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603: Recalibrate the Quality Bar

 

00:00:00   from relay this is upgrade episode 603 today's show is brought to you by expressvpn fitbod squarespace

00:00:16   and fundera my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snow hi jason hi mike i have a snow talk

00:00:24   question for you i thought you might john wants to know what sports besides curling are you watching

00:00:31   in the olympics oh besides curling i'm doing we're talking to lauren's parents last night and

00:00:38   they're like oh we're watching this and we're watching this i was thinking to myself other

00:00:42   sports exist other than curling interesting interesting i mean i've seen i've seen some

00:00:47   of the ice dancing and figure skating and stuff um flying back from vacation in fact they the

00:00:53   olympics were on on the on the uh tv provided by the airline so we watched some of that um i've seen

00:01:02   some what some skiing stuff some snowboarding stuff some short track uh speed skating which is fun

00:01:09   some long track speed skating like i've seen i've seen uh basically what i do when it's not

00:01:17   a lot of what we're doing is is watching curling right a lot of it is literally going to peacock

00:01:23   jab and um and watching like because because all these games are happening at like 2 a.m 6 a.m or

00:01:32   10 a.m so some of so a lot of them are just over by the time or almost over by the time we wake up

00:01:38   so i i'm often just watching the replay of earlier curling but in the in the evening when we're not

00:01:45   watching earlier curling because there isn't any anymore um i have been just popping on whatever is on

00:01:51   and the way that the the linear network part of the olympics works is it's basically if you're not up

00:01:57   early watching live stuff from italy um they've got an edited kind of uh compilation like an omnibus of

00:02:06   interesting stuff from that day and so literally i just put the olympics on and whatever they hand me

00:02:12   so we watched some biathlon last night which is a wild sport that is even wilder this week because

00:02:18   of the the human like there's somebody who is a convicted credit card theft thief who won a gold

00:02:26   medal and then there's the guy who admitted to cheating on his girlfriend and begged for her to

00:02:30   take him back like that's all biathlon and those people have guns so anyway um yeah so it's a real

00:02:38   it's a real uh just kind of a random assortment and uh zoe in our chat is talking about the gold zone

00:02:44   i haven't watched as much of the gold zone because i've been watching so much curling but they have

00:02:48   this great channel on peacock called gold zone which is literally the guy who hosts the nfl red zone

00:02:53   um and three other guys uh who including one of the other guys who hosted the other red zone channel

00:03:00   that used to exist kind of wild so nbc was like that's a good idea and so they like whip around to

00:03:05   all the different live events as they're happening the problem being on the west coast is um there are

00:03:10   not they're not live for very long after i wake up because a lot of that stuff is happening when i'm

00:03:15   asleep but yeah that's a fun channel uh too so but mostly curling but yeah a little little uh buffet of

00:03:22   other stuff so you can imagine we have been inundated with curling questions this week

00:03:29   yeah we can all imagine that we're going to actually devote an entire ask upgrade segment to curling

00:03:36   uh today at the end of the show including jason's take on the controversy the controversy yeah

00:03:42   some jason so many questions from the about the unbelievable amount of questions thank you for uh

00:03:47   fielding them i had i actually had somebody ask me yesterday are you going to talk about

00:03:51   at the curling club are you going to talk about the controversy on your podcast and i said i think

00:03:56   it's inevitable yeah so many questions so we will be talking about curling and all curling related

00:04:02   controversies at the end of the episode so buckle up for that if you would like to send in a snow talk

00:04:07   question to help us open a future episode of the show just go to upgradefeedback.com and send

00:04:12   yours in let's handle some follow-up so we spoke about the iphone fold last time and if they would

00:04:18   actually call it that um and we had a few listeners write in with their uh names that they would like

00:04:23   to give the phone i thought i would read them and we can judge them uh dominic wrote and said how about

00:04:29   the iphone pocket for the folding phone name i like that name by the way um however it maybe

00:04:37   the iphone pocket jason's right behind me it's the orange sock thing they already i just realized

00:04:42   they already did it they already did it no they doesn't what you monsters you did it iphone pocket

00:04:47   such a great name they already did it so unfortunately dominic that one's taken uh rob wrote in and said i

00:04:52   enjoy the speculation around the name of the folding phone if apple brought the ibook name back and used

00:04:58   it for a new line of products that would be a fun choice they could offer multiple ibook models that

00:05:03   target different use cases from iphone replacements to ipad air replacements all in the ibook family

00:05:09   what do you think uh they're gonna call it iphone yeah there's nothing you could do about it while i

00:05:15   like that idea that like they have like a whole new set of products because they can just be different

00:05:19   sizes and form factors and stuff um they're not gonna not call it iphone yeah i think that's the

00:05:25   that's the truth of it because iphone is the most important product to them so and i like the idea

00:05:30   conceptually this is the thing that i've stumbled on is book is actually not in a note notebook or book

00:05:35   is a pretty good idea yeah but notebook means something and you know i guess you could call it

00:05:40   the iphone book but then it's just the iphone book hey you could call it the iphone note and it would

00:05:46   explode on planes you know yeah uh nick wrote and said iphone flax or iphone folio folio folio's fun

00:05:56   but i think might be a bit too much yeah i mean it's okay i i would say i think we might have even

00:06:04   mentioned folio last time folio was a word they use so it's in the ballpark i think it might not be

00:06:10   right but i get it um and uh iphone flex doesn't mean anything but then again that doesn't mean anything

00:06:20   either the act the fact that it doesn't mean anything itself does not mean anything it names

00:06:24   don't need to mean things really in the end ipod uh uh so iphone flex uh probably not but also

00:06:33   interesting like i said i i just struggled to come up with a name here but i feel like there are some

00:06:37   possible names that are not iphone fold um iphone folio is not a bad name and brian merton has said all

00:06:44   like the iphone studio since it's on fault since it unfolds it could be used for a more creative work

00:06:49   also it's not a pro iphone it's not a base iphone sort of like how the mac studio is not a mac pro at

00:06:55   least not when it was released but also not a mac mini i don't think studio is a concept that works

00:07:03   with the iphone yeah i agree i mean as a metaphor like i get it i think this is not bad reasoning by

00:07:10   brian i just don't think apple's studio word is all about like harnessing creativity and i don't think

00:07:19   that's what they're trying to get across with a folding iphone i think they wanted to feel have much

00:07:23   more broad appeal than that um so i mean iphone flex is a better is a better name than that for the

00:07:30   you know not not only is it a play on it bending uh you know folding but it's also your flexibility

00:07:36   and being able to use it as little or big um so i would put more more odds better odds on that one

00:07:44   yeah iphone flex feels very 2000s kind of market it does weird weird flex but okay you know i don't

00:07:51   know yeah see that's why you couldn't call it that because every single headline would be weird flex but

00:07:57   okay i mean honestly in going through this thank you for the suggestions everyone i think i'm back

00:08:02   around to they're just going to call it the iphone fold i mean maybe maybe holger says in discord what

00:08:09   about ultra that name is still out there could work for this this doesn't feel like an ultra though right

00:08:15   that's that's the thing especially if they've got another one coming next next year that's supposed

00:08:20   to be like super new cutting edge would you not save that for that i don't know i think that's

00:08:26   going to be the iphone 20 i think they're going to call out the iphone 20 just like double x or

00:08:32   something like that they're gonna evoke well even then they would have to call it like the iphone 20 pro

00:08:38   yeah which i think maybe it's iphone 20 ultra maybe it's iphone 20 ultra youtube now has an

00:08:46   official app on the vision pro it has happened it we did it everyone two years later i think i think

00:08:54   the fact that that the youtube apps got taken off the app store was an indication that this was going

00:08:59   to happen yeah and i think maybe there was some sort of a i feel like this with youtube and netflix

00:09:05   that maybe they had some of a some kind of a deal with meta that actually precluded them

00:09:11   from building this but it's there now um i don't have a chance to use it yet i have been

00:09:17   way too busy this last week but i'm looking forward to trying it out it supports 8k on the on the um

00:09:23   on the m5 version and uh obviously any sort of 3d or uh 180 360 content i've got a total party kill

00:09:32   posted on youtube that's a yep that's a a 180 or is a 360 um and i've watched it by sideloading

00:09:40   the file but it will be fun to be able to look at that and make sure that that's all you know like

00:09:44   i'm a little person standing on a tabletop watching people play dnd because that's where the camera was

00:09:49   um that's good that's good people youtube is a good application for vision pro so it probably should

00:09:56   have been there from the beginning yeah indeed i'm only half joking when i say this but it's like all

00:10:02   it took was an llm deal for gemini like i don't think that's what happened but i don't not think it

00:10:10   that someone was like hey can you just release that vision pro app that you've obviously been working on

00:10:14   i will say you said about netflix and previous anonymous informant told me that

00:10:21   this was very much a thing that apple expected to be there on day one and that during the initial

00:10:28   testing of the device people inside of apple were using a netflix app on their vision pro and it never

00:10:35   shipped so my expectation for for that is the same thing as netflix and the tv app integration i think

00:10:44   they build all this stuff and then they hold it to apple and they're like give us what we want

00:10:47   and we'll give you what you want and apple says no we will not give you what you want so then netflix

00:10:52   says fine we're not going to give you what you want then because all these things like the tv app stuff

00:10:56   they have to have built that like it's not just like a thing that magically happens right they've built

00:11:01   all of the functionality they just don't let it out because they're not getting what they want

00:11:06   from apple in their negotiations or whatever right that said i i do i do have suspect that they're not

00:11:11   the lack of netflix on vision pro is more about them having some sort of a deal with meta yeah that gave

00:11:17   them exclusivity on that app for a while but i don't know i mean we'll see we'll see i heard um on the

00:11:24   waveform podcast they were talking about the fact that google is building their own xr stuff now right like

00:11:30   android xr and that maybe they're just going to try and put these the youtube app everywhere to

00:11:37   encourage more people to make this kind of 360 and immersive content of course because it benefits

00:11:41   them with their headset so why not also put it on the vision pro yeah you want that that content

00:11:46   available everywhere and talking to those people at apple who are making immersive content for the

00:11:50   vision pro you know their goal is not to make vision pro exclusive content their goal is to make

00:11:56   immersive content that over time more immersive devices exist so that they can get that stuff in

00:12:01   front of more people it's just that vision pro is a good place for them to work on it right now the

00:12:06   long the long term is you want that content anywhere anywhere and everywhere so if you're youtube

00:12:10   and you're google you would like that youtube to be the place where all that stuff lives and that it's

00:12:18   available everywhere that has a device that's capable of viewing it we finally have uh ios 26 upgrade

00:12:26   statistics from apple from apple yeah so they have confirmed that 74 percent of iphones that have been

00:12:33   released in the last four years that are in active use are now running ios 26 for context this would be

00:12:40   66 of all iphones in use which they're only being like less than 10 percent difference between those

00:12:48   two numbers is incredible right yeah to show how often people are upgrading their iphones yep like that

00:12:56   is kind of astounding that it's probably that last 30 percent or whatever are the people that just never

00:13:01   upgrade their iphone um so apple got to 76 percent for ios 18 on january the 21st of last year

00:13:10   so it's about three weeks behind which i've seen a lot of reporting being like it's behind from my

00:13:16   perspective i would consider that to be essentially in line like three weeks is not that much of a

00:13:23   difference i mean i would say it's three weeks behind um which is not a lot i agree but it is three weeks

00:13:30   behind and if we look at the numbers on independent you know data sources we can see that it all

00:13:40   happened a bit later but again part of that is apple apple control made the decision that's why i mean

00:13:45   that's why i would say it's basically in line the reason for me that i position it that way

00:13:49   is because essentially nothing changed except when apple decided to push it out because people write

00:13:56   the story or talk about it in such a way to be like see how much slower take up is it's because

00:14:01   nobody likes ios 26 it's like it's not that it's just when did the automatic upgrades happen and

00:14:07   we know that that happened later i suspect that apple actually held some of its you know ability

00:14:15   to push out 26 for 26.1 26.2 purposefully right yeah because they've changed things about liquid glass

00:14:25   and they change things about ipad os and they control when those big surges happen because that's when

00:14:30   people instead of people manually updating it's they're offered an update their update is pushed to them and they

00:14:37   have to say no otherwise it happens so they control that part of it so yeah i mean i'd say it's behind

00:14:43   but they're a little bit but the reason is because apple kind of like held it off and this you know

00:14:49   vision that there are a whole bunch of dead enders out there who are like i'll never update it's like

00:14:53   well i mean there are always some but um it's not and it's not that different from previous and it's not an enormous

00:15:02   difference yeah i mean to me it feels like basically the same i mean i know it's not like

00:15:10   technically the same but i just feel like it's proving that whenever apple decides to press the

00:15:15   button essentially the same amount of people just upgrade whether they kind of want to or not but i do

00:15:21   think that that's important for this time because i think people would say like oh there's so much

00:15:26   negative press about ios 26 people are gonna not allow their phones to update but i don't really

00:15:32   think that that's the case at all you know

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00:17:37   and relay

00:17:38   mark german is reporting that the apple intelligence features that were being planned to be shipping

00:17:45   in ios 26.4 are going to slip to later releases maybe even pushed to ios 27

00:17:52   quote from mark testing uncovered fresh problems uh we may see some features as late as may but most

00:18:00   likely they are going to be introduced as part of wwdc uh this year and then shipped in september or

00:18:06   later mark says that personal context is one of the features most likely to be delayed and the app

00:18:12   intense powered action across apps is struggling too i'll read a quote from mark german the new series

00:18:19   sometimes falls back on its existing integration with open ai's chat gpt instead of using apple's

00:18:24   own technology that can happen even when siri should be capable of handling the request

00:18:28   according to mark apparently 26.5 could include new web searching and image generation tools that are

00:18:35   accessed via siri so that will come later in the year um just the web searching stuff would be things

00:18:41   that are similar to what's available in complexity and chat gpt essentially it seems that apple is

00:18:47   struggling to develop a system that feels up to the quality level that they are looking for

00:18:51   with the iphone i wanted to ask you jason do you think that maybe this is just something that's

00:19:00   inherent to the technology and apple was struggling to get their heads around that or does apple just not

00:19:09   have good enough technology to be able to make this stuff work oh it's hard to say i think that

00:19:16   i think it's entirely possible that part of the problem here is that apple had a vision for how

00:19:22   they wanted this to work and what they wanted to achieve that's actually hard to do yeah with current

00:19:29   models including i mean we've been talking about this as a story about apple's models failing but the

00:19:38   other way to view this is it's a story about llm's failing apple's vision uh including gemini right like

00:19:44   even if they've got new tech that they're using on this is apple's you know what apple was picturing

00:19:51   not what they are getting and is that about apple's dream i don't know i mean my guess is it's probably

00:19:56   both my guess is probably both right it it may be something about the way the siri system is working

00:20:04   and what it's routing where it's routing um it may be the inherent unreliability of llms like all of

00:20:10   these things are possible so mark is still talking about apple getting ready to debut a quote major new

00:20:18   ai initiative at wwdc this one which this is what we spoke about for about making siri feel more like a

00:20:24   chatbot having deep integration uh inside of different apps so they hook together um so your data is all

00:20:30   available to you essentially so you could talk to your computer but the thing that i'm stuck on in

00:20:36   reading this article is am i supposed to believe that they can do that and also if

00:20:44   this is coming in wwdc why would you ship any of those ios 26 features like what are we doing at this

00:20:53   point like you'd ship them in may and then then in june show them off like completely differently like

00:21:00   i've i am i do not understand what's happening here i will i would just if you i'm sorry to just keep

00:21:07   monologuing here let me just read a statement from cnbc that apple gave to them uh apple says that they

00:21:14   are still on track to deliver i would say something in 2026 i want to read this statement because i i think

00:21:21   it's fascinating this is from cnbc the long-awaited artificial intelligence update to uh siri siri

00:21:28   assistant has been internally pushed back to may and potentially later bloomberg reported wednesday

00:21:33   the update was expected to launch within a couple of weeks but the company may roll out the features

00:21:39   over several months the report stated apple told cnbc it is still on track to launch in 2026

00:21:46   the smallest statement that could ever be given like there's no detail there at all but just that

00:21:53   something's coming in this year part of the dynamic here is that mark german reported that they were

00:21:57   trying to ship this in the spring and now he's reporting that they might not yeah and i've seen a lot of

00:22:02   people are out there who are like well if apple never really said they were shipping in the spring

00:22:06   how can it be late how can it be delayed it sounds like mark german's report was was wrong um

00:22:11   i don't believe that no i believe that his report was right because his track record was really good

00:22:15   and also when else were they going to ship it that they wanted to ship it this spring um and that they

00:22:21   are now thinking uh differently about it and if that has led to apple stock going down um so be it because

00:22:28   mark german's previous report that they were going to ship this stuff was priced into the stock too

00:22:32   yeah it's it's all part of how this goes that all that information is there and if you want to

00:22:36   you know you you can it is true apple didn't delay anything because apple hasn't said anything other

00:22:42   than that it would launch this year so that's fair i was surprised when we got that initial report we

00:22:48   talked about it that apple i think part of apple's we're going to promise nothing at wwc 2025 that we

00:22:58   can't deliver prompt that that whole premise that they had i i think they were also saying and will

00:23:05   internally and we'll deliver everything we promised by the end of this cycle i think they just set a goal

00:23:10   for themselves which was deliver everything we promised at wwdc 24 by the end of the ios 26 cycle

00:23:16   and then we'll do some new stuff in 27 and we'll launch that at wwdc 26 but um let's wrap up what we

00:23:23   promised i think that was what was behind their attempt to get all this stuff out in a late version

00:23:29   rather than holding it for june um and that answers your question kind of which is like why would they

00:23:34   do this i think they just decided that it was part of their you know let's keep that promise we broke

00:23:40   let's uh show that we you know make good on our promises i think it was a motivator for them internally

00:23:47   and i haven't heard this it's just you can see it from their actions and it's become impractical to do it

00:23:54   though like it's even harder to do that and and you and i i think we responded the same way when we heard

00:23:58   this original report which is like is that what you want to do or are you better off recalibrating

00:24:03   what you think your strategy is and launching a whole thing that makes sense in june because

00:24:08   the danger here is what we maybe just saw which is that they made guesses about what they were going

00:24:15   to be capable of doing based on a faulty premise in 2024 and they've spent the last few months trying

00:24:23   to make good on those promises when perhaps the right thing to do was to throw those promises away

00:24:30   yeah and knowing what they know now about the capabilities of llms and about their infrastructure

00:24:37   what would those features look like today and make a new promise in june but they didn't i mean

00:24:44   obviously they held that in reserve right because they didn't announce that they were going to do this

00:24:48   in the spring they didn't do that they they've only said this year for a good reason which is they

00:24:54   didn't want to over promise this um and what german says is in the background they were trying to

00:24:59   deliver it in the spring and even that is not something that they're capable of doing yeah my

00:25:04   my prediction right now is that we will get we will not see personal context or action across apps

00:25:14   before ios 27 and as part of the wwdc keynote they will introduce two features called personal

00:25:23   context and action across apps but they're doing different things than what we saw like i just don't

00:25:29   think they're able to do what they showed off that they could do they cannot get it done in time

00:25:35   and so they will start over i as funny as it is to think about it this way because you know this has

00:25:40   been a story about apple apple's models failing them part of the story seems to be apple's imagining

00:25:48   of what llms could do reliably being wrong yes right like part of it and it's funny because that was

00:25:54   2024 llms are better at this stuff now although better at this stuff in ways that are in some some

00:26:03   cases uh really intensive in terms of computing resources and potentially time right because they

00:26:13   want these responses to be fairly fast so i i yeah the the picture i'm getting now is that apple was let down

00:26:21   let down by its llm you know its models and let down by its impression of what they would be able to do

00:26:30   at a level that was reliable for apple now it may be given i mean one of the questions is what's the

00:26:37   appetite of the audience for this because i don't believe that apple and i hear this from some people i don't

00:26:46   believe that apple is incapable of putting ai stuff in the iphone at the same level as google they have

00:26:52   a deal with google like i don't believe that i don't believe that it was like oh android is and and

00:26:57   you know microsoft windows they're going to have all these amazing things and apple's going to be like

00:27:01   oh we just don't know what to do i just don't believe that i don't think that's the issue i think

00:27:05   the issue is that apple is even now reluctant to ship ai based features at what the rest of the

00:27:14   industry considers acceptable levels of failure and the question is does apple recalibrate their quality

00:27:21   bar or does apple hold back and be a little more restrained because they just don't like what they're

00:27:32   seeing you know in terms of uh testing uncovering fresh problems right yeah and i i don't it's a tough

00:27:39   one right because i mean look i've used ai stuff for a bunch of things i've been exploring that that's

00:27:45   part of i feel like part of our jobs is to explore what this stuff is and then talk about it and i have

00:27:50   they don't happen like they used to but like i absolutely have stuff that happens where i'm like

00:27:56   this thing is garbage right and then i'll do the next thing and i'll be like oh my god it's magic

00:28:01   uh and then you know four or five times later i'll i'll say nope this thing completely blew it

00:28:07   and the nice thing about that happening in in a in the clawed app or the chat gpt app or whatever

00:28:12   wherever is you do command n and make a new conversation that is not that conversation and

00:28:19   you just try it again and maybe they'll get it right this time but like that's a fact of life

00:28:23   does apple accept that sometimes you're going to have a siri conversation that gives you

00:28:28   wrong answers and bad information or does or creates bad actions across your apps and you'll

00:28:35   be like well it's ai that's what do you want and maybe so i mean that's what a lot of these tech

00:28:41   giants have seemed to do is basically you know slap a label on it that says this may be wrong

00:28:47   and ship it and maybe you know that's a question for apple what do they want to be here do they want

00:28:52   to be well with the crowd or do they want to um i think that's what they're struggling with because i

00:28:58   i don't know where they're setting the bar but like i could see and this is a problem for them

00:29:03   potentially i could see where they're in it they've got an issue where they've got all these ambitious

00:29:06   ai features just like all the ai companies have but when apple does it and it has a certain failure

00:29:12   rate they're like we can't ship this whereas maybe all the other ai companies are like yeah we're

00:29:16   just experimenting ship it see what happens well i would say though both image playgrounds

00:29:22   notification summaries were features that they were happy to ship and neither of them produce

00:29:28   reliable output were they happy to ship them or did they have to ship them because they were the

00:29:32   only ones that were remotely functional i think that's one of the questions i've got they did ship

00:29:36   them they did ship them though you know what i mean right and they continue to exist as as functions

00:29:41   so i think that they got beat up by the notification summary thing right so i mean yeah but i think this

00:29:48   is i think this is the internal issue even now inside apple it seems like to me which is

00:29:54   people at apple i think there are undoubtedly people at apple who are like this feature isn't good enough

00:30:00   and other people at apple who are like what do you mean it's amazing let's ship it sure because that's

00:30:05   really look wouldn't you say that that's kind of the core of of the ai reliability problem right now

00:30:12   is that when it works it's amazing and sometimes it doesn't work and so it depends on how you look at

00:30:17   it you can either look at it as well yes this feature sometimes is a complete piece of garbage but

00:30:21   when it works it's magical or do you say anything that produces garbage is unacceptable like that those

00:30:27   are your choices right as you either accept that sometimes it's garbage or you don't use it but the

00:30:33   problem is that when you use it and it's magical it does feel transformational uh as a tech product

00:30:38   and i i i wonder if apple is even now having those issues also to go back to what we were saying about

00:30:43   apple's ambition app intense action across apps this idea i mean this is the danger we are living in an

00:30:52   era where giving models too much power uh could lead to catastrophic results and you know there are there

00:31:02   are stories that maybe we'll talk about in upgrade plus today but like chat bots uh filing pull requests

00:31:11   for open source projects and posting attacks on the project when it rejected them for being a bot the bot

00:31:19   posting potentially uh attacks like all the all the stuff with whatever it's called now open claw um

00:31:28   the idea that once but but when it's when it's like call it code and things like that too

00:31:34   and codex from from open ai once they're in your command line they can like reach out of the internet they

00:31:41   can do stuff like the more power you give them unsupervised the more potential danger there is and i

00:31:49   wonder if apple shipping a feature that essentially does that with control of all of your apps

00:31:58   to every iphone user maybe maybe too ambitious for right now and if that is again part of their

00:32:07   problem is that they had a vision for this thing being like this is going to be great and then when

00:32:12   it came down to it they looked at it and thought oh no i just think they have to stop making promises

00:32:17   they keep making promises they won't they can't stop making promises well their promise now is that

00:32:22   they're going to ship they're going to ship stuff in 2026 but they are still sort of saying they're

00:32:26   going to ship what they announced and i i i'm with you i i feel like if if they're holding on to what

00:32:32   they announced and like look we announced it so we must ship it even though they're thinking this is

00:32:36   not what i would choose to do today maybe they should not do it right like maybe they should choose what

00:32:40   they choose to do today what's capable and reasonable knowing what they now know about the state of the

00:32:45   art of this stuff um rather than sort of like trying to make a promise that is going to be two years out

00:32:50   of date yeah my my bet now between now and june we see some new features for apple intelligence that

00:32:58   are powered by their new models which are powered by gemini i do not think that the big features that

00:33:04   we're still waiting for are going to be those ones and i think we will see them rebranded

00:33:09   essentially well the names remain the same but the capabilities change and that is part of ios 27

00:33:15   i just think these these initiatives are way too large to get i mean i was i've been questioning on this

00:33:24   show if the timeline for the gemini deal is as it seemed to be it always seemed like it was too fast to

00:33:32   try and get these things done before wwdc also if if your idea is like let's just take it back to

00:33:38   we'll recalibrate siri and make it a little bit better and finally we'll have a good siri why would

00:33:43   you put that in 26.4 i know right like to your point why would you oh well if you're in the later

00:33:51   days of this os cycle you get a completely new siri otherwise you wait until 20 doesn't it feel like as

00:33:58   even as a user and and in terms of communicating to people that the new os would come with new siri not

00:34:04   that new siri would just sort of like show up or or new but transitional to yet a newer siri will show

00:34:11   up at the end of 26 and then in 27 you'll get so like 26 is like weird hybrid siri and and in five

00:34:18   years we'll all be looking back and saying hey remember that weird siri that was in between it's like

00:34:22   if you're gonna revisit and revamp a feature as major as siri why wouldn't you do that in 27 rather

00:34:29   than because also they'll ship it so let's say they're doing 26.5 or whatever 24 they ship it and

00:34:33   people we're still not a chatbot yeah we're gonna do that later just don't do it and and i get this

00:34:39   again the internalized sort of like we're we want to make good on our our promises but like who's asking

00:34:43   for this who is who is tapping on their watch in april or may of 2026 and saying apple where's

00:34:50   that feature that you promised me 22 months ago like nobody this is self this is self-imposed right

00:34:57   like that's that's part of it here is that i know you made a promise and you want to keep it

00:35:03   um but it's weird like maybe you need to do that classic apple thing of of recasting your plan and

00:35:14   announce it in june and say we stood up here two years ago and we said a bunch of stuff and the world

00:35:20   has changed and we can't give you all that stuff we have new stuff that we are confident that we're

00:35:25   going to give you and here it is and it's even better this year it's even better and then they do the apple

00:35:29   thing where they're like that was interesting but this is going to be better especially because it's

00:35:33   going to work and it's going to ship and here it is like i feel like that like if that seems like a

00:35:41   better approach to me that's the bottom line is i'm not sure who's asking for them to make good on the

00:35:47   video that they showed in 2024 i mean they already took the black eye for it i don't think there's

00:35:52   more black eye if they don't ship those features if they've got if they've got a new plan right yeah i

00:35:58   also don't think they're going to be hailed as heroes if 26 five ships with those features at last

00:36:03   i i just i i can't see that like oh yeah you did it 22 months later i just don't i just don't know

00:36:09   what they're doing with that and so obviously we are asking what are you doing but that's different and

00:36:15   also we're we're like we're asking them to just say or do something rather than just keep re-promising

00:36:23   like it's just like it i don't know how helpful that is uh like the cnbc thing just like still on

00:36:30   track to launch in 2026 like what does that even mean just deal with it you know i could also imagine

00:36:37   pre-wwdc there's a little blog post that goes out there's an interview with someone and they're just

00:36:43   like hey you know what we're just scrapping that we're not doing that anymore uh and just kind of

00:36:48   try and sleep sweep it under the rug just before wwc comes around that's not i mean that's not what

00:36:53   i would advise them to do i would advise them to do the the classic stand on stage at wwc and say we

00:36:58   you know we know announce some stuff but we forget about that we've got better stuff today yeah and

00:37:02   then you just move on and you act like you know it's they did that with the butterfly keyboard they've

00:37:06   done that a bunch of times now where it's like ah that was that we did this really an innovative

00:37:11   keyboard and we've heard from customers these other needs and now we've got an even better keyboard

00:37:14   you've innovated harder yeah yeah with more travel

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00:39:26   and relay so this morning as we're recording apple has sent media invites for a quote experience

00:39:35   that is happening simul i don't know i say simulcast but that's not simultaneously in new york london and

00:39:45   shanghai on march 4th at what is 9 a.m u.s eastern time yes 6 a.m pacific assumedly this is for some of the

00:39:56   all the products that we're expecting we're going to talk about one of them in a minute but the the

00:40:00   macbook the 17e if there is any kind of apple intelligence features they may want to show them

00:40:06   to people here which is why they want to do these kind of split event kind of things well it's okay i

00:40:13   have a guess about this is and i should say what do i know about this well i woke up this morning like

00:40:18   everybody else to this as a surprise unlike probably many other people but like some people i woke up to an

00:40:25   email saying would you like to come to new york yeah so i'll be there and i i checked my apple br person

00:40:31   like i can say i'll be there right because sometimes these things are like don't tell anybody don't tell

00:40:36   anybody it's happening but this is like a public event where they've said to everybody you know yeah

00:40:41   it's happening um i don't know more than that about it i assume what they've decided to do is similar

00:40:48   to what they've done in the past in fact i went to one of these last year year before um where they do

00:40:54   these events in in new york and maybe other places where my guess is we're not going to be under

00:41:00   embargo and that there'll probably be a product announcement at that time yeah this is just a

00:41:05   guess i'm just guessing but having done a bunch of these events and that will be there for they'll

00:41:11   probably like play a video on their site that they play for us there is my guess and then we'll have a

00:41:17   hands-on and the reason you go to these events in new york london and shanghai is because they'll have

00:41:21   the new products there and they'll have demo stations and they'll have you know oh this audio

00:41:26   professional is going to show you about how great it is to use this mac to do logic or whatever it is

00:41:32   they always have these kind of like use cases which is very funny for me because it's like let me show

00:41:37   you how you use the mac and i'm like i i know but there are other people there from other media that are

00:41:42   not as aware and so they need to get them to and i totally understand that so yeah this is another way

00:41:49   a slightly different maybe way of launching new products but my guess is that it's just that's

00:41:53   what it is is that they want to have some members of the press get their hands on these things that

00:41:59   they will have announced probably that day i've been there where it's been under embargo for a few

00:42:04   hours but i've also been there where we are watching it simultaneous with the world and then

00:42:09   what's different about it the reason you go to new york is because then you get your hands on it and

00:42:14   then um and then presumably there's a review program that happens after that for when they're finally

00:42:21   shipping that's separate from this entirely so this would be kind of like a a new a news and hands-on

00:42:28   event they're doing it in three places i think that's nice i have to go to new york yeah but uh

00:42:34   but somebody who's in europe can go to london and cover it which is great and somebody in asia can go

00:42:39   to shanghai and cover it which is great hilariously the shanghai uh event is uh no singapore event is it

00:42:46   shanghai or singapore i don't know our notes our notes say shanghai i don't know they do say that and

00:42:51   it is shanghai yeah sorry shanghai the shanghai event is at 10 p.m i saw someone post on threats

00:42:57   it's 10 p.m yeah because that's just the time zones so my expectation is is what you're saying

00:43:05   there will i reckon there will be a video that goes up on the website not necessarily like one of their

00:43:10   big live stream things and newsroom posts yeah whatever and so people can just everyone will know

00:43:15   what the news is at the same time but then you will be taken to go look at the stuff and talk to the

00:43:21   people and do the experience whatever that might be yeah i'm gonna talk to the people and do the

00:43:27   experience the experience these are the things i can't wait for that experience so we draft in next

00:43:33   week um i i well okay i mean we we don't have to do this on the show but my feeling is if this

00:43:42   experience is happening on a wednesday i don't know i mean my gut feeling is maybe that we just draft

00:43:51   on the monday right like so we're not gonna yeah i think that's actually fine and then we'll just

00:43:56   talk about it the following week so we'll just following week we're not gonna make a an attempt

00:44:01   i think it is fair to assume this is not going to be a big enough deal that we will feel the need to

00:44:07   record that day an emergency episode later that day um probably not and and would we i mean also it's

00:44:16   because of time zones and because of everything so this is real inside baseball is like i might not

00:44:22   be able to record a podcast until very late on wednesday when you're already asleep yeah at which

00:44:27   point it's thursday and honestly once we get to thursday i start to think why are we not just waiting

00:44:31   for monday just wait for monday yeah okay so we'll do a draft on monday the second then so people want

00:44:36   i know that so that's the thing that we can i think it'll be an experience draft very exciting

00:44:41   how do we experientially draft we'll find out well the draft is always an experience that's true

00:44:47   multimedia multimedia let's do some rumor roundup jason snell yeah let's do it so one of the products

00:44:55   that i reckon and we all reckon will be debuted at this event is the a series macbook mark german

00:45:01   reported in his power on newsletter over the weekend uh once again stating that it is a let's just under

00:45:08   13 inch display interesting but that it will be this computer will be made of aluminium and apple have

00:45:14   been testing quote a series of playful colors over the past year apple has tested options such as light

00:45:20   yellow light green blue pink classic silver and dark gray though it's unlikely all of these will ship

00:45:26   but this is all we wanted just put some color in that computer yeah yeah i mean i don't know about

00:45:32   the colors are those all the colors he says such as right so like he may not even know but that they

00:45:39   tested these colors i remember him reporting in the past that they tested colors i love it great let's i

00:45:44   mean let's do it i don't know why those aren't other on other things but what he also said is it's a new

00:45:49   process right so it's a new it's a new aluminum process so they're piloting a different aluminum

00:45:55   process that also presumably is cheaper or in the long run will be cheaper um and using this laptop

00:46:02   to do it i don't know whether that'll come to other laptops or not um great bring it on i'm really i

00:46:08   mean for a product that i i'm not interested in buying or using myself i'm actually i think this is

00:46:12   one of the most interesting products that they've done in a while because it's so different and it's

00:46:16   trying to do different things and they every laptop they've made has been so samey for so long that

00:46:22   it would be very interesting if they do something with some real color to it as well as that price

00:46:27   which is fascinating

00:46:28   in his power on newsletter mark is also reporting that apple and tesla have been working together to

00:46:35   get carplay ready to debut in their cars at some point in the near future apparently the two companies

00:46:41   had to collaborate to get the mapping features to work correctly with tesla's self-driving capabilities

00:46:46   but this update to carplay has shipped with 26.3 so tesla now appears to be waiting for a greater

00:46:54   adoption of this version for it to for them to roll it out in the cars uh yeah or or at least i mean

00:47:01   i'm unclear german didn't specify the version either it may have actually been yeah i think i've guessed

00:47:06   that one but it's a recent version of 26 i'm just taking yeah i think if you're tesla you want them to

00:47:12   solve the problem and you want to have it out there and then you want to be able to tell people just run

00:47:16   do a system update and then it'll work um and then you could roll it out and they obviously have to roll

00:47:21   out a software update on their side to do it we talked about this a while ago um tesla sales are are um

00:47:27   are bad yep and um they want to push every button possible and when they were riding high it was very

00:47:34   easy to say oh just use our thing um and now they're like if if it if new car buyers in the united states

00:47:42   especially care about carplay maybe we should give them carplay i'm fascinated because i don't actually

00:47:48   know why i assumed that linking up maps and tesla's navigation was not relevant because

00:47:58   you would you know the self-driving or whatever is going to be the the navigation in the in the system

00:48:08   i guess their concern was something like if the full self-driving is going somewhere

00:48:15   via one route and apple maps says another route and people are looking at apple maps they're going to

00:48:21   be really confused about what's going on i expect it's something about like automatic rerouting that

00:48:27   that like the tesla system may choose on its own to start rerouting you've but the apple maps doesn't

00:48:34   know that and you're gonna because and also the implementation here is also going to be weird

00:48:40   so the implementation says that carplay will run in a window in the tesla interface yeah which is not

00:48:46   how it usually runs so there may be kind of like two maps on screen yeah at once and so like maybe

00:48:54   there's a thing about getting that to talk to each other directions yeah yeah which is not not how cars

00:48:59   usually operate with carplay so if you were wondering if this feature was going to happen i would say the

00:49:04   fact that apple actually made adjustments in ios to make it happen suggests strongly it is going to happen

00:49:11   yeah and i think it's good i think it's good for tesla because i have been right out there saying

00:49:16   that um car makers should just support carplay because it's what people want because phones are

00:49:21   important and car makers that don't are either being incredibly arrogant or uh being uh really

00:49:29   i i don't know mistreating their customers by trying to extract more out of them by making their

00:49:35   experience worse i just don't like it let people choose um let people choose so this is it's a good

00:49:44   move i think it's a smart business move they're at a point where they need to do anything they can to

00:49:48   convert anybody who might consider buying a tesla to make it a little easier for them to buy the tesla so

00:49:54   um great and german doesn't say this but given the track record of tesla software updates um i imagine

00:50:02   this will just get pushed out to their entire fleet which means anybody who has a tesla will get carplay

00:50:06   yeah and those people will probably be happy too i love carplay on our um chevy bolt it's it's awesome

00:50:12   i finally got a car that does carplay and it's like it's really nice uh lauren who is very skeptical

00:50:18   sometimes of all my computer assisted thingies um loves it because that's the car she drives to work

00:50:23   every day and she loves it she loves carplay and how it gives her access to her you know her libby

00:50:29   audiobooks and you know her podcast that she's listening to and all these things so like

00:50:33   life is better leaving aside everybody's feelings about elon um life is better when your car has carplay

00:50:40   so if if tesla's finally getting over that getting over it and accepting that people want carplay

00:50:45   great bring it on it's interesting because like one of the reasons that it said that they will do

00:50:52   things like this is because elon has this like just truly insane compensation package available to him

00:51:01   for increasing tesla sales so i do wonder like maybe there might be a an incentive for them to not put it

00:51:09   in every tesla right that like maybe a certain age you might want to get a new one to get it but i don't

00:51:17   know we'll see i don't know i don't know i feel like they're in such dire straits right now that

00:51:21   they're throwing things at the wall but um this is absolutely one of them right like to just all of

00:51:26   a sudden just be like oh we use carplay now like that is a very strange move if you take away the

00:51:31   context of their flailing as a car maker right now yeah but i but then again i think it's the right

00:51:38   thing to do i mean when the rivian ceo came out and was like asked about carplay and he was like

00:51:43   right like lots of nonsense to basically say we just we spent a lot of money on software we don't

00:51:49   want to let anybody's software into our device and it's like well that's too bad their phone is with

00:51:54   them you just need to get over it and let people choose what they want to do and if you make a better

00:52:01   system they'll use your system and and so so i i you know and general motors is a very similar way

00:52:08   where they're like oh no no no our our system is so great um and i i will admit that this is also

00:52:14   an ios user problem because i believe a lot of these android auto based ones not rivian but like

00:52:20   the what gm's doing like that that's gonna you can you can actually load things from the play store in

00:52:25   there right like but if you're using a uh an ios only app you are out of luck and if you're used to

00:52:31   carplay you you're gonna be like well why would i not keep using carplay and that so so it's a good

00:52:38   i think it's a net positive um regardless when any company says we will let users choose a better way

00:52:46   of navigating their phones information when they're in our car like um that's it's better it makes for

00:52:52   better rental cars too i'll i'll say because it's really nice when i get in a rental car and there's carplay

00:52:57   so the the one you just mentioned about is that is it android automotive rather than android auto

00:53:04   yes android automotive my understanding is that android automotive still has app compatibility yes

00:53:09   with play store apps with android apps and uh i got a good email from a previous uh guest on the show

00:53:18   sam abu el-sameed who pointed out that like the android story in terms of software is actually pretty good

00:53:24   with those systems but it doesn't help if you use overcast right yeah correct

00:53:28   uh nine to five mac has collected a selection of reports sets the groundwork what we can expect from

00:53:36   the iphone 18 pro later on this year uh more colors currently the rumors are circling around brown

00:53:43   purple and burgundy these are not exciting to me compared to my orange that i have right now um brown

00:53:51   never will never die like as a as a as a rumor as like a rumored color like brown has been suggested

00:53:58   as an iphone color for a very long time now and it ends up usually being something else

00:54:03   like desert titanium desert titanium yep yep yep yep yeah i like brown will never die i think is uh

00:54:11   put somebody put that on someone's tombstone i don't want brown and burgundy and purple

00:54:17   like those they're too much of in the same area for me those colors like putting all three of them

00:54:23   together i know they did seem very samey i don't know if it's clear whether those are colors being

00:54:28   tested or whether those are supposedly the colors of the next round but it does seem that they all seem

00:54:35   a little bit much right like it's like it's like a burgundy and like a plum and then brown

00:54:43   yeah i'm not sure i don't know about that i'm not sure i actually had a thought i have not thought

00:54:47   about an iphone for a very long time mike which is i don't know if i'm gonna be willing to give up my

00:54:55   orange for that yeah like the orange is so good you gotta wow me with another good color

00:55:02   or well this might be the year for it though right because you'll keep your orange iphone and then get

00:55:08   the folding iphone and so you know maybe you need a regular iphone and folding iphone um the 18 pro

00:55:15   will have a smaller dynamic island but still have a dynamic island and it's been going backwards and

00:55:19   forwards and what that might be and that's that's where the consensus is right now the telephoto lens

00:55:24   will be higher quality and the main camera will get a variable aperture so i've been trying to

00:55:30   read a little bit about this today jason to understand like what is the benefit to me

00:55:34   as an as someone who doesn't understand cameras enough as an iphone user what a variable aperture

00:55:39   would get me essentially in a nutshell it will open up the ability to tune the lens to be better in

00:55:49   different lighting conditions relying less on computational photography for everything

00:55:53   so you may have one mode where it's better in bright light one mode where it's better in lower

00:55:59   light and that the depending on what the variability of the aperture would probably be between two

00:56:03   settings you could have different functions tuned for those modes so that they will perform better

00:56:11   where they needed we could see things like more realistic depth of field blur for the background

00:56:15   without needing to do portrait mode stuff this kind of thing so essentially you'll be getting more light in

00:56:21   different scenarios and it may require apple to have to lean less on some of the computer tricks that

00:56:27   they're doing i i think this is amazing like one of the things that people who care a lot about

00:56:33   photography has have have been hoping for a long time is that these phone cameras would somehow become

00:56:39   more like more sophisticated cameras and the challenge is the space right the space that these things are in so we've now got

00:56:48   that lens that allows while not an actual physical zoom allows us multiple layers of zoom up to a pretty impressive

00:57:00   zoom through that special lens if there's also a variable aperture i mean again it's just another physical camera feature and you can

00:57:12   fake a lot of this in software but um having the hardware generally makes everything better right like having having real legitimate hardware so if they're able to do this it's it's just one of these like because if you think about the proverbial infinite time scale

00:57:30   you know miniaturization and stuff you should be able to get a whole camera into a phone yeah

00:57:36   yeah eventually somehow through magic ways but let's just say it like that's kind of the end goal is as many features that are great about traditional cameras capturing light as possible

00:57:48   um it is possible because this has happened in some cases when i was on vacation i was i was taking some uh i wanted to take some more spatial stuff and i realized that um there's literally no point in taking spatial photos because the software will do it

00:58:06   um and does it just as well no and i do have that moment where i i wonder if people will look back on something like this i think striving forward is good but if in the long run we look at the variable aperture camera and say

00:58:18   oh we didn't actually need that because we were able to handle it in software but i'm you know the fact is capturing light is really um

00:58:26   tricky and so i love this idea and i think that um you and i both have talked about like sometimes it's just watch what apple introduces in their camera in the iphone like in some ways that's their most important thing is just what are they doing in the camera to make the camera better because a lot of people will buy a new iphone because it's got an amazing camera yeah and then other people will buy an iphone assuming it has an amazing camera and when they get their pictures if they're happy with them they're happy with their iphone there's a lot of you know

00:58:56   that the iphone is more of a camera than anything else and that is the expectation for this phone relay of like you know we just got the big redesign they're focusing on there being a brand new iphone again this year with the falling phone so let's make some camera improvements to the profile to make that a worthy upgrade for people that would want to do that and yep this would this has the potential to be a significant upgrade i am holding my thoughts on that because there have been times in the past where i've gotten

00:59:26   too excited about big upgrades to the iphone camera and they they don't pan out immediately well i would say some of them just pan out over time so like the increase to the megapixel count like the 48 megapixel sensor that has become more beneficial over the years than the initial year that they did it because they've done the like the the binning and all that kind of stuff to make the telephoto better and but that took multiple years of

00:59:55   them having the larger sensor technology to get to where we are now where that is actually much better for me as a user so they they may do what they have done in the past like you mentioned like put a variable aperture camera in and spend a you know spend a year with it on their side from their perspective and think of all these ways they can improve it right and and that happens a lot where you're like year one you're like oh they got this thing it's okay and then year two they're like oh yeah we completely

01:00:25   rethought how we thought how we it works and it works with software and that software doesn't go back to the previous model because it's different and sorry now you need to get this version they do that sometimes photographic styles is one yeah that's life on the cutting edge sometimes yep yep uh this phone will feature a c2 modem um so this is we're gonna go all all new generation all apple this time uh more efficient and may feature 5g via satellite connection this is the the rumored update for this so you'd be

01:00:55   be able to continue to be able to continue using your phone where you are not getting cell reception and also slightly bigger battery yeah there's some t-mobile and starlink i think have some 5g satellite thing now okay but this is a trend right is is you're seeing more bands of more radio bands which for these various services gives you more ability to get a data connection via satellite

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01:02:55   this show and all of Relay. I've got some Apple TV news. A couple of stories that caught my eye.

01:03:02   This one is the most interesting though. Apple has acquired the rights to severance. This is reported

01:03:08   by Deadline. So severance was being produced and was also owned by the production company Fifth Season.

01:03:16   So Ben Stiller, this is not Ben Stiller's production company. This is something that I thought about,

01:03:22   but it's not. Think about it this way, just to back up for people. Like, Ted Lasso is Warner Brothers.

01:03:29   Yes.

01:03:30   Right? Like, it's not, it's made for Apple TV by Warner Brothers. For All Mankind is made for Apple TV by

01:03:39   Sony, I want to say.

01:03:41   It is Sony, yeah.

01:03:42   So the challenge, so, and this is how you do it, right? Apple, Apple's involved and they do it for

01:03:49   other streamers and networks and stuff. This is a thing that happens. It used to happen all the time.

01:03:53   It happens a little less now where, you know, NBC Universal makes most of its content for itself.

01:03:57   But, um, but, but sometimes they make for others and Sony makes for everybody. That's their job.

01:04:04   And, um, Warner Brothers is a good example where, you know, they don't, they don't have broadcast,

01:04:09   but they've got HBO Max, but they make Ted Lasso for Apple. So, so Apple is now, there's some stuff

01:04:15   that Apple is making itself for itself. Um, and what's happened here is that Apple has basically

01:04:21   bought severance. Apple now owns severance. And instead of it being some other company where

01:04:27   the rights will expire and then they can shop it elsewhere. Now Apple owns it, you know, part and

01:04:32   parcel, all of severance is owned by Apple, um, which gives them like long-term investment in it

01:04:40   if they want to. The reason seems to be that, um, fifth seasons, the company, the fifth season,

01:04:46   the company that produces it, um, had a lot of budget overruns. And that, that is a risk that

01:04:52   studios take is that they, they're, they get the money that they're spending from Apple, uh, and then

01:04:57   they're building the product and then that you hope to make it back, but they ran into

01:05:00   financial trouble. It's ascribed at least a little bit to the second season, especially

01:05:04   running over budget and, uh, and doing reshoots and, and taking more time and all of these things.

01:05:09   And then the third season has also been delayed. So like there is continuing to occur.

01:05:14   Right. And they were having money trouble and they actually apparently reportedly came to

01:05:19   Apple and said, can we get an advance basically? Cause we were having cashflow problems.

01:05:24   And Apple said, why don't we buy you out? Yeah. Right. And then you get a lot of money

01:05:30   and you will still be a producer on the show and you will still produce the show, but you'll

01:05:36   be producing it for us. And Apple studios will be the owner and operator of severance and you

01:05:44   know, the entire severance intellectual property going forward. So that's, that's what they did.

01:05:50   So this is also similar to a deal that I don't know if I knew about, or maybe I forgot that they

01:05:57   did for silo. So AMC studios made season one and then Apple acquired the rights to the silo TV show

01:06:06   from AMC studios and made it an Apple studios show, which is now what severance will be. It will be an

01:06:12   Apple studio show. And over time, Apple is trying to make more Apple studios shows. Like, so things

01:06:21   that they own, it's like Ben Stiller is working on something for Apple and it will be an Apple

01:06:26   studios production. Um, as opposed to, you know, like Warner brothers, we mentioned Warner brothers

01:06:32   also do shrinking, right? Which by the way, shrinking is just unbelievable. It's so good.

01:06:38   And I've, I've seen a few episodes ahead and me too. And it's astounding. This season is

01:06:44   incredible. Um, I don't know how they're continuing to do it at the level that they're doing it.

01:06:49   Also, I'll say Raiders of the lost Ark references and star Wars references in relation to Harrison

01:06:54   Ford. Yes. Apparently what is going on with that? Okay. My theory is that he had lived that

01:06:59   and I don't know why you would have made that decision. He's does Harrison Ford know the

01:07:04   Indiana Jones music or not? I don't know. Michael J J.

01:07:08   I was going to say Michael Scott, Michael J Fox, Michael J Fox in this show is just amazing.

01:07:16   And like makes me want to cry every time I see him. I just think the man is amazing. And I love

01:07:21   that he's done this. Uh, shrinking is so special. I think I saw a quote recently that Harrison Ford

01:07:26   said if this was his last thing, he would be happy with that. Yeah. That he felt fulfilled. I think part

01:07:30   of it is being on a, uh, being in one of these hangout comedies with a bunch of people who are all just

01:07:35   sort of like, uh, characters that have issues, but they're also fun and they're connected and all

01:07:40   that. I think it's an experience that he's never really had because it's extended, right? He goes

01:07:45   back there for the next season and the next season. And they all seem to like a lot of shows, everyone

01:07:50   seems to really get on well. Like you see it like outside of the show. And it seems like it's meaningful

01:07:55   to him too. Like his character is, is dealing with, if not, um, a death sentence, it's sort of like

01:08:01   dealing with the end of a lot of the things that he considers part of his life. And so it's really

01:08:08   meaty material for him as an actor, but also it seems like he's having just a lot of fun

01:08:13   with the group of people who make it. And that's, I loved, I just love to see it cause he's one of our

01:08:18   great actors. So to see him having a good time and saying that this is such a positive experience for

01:08:22   him. And it is such a good show. Such a good show. Also Jeff Daniels as like, uh, as, as the father

01:08:30   of Jason Segel is incredible. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, um, that's a Warner brothers show. Yeah. Um, like

01:08:38   because, because, uh, basically Bill Lawrence, who's the showrunner of that and who also was one of the

01:08:44   showrunners at the start of Ted Lasso has a deal with Warner brothers. So they did through Warner

01:08:48   brothers. Um, it's also why the new scrubs relaunch is not, uh, he's not as heavily involved with

01:08:54   because that's not at Warner brothers. So it's a, and he's got other shows going on and he's got that

01:09:00   deal with Warner brothers anyway, Apple. Yeah. I mean, in general, there's some vertical alignment

01:09:05   that happens here where if you're making a show for HBO max, you know, they Warner brothers would

01:09:10   prefer to make that show because it's their show and it's their streamer. Netflix makes shows for

01:09:15   Netflix, but they also get shows from other people. Like it's not a hard, fast rule, but this is a case

01:09:20   where I think Apple is happy to spend some money sometimes, especially on these successful franchises

01:09:28   because they're going to have to keep Ted Lasso is so successful and that's, that's, uh, what Warner

01:09:32   brothers, they're going to keep having to renegotiate with Warner brothers about Ted Lasso forever

01:09:38   because Warner brothers owns Ted Lasso. So, um, that's, that's going to be an interesting

01:09:44   challenge for them. But like, uh, but severance, obviously it's a huge hit. They love it. The

01:09:49   producer was having trouble and, and I think Apple would prefer to produce more from Apple

01:09:54   films, Apple studios. So why would they not just say, we'll just take it on? So they did

01:10:00   and, and expanded severance universe, right? Like it's going to run for at least four seasons

01:10:05   and there may be prequel spinoffs and more. I don't know what I feel about that. Other than that

01:10:09   the show has been so good up to now that if they have other weird severance related things they want

01:10:15   to do, I'm not opposed to hearing about it if it's good. Right. I think it makes perfect sense

01:10:22   to do and to do prequels. Cause this is a show where the lore is so deep that you can do things.

01:10:32   Like how did it start? Are there other people? There could be a whole other team of people

01:10:38   somewhere else, you know, like why is it just these four people? They're not the only ones,

01:10:42   right? Like there is a lot that they could do and the universe is very interesting. So I think you

01:10:47   could see prequels and spinoffs and sequels and all kinds of stuff. Like it is a, I feel like a

01:10:53   pretty rich world that could be tapped into. I guess one of my hesitations is just that I feel like

01:10:58   there's lots of things in the severance world that we don't know. Right. We don't know they've

01:11:04   withheld some things about what this world is like. I, um, although I'll give you, I'll give you a short

01:11:10   version of my, my pitch here, which is in season one, we met the woman who was the wife of the

01:11:16   congressman who had a baby while severed. Yep. And I thought, okay, there is an interesting like

01:11:26   window into what this world might be like, where you could have some other interesting stories in

01:11:33   this very weird, almost dystopian world. Um, like that. I thought about the TV show, the prisoner,

01:11:41   which is a little bit like this, the idea of like, what else could you do with people who were

01:11:45   who'd had no awareness of other parts of their world? I think there's some interesting, you,

01:11:51   you don't want to have it be too much samey, but like there's a whole world out there to explore.

01:11:57   And the, the, the presence of this weird company, uh, as a major tech company in a way, right? Lumen.

01:12:04   Um, that's interesting. I could also see, I mean, I guess my pitch that I'm, I'm getting at here is

01:12:11   I could very easily see an anthology series a little bit like, um, the one-off episodes and

01:12:17   then ultimately the one-off series that Mythic Quest did where you tell weird stories,

01:12:24   Twilight Zone-esque stories in the Severance universe might be a fun thing to do.

01:12:30   Yep. Uh, F1 producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed to the BBC that they are working on a sequel for the

01:12:37   movie for Apple TV, which not a surprise. Uh, but here we are. Um, as of right now, there does not

01:12:45   appear to be any other movie from Apple TV that's coming to theaters. Yeah. Yeah. There's Super Bowl

01:12:50   ad, right? Was all things that are not announced to be going to theaters, even though they're high

01:12:54   profile people. Yep. Like Keanu Reeves, John Cena, Jessica Biel, Chris Pat, Ryan Reynolds,

01:12:59   Kenneth Branagh, and there's even a Spielberg and Scorsese produced movie. These are all stuff. They

01:13:04   just had like, it's a big media day where they announced stuff coming this year. And so they

01:13:08   have all of that and none of it seems to be going to cinemas. I don't know what that says, but

01:13:13   there we go. And we have some breaking news, Jason. Oh yes. Literally happening while we're

01:13:20   recording. So 26.4 is shipping. Don't know what's in there yet in full. We'll, we'll find out. But

01:13:26   this is actually kind of follow up from something we were talking about in the past. Apple is going

01:13:30   to be bringing some updates to Apple podcasts that will bring enhanced video podcast capabilities to

01:13:36   the app. So like Spotify, you'll be able to switch between audio and video at the same time. Apple is

01:13:42   working with, uh, audio and video hosting platforms. They've announced a bunch that they're

01:13:49   working with immediately. Uh, those that support HLS video is a technology, uh, additional providers

01:13:58   to join in the future. And I think it seems like one of the reasons that they're partnering with

01:14:02   companies specifically is they are also touting the ability for podcasters to put, um, dynamic video

01:14:10   ads in the content. And so this would have to be done from a hosting providers, uh, uh,

01:14:19   back end to be able to allow them to do that. Apple will charge participating ad networks and

01:14:26   impressions based fee for the delivery of dynamic ads and HLS video on Apple podcasts.

01:14:32   Okay. Huh. Huh. So they want a piece of the dynamically inserted video advertising there. We're going to

01:14:42   have to, we're going to have to digest this one.

01:14:44   Yeah. Cause also there's, there's so little information about that.

01:14:47   Yeah. My concern, because generally when Apple makes an announcement like this,

01:14:51   when I get the detail, I have a million questions about the details. And the answer is usually that

01:14:55   it's as simple as they announced it. And that the details that I hope would be different are not,

01:14:59   um, my, because our, we've answered this before, but also we do a YouTube version of the podcast.

01:15:05   Um, and it's not on Spotify and there's two reasons it's not on Spotify. Like one reason is video

01:15:13   serving is an issue. Now Spotify, I think hosts the bandwidth themselves so you could do it. Apple here

01:15:19   is not. So you have to pay somebody to host that video. But the bigger issue is that we do an audio

01:15:25   editor of the podcast that's detailed and a video editor of the podcast that's not detailed. And

01:15:30   Spotify, if you do an, uh, a video version of your podcast, the audio version is just the audio of the

01:15:38   video version. And that would require a complete revamp of how we edit our podcast that I would say is

01:15:46   unlikely, but, um, we'll see. We'll wait for the details.

01:15:52   Yeah. I mean, like this is why, like in the Quotex series that I've been doing, I'm recording video of

01:15:57   all of the conversations. And so in theory I could do a video version of the show, but I edit that show

01:16:03   so much. Yeah. It just wouldn't work to do a video. So like the idea of switching between the two would

01:16:09   be nightmarish. Well, you'd have, you'd have to do what Erica does. Um, my friend Erica for total

01:16:13   party kill, which is she edits both audio and video simultaneously in a video editor. And then Jen. And so

01:16:20   then the audio and video versions are identical. Well, but the problem is with the, the way in which

01:16:25   cortex is edited would make it unwatchable in video. I know, I know because it's detail edited. So

01:16:31   everything's, everything's jumping around way too many cuts. So you just have to sacrifice it. But the

01:16:36   thing is most podcasts that have video don't edit as, as good. They just don't. Yeah. And so

01:16:44   we make a completely separate edit for this reason. So the, our video is not as well edited as our audio

01:16:51   because it, you just can't make that work in the same way. Our goal. And you know, our video editor,

01:16:59   Jamie does a great job, but like, we're, we're just asking her to do the big picture stuff of like,

01:17:03   if we had to do a redo, there's something to cut out. Um, we ask her to do all of that. Um, Jim

01:17:10   is going in and removing overtalk and all this stuff that would, would, you know, triple Jamie's

01:17:15   job if she had to do that. And we're willing to just sort of say, okay, the video version's a little

01:17:20   rougher in terms of audio, but you get to see us and you get to choose. So if, uh, and the challenge

01:17:25   is Apple says, this is going to be like Spotify and that you can just toggle between the two versions

01:17:29   and our time codes don't track. So that wouldn't work. So we'll, we'll see. Um, video isn't, I mean,

01:17:36   I would love to get more people watching our video who want to see it and maybe there are other

01:17:41   ways to do it. Maybe we just, you know, use a path like this to offer a video version that's separate

01:17:46   from the audio version and people can choose. Uh, but for now it's just YouTube and it's a good place

01:17:52   to start. And we'll, we'll keep watching. Cause this is definitely look video podcast is a thing,

01:17:58   right? Like this is a huge trend and I want to be aware of it while also not changing the fact that

01:18:06   the vast majority of people who consume upgrade are doing it in its audio version. And that's the

01:18:12   primary version. And I always want it to be, I want to be respectful to those people over everything

01:18:17   else that we do. So that's the primary. That's number one is make the audio version good.

01:18:21   all of this to say, like taking ourselves out of this conversation, finally, like this was the

01:18:28   conversation. Me and you had this conversation months ago. We did. Apple needs to be in this

01:18:34   market because that they're going to lose ground. Now they're doing it in a way, which again, as you

01:18:40   say, the questions, right? Like this is going to be an additional cost to producers. And Apple's also

01:18:48   going to take some money in some scenarios, of course, but if you are producing a very popular

01:18:56   podcast and you have a video version, why would you not just opt into this? This just makes a lot of

01:19:02   sense. Um, so I'm pleased to see it. Yeah, totally makes sense. And they're already doing it on Spotify.

01:19:07   So this gets them on Apple podcasts too, which is absolutely what they're trying to do. Apple, I should

01:19:11   say Apple does support video podcasts and has since the beginning, but they're the traditional,

01:19:15   like RSS feed and a file that gets downloaded. And this is a, uh, this is streaming. Yep. So you're

01:19:23   basically, um, when you choose to watch it, it's streaming the video on the fly, which actually does

01:19:29   reduce bandwidth, which is good. Um, but it's a different approach than what Apple has done up to

01:19:36   now where it's, they've been using the MP3 approach where you just download the whole video file and it

01:19:41   sits there. Uh, I, I really love that they've gone to the lengths that they are going to just so they

01:19:48   don't have to host the video. Yeah. Like they're so consistent for them. Huge levels of work and

01:19:55   partnerships just so they don't have to start hosting video. Yeah. I find that hilarious. Yeah. That

01:20:01   sounds like them. This episode is brought to you by Fundera powered by NerdWallet. Running a small

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01:22:08   this show and all of Relay. Let's finish out with some curling ask upgrade.

01:22:16   Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry hard! Go! Yeah, line! Go! Hurry!

01:22:21   I was calling out some sweeping there, Mike.

01:22:26   I'm sure that that means something to people, and maybe it will mean something to me, buddy.

01:22:32   We'll start there. So line calls. So if you're the skip, you're standing at the far end. You're 110

01:22:37   feet away. You're a basketball court length away. It's far.

01:22:40   Okay.

01:22:41   You have to shout, and there's lots of other people making noises hard. So you do hand gestures

01:22:45   sometimes, and you put down the broom. And basically, you're calling the shot because it's strategic.

01:22:49   There's a lot of strategy in curling. And you put the target down, and that's what they're throwing to

01:22:55   from the far end. They throw the rock. And then as the skip, you stand there, and you're looking,

01:23:01   and you're seeing, is it inside or outside, right? Like, did they hit the target or not?

01:23:04   And then you get a sense, especially from your sweepers, because the two sweepers are following

01:23:08   the rock down the ice. How fast is it? How slow is it? Because let's say I wanted to get to the

01:23:14   button, to the T-line, which is in the middle of the target, halfway between the front and the back,

01:23:20   the button is right dead center. And they say to me, it's looking like there are numbers to

01:23:27   determine how deep it's going to go. So let's say it's like four or five, which is like top of the

01:23:32   house, not to the T-line. I will then say, yeah, and we try to leave it to very simple sounds that can

01:23:41   be heard over the din. So like, no, we do off for stop and yeah, for start to go. And I'll have

01:23:50   them start sweeping because I want it to go deeper and sweeping makes it go further. So if

01:23:55   it's coming to the top of the house, I'll, I'll start yelling so they can hear me to sweep it so

01:24:00   that it'll go, uh, it'll go deeper. Or if it looks like it's a little inside and it might hit a guard

01:24:06   and not get in, I might say, yeah, line, because I want the person closest to the stone, especially to

01:24:12   start sweeping because that if that person sweeps, it holds, it makes it less likely to curl. It will hold

01:24:18   the line. And so if I'm worried that it's going to curl too much and hit the guard, if I have them

01:24:23   sweep it, I'm trying to get them to hold it straight. If it's way outside, I may say curl and have the

01:24:30   person who is on the other side of the rock, uh, further away, start sweeping, uh, because that, that

01:24:37   direction of sweeping will increase the curl to get it to move more. Cause I needed to come further

01:24:44   inside. And that's why there's all the shouting and curling is because once you release the stone,

01:24:49   you can't make it slower, but you can make it go further. You can make it straighter, or you can make

01:24:55   it move more all through the actions of those two or one. If there's one person out there, they have to

01:25:00   like flip around from side to side in order to get the sweep you want. So that's what the yelling is all

01:25:04   about. And now, you know what I was shouting earlier in this episode, maybe, uh, I have a

01:25:10   question that came in from Gareth and one from David. Gareth's question is, what does Jason make of the

01:25:15   Canadian cheating scandal in the curling? I've gone from barely remembering curling exists to outrage in

01:25:21   about a week, thanks to upgrade and social media. And David says, why is double touching such a big deal?

01:25:27   Does Jason watch for that in his matches? Okay. So there was a scandal sort of, there was a,

01:25:33   there was a controversy and it's about Canadian players releasing the stone and then touching the

01:25:38   stone. And the rule is you can release, you can touch the handle more than once before it gets to

01:25:45   the hog line, which is when you have to have it have let go. Um, what you can't do is touch outside the

01:25:53   handle a second time. And, um, they were touching and then they had a weird release where they were

01:25:58   touching, they sort of let go and then let their hand drop and it was rubbing against or kind of

01:26:04   booping the back of the granite of the stone. This is, this is not legal. However,

01:26:09   illegal booping it is. It's boop gate. Um, however, it's not cheating. It's like a, it's like a rules

01:26:18   violation. First off, there's no benefit to it at all. It's literally that they've got, I think a quirky,

01:26:24   messy delivery that they've never been called on because it's totally irrelevant and nobody cares.

01:26:30   And I think the Swedes did a little bit of gamesmanship and called them on it in order to

01:26:35   fluster them. Um, they, they, and the, and the way it works in curling is you police yourself.

01:26:42   So if you realize that you've double touched, this happened to me the other day. I, I, um,

01:26:46   I was sweeping near the stone and my teammates swept their broom into mine and my broom hit the stone

01:26:55   while it was going down the ice and we just took it out of play and we, there's no referee. We just

01:27:01   take it out of play and that's how you're supposed to do it. However, I don't think the Canadians even

01:27:05   know that they're doing it. They were so opposed to the idea that they did it. They said, it's totally

01:27:09   unfair. They didn't do it. I think they just don't even notice because it's just this weird, it's how

01:27:14   their delivery works. And they're certainly not imparting anything of value to it in terms of

01:27:19   gamesmanship. It's not about, they're not cheating to win. They, they have technically violated a rule.

01:27:26   Um, Lauren say, has said to me that she thinks it's like a foot fault in, in, uh, in tennis. It's like,

01:27:34   if you're over the line, when you serve, it doesn't count. Not, you're not like cheating.

01:27:40   You just step too far. And it's kind of like that. So anyway, it all got overblown because first off,

01:27:47   it's curling and people are kind of interested in curling and curious about curling during the

01:27:50   winter Olympics. Also because one of the men on the Canadian team cursed at the Swede who had

01:27:55   called them on it. I would say he lost it. He lost it. He was like pointed. This is supposed to be a

01:28:01   friendly, that was not, I'll put it this way. That was not in the spirit of curling. No, no. It seemed

01:28:07   very anti-curling and, you know, I'm going to use a stereotype here, anti-Canadian. Well, I mean,

01:28:13   you get Canadians riled and things like this will happen. He was, he was waiting for a

01:28:17   scrap. Everybody knows who's watched Letterkenny knows that. So, um, so it's kind of a tempest in

01:28:22   a teapot. I think, um, I think there was some gamesmanship involved where the Swedes have been

01:28:28   like, you know, they touch it again. We could bring that up and let's save it for the Olympics and like

01:28:32   get them off their game and all of that. I, I think nobody covered themselves in glory here,

01:28:37   honestly, because I do think that the Swedes, it was totally unnecessary and they did it because

01:28:43   I think they wanted to make trouble. Um, and then the Canadians reacted badly to it.

01:28:48   I watched the, the, there was a, the woman, uh, play team skip Rachel Homan, who we mentioned on

01:28:53   upgrade. Um, she, so after this complaint came in, they started having officials monitor the sheets,

01:28:59   but they don't even have enough officials to monitor all the sheets all the time because this

01:29:03   is a self-policing game, but world curling did have people kind of spot check deliveries and they

01:29:08   pulled one of her stones out, uh, one of Rachel Homan stones out in the game and she lost it.

01:29:14   And she said a hundred percent, there's no way. And her teammates were like, no way.

01:29:17   And then you look at her delivery and she lets go of the stone and her finger comes down and her

01:29:22   finger absolutely touches the top and probably the side of the stone. So they don't even know they're

01:29:28   doing it and it doesn't impart any value.

01:29:31   Everyone's cheating. Everyone, everyone's giving them pushes.

01:29:35   I just think they have, and because it's all Canada, I actually think it's maybe that they've

01:29:40   all settled on a, a release of the stone during their delivery that drops their hand and their

01:29:49   fingers right down the back of the stone when they're not being as, um, as careful as they should

01:29:56   be, which they are absolutely going to be now. Um, so to answer David's question, why is double

01:30:00   touching such a big deal? It's not, this is a, this is a totally irrelevant controversy that is just,

01:30:06   it's mostly fun because that one Canadian player totally lost it and yelled at the Swedish player.

01:30:11   This is great for curling though.

01:30:14   It is, it is, it is, no, it is, it is amazing. We're answering, I have so many people asking me

01:30:20   these questions, uh, and, and I love it. I love it. I'll also say that one of the things that the

01:30:26   Canadians lost them about is that if we talk about this being kind of a friendly, good sportsmanship

01:30:31   kind of thing, one, when the Canadians were losing it, one of the things they pointed out is, you know,

01:30:37   I had a shot and you were moving around behind me on the other side and, and technically you're

01:30:43   supposed to get out of their way, right? Like you're there, there are lots of things that are

01:30:47   technically against the rules or against the etiquette that nobody cares about. And so what

01:30:53   he was saying is I could have complained that you were behind me when behind my target, when I was

01:30:58   shooting, moving around. I, and I didn't complain about that, but you complain about this. So it's very

01:31:04   silly, uh, is what I'm saying, but, uh, it's great for curling. Um, we have people showing up at our

01:31:10   club, asking if they can do it, just, uh, just showing up, literally just driving in and saying,

01:31:16   Hey, there curling people. Uh, are we on Friday night, we were at our league on two of the sheets

01:31:22   and there were probably 50 or 60 people in the other three sheets doing lessons. And similarly on Sunday,

01:31:29   there were probably 40 or 50 people Sunday morning. They're doing lessons, um, wild scenes.

01:31:35   So, uh, it's great for curling and, uh, the U S being in contention and having won a, a medal in

01:31:41   doubles that's helped it too. And this is our big boost that we get for the year. So bring on the

01:31:46   controversy, I guess, but I'm just telling you as a, as an insider, it's actually kind of nothing.

01:31:50   It doesn't mean anything other than a Canadian got really angry and he shouldn't have. That was

01:31:54   against the spirit of curling. Sam says, I'm a curling fan from the South of England. And I've

01:32:00   recently discovered that of the three curling clubs in England, one is close enough for me to visit

01:32:05   in honor of the winter Olympics. They're running beginners courses. So as of March, I'm going to

01:32:10   be a curler, just like Jason, just like me. What recommendations do you have for a beginner curler,

01:32:15   whether it's things to do or buy before I go for the first time? Thank you for saying this,

01:32:21   Sam. Um, here's, what's great about curling is you don't need to bring anything.

01:32:27   Wear a comfortable pair of shoes. That's it. Because although there is curling equipment,

01:32:33   your curling club will have a broom for you to use and your curling club will have a slider,

01:32:38   which is basically a Teflon. It's Teflon on one side and, and grippy on the other, the shape of a foot

01:32:44   and you stand on it when you deliver and it allows you to slide down the ice. Once you start curling

01:32:50   more regularly, you buy a broom, you buy curling shoes, which have the Teflon on them. So you

01:32:55   take off your gripper and the, and you can slide down the ice and then put your gripper back on,

01:33:00   but you don't need any of that to start. You can just start with the equipment that they have there

01:33:04   for beginners and you can play for a while with no outlay at all, which I think is great. I think

01:33:10   that is a thing that puts it above maybe like golf where you need some stuff to begin with.

01:33:15   Right. I mean, even when you start getting into curling, there's only so much you can buy really.

01:33:22   I mean, you buy a broom and you can buy shoes and I mean, I, I maybe, I mean, bring a jacket

01:33:28   because it's cold on the ice, right? Like bring a jacket, but, um, but otherwise, uh, you can just go

01:33:36   and try it out. And that's the beauty of it. And I'd also say it's a very welcoming sport. Um,

01:33:41   there's wheelchair curling. Um, if you don't want to squat down, there's stick curling.

01:33:45   These are all perfectly valid. So curling with a stick, you stand behind the hack and the rock is

01:33:51   on a stick and you push it down and then let it go. And that's a completely valid way of, of delivering.

01:33:57   So, um, so if you're worried about the physical aspect of it, I'll also say it's not particularly

01:34:02   physically stressful. You have to squat a little bit and push out and you might feel be a little

01:34:06   sore the next day, but I, I, I, you know, I don't think it's, it's a, there's not a lot of barriers

01:34:12   to trying curling. And by the, I mean, the beauty of it is, I think like a lot of these similar sports

01:34:18   like golf, um, it's fairly easy to learn it and then a lifetime to master it to the point where I,

01:34:26   I mean, I see Olympians missing Olympia Olympians throw things through the house and, and they don't

01:34:31   stay. Um, I was playing Sunday with a really good player in our, at our club who was, um, subbing for

01:34:38   one of our teammates who's actually in Italy right now and going to the Olympics. Um, and, uh, he's so

01:34:47   good. He's so much better than us. And he missed a bunch of shots like that. It's just, so that's the

01:34:52   beauty of it is you can learn it and you can play it. You can get the rock to the other side and you

01:34:56   can start playing games and having fun. And then it's just a matter of getting better. If you want

01:35:01   to get better practicing or, or, or playing more to get better after four years, we are appreciably

01:35:07   better than we were four years ago. We're not good, right? Like that is going even twice a week. It's

01:35:15   not enough for us to be what I would say is good. The good players at our club are there all the time

01:35:19   and practicing and stuff like that, but you don't have to be, you don't have to be at that

01:35:22   level. You're just going to have a good time and we do. So I would say just try it. If any of you

01:35:27   are curious, try it. I tried to get, uh, our friend James to, there's a lot of curling in Scotland,

01:35:32   uh, but I haven't managed to get James out of the house to do some curling. He would like it, I think.

01:35:36   Um, you said just comfortable shoes. You don't need specific shoes for curling. So you don't slip.

01:35:44   No. Um, if you, if you've got sneakers, um, you, you just walk, you just wear those on the ice that

01:35:50   they want to clean. No, you got to be careful. Okay. But, but I mean, you're not, yeah, you don't

01:35:59   want to run. You don't run. You walk carefully, but it's, you got the, you got to, if you've got

01:36:05   sneakers, um, you can walk on the ice and it's fine. They, we, we, you step on sticky stuff as you

01:36:11   enter to get all the dirt off of them that you don't want to track onto the ice, but yeah,

01:36:15   you can just, you can just walk. And then when you need to slide, you've got the little slider

01:36:18   to do it in your delivery. The rest of the time you just walk on the ice. You got to be careful.

01:36:22   People do slip and fall, but it's mostly people who are sweeping, uh, vigorously and kind of step

01:36:30   wrong, or it's, uh, people who are not paying attention. Like one of the things that I realized

01:36:34   that I do is I get to the edge of the ice and then I stop and then I step one foot onto the ice

01:36:39   and then the other, because that's the thing that'll happen is you'll, you'll carry your momentum

01:36:42   from the boards onto the ice and you'll put your foot down and it'll kind of slide a little bit.

01:36:47   And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to do that. You want to,

01:36:49   but you don't need special shoes. You just need basically a pair of sneakers.

01:36:53   Charles says, I'm currently watching mixed doubles at the Olympics. And there are a few

01:36:57   things that aren't cleared to me. Steering the rock. From what I can tell, the amount of spin

01:37:02   put on the rock helps determine how much the rock curls or breaks. Does sweeping influence the curl

01:37:08   too, or is the sweeping just for speed control? Uh, well, I said so at the top. So, so, um, you,

01:37:15   you, you turn the stone, uh, in or out when you release it and that spin is going to be the direction

01:37:21   that it ultimately goes. It, when it's going fast, it doesn't move as much. So what you'll see is that

01:37:27   it starts out and it's pretty straight. And then as it slows, it starts to break right or left based

01:37:32   on the spin. Um, and then, uh, like I said, if you're sweeping on one side, you're sweeping for

01:37:38   straightness. It will try to hold it. Although there's only so much you can do, but you can try

01:37:42   to hold it straight. If you sweep it, that's the direction against the spin. If you're sweeping the

01:37:48   direction of the spin, you are going to encourage curl and it's going to move ideally further. Um,

01:37:55   but generally when you're sweeping and both people are sweeping and you're seeing that what

01:37:58   they're trying to do is just make it go further. Cause they think it's a little lighter. They think

01:38:02   it's going to come to the top of the house, but they want it to go into the house or they think

01:38:05   it's not going to get across the hog line and not count. And you want it to be a guard. So you want

01:38:09   it to go across and then stay and then guard the house. And the house is like the target, right?

01:38:13   The target. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's the, the button, which is in the center. And then

01:38:17   it's the four foot ring, uh, eight foot ring and a 12 foot ring. And that, and that, and there's no value.

01:38:22   The rings are there for you to gauge who's closest, which I think is another question.

01:38:26   Uh, that, did that get deleted about how scoring works? Yes. I'll, I'll just, I'll do a really

01:38:34   quick version. The rings are just there to tell you how far all the rocks are away from the center

01:38:38   because the way scoring works is just who's got the rock closest to the center.

01:38:43   That was Megan's question. I thought that they might take too long to explain.

01:38:46   Right. Right. No, it's not, it's not about it. It's whose rock is closest to the center. So if the red

01:38:51   rock is closer to the center, red gets one point. Uh, but then, then it's whose rock is second closest to

01:38:56   the center. If you have three rocks in the, at the four foot and the button, and then your competitor's

01:39:07   closest rock is in the eight foot, you get three points because you've got the three closest rocks.

01:39:12   And that's all it is, is at the end, after everything is thrown, who's, what color has the

01:39:18   rock closest to the center and how many of them are close before there's another color. So if the other

01:39:24   color is not in there at all, cause you've knocked them all out or they've missed and you've got five in

01:39:29   the house, you get five. That's very hard to do. It's usually one or two, but that's how you do it.

01:39:34   Charles also asked ice quality. The announcers keep talking about how the ice at the Olympic venue

01:39:41   isn't great. What makes ice good or bad? It's really hard. Curling ice is very specific. I think,

01:39:47   I'm not even sure if it's not great. It's just that it's new. They just put it in and there's a lot of

01:39:52   tweaking that happens with ice. Um, what I'll say is that it's very different from figure skating or

01:39:58   hockey ice, which is why it's hard to do curling at an arena that shares its space with figure skating

01:40:03   or hockey. Cause, uh, the, the ice gets carved up by ice skates and we just wear shoes. We, we, we,

01:40:10   you want it to be like really perfectly flat. And then somebody comes in and sprays, um, basically,

01:40:15   um, it's called pebble. It's basically little water droplets all across it that freeze instantly

01:40:22   into little bumps. And then you run a thing called a nipper over it that kind of shaves off the top of the

01:40:27   bumps. So you end up with this kind of like pebbled textured surface that is good for sliding the rocks

01:40:34   on it. So what happened in, in Cortina is it sounds like everything was running a little fast. So the

01:40:41   rocks were running faster than on most, uh, ice surfaces, unclear whether that's the rocks or the

01:40:46   ice actually, and that it was curling a bit. So they, after a couple of days, they put sandpaper on the

01:40:51   bottom and sanded the rocks a little bit. And it sounds like what happened then is they slowed down,

01:40:55   but they also stopped curling as much. So this is stuff that gets dialed in usually in a curling venue,

01:41:00   but this is a, you know, this stadium is being used for this, but it's also used for other stuff.

01:41:05   So it's not always a, a curling venue. And so they've, they've had to kind of dial it in. It's just,

01:41:09   it's complicated. We have a whole ice crew. There's a whole formulation. We, we build up the ice every

01:41:14   fall. We melt it all every spring. Um, and then put it back again in the fall and it's many layers

01:41:21   and paint and, you know, and the decals go in for the, for the, um, the targets. It's a whole thing.

01:41:28   And then the ice maintenance, like throughout the year, they're scraping it down to get it back to flat.

01:41:32   Sometimes they do a flood where they put more water on it because they're worried that it's kind of like

01:41:36   gotten out of, uh, alignment and isn't properly flat. Um, it's tricky. It's super tricky and there's no

01:41:42   alternative, right? There's no, there's no artificial substance that can, that, uh, can match it. So you

01:41:49   have to use the ice because that's how the friction happens and how the sliding happens.

01:41:54   If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show,

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01:42:42   Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Mike Early.

01:42:52   Thank you.