yeah yeah yeah
00:40:27 ◼ ► again i i think i come across in these scenarios of like i love alan diet like i have no real feeling
00:40:32 ◼ ► about him particularly but i just you know i i see there's like a lot of discussion and i think that
00:40:37 ◼ ► there are multiple ways to look at every story and we just don't have the detail but there is a
00:40:43 ◼ ► possibility that he was working on this had been working on this they told him we need to accelerate
00:40:48 ◼ ► this it came out and people were unhappy about it in certain communities and maybe he was unhappy with
00:40:54 ◼ ► the way that it landed i don't know right but but also the other scenario is he just wanted a new
00:40:59 ◼ ► challenge and mark zuckerberg gave him an interesting job and a lot of money like it could be just as simple
00:41:04 ◼ ► as that it could be i i doubt that because again i think that it doesn't it doesn't really add up that
00:41:10 ◼ ► you would just um do that and because even then apple would you know if it was truly a surprise and
00:41:15 ◼ ► nothing else was going on you'd think that apple would say um please how can we make you stay even
00:41:20 ◼ ► if he said no but instead it was like they were surprised and he left i i would say i um i'm not i don't
00:41:27 ◼ ► really have a lot of time for there's a kind of catty vein to this which is um oh alan dye cares
00:41:34 ◼ ► about fashion you mentioned his instagram he's very passionate about he's a very fashion and this is i
00:41:41 ◼ ► mean i could even draw a line here and say there's design and there's programming and often there is a
00:41:49 ◼ ► difference between them where nerds don't appreciate user experience at a level some of them some of them
00:41:58 ◼ ► don't i've used open source software a lot of it is you know not great ui sorry open source software
00:42:04 ◼ ► developers i mean like you know oh here's a linux project but it also runs on the mac now and it's
00:42:08 ◼ ► just really terrible it like uh caliber is like that the ebook software it's such a terrible interface
00:42:13 ◼ ► but it works it's great and and and so there's this friction between like oh it works it's great who cares
00:42:19 ◼ ► about how it looks it's just you know colors and whatever it's dumb um and and i think people are
00:42:25 ◼ ► beaten up on alan dye because he represents the other the aesthetic side of it and and i you know
00:42:31 ◼ ► if design is how it works it's not just that it part of apple's appeal is its design and part of the
00:42:37 ◼ ► reason they did liquid glass is they wanted to have a cool new design that looked interesting and looked
00:42:42 ◼ ► futuristic and that people would talk about and it is that uh positively and negatively and anyway so i
00:42:49 ◼ ► don't i don't have i do think that there's an undercurrent of oh look at this guy in his fashionable
00:42:54 ◼ ► clothes he's not one of us beat the you know beat beat the the the heretic uh burn the witch kind
00:43:00 ◼ ► of thing about it and that's unpleasant and unfortunate yeah like i think that the iphone
00:43:08 ◼ ► is culture and fashion it is and it's the zeitgeist to just make something work well isn't it has to look
00:43:19 ◼ ► it's not enough you know i will say there is no reason that you know aqua design we needed that we
00:43:26 ◼ ► we didn't need that you know like it worked which was helpful and people loved it and fine but like
00:43:32 ◼ ► we didn't need a user interface of a computer to look like that but there were decisions that the art
00:43:36 ◼ ► the argument is that it was it was uh more usable um as well as being kind of wild but i remember that
00:43:43 ◼ ► at the time um there were lots of complaints about like why are you wasting processor cycles on this
00:43:49 ◼ ► garbage and there were i mean there was literally an app uh that i will not name that had a setting
00:43:54 ◼ ► called waste cycles on trendy 3d junk and i always think about that yeah of like you know check this
00:44:01 ◼ ► box if you wanted to this app to look like every other app in the system uncheck it and it looks like
00:44:06 ◼ ► this really weird generic gray nothing um but the developer was obviously supporting the new system
00:44:14 ◼ ► theme under protest because he thought it was a waste of time but like aqua was important and in fact it
00:44:20 ◼ ► was a boast as liquid glass is right we talked about this they're both boasts about apple's prowess
00:44:27 ◼ ► at hardware being capable of doing it right it was like we could do those glass effects and back then
00:44:33 ◼ ► it was we can have that aqua interface with the translucency and things like that because it's
00:44:38 ◼ ► a boast and the argument is that translucency is more of a boast than it is a usability feature and
00:44:42 ◼ ► i get that but like i i find honestly there's stuff in liquid glass that i think is great i actually find
00:44:48 ◼ ► a lot of the animations um incredibly fun uh but uh it doesn't have to be either or and uh and i yeah
00:44:56 ◼ ► i think sometimes the knives get out for people who are trying to make things look beautiful and like
00:44:59 ◼ ► beauty is important aesthetics are important and on the iphone look you and david smith and steven working on
00:45:09 ◼ ► widget smith is a great example where that is a piece of software written by a very hardcore developer
00:45:17 ◼ ► who we all know and like and it has succeeded because it has struck a chord with a mass audience
00:45:30 ◼ ► the the disconnect and i'm not disagreeing here the disconnect is when it looks great but it's unusable
00:45:36 ◼ ► yes and i think that a lot of people have that criticism of parts of liquid glass and i think
00:45:40 ◼ ► some of that is fair but like you also don't a rejection of caring about aesthetics especially
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00:48:04 ◼ ► i mentioned earlier in the show that this was kind of you know alan dyer's departure was a bookend
00:48:11 ◼ ► uh between of departures and we have more so before alan dyer's departure was public on monday of last
00:48:21 ◼ ► week apple announced that john gian andrea was retiring from the company uh this was an expected
00:48:27 ◼ ► thing by us i think and by the general reporting for sure uh gian andrea had previously basically
00:48:33 ◼ ► been stripped of all major responsibilities of his after being made i would say the figurehead of the
00:48:38 ◼ ► missteps of apple intelligence it seemed like a matter of time we invoked scott forestall earlier
00:48:43 ◼ ► on in the conversation uh this felt like a forestall like thing of him kind of being pushed out after apple
00:48:49 ◼ ► maps he was the kind of the person who took that uh uh public and it kind of felt like john gian andrea
00:48:55 ◼ ► took this too um to me though this one felt like a bit of a golden parachute like yeah gian andrea is
00:49:04 ◼ ► sticking on for a little while where he would advise he is then retiring of all benefits rather than being
00:49:09 ◼ ► fired or leaving himself i think this feels to me um different to maybe the full still thing in that
00:49:17 ◼ ► i feel like from the reporting gian andrea was kind of doing the best he could of what he had
00:49:22 ◼ ► um and also maybe you know some of the reporting is suggesting he was asking basically for gpus and
00:49:29 ◼ ► was being told no right so it's like you know and also the issue of apple intelligence seemed to come
00:49:36 ◼ ► from the marketing division as opposed to right of like showing stuff that they couldn't ship
00:49:41 ◼ ► was maybe potentially more of a market we don't know we don't know we don't this this is a this is a
00:49:47 ◼ ► global apple problem but i would say i i think he proved to be maybe a cultural misfit and what they
00:49:54 ◼ ► were trying to do and giving um having the group that's developing the models all you know be maybe
00:50:02 ◼ ► not as connected to the necessities of shipping products as uh craig federighi's group which is
00:50:09 ◼ ► how they've kind of reorg did yeah and when they took when you take all those um responsibilities away
00:50:14 ◼ ► from a person like they get it they're they're on the outs they're they're gonna leave i don't know
00:50:18 ◼ ► the conditions of his employment he was a big hire yeah um my guess is there were guarantees in terms of
00:50:26 ◼ ► stock or compensation or whatever and that this is essentially a negotiated exit for him so we can
00:50:32 ◼ ► say golden parachute but i don't think this is they're paying him a lot of money because they like
00:50:36 ◼ ► him i think this is they are uh paying him what he was promised yes uh in structured in a way i think
00:50:42 ◼ ► i think they're doing right and structuring in a way that saves face yeah and exactly i think that's
00:50:47 ◼ ► what's going on here is so now we all know that it didn't go well at apple but officially he uh is
00:50:54 ◼ ► retiring and that's it uh in his place amar sabramania has joined apple as the vice president of ai or as
00:51:02 ◼ ► i've written it vp of ai which is a very funny that's just funny to me uh sabramania will report to craig
00:51:16 ◼ ► microsoft for four months and then going to apple uh this seems like the perfect person to have apple if
00:51:24 ◼ ► they are going to be using gemini models for siri right like the head of engineering for gemini feels
00:51:30 ◼ ► pretty good yeah i think i think uh it's probably more that this person is interesting again reporting
00:51:38 ◼ ► to craig um and the way they've structured it this feels like this is the long-term um work on our own
00:51:45 ◼ ► foundation models in the background so we can use them in parts of our product our product eventually
00:51:50 ◼ ► kind of structure which i think apple has learned is the right way to approach their ai development
00:51:56 ◼ ► structure and i you know i'll make this pitch again apple is never going to be probably on the
00:52:02 ◼ ► forefront of ai research no matter how much money they throw at it or how hard they try but one they
00:52:07 ◼ ► might not need to be especially if they have partners they might not need to be especially if there are lots
00:52:12 ◼ ► of uh lots of different uh models out there and it's more commoditized and all of that and two they
00:52:22 ◼ ► they have a perspective on this that other companies don't have and if i was recruiting
00:52:26 ◼ ► for this i would talk about how exciting it is to push the limits of for example on device models and
00:52:34 ◼ ► talking about how how um powerful apple's on device chips are and are going to be in the near future
00:52:41 ◼ ► and that by you know using on device models you get a quick turnaround and you get privacy and then
00:52:48 ◼ ► beyond that the idea of the private cloud model which is not the same as the giant models but is
00:52:54 ◼ ► private and is using apple's kind of approach there there are it might be a benefit to apple
00:53:01 ◼ ► for it to focus on developing the models that it wants to see in the world because they they advantage
00:53:06 ◼ ► apple um and not worry about the rest of it so much especially as long as you have partners so they've got
00:53:13 ◼ ► i mean i think this is fine i i don't know whether they'll succeed or not but i think this is apple
00:53:17 ◼ ► saying um we're going to integrate other people's models but we also want to be working in the
00:53:21 ◼ ► background because we don't want to be be beholden to one like if it ends up being that there's one
00:53:26 ◼ ► company open ai let's say who has like all the control over the best ai models and nobody else has
00:53:33 ◼ ► anything that's really bad for apple because um apple doesn't want you know one company to control its destiny
00:53:41 ◼ ► then on thursday apple announced the retirement of lisa jackson vp of environmental policy and
00:53:47 ◼ ► social and initiatives kate adams apple's current general counsel will take on the role of government
00:53:53 ◼ ► affairs until she then retires at the end of 2026 jennifer newstead is joining the company from meta
00:54:01 ◼ ► newstead will become general counsel in march of 2026 and will then take the government affairs role in
00:54:08 ◼ ► addition to be in general counsel when kate adams retires so there's a lot of debt chair shuffling
00:54:14 ◼ ► here yes in bringing someone in and combining two jobs well part that one and a half jobs we'll say
00:54:28 ◼ ► sorry mark german notes that newstead helped meta win its antitrust battle with the ftc which feels like
00:54:35 ◼ ► a key skill that apple is going to need in the coming years as it gears up for their own so it
00:54:41 ◼ ► feels like the right hire i am expecting jennifer newstead is making an incredible amount of money
00:54:46 ◼ ► of course this is a big big bag of she's a lawyer for a big tip a big tech company um i i of course she
00:54:55 ◼ ► is but an extra one you're like oh she won that well we'll have that well and she's got a history in um
00:55:01 ◼ ► she's got a history in in government i think she was in the george w bush administration and
00:55:06 ◼ ► in the first trump administration so also republican administrations while republicans are in charge
00:55:10 ◼ ► but um also her background is is uh is pretty varied she's not just like a republican opera operative or
00:55:17 ◼ ► anything she's done a bunch of different interesting jobs she has this background working at meta which
00:55:22 ◼ ► has had plenty of lawsuits and issues that they've had to fight um government affairs as a very clear
00:55:28 ◼ ► thing is also really interesting right like government affairs increasingly important to apple in so many
00:55:34 ◼ ► different ways so really interesting to combine that with the general council role which is a pretty busy
00:55:40 ◼ ► job on its own right but interesting to understand what they're doing there the environment and social
00:55:51 ◼ ► they're no that is a leadership position which will not be taken by anybody else those teams will report
00:55:56 ◼ ► directly to coo sabi khan this to me feels like an important detail there is no longer a figurehead for
00:56:04 ◼ ► these i think that says something about the times that we're in yes this is this is an attempt by apple to
00:56:10 ◼ ► reduce the okay we don't know what's going on here and i think one way one way that this is possible is
00:56:17 ◼ ► to say well this is apple abandoning those issues i think in reality probably what's happening is apple is
00:56:23 ◼ ► reducing visibility of its programs yeah by not having a figurehead who can be pointed at
00:56:29 ◼ ► and told by people in washington you know stop doing that shame on you whatever it is because it's it's a
00:56:37 ◼ ► it's a hot button with the people in charge and so hiding it and making it not not visible right now
00:56:42 ◼ ► is a thing that is you know and you can decry it and i get it um i hope they're continuing to do that
00:56:48 ◼ ► work and just i understand the political necessity perhaps of making it less visible because the last
00:56:55 ◼ ► thing you need is for some other part of your business to get run aground until somebody demands
00:57:01 ◼ ► that you stop doing a thing you believe in better to keep doing it in the background not making a big deal
00:57:06 ◼ ► out of it than than not but like i can see the argument either way it is the like you said i i
00:57:11 ◼ ► don't love this but it's the time we live in that's just how it is as long as the work continues i don't
00:57:15 ◼ ► care if there's a c-suite person on on it you know what i mean but i really hope that there that these
00:57:21 ◼ ► teams continue to be given the the the resources that they need yeah but wait there's more mark
00:57:28 ◼ ► german finish the week with i will call a blockbuster report about the turmoil currently i called it a
00:57:34 ◼ ► banger both on social media and to you and steven when it came out this is a banger this is mark
00:57:41 ◼ ► german saying hey financial times hey the information you think you got stuff i got the stuff and then
00:57:48 ◼ ► boom in comes this mark german report such it's just like yeah this is mark german on fire right here
00:57:55 ◼ ► so this is about the turmoil currently being felt at the top levels in apple the big scoop in this well
00:58:00 ◼ ► there were two big scoops in this article at least but one of them is that johnny sruji chip chief
00:58:06 ◼ ► johnny sruji recently told tim cook that he is considering leaving the company but is not looking to retire
00:58:13 ◼ ► so basically he's going to go somewhere else remember what we said about alan die having conversations with
00:58:19 ◼ ► people potentially about like what his role should be and and uh how he should be appreciated this is this
00:58:26 ◼ ► is that apparently cook is trying very hard to keep sruji they have given him a significantly better
00:58:33 ◼ ► compensation package and the promise of more responsibility including the potential of making
00:58:38 ◼ ► him cto chief technology officer which is that feels like a big job at apple have they ever has there ever
00:58:46 ◼ ► been a cto at least not in modern times right i don't remember that title ever being used um
00:58:52 ◼ ► i mean i guess as you said alluded to i guess it's interesting that we don't have any detail like this
00:58:58 ◼ ► about alan die like but again we don't even know if they're anyway today as we're recording mark
00:59:05 ◼ ► german shared a memo that sruji had written to his team saying that he is committed to staying at the
00:59:10 ◼ ► company sruji references rumors and says quote i love my team and i love my job at apple and i don't plan
00:59:17 ◼ ► on leaving anytime soon i don't know if soon was needed in this to try it like that is the kind like
00:59:23 ◼ ► that's not a great word if you're trying to keep everybody calm like i i think this you could have
00:59:28 ◼ ► just not said soon yeah i mean and and this could be we worked it out and it's not an issue anymore it
00:59:34 ◼ ► could be we're still negotiating um but don't worry but it is i think still important that he wrote a
00:59:41 ◼ ► message to his team saying well you know he wrote a message i love german but he also shared it with his
00:59:46 ◼ ► team essentially i see but like when these when these are written when these kinds of if these things are
00:59:52 ◼ ► written down and shared they are intended to be shared outside the company they know they're going
00:59:56 ◼ ► to they know they're going to leak otherwise you just put everyone in a stand-up and say it right
01:00:00 ◼ ► which can still leak but a memo is is much more leakable right and and i think that is what we're
01:00:07 ◼ ► seeing it's true it's it's true so so and and you gotta you know what does this mean is still kind
01:00:14 ◼ ► open um it could mean they've worked it out it could mean they're still talking um but i think
01:00:22 ◼ ► the reason i think this is a huge huge thing is this is a i've poo-pooed a lot of the uh talent exodus
01:00:30 ◼ ► pieces that mark german has written over the ages i think he's got some sources that allow him to paint
01:00:35 ◼ ► a narrative that i think reached its uh zenith with um with the alan die story where he just wrote that
01:00:42 ◼ ► story with the assumption that this was a win for google or win for meta and a loss for apple which is why i
01:00:49 ◼ ► had that my story with the headline that i did is like i'm not sure this is a loss for apple um i'm not
01:00:54 ◼ ► sure i believe that but that was embedded in his story fundamentally is that this you know meta wins apple loses here um
01:01:01 ◼ ► in and so he's done that and and you see with some of these like the ai people leaving i have some
01:01:08 ◼ ► skepticism like he's saying oh there's a big ai brain drain meta stealing all of apple's ai people and i
01:01:14 ◼ ► thought well yes but also apple's ai group has not done a good job so i understand why they're leaving
01:01:22 ◼ ► but i'm not i'm not entirely sure that it is a big shot to apple or not it's least debatable to me
01:01:29 ◼ ► johnny scroogey is and i know again can't make it personal it's very complicated there are leaders
01:01:37 ◼ ► who are important but nobody's irreplaceable and there's a whole organization that's aligned here
01:01:42 ◼ ► and there's so many parts of this but just to put it in this way johnny scroogey is apple silicon
01:01:48 ◼ ► johnny scroogey is apple silicon he's not just the figurehead of apple silicon he's the guy who came into apple
01:01:56 ◼ ► and made apple ahead of everybody in terms of the chips and their products ahead of everybody
01:02:04 ◼ ► ahead apple who makes their own chips or i mean they're fab by tsmc but apple designs their own
01:02:10 ◼ ► chips and puts them in their own devices everybody else is like well i got this cool chip from qualcomm
01:02:14 ◼ ► and qualcomm's completing competing with apple apple is the only one out there running apple's chips and
01:02:20 ◼ ► it's a huge advantage to become a huge advantage for apple it is one of the places where the for
01:02:25 ◼ ► they are the furthest ahead it's one of those things that it's like this is a lead that's important
01:02:35 ◼ ► maybe leaving apple my gut feeling is you got to do everything you can to keep them everything you can
01:02:46 ◼ ► if making johnny scroogey happy precludes you from naming your ceo replacement if he has unreasonable
01:02:53 ◼ ► demands that are so unreasonable that it's like he has to be ceo or he's leaving then maybe you're like
01:02:58 ◼ ► all right johnny okay but like if he wants to be cto you know if he if he wants to be elevated in in a
01:03:04 ◼ ► way um like that that makes him feel good there's very little that i wouldn't give to johnny scroogey
01:03:11 ◼ ► to have him stay because he does seem to me to be that important even though i know there's a whole
01:03:16 ◼ ► organization he's got his lieutenants there and all of that like he is one of in charge of one of the
01:03:21 ◼ ► most important parts of apple and it's not great if he's like i'm going somewhere else right which is
01:03:29 ◼ ► which is the part of this that is interesting he's not like hey tim i want to retire i'm done
01:03:35 ◼ ► now like i've done what i need like no he's like you know what i think i'm going to try something else
01:03:41 ◼ ► that's not great it's so vague that it's more like well it reads to me as well you know if i'm if i'm not
01:03:47 ◼ ► made happy here someone else will be happy to have me and i will continue on or he'll start a startup and
01:03:53 ◼ ► then sell that somewhere like i mean there are other things that he could do that that strikes me as coming
01:03:59 ◼ ► out of this this kind of negotiation of of this and honestly look all these executives make a lot
01:04:06 ◼ ► of money and relatively speaking everybody at apple makes a lot of money at the in cupertino especially
01:04:11 ◼ ► the people working in the ring like compared to the general public but i would also say in terms of
01:04:15 ◼ ► silicon valley um and in terms of how much money apple generates um a lot of these people actually
01:04:21 ◼ ► are kind of underpaid for the value they generate this is a little like saying baseball players or
01:04:26 ◼ ► professional athletes in general are overpaid when you realize that there's only like a dozen of them
01:04:31 ◼ ► on a on a team and that club is worth several billion dollars you're like oh our key employees are these
01:04:37 ◼ ► 12 people at a several billion dollar operation they're probably worth a lot right they're probably
01:04:42 ◼ ► worth they probably deserve to be compensated at a high level because the the business is so huge apple is
01:04:48 ◼ ► like that so giving him more compensation uh you know and having him say you know make it make it
01:04:55 ◼ ► worth my while to stay i'm okay with that what triggers me here is why did this happen and that's my
01:05:03 ◼ ► question is why did this happen is it because of everything else that's going on right now everything
01:05:09 ◼ ► is happening at once all of a sudden here i i have to wonder if johnny scroogey is saying well when tim tim
01:05:16 ◼ ► is preparing to go and elevate and become the chairman and then eventually not the ceo anymore
01:05:21 ◼ ► what about johnny what about johnny scroogey where's he gonna be this is johnny saying this
01:05:28 ◼ ► yeah yeah i mean that's that's that's what about johnny what about johnny scroogey he just switched
01:05:34 ◼ ► what where's what's his role um and i think that's i think that's the question he's asking
01:05:40 ◼ ► himself and asking apple and and and the reason it comes up is like if they're like oh you're going
01:05:46 ◼ ► to ultimately report to turnus and he's like i don't want to report to turnus it's like well
01:05:49 ◼ ► you gotta report to him well i mean but do you want to be ceo and he's like oh no no probably not
01:05:57 ◼ ► and it's like no you don't want to be ceo how about you be cto and turnus will be ceo but obviously
01:06:02 ◼ ► you're going to have enormous amount of power because he's going to be a new guy and you know
01:06:05 ◼ ► and right like those are negotiations that happen but my gut feeling is that is what's happening here
01:06:11 ◼ ► is that he's looking at what apple looks like as an organization in the next five years and does he
01:06:17 ◼ ► want to stay and does he feel appreciated and um and that's why this is happening now is probably not
01:06:24 ◼ ► not that he got a job offer so much as he is on top of the world he maybe feels like he has no more
01:06:30 ◼ ► worlds to conquer and he looks around and says well you know maybe i'm undervalued at apple and
01:06:36 ◼ ► underappreciated and someone else would appreciate me more so you know then he sends the memo out and
01:06:40 ◼ ► the question is is that because he's gotten what he wants or because they're still talking or because
01:06:45 ◼ ► he's not yet ready to announce his departure who could tell so you referenced um mark german talking
01:06:52 ◼ ► about departures at apple uh so german references that you know he says that apple is seeing larger
01:06:59 ◼ ► than normal departures from engineers across the company who are moving to companies like meta open
01:07:03 ◼ ► ai and others apparently apple you reference this but in general their compensation packages uh
01:07:10 ◼ ► are being increased um to try and stop more people leaving good that's how it's supposed to work yes
01:07:16 ◼ ► but but apple are seeing the biggest losses in ai robotics and both the user interface and hardware
01:07:23 ◼ ► design teams seem pretty important let me tell you um and this is when i talk about brain drain i
01:07:29 ◼ ► talk about i'm much more worried at the brain drain at the base level than i'm at the executive level
01:07:33 ◼ ► i really am um and i'm i i apple in becoming the world's most valuable company or close to it and
01:07:43 ◼ ► a trillion dollar company etc etc i'm throwing off all these profits apple is generally thought of
01:07:49 ◼ ► as not being not paying as well as other companies in silicon valley yeah apple has had the attitude for a
01:07:57 ◼ ► long time and i'm gonna say i think this is a steve jobs culture problem is yeah but you work at apple
01:08:05 ◼ ► you work at apple you get the glory you got called up to the show you're in the big leagues now you're
01:08:10 ◼ ► at apple this is where it all happens and yeah we might not pay you as much and we might make you come
01:08:15 ◼ ► into work you know four days a week or whatever and etc etc but like you're at apple and i think there is
01:08:21 ◼ ► a generation multiple generations possibly of people who are starting their careers or have been in their
01:08:27 ◼ ► careers for a little while in silicon valley who look at and say no pay me if you want me to be at
01:08:33 ◼ ► apple being at apple is not in and of itself a win when meta is going to pay me 40 as much or 60 as much
01:08:40 ◼ ► to do something else and some people will say i want to be at apple because the products are awesome and
01:08:45 ◼ ► apple's got a halo and all of that and i think that that's been true for a long time but i'll just say
01:08:50 ◼ ► if this era is the thing that finally gets them to change their hiring practices be faster i've heard
01:08:57 ◼ ► from people who are also like they're so slow that they're like people start going through the hiring
01:09:01 ◼ ► process at apple and by the time it's ready to progress they've gotten another job and i think the
01:09:07 ◼ ► hiring part has been a huge issue at apple for a long time they don't hire people quickly enough it's
01:09:12 ◼ ► very bureaucratic and they don't pay their people well enough i think that is generally the case and
01:09:20 ◼ ► maybe this maybe this era will finally kick that culture out and replace it with a culture that is
01:09:27 ◼ ► paying more competitive salaries trying harder to retain its people and maybe moving faster to acquire
01:09:34 ◼ ► talent than it has done in the past that's i mean i heard just this month from somebody who said um
01:09:40 ◼ ► who told me that that they're like they're gearing up for for doing f1 stuff and they've got jobs
01:09:46 ◼ ► posted and like f1 is in march and like those jobs are still sitting there and it's like what's happening
01:09:51 ◼ ► with any of that right and it wasn't surprising to me hey we're getting more of you though
01:09:55 ◼ ► it wasn't it wasn't surprising to me because that's every experience i've talked to other people
01:10:01 ◼ ► and back when they tried to hire me you know you know a decade ago it also was just a completely
01:10:08 ◼ ► glacial process and and so i think that this is i mean it's bad news for apple to be losing people
01:10:16 ◼ ► or the threat of losing people having a brain drain at those low levels um what meta has shown and meta
01:10:21 ◼ ► i would say all things being equal most people most reasonable people would rather work at apple than
01:10:26 ◼ ► meta it feels like a much nicer place to work that's making products you can be more proud of
01:10:31 ◼ ► than meta not everybody feels that way but i i think a lot of people would feel that way
01:10:35 ◼ ► um so apple can be a billion dollars but but if they're paying if they're paying enormous salaries
01:10:43 ◼ ► like that and your apple at some point you have to say i know it seems like a lot for that person
01:10:49 ◼ ► but they're a power hitting third baseman and that's what they make they're a starting pitcher and that's
01:10:54 ◼ ► what they make they're an attacking midfielder and that's what they make like it is they're they're a
01:11:06 ◼ ► you nobody's going to give you an award for hiring on the pay scale spreadsheet like if you're losing
01:11:18 ◼ ► people because the spreadsheet says you can't hire them at that level um you got to change the
01:11:23 ◼ ► spreadsheet i'm sorry and i think that apple has faced this for a while now and um and that this i hope
01:11:29 ◼ ► this is the the time when it stops because um they need to be competitive and they need to
01:11:35 ◼ ► and their competition is stepped up so they have to step up too and just being apple is not enough
01:11:40 ◼ ► i want to read a quote this is a long quote but i mentioned a couple of like uh big scoops in this
01:11:47 ◼ ► and this is one of them and and i feel like i have to read the quote in four because i think it's quite
01:11:51 ◼ ► delicate for now cook remains active at apple and travels extensively on behalf of the company
01:11:57 ◼ ► however the executive does have an unexplained tremor that causes his hands to shake from time
01:12:02 ◼ ► to time something that's been discussed among apple employees in recent months the shaking has been
01:12:07 ◼ ► noticed by executives and rank and file staff during meetings and large company gatherings according to
01:12:13 ◼ ► people familiar with the matter but people close to cook say he is healthy and refute rumors to the
01:12:18 ◼ ► country that have circulated in silicon valley you know it's um people talk and people notice things
01:12:27 ◼ ► and who knows like there's lots of explanations from good to bad yeah you know new medication too much
01:12:36 ◼ ► coffee uh craig federighi was just shaking like a leaf because he was nervous stress it could be
01:12:44 ◼ ► something or not i hate people diagnosing things in public i hate whisper campaigns which
01:12:48 ◼ ► this feels a little bit like um but i will say we went through this with steve jobs and like
01:12:54 ◼ ► ultimately if if there is something medically going on with tim cook he's going to have to disclose
01:12:59 ◼ ► that at some point yeah especially now especially now but he's in his he's a man in his mid-60s
01:13:04 ◼ ► he's going to have some medical stuff yeah it may not matter that so i'll just say like there was a
01:13:09 ◼ ► there's a member of my family at a similar age who also had a tremor and they had testing of all kinds and
01:13:16 ◼ ► you know it ruled out all of the things right like parkinson's right that's what i think what
01:13:20 ◼ ► everybody's thinking when they hear this it was completely ruled out and and that they you know
01:13:25 ◼ ► they tried a bunch of different things and nothing was working and they ended up having an experimental
01:13:29 ◼ ► surgery where part of their brain was shot with a laser and now the tremor's gone seriously it was
01:13:35 ◼ ► wow pretty intense and you know it was one of these things that was experimental and they took a big risk
01:13:41 ◼ ► because it could have caused damage um but now the tremor's gone and it was like it was a neurological
01:13:46 ◼ ► thing and interesting and so my point is there could be lots of things and and i do think that
01:13:53 ◼ ► you know someone who's 65 years old with the amount of pressure and stress that tim cook is under this
01:14:00 ◼ ► could be many things that are that are not like do like you know really don't restrain yourselves all
01:14:08 ◼ ► the armchair doctors need to restrain themselves but and i should express we should express concern too
01:14:12 ◼ ► because yes he's a human being and i hope he's okay but this kind of thing would suggest that
01:14:21 ◼ ► maybe the guy needs a break right like maybe he needs a break in his life and and to kind of
01:14:28 ◼ ► reshuffle some stuff a bit maybe time to start the machinery for the succession plan even if it takes
01:14:33 ◼ ► a few years to take hold maybe that is what's going on here which i think i think german has said german
01:14:41 ◼ ► also in his piece i think specifically mentioned the premise of him becoming chair yeah of the board yeah
01:14:47 ◼ ► which i'm not sure he had reported before that was like a theorized thing but it sounds to be a little
01:14:52 ◼ ► more substantive now yeah i mean i wish the best for tim cook um i'm sorry people feel this way it could
01:14:58 ◼ ► be something that is a whisper campaign or it could be something that's concerning but i'll tell you
01:15:02 ◼ ► people have health scares and issues at all ages and it does make you take stock and it does make you
01:15:09 ◼ ► consider and when you're when you're running a trillion dollar company even if it's nothing even if it was
01:15:16 ◼ ► your medic new medication was weird or whatever or you had one of those lemonades with a caffeine in
01:15:22 ◼ ► it from panera right wasn't it panera that had the they had the lemon nades with the caffeine in it
01:15:28 ◼ ► that gave people heart attacks anyway yeah well i was like what are you talking about but yes yeah yes
01:15:35 ◼ ► yeah i didn't know i was gonna go there but i went there so whatever it is it's also possible that
01:15:41 ◼ ► that's the thing that makes you take stock and say you know let's you know what's what's our plan and
01:15:45 ◼ ► and and where do i want to be regardless of whether you know oh i've got a test today uh i'm really
01:15:50 ◼ ► nervous about it oh it's nothing right but still it makes you think about it and i wonder if that is
01:15:56 ◼ ► actually kind of what's going on here is let's let's put these things in play in in into planning or
01:16:02 ◼ ► i will say this too tim cook knows what it's like to be the second in command when the boss gets sick
01:16:12 ◼ ► and and whether tim is sick or not i will tell you i would never believe in a million years that tim
01:16:22 ◼ ► cook hasn't thought that he wants to have a plan so that nobody has to go through a succession process
01:16:29 ◼ ► yeah we spoke about this yeah right like no one knows that more than tim right no no one knows more
01:16:35 ◼ ► than tim how difficult it was to have an ill and dying ceo and you're trying to kind of hold the
01:16:42 ◼ ► organization together as an interim and as a temporary and then to have a moment where it's just thrust upon you
01:16:48 ◼ ► and then you're on your own so and then you're on your own so if anybody is thinking and has thought
01:16:55 ◼ ► a lot about succession planning i gotta believe it's tim i cannot imagine that a man who seems so
01:17:02 ◼ ► detail oriented let's just say would possibly not think about the details of something that had
01:17:11 ◼ ► personally affected him so much so yeah that's my that's my thought uh german notes that succession
01:17:17 ◼ ► planning remains on the way but he still does not expect cook to step down soon but does know if they
01:17:22 ◼ ► want to make changes like johnny's frugia becoming cto it's probably going to need to happen sooner rather than
01:17:27 ◼ ► later all of these departures are apparently seeing more power flowing to a quartet of john turnus
01:17:34 ◼ ► craig federighi eddie q and sabi khan and i want to read a quote turnus is also poised to
01:17:41 ◼ ► take a starring role next year in the celebration of apple's 50th anniversary whatever the hell that
01:17:46 ◼ ► means and they do it a parade and he's going to be on the first float what is happening is he going to
01:17:52 ◼ ► have a festive hat like a little pointy birthday hat i don't know what is he going to come bursting
01:17:56 ◼ ► out of a cake so i wanted to note something like two things here about this whole thing one this kind
01:18:02 ◼ ► of palace intrigue is something i feel like i've never seen at apple where like all this stuff is
01:18:06 ◼ ► happening i mean not even just this week like we've been talking about this for weeks now
01:18:10 ◼ ► that is weird to me but this reminds me a lot of political figures like a president or a prime minister
01:18:20 ◼ ► and the wagons start surrounding them i think at this point they have to pull the trigger on john
01:18:29 ◼ ► turnus they have got to sooner rather than later they need to take back the narrative and project
01:18:37 ◼ ► strength of the company because all of this is bad enough and then then allusions to a health concern
01:18:45 ◼ ► of tim cook like none of this is good and it's not going to get better i don't think like i i don't
01:18:51 ◼ ► think this you know this situation is going to start resolving itself in a way that that looks good but
01:18:57 ◼ ► like if they're able now to be like oh hey we're making these radical changes for the future of our
01:19:04 ◼ ► business and look at all these young people we're elevating and we're creating new roles that didn't
01:19:09 ◼ ► exist before and like if they're able to do this soon like early in the new year it completely will change
01:19:17 ◼ ► change the story because we have been talking about this for a while and it we it has been
01:19:24 ◼ ► shot up to level 25 we're way past 10 like this past week this is unbelievable like if you would have
01:19:32 ◼ ► told me two weeks ago in in one week all of this is going to happen and like the worst timing for apple
01:19:39 ◼ ► to have these planned announcements and then this big one in the middle and then this report at the
01:19:45 ◼ ► end of it just could honestly couldn't have gone worse for them in the span of a week yeah i mean
01:19:52 ◼ ► the thought occurs to me that these things being announced in december it's it's the it's the annual
01:19:57 ◼ ► equivalent of the friday afternoon news drop which is like in the holidays at the end of the year you
01:20:03 ◼ ► dump all of these announcements um somebody pointed out i forget who it was that a lot of
01:20:09 ◼ ► apple stock vested in october and so you know once you got your money then it's time to leave if you're
01:20:15 ◼ ► going to leave uh that might be going on here i don't know i don't know what i think about the idea
01:20:20 ◼ ► clearly there is visibility here that apple i mean your argument is they need to deal with this sooner
01:20:25 ◼ ► rather than later because now it's become a public matter of discussion and they need to manage the
01:20:31 ◼ ► manage it so it doesn't spin out of control in terms of chatter about the company and like every
01:20:36 ◼ ► time someone sits down for a meeting over the next six months people can start asking questions about
01:20:41 ◼ ► tim cook about his health about that like you know how much is this going to become a thing you know
01:20:47 ◼ ► somebody call the financial times um but like i mean i i think about it in like i i you know you look
01:20:54 ◼ ► at joe biden or like in the uk uh parade of conservative prime ministers that like every time
01:21:01 ◼ ► there seemed you know whenever there would seem to be a scenario in which nobody has faith in the
01:21:08 ◼ ► leader anymore they get rid of them and that's not what we've got here as much it's right of like a
01:21:13 ◼ ► a biden situation on that on that edge of like is this person the right person and like and it you
01:21:20 ◼ ► know continues to bubble out of control we're nowhere near that but this is more on that edge of a thing
01:21:27 ◼ ► of like well now we're questioning his health not just his ability it's just like what are we doing now
01:21:32 ◼ ► you know like to me it just doesn't feel like it's it's not the story you choose or want to be out
01:21:39 ◼ ► there and so now what do we do well they did the the ft thing if that was a leak from the board that was
01:21:46 ◼ ► their attempt to sort of like start this but then now it now it has taken on another dimension where now
01:21:52 ◼ ► that feels like a mistake if that was the case right i think like to have set that and then all this
01:21:58 ◼ ► happens like all this happens we're not looking we're not looking like an organization that's got
01:22:05 ◼ ► our house in order really yeah i mean i think a lot of this is natural you've got a lot of people of a
01:22:10 ◼ ► certain age who've made a lot of money at apple and um them leaving makes sense in terms of like uh
01:22:16 ◼ ► lisa jackson and the general council and all of that like and and jeff williams that all kind of
01:22:22 ◼ ► make sense john g and andrea is a special case but um i think they had to do some of this the
01:22:29 ◼ ► challenge is that all of this because they have so many going back taking us all the way back around
01:22:33 ◼ ► to talking about change when we were talking about alan dye um and about having organizations get stuck
01:22:40 ◼ ► where they're so successful and there are leaders at the top and they're not going anywhere and so what
01:22:45 ◼ ► ends up happening is you have this it becomes calcified because those people are never leaving so if you
01:22:50 ◼ ► want to change well good luck you're gonna have to wait forever if you want to get promoted good luck
01:22:54 ◼ ► you're gonna have to wait forever because these people this core group of people is not leaving
01:22:59 ◼ ► now that projects stability to the outside world but if you leave it long enough um there's a lot of
01:23:04 ◼ ► under underlying issues and i think apple here here apple has done probably a great job
01:23:16 ◼ ► at retention i'm going to frame it that way the fact that apple has gone from the small company that
01:23:24 ◼ ► was in the early 2000s to a one trillion dollar valuation one of the biggest companies and most
01:23:29 ◼ ► more important companies and most profitable companies in history today in 25 years and there
01:23:36 ◼ ► are a bunch of people at apple who've been there 25 years 20 years 15 years and have made an enormous amount of money
01:23:46 ◼ ► i think in the grand scheme of things it's impressive that they've held on to these people yeah because
01:23:53 ◼ ► yeah because these people don't need to be there they could literally buy an island and go and retire
01:24:02 ◼ ► and be done they don't need to be there and and we saw you know some they had i mean i remember when
01:24:09 ◼ ► john rubenstein left and then he resurfaced doing like palm stuff or all of that but like executive departures
01:24:16 ◼ ► or and and you know bob big bob left uh one point again and then came back and then left again they
01:24:22 ◼ ► called him like there are some of those but um but the the downside of that retention which i think also
01:24:31 ◼ ► can be explained a little bit this is my theory can be explained a little bit by steve jobs i think when
01:24:37 ◼ ► steve jobs died there was an added emphasis on projecting stability um and so i think apple has done really right by
01:24:44 ◼ ► these people i think also personality wise they probably are like why would i go anywhere else
01:24:47 ◼ ► what would i do with my life i'm a type a personality i want control yeah i do think that
01:24:52 ◼ ► there is a type of person who elevates to that level where the money isn't the important thing and like
01:24:58 ◼ ► that's not what they're doing it for it's the it's the power or the control or the money but
01:25:04 ◼ ► also the changing the world kind of aspect the the mission aspect of apple um which i do think resonates with a lot of those people but
01:25:12 ◼ ► the downside of all that stability is um that they're all human beings who are all now in their 60s
01:25:35 ◼ ► there will come a time when they have they can't stay right they can't stay even if they want to stay
01:25:41 ◼ ► forever they literally can't stay forever and it feels like right now what's happening is some of that
01:25:49 ◼ ► is finally kind of like combusting some of that is finally happening where people start and maybe it
01:25:56 ◼ ► started somewhere maybe it started with tim having a conversation about succession planning where everybody
01:26:00 ◼ ► else looked around and said do i want to be here or is this a good time to step off because i've got all
01:26:06 ◼ ► the money i don't need to be here maybe this is a good time and it makes me wonder if that's actually
01:26:11 ◼ ► what's going on here not that apple's like oh boy we got it's not like the execs are fleeing a sinking ship
01:26:16 ◼ ► that's actually not the case they've been if you're an exec at apple who's been waiting for the ship to
01:26:21 ◼ ► sink so that you could flee you've been trapped there for like two decades right like the ship is
01:26:26 ◼ ► not sinking and also a lot of these people you would expect are tim cook lieutenants who maybe just
01:26:31 ◼ ► don't want to work with anybody else i i think that's a really good dynamic even if even if
01:26:38 ◼ ► you like john turnus let's say i mean we're using him as a proxy it could be somebody else whatever but
01:26:43 ◼ ► like let's say it's john even if you like him fine you've been there 20 years you've been working for
01:26:51 ◼ ► tim here's this here's this new guy he's 10 or 15 years younger than you you saw him come up you're
01:26:58 ◼ ► impressed by him but like he's going to be the ceo and i'm going to have to reflect sort of like i'm
01:27:04 ◼ ► going to build a relationship with him and how's that going to be because i'm used to us being peers
01:27:07 ◼ ► but then he's going to be my boss and i'm so used to tim it's a really natural moment to reflect and
01:27:13 ◼ ► say maybe this is the time i step off maybe this is it i'll let someone else do it you know yeah and
01:27:20 ◼ ► some people won't and some people will remain and i think that i mean i think it's like phil schiller
01:27:25 ◼ ► stepped off and didn't step off and is still there uh eddie q seems to just be loving life he doesn't need
01:27:30 ◼ ► to be there anymore but i think he just digs it and is having a great time that's always the sense i
01:27:34 ◼ ► get from eddie q is that he's just he he thinks what he's doing is cool and he's doing it but like
01:27:39 ◼ ► any of them could go to if if if uh if the relationships get reset so i i do think that
01:27:45 ◼ ► that's part of what's going on here um and it's the reason it seems like such a last week felt like a
01:27:51 ◼ ► conflagration i think in part is because um they've been so stable for so long that it's it only makes that
01:28:01 ◼ ► final move worse because there's more pieces to move a normal a normal organization would have an
01:28:08 ◼ ► executive departure or two every year and you just kind of keep going and then and you and you'd you
01:28:13 ◼ ► know keep replenishing the ship and then there'd be the next one and the next one and it's like a
01:28:17 ◼ ► ship of theseus actually kind of thing where it's like you look you look up and 10 years later the
01:28:21 ◼ ► executives are completely different but it never seems like there was a loss of continuity and by
01:28:26 ◼ ► keeping continuity for 20 years uh you know great and for the last 10 or 15 great job apple but um
01:28:33 ◼ ► you risk then having a discontinuity because you've got all these senior people who are all going to be
01:28:39 ◼ ► leaving at some point and maybe it's now so i think that's actually one of their risks now is that how
01:28:45 ◼ ► does if tim's going to do a transition how does tim send a message to the shareholders and to the
01:28:51 ◼ ► market that it's all going to be orderly and that there's still um senior leadership who understands
01:28:58 ◼ ► apple and it's all going to be fine and you can't do that if you wipe the slate clean and it's like oh
01:29:04 ◼ ► well john turnus has a completely new set of people and eddie's going and and and phil's going and you know
01:29:09 ◼ ► all the other people you know are going and it's just going to be john and a new gang i think that
01:29:14 ◼ ► that that would be distressing i think that's why it has to be a transition um so that's going to be a
01:29:19 ◼ ► challenge for for tim and company but i do think that what happened last week is in part
01:29:24 ◼ ► a reaction to the fact that apple has been um so stable for so long because they can't stay that way
01:29:33 ◼ ► and they i think a lot of stuff built up but i do i do believe this is a symptom of the fact that
01:29:39 ◼ ► people at apple are looking at where the organization's structure is going to be in a year or two with a
01:29:45 ◼ ► transition and saying now it's a good time this episode of upgrade is brought to you by udacity
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01:31:36 ◼ ► upgrade for 40 off and make sure you use the promo code upgrade so they will know that we sent you
01:31:42 ◼ ► our thanks udacity for their support of this show and all of relay it is time for some ask upgrade
01:31:51 ◼ ► first one comes from stewart who says i'm still waiting for a cheaper vision pro but i feel like
01:32:00 ◼ ► eventually i will just get one in the meantime i am trying to take uh spatial videos and photos on my
01:32:07 ◼ ► iphone particularly of my young son i also mix it up and take some 4k video as well uh it got a lot
01:32:13 ◼ ► of attention when it first came out but do you still use or record important moments in spatial video and
01:32:18 ◼ ► watch them back on the vision broad i very rarely do because i'd rather have the quality and unless you're
01:32:27 ◼ ► the thing that people who shoot 3d movies will tell you is only certain shots are worth
01:32:35 ◼ ► shooting in 3d because they need to have a lot of objects in the near ground that are that have um
01:32:41 ◼ ► and things in the in the background so that you've got a really strong depth especially with that iphone
01:32:47 ◼ ► camera where the two lenses are so close together closer than our eyes you need it even more to
01:32:53 ◼ ► differentiate um the near from the far in video so it's like a lot of shots it doesn't matter if you're
01:32:59 ◼ ► at the grand canyon and you shoot a spatial it doesn't look any different because it's so far away
01:33:05 ◼ ► that there's no uh there's no real distance uh happening between the two inputs from your eyes or the camera so
01:33:15 ◼ ► most spatial videos aren't necessary and you get better quality if you don't shoot it that way so i i don't
01:33:22 ◼ ► plus then i can only really watch it myself so i like the idea of the spatial video but like
01:33:28 ◼ ► um in most cases it's not necessary and then photos i apple even apple is like you don't even need to
01:33:38 ◼ ► capture spatial photos anymore because their machine learning algorithm can generate a spatialized photo
01:33:44 ◼ ► and you know right now i think that that's good enough for everything could it be better sure but what
01:33:49 ◼ ► what you really want if you want a real one is again a camera with the lens is pretty far apart so you can
01:33:54 ◼ ► get like the background and stuff and they're instead they're filling it with like machine learning uh
01:33:59 ◼ ► you know guesses if there's a wall behind them it'll fill in a little bit of the part you can't see with
01:34:03 ◼ ► more wall and sometimes that works great and sometimes it doesn't but like even apple has reached the
01:34:09 ◼ ► point where um like i asked them at one point if they use uh if there's depth data from like lidar do
01:34:18 ◼ ► they use that to generate the spatial photo and the answer is no they don't need to yeah so yeah i would
01:34:25 ◼ ► say like about the the shoot in the video too um it doesn't work very well if the video is moving the the
01:34:32 ◼ ► the the it doesn't look good like it's best if you're completely stable and there could be things
01:34:36 ◼ ► moving but you shouldn't move um i feel like apple should should suggest that to people but they don't
01:34:47 ◼ ► spatial photos that shouldn't even bother existing anymore because the machine learning model handles
01:34:54 ◼ ► it fine we see it on our iphones like the spatialized scenes like that's just not a thing
01:34:57 ◼ ► i've taken a couple of videos of sophia and and and i've watched them back on the vision pro and and
01:35:03 ◼ ► they are quite affecting but i imagine a scenario where apple creates a video model like they did
01:35:09 ◼ ► the still model and we don't need this of course so i don't i don't know realistically how useful uh
01:35:17 ◼ ► this is and and i'm i'm with jason take take the video of these moments in the highest quality you
01:35:27 ◼ ► john asks what is the oldest file on your computer and what is the oldest file on your computer you
01:35:32 ◼ ► still use um i i had to do some work to try and find something here uh i found my cv aka my resume
01:35:41 ◼ ► from 2009 uh when i was desperately trying to get a new job uh i was still working in banking so before
01:35:50 ◼ ► i'd even started podcasting and then i later found while i was digging through multiple cvs that included
01:35:55 ◼ ► different skills um turns out jason i applied for a job at the government once i forgot that i'd done
01:36:02 ◼ ► wow yeah yeah yeah to be uh on the digital team at the government i knew someone who was working there
01:36:07 ◼ ► and uh i applied for that so yeah i i found some real things i found a a pitch deck for for a podcast
01:36:14 ◼ ► network before relay um whoa yeah yeah i had some grand ideas let me tell you that um but there you
01:36:23 ◼ ► go so that's the kind of stuff that i found uh on on my mac on my computer i i have a lot of files that
01:36:29 ◼ ► are on my server yeah it is that are archived i'm not a stephen hackett who keeps all my files locally
01:36:35 ◼ ► right i don't have all of my files are actually saved in dropbox everything is that's how i found
01:36:40 ◼ ► it i save everything in dropbox yeah so i i have these aren't there these are things from like the
01:36:45 ◼ ► migrate from old computers and i want to keep them but i don't actually need them uh i think a lot of
01:36:49 ◼ ► them were used to be on an external disk of archived stuff and then i was like well now i have
01:36:55 ◼ ► such a big disk i'm gonna i don't want those things loose and running around i want them just
01:37:01 ◼ ► copied to the server hard drive so on there i have had the funny thing of um you know sometimes
01:37:07 ◼ ► i'm writing about history and um and or i'm talking to stephen hackett about something and we're like oh
01:37:14 ◼ ► there's this article and it's oh it's not on the web but it was in mac world and i forget what the what
01:37:20 ◼ ► the latest one was but i discovered that um i could find the text of the article it wasn't on the web but
01:37:28 ◼ ► it was on mac world's it was in the mac world magazine and then i found that i i literally had
01:37:34 ◼ ► the microsoft word file in which i wrote the article and handed into the copy desk i still have all of
01:37:41 ◼ ► those all of my things i wrote for mac world um and turned into the magazine and stuff you know i saved
01:37:49 ◼ ► those files when i turned them in i didn't delete them or anything and i still have them so i was able to go
01:37:53 ◼ ► back to my original article and find the text that i wrote about you know the launch of it was i think
01:38:01 ◼ ► it was spotlight i think it was when spotlight came out which is 25 years ago um the oldest file that i
01:38:23 ◼ ► that i took sorry don't you know don't talk to me uc berkeley and it had a really cool i took it
01:38:32 ◼ ► because it had a cool image of a of a bear the bear is the mascot of of uc berkeley um and i like that
01:38:39 ◼ ► image so i took it and then i scanned it because i wanted to make it my hard drive icon
01:38:43 ◼ ► and i did and that image which is a photoshop file it's a psd from 1995 because i think i had to clean
01:38:50 ◼ ► clean it up uh it's still on my hard drive uh loose on and in dropbox i think uh june 1995 creation
01:38:58 ◼ ► the other part of this the oldest file on my computer that i still use i have a text file
01:39:05 ◼ ► it's literally hugo.txt and it started as i wanted to read all of the novels that won the hugo award i
01:39:13 ◼ ► wanted to kind of like walk through the history of science fiction from the 50s to today um and so i
01:39:19 ◼ ► found a list somewhere of all the novels that won the hugo award but that was like at least 15 years
01:39:24 ◼ ► ago maybe longer and i've just been adding to it and then at some point i added in the the nebula award
01:39:31 ◼ ► as well um and there's a little asterisk at the beginning if i've read it and at this point i've read
01:39:37 ◼ ► almost every hugo winner back to like 1980 and then it's it gets real spotty before that
01:39:44 ◼ ► but um that's a file that i compiled and it's basically my little hugo reading log and i will
01:39:50 ◼ ► update it essentially every year or i read a couple the other maybe last year i read a couple older
01:39:56 ◼ ► nominees and i put the little asterisk in but uh so that file i still use i guess technically and
01:40:03 ◼ ► it's at least 15 years old pretty cool uh and ammar asks why do you think the ipad pro doesn't have an
01:40:11 ◼ ► always on display because it's huge and it would use a lot of battery um and they may be uncomfortable
01:40:19 ◼ ► with having a giant oled screen that's always on i would like and and it's often used in a case where
01:40:27 ◼ ► it's covered when it's off yeah but then you can have it off you know then you know it it would be fun
01:40:33 ◼ ► it it would be fun i i suspect the reasons are about power and maybe about something about that
01:40:38 ◼ ► display yeah that it would be it's not necessarily able right i don't think that display can go down to
01:40:46 ◼ ► one refresh per second like the watch and the phone you don't think i think that maybe is i don't know i
01:40:53 ◼ ► don't know if they built that in because i don't know if they necessarily feel that it's required to do
01:40:57 ◼ ► that maybe it does i mean it's promotion right yeah i don't know i don't know my my guess is that
01:41:02 ◼ ► there's a technical reason where they think it's not worth it because otherwise they get it for free
01:41:07 ◼ ► they could put it on there so my guess is that they um either it can't do a low i think in the end it
01:41:12 ◼ ► comes to probably power 10 to 120 hertz that's what 10 to 120 hertz so i think they want it to be down at
01:41:20 ◼ ► one hertz and uh and even then you know it's lighting up many many many many more pixels than on the phone
01:41:29 ◼ ► which means it's using more power and there is more battery and maybe they have also just not
01:41:34 ◼ ► prioritized it because in apple's mind you know an ipad screen is not hanging out somewhere providing
01:41:41 ◼ ► information but i agree it would be kind of cool yeah i would like it because i feel like there are
01:41:46 ◼ ► just different things you could do you know like it would be fun like a bit more ambient information
01:41:51 ◼ ► kind of stuff you could have a big screen nice full of widgets which would be nice but you know
01:41:57 ◼ ► maybe maybe that's i don't know why maybe i don't want to don't do it but maybe that is why right like
01:42:02 ◼ ► and they've not prioritized it like maybe there's a way that they could get the screen to do an even
01:42:06 ◼ ► wider range but it's just not something that they think is necessary and again it's like one of those
01:42:11 ◼ ► things we apple know more than we do and maybe they know that a lot you know the majority of their
01:42:14 ◼ ► customers have them in a case or something and so you can't really can't really see it at that point
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