00:00:00 ◼ ► from relay this is upgrade episode 611 for april 13th 2026 today's show is brought to you by century fit
00:00:17 ◼ ► bard express vpn and mercury weather my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason
00:00:23 ◼ ► snell hello mike hurley i have a snell talk question for you and it comes from darren who
00:00:30 ◼ ► wants to know as is well known jason is a fast typist but how how i'm known it's what i'm known
00:00:37 ◼ ► for you are primarily known for that how fast what is your word per minute how did you learn to type
00:00:43 ◼ ► did you do a class games or did you practice at home with some kind of transferred or similar
00:00:48 ◼ ► skill like piano or does it just come naturally oh uh so i told i've told this story a lot but uh
00:00:57 ◼ ► that's okay how fast so you found us doing a typing test live right yes and i put a link in the show
00:01:06 ◼ ► notes which should be time stamped to me and you racing each other even though i knew it was pointless
00:01:11 ◼ ► to do so uh and you clocked in 140 words per minute which was the fastest time the fastest or like the
00:01:18 ◼ ► highest amount that you clocked in in this video we did a few of these and 140 was your was your highest
00:01:24 ◼ ► yeah i i'm all over the place i usually quote 120 but i can get up to 140 yeah that was on like monkey
00:01:32 ◼ ► type or something um so fast how did i learn it uh it's funny because we're talking about our origin
00:01:39 ◼ ► stories and all those things i learned to type on a computer um not on a typewriter and i did it
00:01:47 ◼ ► because the first computer i had you know back in those days you had basic and there were magazines
00:01:54 ◼ ► computer magazines and i had one of them i got one called compute magazine and they would put basic
00:02:01 ◼ ► programs in the magazine for you to type in and if you can imagine how that works you very quickly
00:02:09 ◼ ► learn how to use your eyes to look at the page with the program on it and type with your hands not
00:02:19 ◼ ► looking at what you're typing so you learn to touch type this is how i learned it because i wanted to
00:02:24 ◼ ► enter in those programs and the most efficient way to do it was you get faster and faster but you're also
00:02:32 ◼ ► not looking at your fingers you're not hunting and pecking and those things all put together leads to
00:02:39 ◼ ► me typing fast and then it just kind of accelerated but that it was always i was typing fast pretty
00:02:44 ◼ ► early because um you know i started using a computer in what uh fifth grade when i was 10 so like pretty
00:02:52 ◼ ► early and um and i needed to be able to type that type stuff in like that and a lot of them also i'm
00:02:59 ◼ ► really good um or i used to be good i don't even use them anymore at the numeric keypad because oh yeah
00:03:04 ◼ ► uh those get a lot of those those programs had data entry fields at the end where they had a bunch
00:03:10 ◼ ► of data that you know these days you'd probably just load it off a disk but in those days it was
00:03:13 ◼ ► the data was in the program and so you'd have all these strings of numbers comma delimited and so i
00:03:18 ◼ ► really got good at like all of the little numbers um that's it i mean that was for me perfect boot camp
00:03:28 ◼ ► for learning to type fast now i taught myself so my um i think we did this at some point too if you
00:03:35 ◼ ► look at my hands on the keyboard yeah it's clearly self-taught i am not using the traditional
00:03:41 ◼ ► home position or whatever i have found whatever works for me to be most efficient yeah in the video that
00:03:47 ◼ ► i've linked you do actually show your your hands while you're typing and you can see that you have a
00:04:02 ◼ ► that's the that's the that's a story it's not games it's not practice other than entering it's home
00:04:09 ◼ ► practice in the sense of the practice of typing in computer programs from magazines is i i would say
00:04:14 ◼ ► number one on the list and then over time when i started writing essays uh for school and stuff like
00:04:20 ◼ ► that or writing short stories or whatever it was then you know you've got more and more reasons for
00:04:25 ◼ ► that and then you go online and then you're chatting with people and so you're typing really fast for
00:04:28 ◼ ► that and it just kind of like snowballed from there um i think it's funny because i complained to my piano
00:04:33 ◼ ► teacher when i was a kid about how i felt like i couldn't do um the piano because i struggled to like
00:04:39 ◼ ► get the finger placements and all of that and i think about it now and i'm like what i mean that's not
00:04:43 ◼ ► true you just didn't like doing the piano because if if we know anything we know that my fingers are
00:04:49 ◼ ► pretty good at uh at the at putting pushing keys down like come on i probably would have been pretty
00:04:56 ◼ ► good at that if i had cared about it but as a 14 year old or whatever i didn't like doing it and so
00:05:01 ◼ ► that was an excuse that i had but it was very clear that that was not the case so yeah that's my
00:05:07 ◼ ► that's my story um and as somebody who's a writer it serves me well because when i get on a roll i can
00:05:13 ◼ ► just get the thoughts out as they happen which is really nice if you would like to send in a question
00:05:19 ◼ ► for us to open a future episode of upgrade please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your snell talk
00:05:25 ◼ ► question we have some follow-up uh as expected apple executives have posted on x congratulating the
00:05:32 ◼ ► artemis astronauts for their safe return uh and have also of course highlighted that they use the
00:05:37 ◼ ► iphone 17 pro to take photos on board so i'll put a link in the show notes so macrum's article where
00:05:44 ◼ ► they're they're talking about this um it's you know obviously apple would love to try and use this
00:05:49 ◼ ► imagery i think but i i don't know if they will be able to be interested i think um nasa imagery is
00:05:55 ◼ ► free for all i believe even the phone like the photos take on the personal phones yeah yeah i think
00:06:01 ◼ ► well i i don't think i don't think those were personal you know yes they're not like personal
00:06:06 ◼ ► personal they were given to each person weren't they for as part of yes yes and that's part one
00:06:10 ◼ ► of nasa's rules is like everything that is collected is actually public interesting so maybe we will see
00:06:16 ◼ ► a billboard with those uh i just wondered if like because putting it on a billboard i just don't know
00:06:21 ◼ ► if if the i think they can they can i want to i mean they got to right they've got to you would
00:06:26 ◼ ► think or at least it will be part of the iphone keynote or something you know like in their
00:06:30 ◼ ► opening package you'd you'd use it yeah obviously you know the antimus mission is over now uh do you
00:06:36 ◼ ► haven't did you have any little thoughts that you wanted to put in to kind of like because i know we
00:06:40 ◼ ► spoke about it last week and they came back safely i wasn't sure if you had any further reflection on it
00:06:45 ◼ ► well i've seen i've seen a bunch of stories where people are trying to to to spin this as sort of like
00:06:51 ◼ ► well they took pictures of things on the moon but we've already taken pictures of them with
00:06:56 ◼ ► probes so what does it matter and like i mean first off everybody's got their own access to grind but
00:07:02 ◼ ► what i would say is yeah i mean of course they're the the point of what they did that is unique is that
00:07:15 ◼ ► based on the input from their own eyes and that's interesting um but to say let's judge this as a
00:07:24 ◼ ► as a pure science mission and compare it to a robot orbiter that can go around and take pictures of the
00:07:31 ◼ ► moon for ages like no of course not but you know human spaceflight is is is not about that it is it's
00:07:40 ◼ ► different and this is a goal here is to get people down on the lunar surface and when you've got a
00:07:45 ◼ ► a human brain immediately controlling what goes on on the lunar surface it's different from remote
00:07:51 ◼ ► controlling a robot from yeah uh a distance and uh and and having and they leaned into it with the human
00:07:59 ◼ ► experience part of it which is um if if you watched any of the video as they flew by the moon like
00:08:05 ◼ ► their part of their job was expressing in words the feelings and nuances of seeing it with their own
00:08:16 ◼ ► eyes because that is the unique thing is human beings are seeing the moon with their own eyes and
00:08:22 ◼ ► and that is i think interesting there are plenty of arguments to be made about investment in human
00:08:27 ◼ ► spaceflight between investment in non-human you know robotic spacecraft i think both have value i think the
00:08:35 ◼ ► values are different i think getting i think the the truth is that having people do adventurous things
00:08:42 ◼ ► gets more people engaged than having a robot take pictures i think that's just the truth and that's
00:08:47 ◼ ► unfortunate because a lot of the stuff the robots do is amazing but i think that's just the truth of it
00:08:53 ◼ ► is that having people involved uh changes the game and reaches people who might not otherwise be reached
00:08:58 ◼ ► and um and then the only other thing i'll say very briefly is i i saw some commentators say something
00:09:05 ◼ ► about how maybe we shouldn't do anything in space until we've cleaned everything up on earth and it's
00:09:09 ◼ ► just one of the most ludicrous things i have ever heard it comes back again and again it's like we can
00:09:14 ◼ ► do more than one thing the amount of money being spent on nasa compared to the waste the absolute waste
00:09:20 ◼ ► being spent on just about everything else that our government does it's not even close it's not either
00:09:27 ◼ ► or like this is how many minutes of bombing iran yeah just say it that way how many minutes is it it's not
00:09:34 ◼ ► even hours it's minutes so like we can make choices about where we spend our money it's not an either or
00:09:41 ◼ ► either you go to space or you solve all the world's problems we got lots of we got lots of things we can put
00:09:46 ◼ ► our money on having something that's optimistic and makes us think maybe better about humanity than
00:09:51 ◼ ► humanity deserves right now i think that's a pretty good investment i agree uh last week we mentioned
00:09:58 ◼ ► that delivery times for the mac mini and mac studio were being pushed way into the future for some
00:10:03 ◼ ► configurations well now there are several models showing us currently unavailable on the apple on the
00:10:09 ◼ ► apple store basically the higher ram units are just not available at all anymore yeah so this
00:10:15 ◼ ► includes products like the m4 mac mini with 32 gigabytes of ram and the studio of 128 this is
00:10:21 ◼ ► coming from nine to five mac and i went and looked as well this morning similar thing like these products
00:10:26 ◼ ► are i think for multiple reasons it would seem i would assume hard to get a hold of now i think number
00:10:34 ◼ ► one is these are configurations of products that are going to be replaced with m5 versions yeah yes so
00:10:41 ◼ ► the last thing they want is to build more of these and then just replace them yeah right
00:10:47 ◼ ► so i think i think this is i think this is a drawdown of m4 yep and emphasized by the the ram pricing
00:10:58 ◼ ► thing so like they'll keep it around in some configs but like those higher end configs i feel like they're
00:11:03 ◼ ► just like we don't want to build any more of those because they know they may be done building
00:11:06 ◼ ► they probably m4 yeah right yeah and so you know those things go out of stock because they are out
00:11:13 ◼ ► of stock because they're going to get replaced by something else now what those things what those
00:11:17 ◼ ► configs are and what they cost and all that is tbd but it feels to me like um that is one of the
00:11:24 ◼ ► primary drivers here is is just you know maybe if ram is cheap you're like yeah we'll make some more we
00:11:30 ◼ ► want to keep the keep the sales flowing but ram is not cheap and they're going to be doing a m5 turnover
00:11:36 ◼ ► it feels like a perfect storm of things which is ram prices the fact that they have new ones on the
00:11:42 ◼ ► horizon and they sold more than they thought they were going to in the last few months because people
00:11:47 ◼ ► were using headless max for ai stuff and i think right that combination yeah that combination means
00:11:53 ◼ ► that they sold out quicker than they were hoping for it could literally just be that when they
00:11:59 ◼ ► stopped making m4s they thought they had enough and then there was a huge run on high ram m4s and
00:12:06 ◼ ► they're like well we're not going to make more so we're just going to have to push those and and then
00:12:09 ◼ ► they do the apple thing where they're like oh you order it now and you'll get it much later and the
00:12:13 ◼ ► truth is well you won't because there'll be a new model by then there'll be an m5 by then but it's
00:12:17 ◼ ► curious that that because that's what we said last week right oh there'll be new ones by then so
00:12:21 ◼ ► that's why but now you just can't buy them at all you just can't yeah they know they aren't going to
00:12:26 ◼ ► be able to fulfill those they know they can't fulfill them because they're going to go to a
00:12:30 ◼ ► product transition to something else and and yeah i think that's i think that's where they've gotten
00:12:34 ◼ ► now is first off it was like it'll take this long and now it's like well they're none they're not
00:12:38 ◼ ► going to be any um but i wouldn't i wouldn't freak out too much about it i don't think this is a
00:12:42 ◼ ► policy it's an interesting thing that's happened this is a product turn it's curious i think it does
00:12:51 ◼ ► previously so maybe we're going to see maybe around wwc we'll see this you know you could imagine the
00:12:58 ◼ ► studio they would do them or they could do it in the next six weeks i mean like they could do it
00:13:03 ◼ ► they could do it anytime i i'm always hesitant to say hardware announcements at wwc because they're not
00:13:10 ◼ ► required but it gives them a venue so so if they're like super proud for example if they're super proud
00:13:18 ◼ ► of mac studio performance and and you could even say with mac mini performance and selling it as a
00:13:24 ◼ ► development tool which is sort of what's been going on yes they could put that in the conversation
00:13:31 ◼ ► at wwdc if they wanted to but they could also very easily do a press release product launch in
00:13:39 ◼ ► early may especially for the mac mini in the mac studio of like products you could put on press
00:13:46 ◼ ► release like these are those it's it's not it's not a problem um yeah it's not it's not a problem
00:13:54 ◼ ► uh nathan right we've got a couple of questions about the mac prob nathan wrote and said i'm curious if
00:13:59 ◼ ► you think ram pricing pulled forward the timing of the mac pro funeral i i don't know i don't know i
00:14:07 ◼ ► mean ram and the mac pro those those are old chips i think it's going to be about stock more than
00:14:13 ◼ ► anything else i think it's i think it's stock um i think they realize that either they have finally
00:14:18 ◼ ► sold out of their stock of it or they've just decided to write it off because the sales are so low
00:14:23 ◼ ► i is it possible that the ram pricing did something to make them finally pull the trigger on it i guess
00:14:30 ◼ ► something happened i don't know what flipped that switch or whether it was literally an executive
00:14:36 ◼ ► looking at and saying look it's time this doesn't make sense for anybody um or it's possible they're
00:14:41 ◼ ► like we're either gonna have to reprice the ram on this mac pro that we're selling this m2 mac pro or
00:14:46 ◼ ► we should just kill it it's possible that that was what it is this happens a lot where you get that
00:14:52 ◼ ► you get that final moment where you're like um you're thinking of doing something and it doesn't
00:14:59 ◼ ► make sense and it doesn't make sense and it doesn't make sense and then something relatively minor happens
00:15:04 ◼ ► and you think oh now i need to make a decision and then you know this happens in life right that like
00:15:12 ◼ ► you'll you'll you'll put things off and you'll be like well i probably don't want to you know put this
00:15:17 ◼ ► off any longer but like well i can put it off a little longer and then there comes a moment where
00:15:21 ◼ ► you're like oh now i need to decide and then then change happens and i feel like that's what's um
00:15:25 ◼ ► maybe going on here but it could have been the ram pricing it could have been something else but
00:15:30 ◼ ► it's it's entirely possible that they like didn't have a reason to kill it until they did
00:15:39 ◼ ► why do you think the mac studio wasn't just released as the new mac pro was there no value
00:15:45 ◼ ► in the old mac pro name okay so i'm going to walk carefully here because since last week i have been
00:15:52 ◼ ► and i'm not trying to be mysterious here but i also am trying to honor confidences i have a little more
00:15:58 ◼ ► understanding of this situation than i did and all i will say is the mac studio was not intended to be
00:16:07 ◼ ► the replacement for the mac pro it was its own thing it has become the replacement for the mac pro
00:16:15 ◼ ► but my understanding is that it was not it was not created as a replacement for the mac pro
00:16:22 ◼ ► and that explains this right is that they were they were on separate paths and the mac pro kept happening
00:16:30 ◼ ► and the mac studio happened and then so i i think that's the answer is that the the mac studio emerged as the replacement for the mac pro
00:16:41 ◼ ► but when the mac studio was first conceived the mac pro was considered an ongoing project and it was not considered its replacement yeah
00:16:50 ◼ ► um more i more i cannot say i wish i could but i cannot um because uh a friend told me some things surprising in confidence but
00:16:59 ◼ ► like suffice it to say um mac studio did not emerge from a program to replace the mac pro and i said that last week
00:17:07 ◼ ► because that was based on all evidence you would think that they must have been doing that it it happened in parallel
00:17:12 ◼ ► so it's just more an accident yeah than anything else that that it it ended up replacing it but it was not part of the replacement program
00:17:22 ◼ ► while i believe exactly what you're saying i would take a different approaches if we didn't have that piece of information
00:17:27 ◼ ► or you know shrouded information and just say my i would assume at that time they were not ready
00:17:35 ◼ ► to get rid of the mac pro for the same reason the mac pro was introduced which is i my i would believe
00:17:43 ◼ ► they would have been too nervous about the way it looked to people that really cared about this product
00:17:55 ◼ ► honestly even though we pointed out that the choice to go to apple silicon in many ways killed the mac pro
00:18:02 ◼ ► i think apple wanted to put some distance between apple silicon transition and the mac pro
00:18:14 ◼ ► is now they kill the mac pro and it's like well okay we've been in the apple silicon era for almost
00:18:19 ◼ ► like six years now so the the the you you we can draw the line but it doesn't feel like
00:18:27 ◼ ► it was hey apple's transitioning to apple silicon and also the mass mac pro is discontinued right in in
00:18:33 ◼ ► the in that same moment so it has that benefit whether that was a calculated plan or it's just a side
00:18:38 ◼ ► benefit it is a benefit of it and it allowed the mac studio to kind of compete on its own terms you know
00:18:45 ◼ ► if they would have said this is the new mac pro the whole launch of the mac studio would have gone very
00:18:49 ◼ ► differently than what it did right like the the the launch of the mac studio was quite positive people
00:18:55 ◼ ► were very excited about that yes because it wasn't taking anything away from anyone indeed indeed and
00:19:01 ◼ ► that and then you know yeah because and in fact it feels good to think well the mac studio came from a
00:19:07 ◼ ► different place right the mac studio was an apple silicon product and it came from a different place
00:19:12 ◼ ► not the replacement it it has turned into the apple silicon equivalent of the mac pro but like
00:19:18 ◼ ► it was its own thing it felt like its own thing it was the tall mac mini and all of that i bought one
00:19:23 ◼ ► i loved it like i still have it somewhere um if uh yeah so it's not plugged in right now but i i gotta
00:19:31 ◼ ► find something to do with it anyway um great great computer great new mac we got the studio in the and the
00:19:37 ◼ ► macbook neo new max from the 2020s is a wild idea on its face so so yeah that's i think that's the
00:19:44 ◼ ► answer is is if they had it to do it over maybe the mac studio would be the mac pro but mac studio is a
00:19:50 ◼ ► pretty good name too and um and it's just not how it worked out time wise they were on separate tracks
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00:22:35 ◼ ► let's talk about the iphone fold so there's been a bunch of uh reporting going on uh over the last week or so
00:22:44 ◼ ► uh we'll start off with the sheriff mark german who is reporting in contrary to prior reports of his own and others
00:22:59 ◼ ► while the complexity of the new display and materials may limit initial supply for several weeks
00:23:05 ◼ ► apple is currently operating with a plan to put the device on sale around the same time or very soon after
00:23:15 ◼ ► so they've been reporting in the in previous weeks that it would maybe go on sale later in the year like the iphone 10 did
00:23:22 ◼ ► but now it looks like maybe at most you'd be waiting two weeks after your pre-order rather than one
00:23:35 ◼ ► times currently operating yes i think this is important because this is one of those like
00:23:41 ◼ ► so nike says oh they're having problem problems mark german talks to his sources at apple and they say
00:23:59 ◼ ► things that they might have to delay the product for but they don't currently think they do
00:24:23 ◼ ► apple stock went down like 45 or something like that because of the come on like come on this
00:24:28 ◼ ► like that it's going to be delayed a little bit like that the folding phone that is what
00:24:56 ◼ ► a statement that serves apple's needs in a way that most conversations they have with mark german do not serve apple's policies and needs right
00:26:25 ◼ ► open to the possibility that apple is having some production issues with this incredibly complicated phone the likes of which they've never manufactured before
00:26:38 ◼ ► uh you know anonymously to say no no no no no um we're fine um which they probably i don't think that that's wrong i think they probably do believe that they currently have a plan to make this work
00:26:51 ◼ ► even if it limits initial supply i think that's undoubtedly where where it is right now and the question is going to be where are they going to be in a month one of the things that i mean we're in it now right this is when they are ramping up what they're going to be selling in the fall so if there are colossal production issues that cause delays and things like that
00:27:17 ◼ ► i'm trying to remember this but i'm i'm pretty sure that mark german was one of the people that was reporting that it would come later
00:27:24 ◼ ► so yeah some new information has come his way as you say so where is that information going to come from
00:28:13 ◼ ► i'm linking to the verge in our show notes so you can go and see the image if you want to
00:28:22 ◼ ► they look just like the ones that they're replacing when they're just a one little slab of aluminium
00:28:38 ◼ ► the dimensions hadn't leaked and a bunch of people hadn't like made 3d models and printed them
00:28:58 ◼ ► because these are you know i don't think these the providence of these is even said to be
00:29:06 ◼ ► these are a fancier a fancier version of those 3d printed mock-ups we talked about a month or two ago
00:30:11 ◼ ► mac rumors is reporting on a weibo post from leaker digital chat station saying that the name
00:30:34 ◼ ► i mean i didn't trust neo uh because it's like until the day it's shown i don't trust it
00:30:40 ◼ ► but this phone to me does not feel like an ultra iphone like if it's going to have fewer cameras
00:30:51 ◼ ► yeah and i'm also just really dubious of reports that are coming in this case from like china
00:30:57 ◼ ► saying about marketing names yeah because apple can hold those really close yeah and they can keep
00:31:05 ◼ ► those in cupertino yeah for a very long time very long time because it doesn't even have to be on the
00:31:10 ◼ ► packaging yeah yeah yeah um so maybe i mean i it doesn't seem impossible it's probably not the
00:31:22 ◼ ► choice that i would make but it's a valid choice yeah i think you're right that it would be weird to
00:31:28 ◼ ► call something ultra when ultra is not the thing that that defines it right like that it's more it's not
00:31:36 ◼ ► it's it's weirder but it's not more it's not more cameras it's not more sensors it's it has two screens
00:31:43 ◼ ► i get but like it just doesn't feel like an ultra product to me it feels different but if they wanted
00:31:46 ◼ ► to they could yeah i mean because they can find a way to kind of to make anything anything like it's
00:31:52 ◼ ► like what is pro right like the iphone pro is not any more pro than any of the other products they call
00:31:58 ◼ ► pro right right but but i i would like a name that somehow references what this product is that it
00:32:06 ◼ ► is a phone with two screens that it folds like these these names are more interesting to me
00:32:12 ◼ ► than ultra i'll say that much i agree i agree we also have a report from mark german about smart glasses
00:32:22 ◼ ► so this is a a longer report from him in his power on newsletter so currently apple is expecting to
00:32:28 ◼ ► unveil their smart glasses at the end of 2026 or beginning of 2027 with the release currently expected in
00:32:36 ◼ ► early 2027 i would ask you could could you imagine a world in which they showed us off in september and
00:32:43 ◼ ► ship it in january yeah yeah like with with a new product like this kind of like what they did with
00:32:48 ◼ ► the apple watch exactly yeah if they if they think they can ship this early next year it lets them
00:32:56 ◼ ► you know on that iphone product stage especially if they are not launching every iphone on that stage oh
00:33:03 ◼ ► yes a really good point they have more time a little more time yeah um and yeah i i think this is like
00:33:13 ◼ ► that stage is is a huge place to launch a new product that's why the apple watch launched there even though
00:33:17 ◼ ► it didn't come out until the following april right so if they've got it and they've got uh confidence that
00:33:23 ◼ ► they're going to ship it because it's a new product and isn't cannibalizing existing products they could
00:33:27 ◼ ► absolutely launch that yeah yeah i mean it could be a really interesting time around then you know we
00:33:34 ◼ ► could be getting new home stuff and like this september event could be huge if they're able to get
00:33:40 ◼ ► everything lined up the way that they want sure sure but it's all going to come back to what's powering it
00:33:46 ◼ ► right like everything here is gated by their uh voice assistant strategy by their their ai strategy by siri and
00:33:54 ◼ ► what it represents and what it's capable of all of this that's the the home uh people are calling it like
00:34:01 ◼ ► a a home pod but it's not it's really like a home screen that could also be attached to a speaker it is a
00:34:07 ◼ ► more like an ipad on a speaker essentially right yeah or on your wall or on your wall yeah um so
00:34:16 ◼ ► like all all of these products you know you could the funny thing is i think if they had to do it
00:34:22 ◼ ► over again they wouldn't rely on siri for for their vision of the future siri for all of this because
00:34:27 ◼ ► like airpods also kind of rely on siri but you can just it's fine well you wouldn't do it unless
00:34:33 ◼ ► if it could end up being that it all works in the end yeah which would be amazing but yes you know
00:34:42 ◼ ► if it does then fine that would be if they if they felt like because they had gone through the summer
00:34:47 ◼ ► with their new os strategy with their new voice assistant strategy powered you know at least in
00:34:53 ◼ ► part by gemini if if they get through the that and they think like we are doing great um there is
00:35:01 ◼ ► nothing stopping them from either announcing at the iphone event that they're also doing these smart
00:35:06 ◼ ► glasses and they're doing the smart home product or having another event in like october where they
00:35:12 ◼ ► talk about these and some other stuff too like there's but they could really impress people by dropping a
00:35:20 ◼ ► bunch of stuff and that they have been you know withholding for reasons but like that it comes back to
00:35:25 ◼ ► their confidence in what is driving it which is siri which is the ai functionality in in in you know
00:35:32 ◼ ► 27 os yes i guess i would say so obviously this device its intention is partly that right talking to
00:35:40 ◼ ► the more powerful siri but also audio media playback you know music podcasts that kind of stuff these are
00:35:47 ◼ ► airpods right yeah these are airpods on your face that's what they are you're gonna you take photos with
00:35:52 ◼ ► um notifications yeah all that kind of stuff um imagine even notifications even notifications is
00:36:00 ◼ ► yeah it's airpods with a for with a forward facing camera yes is what they are uh that you don't have
00:36:04 ◼ ► to stick in your ears you just wear them like glasses but they are going to do all the things that airpods
00:36:09 ◼ ► do presumably one way or another this product along with the previously rumored airpods with glasses and
00:36:16 ◼ ► the ai pendant are all designed around using cameras and computer vision paired with apple
00:36:23 ◼ ► intelligence the expectation being that if the computer that you're wearing can see what you can
00:36:30 ◼ ► see it can offer better results to queries and also sure my assumption with this is like and i feel
00:36:37 ◼ ► like this has not been fully realized yet because people just haven't internalized it maybe i believe
00:36:43 ◼ ► that if this kind of product works and works well it does unlock the ability for users to be able to ask
00:36:48 ◼ ► for things they would not ask their iphone for right now right so you're you will have new kinds of
00:36:55 ◼ ► queries that you can ask siri yes then the ones we're currently asking yeah and and i think a lot of detail
00:37:01 ◼ ► is being left out here because there there may be you know shooting for more basic ideas now but like for example
00:37:08 ◼ ► you can pull your iphone out and have it take a picture of where you are if you're in a you know in
00:37:13 ◼ ► new york city somewhere where your phone can't see gps and because of the or san francisco for that matter
00:37:19 ◼ ► and uh because of the it can see the buildings around you it can it can geolocate you and that is using the
00:37:25 ◼ ► buildings and the camera yeah well if you've got the glasses on then it's always going to know where you
00:37:30 ◼ ► are um and if your phone is in your pocket and you've got uh maps going on and it's giving you walking
00:37:36 ◼ ► directions it knows exactly where you are on the streets of new york and will tell you where to turn
00:37:41 ◼ ► instead of it being kind of confused which happens so that's one visual intelligence is another that's
00:37:46 ◼ ► not a very exciting feature i never use it but one of the the ideas here is that you don't have to take
00:37:52 ◼ ► your phone out of your pocket and hold it up and say what kind of dog is this right where you could
00:37:56 ◼ ► actually ask the person that you could literally just look at a thing and say what is this or can you
00:38:01 ◼ ► translate this or whatever and have that work and yeah there are there are future features of this that could be
00:38:09 ◼ ► interesting like um okay so like uh maybe it could read things aloud for you if you have vision issues even you
00:38:20 ◼ ► know and and it could read text for you maybe it could you know in the long run if you've got somebody in your contacts
00:38:27 ◼ ► list or whatever it could identify their face when they will come up to you you can't remember their name
00:38:32 ◼ ► like there are there are lots of i i tried to not make that creepy of like i know a random person comes
00:38:39 ◼ ► up and it searches the global face database it's like well maybe not maybe it's just a person in your
00:38:44 ◼ ► contacts um but but what i'm saying is like devices are and ai powered devices are going to be more
00:38:51 ◼ ► powerful if they know where what you're looking at and where you are instead of being trapped in your
00:38:56 ◼ ► pocket and so there's possibilities here right i'm not i don't want to overdo it because i think this
00:39:00 ◼ ► could be really overhyped and make it seem much more usable or useful than it actually will be but
00:39:06 ◼ ► it's it's part of a structure that might give you better information because you don't have to take
00:39:12 ◼ ► your phone out of your pocket and hold it up and ask it a question there's a quote from mark's article
00:39:18 ◼ ► that that made me chuckle uh according to employees working on the project apple strategy is to outdo
00:39:24 ◼ ► competitors by tightly integrating the glasses with the iphone and offering a higher end build
00:39:29 ◼ ► it's like yes and i'm sure meta would love the opportunity to tightly integrate with the iphone
00:39:34 ◼ ► i mean yeah you can you can make the product a better iphone companion if you control the iphone
00:39:41 ◼ ► like i find it like it this is a true statement but i do find it quite frustrating that they still
00:39:48 ◼ ► are doing this when yeah there's all this litigation around i mean of course they're going to do it this
00:39:55 ◼ ► way but it is a bit like it's annoying that you see that as your only competitive advantage the red phone
00:40:02 ◼ ► just rang in brussels yeah it's like crank up the machine here we go everybody they're gonna do this
00:40:08 ◼ ► thing and i just want them to do stuff that is is like good on its own like it's like all our products
00:40:14 ◼ ► good because it can integrate with the iphone but what i would argue it too is like if apple is going
00:40:19 ◼ ► to come out with their own glasses then at that point they also need to let other glasses integrate in
00:40:22 ◼ ► the same way yeah i don't think they necessarily need to build integration features for other people's
00:40:27 ◼ ► products but once they create a product in that category they should also offer that integration to
00:40:32 ◼ ► every other product in that category right i they're going to do it better i get it that's their secret
00:40:38 ◼ ► sauce but yes that that is the yeah we because we control the os and the device we will have the
00:40:43 ◼ ► best accessory for the iphone that you know it's like i would it would really be terrible if you
00:40:49 ◼ ► didn't like it would yeah we're not going to really integrate it with the iphone we think the iphone's
00:40:54 ◼ ► kind of kind of dumb we want them we want this thing to work on android we're talking to the beats team
00:40:58 ◼ ► they're gonna make yeah yeah yeah yeah let's get it there so yeah i i i understand that um
00:41:04 ◼ ► um it it is look apple wants to do this the apple way they want to they want to really apple this
00:41:11 ◼ ► thing right that's the whole point is like if we're going to do this it needs to not just be another pair
00:41:16 ◼ ► of smart glasses it needs to be the apple take on this product and that goes that cuts across uh that
00:41:24 ◼ ► cuts cuts across iphone integration it cuts across the functionality that's built in in terms of like
00:41:30 ◼ ► apple intelligence and siri and design like all of those things tie in speaking of design
00:41:37 ◼ ► apple's design team has whipped up at least four different styles and plans to launch some or all
00:41:43 ◼ ► of them as well as many color options the latest units are made from a high-end material called acetate
00:41:49 ◼ ► which is known to be more durable and luxurious than standard plastic used by many brands acetate glasses
00:41:56 ◼ ► are very regular anyway here are the designs in testing says mark a large rectangular frame
00:42:01 ◼ ► reminiscent of ray-bound wafer wayfarers a slimmer rectangular design similar to the glasses
00:42:06 ◼ ► worn by tim cook larger oval or circular frames and a smaller more refined oval or circular option so
00:42:16 ◼ ► they're going to offer in theory multiple designs with multiple colors it feels like a nightmare like a
00:42:23 ◼ ► nightmare like the apple watch the apple watch logistically is very clever because they
00:42:29 ◼ ► offer the like the the watch itself and then the band comes separate right like you right you get them
00:42:37 ◼ ► in the two boxes you can't do that here like this this feels like if they're going to do this i mean
00:42:42 ◼ ► one i do believe that this is actually what they have to do they have to offer different styles
00:42:48 ◼ ► and colors maybe not four but but definitely they need to offer different styles but it feels like
00:42:53 ◼ ► a lot like a lot it does i mean they can they can do it that's the thing is all they have to do is
00:42:58 ◼ ► want to do it it would be complicated but they can absolutely do it um like you've really got to
00:43:03 ◼ ► believe that you have a a good winning product if you're gonna add all of these product options
00:43:08 ◼ ► yeah right like this is a lot like this is going to take up a lot of space in the apple store right
00:43:14 ◼ ► i think i think that yeah yeah but maybe that's a good thing and i also think that apple like apple
00:43:21 ◼ ► i think it's smart to not do the you know you can have any color as long as it's black kind of
00:43:28 ◼ ► approach with something that you're going to wear on your face right you need to provide options
00:43:31 ◼ ► and my when i get new glasses oh my god there how many frames are there in that store exactly
00:43:37 ◼ ► hundreds hundreds of different frame designs right and they're like well you know four well better than
00:43:44 ◼ ► one that's good and again you know you're they are coming into the market to offer a product that on
00:43:51 ◼ ► paper is as good as what meta offers and meta have lots of options now sure like across multiple
00:43:59 ◼ ► brands and the luxotica portfolio so yeah yeah you know and google they haven't got anything yet but
00:44:07 ◼ ► they announced with multiple companies are going to have multiple frame types of google like like the
00:44:11 ◼ ► good glasses of google xr yeah they're calling them so like the if apple was first they could have
00:44:16 ◼ ► airpods did it right where it's like here's one it's white here's one enjoy it can't do that now
00:44:21 ◼ ► you can't do that now no but i think i think three or four you know it's not i think they can do it
00:44:25 ◼ ► and i think they have to do it yeah a certain degree right they have to they have to provide
00:44:28 ◼ ► people with options or they're not gonna like it's it's already bad enough with airpods that
00:44:32 ◼ ► people are like oh it doesn't fit my ears very well and it's like you know they're trying but they
00:44:36 ◼ ► have like one airpods pro shape and it either fits you or it doesn't to a certain degree um
00:44:41 ◼ ► so four at least gives people more of a chance to to say okay i could wear these instead of it being
00:44:49 ◼ ► like oh apple's glasses came out and they look stupid on my face so i won't wear them anymore they
00:44:54 ◼ ► could give them you know four more three more chances above that but then there's this statement
00:44:58 ◼ ► from mark as of airpods and the apple watch the goal is to create a design that is instantly
00:45:02 ◼ ► recognizable apple refers to this as the icon internally i i look i can't i can't square both of those
00:45:10 ◼ ► things together right they're like having multiple options but wanting to create like i can yeah go on
00:45:17 ◼ ► i can read the read the next read the next uh quote from this report okay and and i will put it
00:45:23 ◼ ► together one notable detail under consideration is the camera system vertically oriented oval lenses of
00:45:28 ◼ ► surrounding lights a departure from the circular design seen in metas products so when they talk
00:45:33 ◼ ► about the icon what they're i think what they're really meaning is like what's the part of this that
00:45:38 ◼ ► when you see it you realize it's airpods right right right so i i read this and said the camera
00:45:46 ◼ ► housing on these things will look different from everybody else's and you'll know that that's the apple one
00:45:54 ◼ ► and it will because it'll be a shape uh the light the lens and and light configuration whatever they
00:46:02 ◼ ► do there i think what they're trying to do is say you'll be able to tell that it's the apple one
00:46:08 ◼ ► because of some aspect of the design and if there are four different frame designs it can't be the
00:46:13 ◼ ► frame design that is the you know they're not going to just do john lennon glasses and like everybody's
00:46:18 ◼ ► got to wear john lennon glasses they can't do that so they're not going to do that well so what are they
00:46:22 ◼ ► going to do you know i wouldn't mind that i know you wouldn't mind that steve jobs wouldn't mind that
00:46:26 ◼ ► either um they so how do you do it well this could be one of those ways is just as the just as the the
00:46:33 ◼ ► the camera bump on the sorry the iconic plateau it's iconic the iconic plateau on the back of the
00:46:39 ◼ ► iphone this would be an iconic camera sensor area on all of these that would be the same and it would
00:46:45 ◼ ► nobody else would have it and it would be the one that says this is the apple and like literally to
00:46:50 ◼ ► the point where they could draw a little cartoon of glasses with that little oval thing and you'll be
00:46:56 ◼ ► like oh yeah those are the glasses because and they can use that in like support documents and stuff
00:47:01 ◼ ► because it's the thing that identifies what the apple glasses are so i think that's what this is getting at
00:47:08 ◼ ► is the idea that they're trying to create an aspect of these glasses and it can't be the glasses
00:47:13 ◼ ► themselves because there are going to be so many different frames that is identifiably the apple one
00:47:19 ◼ ► yeah and i i think the camera system is what they're talking about there based on this report
00:47:24 ◼ ► yeah i just i really don't think i want my glasses to be instantly recognizable as the apple product you
00:47:34 ◼ ► know what i mean like it's not yeah i get it like i get i get that there is a desire in people to have
00:47:40 ◼ ► their products be recognizable the ones that they wear it's like it's why meta went with ray-ban because
00:47:46 ◼ ► people know the wayfarer look it's like oh that's a pair of ray-bans but i just don't think i want
00:47:52 ◼ ► my glasses to remind everyone that i'm wearing a computer but i also don't think i would wear these
00:47:58 ◼ ► every day i i can't imagine it anyway like i can imagine i would get these to replace my meta ray-bans
00:48:05 ◼ ► which i wear only as sunglasses so i could imagine that i can't imagine wearing these all day every
00:48:12 ◼ ► day as my only glasses because i just don't think they're going to make a product that's going to look
00:48:16 ◼ ► the way that i want in the glasses that i wear that is going to be the challenge right i i actually think
00:48:23 ◼ ► one of the reasons that the the using the ray-bans and sunglasses is such a you know smart move is
00:48:32 ◼ ► this probably has more utility when you're out and about right yeah than when you're at home yes
00:48:38 ◼ ► so having it be your outdoors glasses because i have i have a pair of sunglasses and i have a pair
00:48:44 ◼ ► of glasses and so i could see them filling in that role of sunglasses when i'm out of the house i'm
00:48:52 ◼ ► usually wearing sunglasses i live in california but even like when it's cloudy like the sun's out there
00:48:56 ◼ ► it might get you um i don't know it i think that's one of the great mysteries of all of this we've seen
00:49:01 ◼ ► more backlash against these kind of products in the last six months and maybe maybe it being apple and
00:49:06 ◼ ► not meta will help that conversation or maybe it won't i i don't know yeah i think some of that
00:49:12 ◼ ► backlash is coming from the company behind the product rather than the product it is it is but
00:49:17 ◼ ► there's also kind of a tech backlash and an ai backlash going on um i don't know i don't know
00:49:22 ◼ ► i think i'll tell you this given all of that i'm sure that apple is preparing a privacy story here
00:49:43 ◼ ► it you know everything is going on your phone uh things are anonymized blah blah blah like i think
00:49:49 ◼ ► they're going to have to tell that story but the question is just do people want this kind of product
00:49:53 ◼ ► or not i i i don't i don't know that story will be told i don't know if it will really hit like you
00:50:00 ◼ ► know people think of course their iphone's listening to them so i know well you can you can only do so
00:50:05 ◼ ► much yeah you can try you can only do so much yes people are convinced that when you are your iphone
00:50:09 ◼ ► is in your pocket and you mention a product and then it shows up in your instagram ads that it's
00:50:14 ◼ ► because apple conspired with meta to listen to you while the phone was in your pocket and right like
00:50:20 ◼ ► they when in fact it's probably a signal you sent while you were on a website or on instagram but
00:50:25 ◼ ► people like to believe things about their phone that aren't true and there's only so much you can
00:50:29 ◼ ► do about that but apple you know i feel apple apple knows that it's incumbent on them to try
00:50:36 ◼ ► and to sell that that's why they do all of the privacy branding is right like they're fighting
00:50:40 ◼ ► against it they can't necessarily win all those arguments but they can fight against it and that's
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00:52:42 ◼ ► in his newsletter colpium tim colpin which that's a great name by the way colpium brilliant uh tim colpin
00:52:50 ◼ ► is reporting that apple is facing an issue with the macbook neo it's too popular and they're running out
00:52:56 ◼ ► of chips as a reminder apple is using a bin version of the a18 pro chip that has a five core gpu instead of
00:53:04 ◼ ► the six core version that can be found in the iphone 16 i think it is it's where the a18 pro is uh we
00:53:11 ◼ ► can we can expect from this that apple decided that they would use these chips that were otherwise
00:53:17 ◼ ► unusable in the macbook neo to help bring the cost of the product down as potentially these chips were
00:53:22 ◼ ► going to be otherwise wasted or put elsewhere but the macbook neo seems to have exceeded apple sales
00:53:28 ◼ ► expectations and they are now running low on these bin chips so colpin says that apple asked its suppliers
00:53:34 ◼ ► to build between five to six million units of the 18 pro version of the neo assuming that once this
00:53:40 ◼ ► amount was sold they would be ready for a revision but it's now clear to apple that they are going to
00:53:46 ◼ ► exceed this number before the second generation of the product would be ready for next year yeah i so
00:53:53 ◼ ► some assumptions here apple has asked asked its suppliers to build between five to six million
00:53:59 ◼ ► units of the 18 pro version of the neo assuming that once this was amount was sold they would be ready
00:54:02 ◼ ► for a revision okay first question is is five to six million the number that they thought they would
00:54:08 ◼ ► sell or the number of the chips that bin chips that they've got could be both right they all just said
00:54:14 ◼ ► i could be both or but you don't want to build if you're not sure of how many you're going to sell
00:54:19 ◼ ► and you've got 12 million bin chips you might not build 12 million mac yeah macbook meals right you
00:54:26 ◼ ► might build five or six million of them and hold the rest so there is an assumption here that they're
00:54:32 ◼ ► going to because the question is like i think i think actually it's fair to say based on this situation
00:54:37 ◼ ► is that they did only have five to six million it didn't matter how many they thought they were going
00:54:41 ◼ ► to sell because now they're running out right it's possible yeah it's possible i mean i i guess what
00:54:46 ◼ ► what i would say is it's possible that there is a difference between the number that they built and
00:54:50 ◼ ► the number of bin chips that they've got but the question is what happens now because apple either needs
00:54:58 ◼ ► to buy um get tsmc to make more of these chips that are off like they're offline basically um
00:55:09 ◼ ► at at prices that even if it's possible are not going to um are not going to help the margins of
00:55:18 ◼ ► this product at all right okay so that's part of the problem other part of the problem is
00:55:22 ◼ ► this report that says they don't think it's going to they're going to they think they're going to run
00:55:30 ◼ ► out before the second generation of the product is ready and and this is what i would say about that
00:55:36 ◼ ► which is i think i don't believe it i think i don't believe it i don't believe that they are
00:55:44 ◼ ► going to run out before the second generation of the product is ready i don't i don't think i believe
00:55:52 ◼ ► on the fly by the time we saw the macbook neo the a19 pro macbook neo was already being designed
00:56:05 ◼ ► right sure come on of course it was yeah um you always apple's always working ahead and
00:56:17 ◼ ► and i mean i guess if you're at apple i don't know send me a signal message or something i don't know
00:56:22 ◼ ► send us an anonymous upgrade feedback.com i don't i don't know if this isn't the case but like i'm going to
00:56:27 ◼ ► assume that the fallback here the failsafe for this has always been if well what if this is a huge hit
00:56:36 ◼ ► and we run out of bin chips like you don't go into that being like nah this product we're all really
00:56:41 ◼ ► excited about it's not going to be that successful right you have to have a contingency plan for if you
00:56:46 ◼ ► sell through you're a lot of chips and i can't see how that contingency plan isn't we just released the
00:56:53 ◼ ► a19 pro version i mean that could be the contingency plan but the expectation could have been that the
00:57:01 ◼ ► timeline for that would be significantly longer than the one that we're in like i don't think apple was
00:57:11 ◼ ► expecting the macbook neo to generate that statistic that tim cook posted oh i do you think i do think
00:57:19 ◼ ► that they thought for this more more people than have ever switched to the mac yeah okay yeah it would
00:57:26 ◼ ► be i i i do not believe the narrative that apple is surprised by the macbook neo's success i think how
00:57:35 ◼ ► how could they be we've all been talking about it and thinking this would be huge i cannot imagine
00:57:41 ◼ ► that apple didn't believe it now it's possible that they took a chance because they were because
00:57:49 ◼ ► they do have a limited number of these bin chips that they can use and they're like well if it's a hit
00:57:53 ◼ ► we're going to have to do something but again that's what i come back to is i'm not saying that they knew
00:57:58 ◼ ► it would be a hit i'm saying that they there was like a bracketed range of what it was going to be
00:58:03 ◼ ► yeah and i cannot why would you even do this product if you didn't think it was going to be
00:58:08 ◼ ► a hit i think they knew i think they strongly suspected will say it was going to be a hit
00:58:13 ◼ ► product so there has to be a contingency yeah for what happens if it's a hit product even if it's a
00:58:18 ◼ ► runaway hit product there has to be a contingency now maybe maybe there are weird chip contingencies
00:58:31 ◼ ► in the midst of this maybe they have a a deal with tsmc or something i i just i'm i'm dubious that
00:58:39 ◼ ► this is they're going to make more chips for the macbook neo i think it's more likely that the
00:58:43 ◼ ► contingent to me the most likely contingency is like there's no reason the macbook neo has to stay on
00:58:49 ◼ ► sale as a 18 for a year there's no reason for it i i have to think that the number one contingency for
00:58:55 ◼ ► this product was once we run out we announce the a19 pro version done yes that okay so i i am agreeing
00:59:05 ◼ ► with you yeah i i think that that is the case but let's just imagine that they run out of these in
00:59:10 ◼ ► three months that's too soon right like that you you wouldn't have the a19 pro version come that
00:59:15 ◼ ► quickly because why not well because somebody who bought it six weeks ago then now like they we're
00:59:23 ◼ ► going to announce the product the same price and now it has 12 gigabytes of ram in it but that always
00:59:28 ◼ ► happens yeah but there's always fast though like if you buy a computer from apple within the first
00:59:34 ◼ ► month you think you've got at least 11 months with that product that configuration you know
00:59:39 ◼ ► first off i'll say it's 599 and it's not getting worse and if the alternative is that your hit product
00:59:48 ◼ ► can't be sold you just do it i mean if you're apple you just do it you just do it i know look people are
00:59:53 ◼ ► going to complain about everything is it ideal no but like not selling it is less ideal yeah not selling
00:59:59 ◼ ► it is a worse idea here so you you just do it and you say good news everybody it's been a huge hit
01:00:05 ◼ ► and we're gonna and now here's the a19 version and you put it out in january or or or in november or
01:00:11 ◼ ► whenever like i what's the alternative like killing your margins isn't a very good alternative i mean
01:00:18 ◼ ► short again short of like some other weird bin we don't know about that's full of other weird chips
01:00:24 ◼ ► that are of similar or higher performance that they could put in here yep um you know and i don't know
01:00:31 ◼ ► what that would be is that like an m2 to have any m2s rattling around they can throw in here for a while
01:00:43 ◼ ► these these allocated for other future devices that then they need to work out a different scenario for
01:00:50 ◼ ► yeah pull those out of that that yeah this is the bin for the smart screen or for the whatever and and
01:00:56 ◼ ► we'll pull that out these were for an apple tv or or something like that and then yeah it's possible
01:01:02 ◼ ► let me let me read from from tim koppel because he tim does actually like he's he kind of gives
01:01:08 ◼ ► these contingencies right but i think he's just viewing it of like none of these are really that great
01:01:13 ◼ ► um so this is a a quote from him macbook neo's a18 pro was built on tsmc's three nanometer process
01:01:21 ◼ ► that node is now hugely popular and effectively sold out apple could in theory beg tsmc ceo cc way
01:01:29 ◼ ► for a few hot lots which is paying a premium to jump the queue but that would almost certainly kill
01:01:34 ◼ ► profits on the low-cost laptop alternatively it could crib from its own wafer allocation originally planned
01:01:40 ◼ ► for other devices but the cost would be higher than what it paid for the first batch of a18 pro wafers
01:01:46 ◼ ► and initially higher than quote-unquote free yeah because if you're taking them out of a bin they're
01:01:52 ◼ ► not free you already paid for them but they're free in the sense that you haven't used them in any
01:01:55 ◼ ► product and they're sitting in a bin and and like you know clearly i i think like essentially the macbook
01:02:02 ◼ ► neo became a product because they were like hey we can use some of these chips that we were otherwise
01:02:08 ◼ ► maybe not going to use or like they were going to sit on them for a long time for something else
01:02:12 ◼ ► well and it's a combination of like we have a lot of extra uh binned a processors and we know that
01:02:19 ◼ ► the mac we could make an a series mac and isn't this a great this is solves both of these problems
01:02:24 ◼ ► it's true i and i'm i'm more open about the idea that if this is an enormous hit product it changes
01:02:32 ◼ ► the dynamics of their chip ordering for the iphone but but i'm not that open about it because of this
01:02:37 ◼ ► which is the scale of iphones is so much greater than the scale of mac sales and a huge hit mac
01:02:44 ◼ ► still doesn't sell even a fraction of what an iphone sells but so they're always going to be more chips
01:02:50 ◼ ► there what it could do is change the way in which the binned chips are allocated more than it changes
01:02:57 ◼ ► how many iphone chips they're ordering as you're saying right where it's like clearly apple have become
01:03:02 ◼ ► very efficient over time of using of binning right we see it across everything they've been mac chips
01:03:09 ◼ ► into ipads they've been ipad chips into other ipads like they're they're binning things all over the
01:03:15 ◼ ► place right they are and and they're even like the macbook pro has a binned chip of the other macbook pro
01:03:22 ◼ ► like they're doing this all over the place yeah they've become this has become a very very clever
01:03:27 ◼ ► strategy right they're binning iphone chips into displays right like they're they're just moving
01:03:33 ◼ ► stuff around in places that may not make sense like that the display is hilarious right that they put so
01:03:39 ◼ ► much ram in a display that that probably doesn't need it but it's just the chip that they have um and so
01:03:46 ◼ ► like they're they're doing this but what it what it maybe does is like oh that smart product that we
01:03:51 ◼ ► were expecting to put this chip in in the you know the 19 maybe we can't do that or we need to adjust
01:03:57 ◼ ► that a little bit because the macbook neo is a more popular product than we expected from the rest of
01:04:02 ◼ ► what we had left over i mean that's them searching their couch cushions for chips right and they may
01:04:07 ◼ ► be searching their couch cushions like i have no idea how many how many binned chips does the iphone
01:04:12 ◼ ► create like i don't know i i don't know either and that and that i think so these are my core
01:04:19 ◼ ► questions one is one is how many 18 pros do you have yeah right how how many because it's not saying they
01:04:32 ◼ ► they built five or six million macbook neos like i said it doesn't mean they don't have more
01:04:37 ◼ ► it means they would need to drain the bin that might get them a longer runway i i don't
01:04:47 ◼ ► again i don't know enough about this but it strikes me that it would be very weird if apple said
01:04:55 ◼ ► let's build let's use every single chip in the bin to build macbook neos it strikes me as being a little
01:05:01 ◼ ► weird and if you do that then you know you're on the razor's edge right and that's why that's why i
01:05:06 ◼ ► have a hard time believing that there is not a contingency plan apple of all companies has to plan for
01:05:13 ◼ ► upside apple believes every product they do is going to be a huge hit they have to believe in the upside of
01:05:19 ◼ ► products they release which means when they put out the macbook neo i just don't believe that they're
01:05:25 ◼ ► surprised at the demand maybe it's higher than forecast but to be so surprised that you don't have a
01:05:31 ◼ ► contingency plan i have a hard time believing that now what that plan is is the question to me
01:05:37 ◼ ► just iterating you know to get that 19 a19 look the a19 pro macbook neo is not going to look
01:05:46 ◼ ► any different from the the a18 pro macbook neo right it might they might have wanted to do
01:05:52 ◼ ► different colors but maybe not even that you design i know every computer is different but like
01:05:57 ◼ ► it's got to be designed to be pretty modular in terms of the little the one little you know
01:06:04 ◼ ► motherboard part of it the logic board that drives it as a computer that's got the a18 on it
01:06:09 ◼ ► like to replace that with the version that does the a19 and just keep shipping it i'm not saying
01:06:16 ◼ ► it's not hard i'm saying i i have a hard time believing that that's not their contingency plan
01:06:22 ◼ ► is literally the moment we sell out of these we just flip it over to a19 and we continue to sell it or
01:06:28 ◼ ► better we bring out the a19 as quickly as we can make it the 699 model put the rest of the a18s in the 599
01:06:42 ◼ ► skew which creates a differentiation between them and gives us more runway with the cheaper version
01:06:48 ◼ ► because now now the cheaper version is using the worst chip than that than the higher end version
01:06:54 ◼ ► and you're further incentivizing the upgraded version and providing differentiation like
01:07:00 ◼ ► compensator they might get rid of one version for a time like maybe just drop the cheap version make it
01:07:05 ◼ ► you could but then you lose your 599 if you do that which is the whole standard point i will say as
01:07:10 ◼ ► well like this is a very good conversation it's very good points you're making well the way that i read
01:07:14 ◼ ► this article it's like copland doesn't know what apple's contingency is but it's like talking to the
01:07:21 ◼ ► supply chain and seeing like well this they're running out and it may well have been that apple was like
01:07:27 ◼ ► our contingency at least for this first one is if we are lucky enough to sell all that we think we're
01:07:33 ◼ ► going to sell we will lose our margin on the first year right like we will lose it because we'll have
01:07:38 ◼ ► to pay more for this or do for that and this is like maybe it seems from the outside the idea that they
01:07:43 ◼ ► would be willing to lose margin on this product is is bananas but that it may have just been that the
01:07:49 ◼ ► contingency plans that they laid out was like we're going to try this and see if it works if it does work
01:07:55 ◼ ► we have other options available to us which change the economics a bit but then we'll know and then we
01:08:01 ◼ ► can model it out for the future i i don't know that it's possible although the idea of when we say
01:08:08 ◼ ► changing the economics of it like paying tsmc to make more a18 pros seems kind of bananas to me that
01:08:14 ◼ ► seems like the way less likely of every single scenario i imagine them to release a revised version
01:08:22 ◼ ► of this before they would have more chips made like for just that's just my yeah maybe they should
01:08:29 ◼ ► raise the trade-in price on the iphone 16 pro just pop them out instead and refurb those babies
01:08:36 ◼ ► um just you know no no no reason just we like them bring them back we'll pay you we'll just give you a
01:08:45 ◼ ► free upgrade to the 17 pro is come on in so yeah i i just i i what i like about this story is it's an
01:08:53 ◼ ► interesting manufacturing story for apple it's a problem of success being like a you know success
01:08:59 ◼ ► just based on a limited supply so now what i just i'm not saying that apple's perfect i i am saying
01:09:06 ◼ ► that apple of any company first off i am sure they're incredibly disciplined about their scenario
01:09:14 ◼ ► planning they don't they're not going to put out a product and not have thought of what happens if
01:09:19 ◼ ► it's successful especially apple which i think culturally always thinks they're going to be
01:09:24 ◼ ► successful yeah wildly successful even so there is a contingency plan we just don't know what it is
01:09:30 ◼ ► my money if this is true that's the other thing is like if this is true if there really aren't any
01:09:36 ◼ ► other a18 pros that are binned out there it's possible that they've withheld some a18 pros that are
01:09:42 ◼ ► that are binned in a better way or in an inconsistent way where they would need to deactivate other cores
01:09:49 ◼ ► or whatever like that where there's a little more cost or a little more complexity to it it's possible
01:09:54 ◼ ► that this is you know that there's a store an idea that is not as um has not been thrown around but like
01:10:15 ◼ ► is the most likely scenario here with the caveat that like i said if you could do it in a way where
01:10:23 ◼ ► that becomes the 699 model and it gives you more base a18 pros to keep the the low-end model around a
01:10:30 ◼ ► little longer and then you sell through those and then that one ends up getting the a a19 at that
01:10:36 ◼ ► point like i think that's the most likely scenario if all else is the same which is like surely they
01:10:44 ◼ ► have been planning for the next upgrade of the macbook neo for ages and they know what it's going to be
01:10:51 ◼ ► and it's i doubt it will be particularly different than what's there and they should just be able to
01:10:56 ◼ ► say well now it's got an a19 in it and maybe not even make that big a deal about it especially if
01:11:01 ◼ ► it's the more ram is in that more expensive configuration you don't even need we also are
01:11:06 ◼ ► assuming like it's a big deal that all the apple nerds are like oh second generation macbook neo but
01:11:11 ◼ ► apple could just like super quietly just say yeah it's got the a19 now at the high-end configuration it's
01:11:17 ◼ ► got more ram on that configuration and not make a big deal out of it because the people who are buying
01:11:22 ◼ ► this product aren't paying attention to those kinds of announcements and it doesn't change their
01:11:26 ◼ ► messaging about the mac macbook neo at all so they just kind of slip stream it in there and then you
01:11:31 ◼ ► know nine to five mac has their little thing that goes off that goes boop boop boop a configuration
01:11:37 ◼ ► changed and they go to the page and they're like whoa did you see this but it might not be
01:11:42 ◼ ► anything that is interpreted as a big deal they might just slide it in there like i would say like
01:11:48 ◼ ► you know you're talking about their forecasting um we know that they're not perfect right like in the
01:11:56 ◼ ► iphone they're not perfect yeah i'm not i'm not really saying that they're perfect i'm saying i have to
01:12:02 ◼ ► imagine that they have upside plan yeah that there has to be yes you they because they would have a
01:12:08 ◼ ► downside scenario as well right like yeah you have i believe yes that the macbook neo i will i will go
01:12:14 ◼ ► with it i believe the macbook neo is selling better than they thought yes i don't believe they're
01:12:18 ◼ ► surprised i just think that they they made a forecast yeah and they said this is how we think it's going
01:12:23 ◼ ► to sell and they're picking them they're picking the midpoint right they're picking the not the midpoint
01:12:28 ◼ ► of number the midpoint of probability it's like let's just say it's going to sell x million and then
01:12:33 ◼ ► they get the initial reports and they're like oh it turns out that it's in the you know 80th or 90th
01:12:38 ◼ ► or 100th percentile of what we projected and and like it's a hit but i just that's the part that i
01:12:46 ◼ ► don't believe is i don't believe that they didn't say what if this is a huge hit yeah i guess the thing
01:12:51 ◼ ► that is different about this product is what i find so interesting about this story is that it would appear
01:12:57 ◼ ► that this product they like they had to make a bunch of decisions to get it to be as cheap as it could
01:13:07 ◼ ► possibly be and now they're left of a scenario where it was very successful and they may need to make
01:13:14 ◼ ► decisions that change the margins but they were already trying to get them as low as possible like it's
01:13:20 ◼ ► just like a very interesting kind of like thing to have happened to this particular product and maybe
01:13:27 ◼ ► happens to lots of their products but it's less of a story because it's less of a problem when your
01:13:32 ◼ ► margin is bigger to begin with right because i've got to assume the margin is different on this product
01:13:39 ◼ ► like i can't imagine a while which it is not no i mean clearly they're eating some amount of their
01:13:44 ◼ ► usual margin at least at the start um over time that changes i'm sure that the dynamic of this product
01:13:52 ◼ ► is different that that's why i am less likely to believe that they're going to order up some things
01:13:57 ◼ ► that change the margin balance of this product because i i don't think they want to do that just
01:14:04 ◼ ► to keep it even if it's just to keep it rolling it's like okay well all the macbook neos we sell
01:14:08 ◼ ► the second six months of its existence we're going to take a loss on or we're going to break even on i
01:14:13 ◼ ► just don't believe it unless they're unless they're super desperate right like maybe but
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01:16:46 ◼ ► thanks to expressvpn for the support of this show and all of relay so for a few weeks i've been wanting
01:16:52 ◼ ► to talk to you about your new smart lock um oh yes that you got you wrote about it on six colors
01:16:58 ◼ ► finally that's that's literally a post that i wrote i started writing in january and finished and
01:17:02 ◼ ► finished in march because everything that happened in between but i did finally get it out which is
01:17:06 ◼ ► also why we haven't spoken about it i mean you had it as a some notes in the show notes a long time ago
01:17:11 ◼ ► and we never got to long time right up instead uh what product did you get and tell me a little bit
01:17:16 ◼ ► about what you like about it well it's it's it's one of yours uh because i know you love acara i do
01:17:22 ◼ ► and it's the u400 uwb smart lock which is the first shipping lots of people have announced them
01:17:29 ◼ ► this is a very ces kind of product hey uwb smart lock and then they um they don't ship for a while
01:17:36 ◼ ► but this one shipped in january it was the first one that i could find that was actually available for
01:17:40 ◼ ► people to to use and it has every possible unlocking mechanism built into it so so smart lock in this
01:17:49 ◼ ► case it goes on a deadbolt so my front door has a latch and a deadbolt and they're separate so this
01:17:55 ◼ ► is the deadbolt um it is it does everything so it has a it has a keypad that will light up that lets you put
01:18:05 ◼ ► in a code so like the lady who has sits for us she just has a code um it has a fingerprint reader
01:18:12 ◼ ► which i did set up for me but you have to go into the acara app and it's a little weird but it does
01:18:17 ◼ ► have a fingerprint reader it has nfc so if you've got a uh an apple watch or an iphone or any other
01:18:24 ◼ ► device that does an nfc unlock you can do what my old lock did which is hold your watch or phone up to
01:18:34 ◼ ► it's got a lock and key uh you can like pull this little door down and there's a there's a key
01:18:42 ◼ ► which is nice right like if all else fails you could hide a key somewhere and come and unlock the door
01:18:48 ◼ ► um and most importantly for me it has ultra wideband support um ultra wideband apple has supported this
01:18:56 ◼ ► for a little while now it's in a bunch of apple devices and the reason it's important is
01:19:07 ◼ ► the the problem is proximity isn't enough to unlock a door because if you walk toward your front door if
01:19:13 ◼ ► they're if you're somebody knocks on your door and you wonder if it's a it's a serial killer and you
01:19:18 ◼ ► walk up to the door you know and so you got to look and see does this do they have a machete yeah
01:19:26 ◼ ► don't go look would be my well i would say oh i mean you could or use your uh doorbell cam if you
01:19:31 ◼ ► have one but i don't have one so i have to look out the window so you walk up to the door and your lock
01:19:36 ◼ ► is like oh you came near the door i'll unlock the door you don't want that if you're on the inside you
01:19:45 ◼ ► so the bluetooth solution was um the that you it would not because bluetooth isn't directional in
01:19:53 ◼ ► that way it would wait for you to leave and not and like literally their app on your phone would see
01:20:00 ◼ ► your location as being not in a radius that you set of your house at which point the lock is told
01:20:07 ◼ ► next time you see me now you can unlock because i'm not in the house so it was a real hack and it
01:20:12 ◼ ► worked okay um nfc is better right you gotta you gotta put your watch or phone right up to the lock
01:20:20 ◼ ► but then it it unlocks it's like uh express transit or anything like that yeah you can set it as your home
01:20:25 ◼ ► key it works uwb ultra wideband is directional it knows where you are in 3d space and so you can set
01:20:34 ◼ ► uh uwb lock to unlock as you walk up to the door so literally and in my review there's a video that i
01:20:41 ◼ ► took you literally as you walk up to the door generally you get a couple steps away and you're
01:20:46 ◼ ► and your door unlocks and you walk in which is pretty sweet how how close like is that it's like a
01:20:52 ◼ ► couple of steps in both directions like when you're inside and outside is that how you're inside
01:20:58 ◼ ► it doesn't unlock because it knows you're inside okay okay again machete he's the guy outside might
01:21:05 ◼ ► have a machete that's why you don't want that yeah that's why you don't want that in fact it's got a
01:21:09 ◼ ► very interesting feature um that it lets you choose where people might approach your door from and this
01:21:17 ◼ ► is important because i realized think about it i am working directly to the i mean it's it's to my
01:21:25 ◼ ► right is my front door yeah you're pretty close i am yeah i'm pretty close to it and in fact i'm a little
01:21:30 ◼ ► bit ahead of it so one of the things you can do with this lock is say in my case it's people will approach
01:21:38 ◼ ► my door from the front and maybe from the from the right but not from the left and that's good because
01:21:52 ◼ ► because it knows that if i'm over on this side i'm in the house that's very clever that's very
01:21:59 ◼ ► design they've really thought that which is smart right to to to think of that right because because
01:22:05 ◼ ► i can get way in way ahead of my front door yeah in the garage and then walk toward the door and it
01:22:11 ◼ ► won't unlock because it's like no no he's over to my left and he's not right in front of me
01:22:15 ◼ ► whereas if i come from the other side which is outside it will unlock and obviously the most common
01:22:21 ◼ ► is just i i straight directly address the door um and yeah sometimes you walk up to the door and then
01:22:27 ◼ ► a second later the uwb flashes and it lets you in but most of the time i'm still in stride and i don't
01:22:33 ◼ ► need to break stride i basically walk right up to my door and press the the latch and enter my house
01:22:37 ◼ ► which is pretty sweet so i think that's pretty great um it every other smart lock i've ever had
01:22:43 ◼ ► has had uh double a batteries this has a rechargeable battery that looks like a power bank
01:22:50 ◼ ► um it lasts forever i mean it's a very long life because it's a big like phone battery um so it lasts
01:23:00 ◼ ► i mean i don't know how long it lasts i've had it for since january and it's not it's just not been an
01:23:05 ◼ ► issue um but you might be thinking well yeah but how do you recharge it if it's in your in your door and
01:23:11 ◼ ► the answer is you can take it out and then your lock doesn't work but it's got a usb c on the on
01:23:18 ◼ ► the lock and in there i i thought this was so smart they're like here's what you do do you have a phone
01:23:24 ◼ ► charger um put it in put it in like a shopping bag like a like a battery bank yeah yeah yeah a battery
01:23:32 ◼ ► bank for your phone plug it in to the lock put it put it in like a shopping bag and hang it over the
01:23:39 ◼ ► doorknob that's so clever and then leave it there for like six hours and then your lock is charged
01:23:44 ◼ ► again so you don't have to charge it inside you can charge it inside that's right because the housing
01:23:50 ◼ ► is on the back of the door yeah yeah i thought that was a really smart one and and and i i love not going
01:23:55 ◼ ► through double a batteries yeah that's great it's great it's just a rechargeable battery um and the
01:24:00 ◼ ► little motor that pushes the lock is powerful uh which i like because i i definitely had some some um
01:24:06 ◼ ► because my door isn't aligned perfectly and i've definitely had some locks that really struggle
01:24:10 ◼ ► like if they don't strike the strike plate exactly right there they give up and this one's just like
01:24:15 ◼ ► it's gonna slam that thing in there and you can see the door sometimes the door will just go
01:24:20 ◼ ► it'll move it'll actually move the door a little bit as a part of that process so it's been pretty
01:24:25 ◼ ► and i'll say if it fails to lock the door it immediately makes a very loud noise which is really nice okay
01:24:32 ◼ ► um so all of this is good um it is yeah it's got home kit support it's got thread and matter
01:24:39 ◼ ► um it'll work with matter controllers i have the akara camera so um it talks to it too so it's like
01:24:48 ◼ ► it's connected to everything truth be told i don't need it to be integrated to anything in my home
01:24:54 ◼ ► um but back when i had teenagers one of the things that i did with my old smart lock is i set up an
01:25:01 ◼ ► automation so that if the smart lock unlocked after like 11 p.m it turned on one of the lights in the
01:25:10 ◼ ► living room and that was literally like well if i've got a kid coming home or i'm coming home i guess from
01:25:16 ◼ ► somewhere late at night i'll turn on a light in the house so that when they step in the front door they
01:25:22 ◼ ► can see what they're doing so you can you can you can automate it that way i know you did this like
01:25:27 ◼ ► hey oh yeah i mean there's a log i know you're out there's a camera i mean i i know i know that but
01:25:34 ◼ ► like just to be just to be more useful right to be more helpful um so yeah it it's it's good it is
01:25:43 ◼ ► it's not for everybody like i talked to dan morin about it he has he has one of those locks that uh
01:25:48 ◼ ► like the level i think it is yeah where it's like entirely just in it doesn't have anything it doesn't
01:25:54 ◼ ► look like a smart lock it doesn't look like a smart lock it looks like a lock but it's got all that stuff
01:25:59 ◼ ► in there undoubtedly those will come this one because this one's got the big the big black keypad and
01:26:04 ◼ ► honestly i don't need that i would be happy if it was more like a level lock but i've got the space on it
01:26:10 ◼ ► and i do have the lady who house sits and dog walks for us and she's not super technical and i could
01:26:17 ◼ ► set it up on her phone but i haven't i just she's got a code yeah and she just puts in the code and it
01:26:23 ◼ ► works like these things are useful but it's like do you want your front door to look like an airbnb
01:26:27 ◼ ► front door because that's what it will look like right like as you've got the big keypad in the front
01:26:31 ◼ ► this one's pretty good because it's a big black rectangle yeah and it doesn't the numbers are only
01:26:35 ◼ ► visible when you touch in the number area but but yes in the end it is one of those and if you
01:26:41 ◼ ► don't like that aesthetic um yeah i could see it like like i said if i i tend to buy the first one of
01:26:47 ◼ ► these that comes out because i don't need it to be totally stealthily invisible but if that was an
01:26:54 ◼ ► option i would consider it because i don't really need all these other things i'm pretty happy with
01:26:59 ◼ ► having it be uwb and a key and and throwing nfc and then that covers almost any modern apple device
01:27:05 ◼ ► which is good enough i don't need a fingerprint reader that's silly i don't actually need the
01:27:10 ◼ ► numbers um although it it doesn't hurt when you've got somebody like our house sitter um yeah yeah so it's
01:27:18 ◼ ► it's great i love it i and i can say because i started writing this article and then i got called to be on
01:27:23 ◼ ► jeopardy and then i got called by the wall street journal and then it was apple 50 yeah um in the end by
01:27:27 ◼ ► the time i published the article i had three months with it so i i'm able to report my delight
01:27:33 ◼ ► of this watch or of this watch of this lock uh and literally i walk the dog i don't even bring my
01:27:38 ◼ ► phone it's just my apple watch and i you know we walk up to the door and the door unlocks and we go in
01:27:42 ◼ ► and it's like is it is it that much superior to me walking up to the door holding my you know wrist
01:27:50 ◼ ► against the door having it go beep beep and then unlock no like that's good but what i say in the
01:27:58 ◼ ► story is this is the dream the dream is a magic door that knows that it's me and unlocks because
01:28:04 ◼ ► it's me and i'm coming home without me doing anything just walking up to the door that's kind
01:28:10 ◼ ► of i mean the ultimate dream is a star trek door but you know pocket doors are really impractical so
01:28:15 ◼ ► you know it's just star trek doors just slide away well it doesn't do that but it does the thing
01:28:22 ◼ ► where i can just walk up to it and it unlocks and that's pretty cool and again one of the reasons you
01:28:26 ◼ ► get a smart lock in my opinion is things like if you leave home and forget to lock your door
01:28:31 ◼ ► it's got a timeout and after you know five minutes or whatever you said it 30 seconds whatever it is
01:28:38 ◼ ► it locks your door behind you so if you forget to lock your door it will lock your door and you can look
01:28:44 ◼ ► on your phone and see is the door locked and it will tell you yes the door is locked or no it's not
01:28:52 ◼ ► very nice uwb is very impressive technology like some of the stuff that you can do it's really nice
01:29:00 ◼ ► it's more powerful than i think i give it credit for it's going everywhere and one of the reasons is
01:29:05 ◼ ► because of the um because of the the fact that it has 3d positioning one of the motivators for it
01:29:13 ◼ ► was for car keys yeah because with bluetooth what you can do is repeat so like you've got somebody with
01:29:20 ◼ ► like a tesla and they're they got their tesla key in their phone and it's bluetooth um and this is a
01:29:28 ◼ ► the thing that really happened and so what you do is they're at a restaurant and you you stand outside
01:29:32 ◼ ► the restaurant and identify their bluetooth and you put you do a bluetooth relay magnifier that that
01:29:39 ◼ ► relays their bluetooth signal and you direct it to their car and now their car thinks that the signal
01:29:46 ◼ ► from the phone is so strong that they must be right next to the car and then you can open the door
01:29:50 ◼ ► with uwb you can't because it knows exactly where you are it's using timing so that the the actual and
01:30:02 ◼ ► this is actually how apple watch unlock works on the mac too is um not uwb but the timing thing which is
01:30:16 ◼ ► there's a time stamp attached so like you could relay the uwb signal to the um to the the the car
01:30:24 ◼ ► to unlock it but it will know how far away that is because of the speed of light it knows that that
01:30:31 ◼ ► it took that radio wave a lot longer to get there than it should have if it was proximate and that's how
01:30:37 ◼ ► that works so um so it's much more secure and it knows exactly where you are and yeah in the long
01:30:44 ◼ ► run i think a lot of smart home stuff is going to be uwb related because you you will be able to do
01:30:51 ◼ ► things like when i walk into this room like what if i'm wearing my apple watch or have my phone in my
01:30:56 ◼ ► pocket and i walk into my garage at some point i will be able to automate that where i won't even have
01:31:03 ◼ ► to press the button to turn on the light it'll just turn on because i'm it knows i'm in the garage or
01:31:10 ◼ ► after 30 seconds or it knows i'm at my desk right like there there are a bunch of automations that can
01:31:17 ◼ ► happen when your home knows your absolute position well a car is also doing a lot of stuff of millimeter
01:31:24 ◼ ► wave which that is like it knows if you're sitting down or standing up like not just where you are in
01:31:31 ◼ ► position so there's there's even more interesting things and they're integrating that into a bunch
01:31:35 ◼ ► of their products now i think yeah they have a thermostat i was just watching a video steven
01:31:40 ◼ ► roble has made about this where like the thermostat also has the millimeter wave antenna in it so it can
01:31:46 ◼ ► like it can tell where you are in the room and you can use that for different automations and stuff
01:31:50 ◼ ► like that so it's really interesting stuff yeah i mean i if i'm in the bedroom or in the living room
01:31:57 ◼ ► i probably want parts of aspects of my house to behave differently right yeah and you could do
01:32:02 ◼ ► that yeah so that's it's it's all very interesting but anyway this is a are smart locks necessary in
01:32:07 ◼ ► life they are not but they do make my life a little bit nicer and i enjoy having it and the uwv is the
01:32:12 ◼ ► the best one yet very cool all right this episode is also brought to you by our friends over at mercury
01:32:19 ◼ ► weather mercury weather is a thoughtfully designed weather app that shows all the essential weather
01:32:24 ◼ ► details at a glance it has a beautiful colorful interface that dynamically adapts to the current
01:32:31 ◼ ► weather conditions so you would see maybe a warm orangey palette on a sunny day icy tones on a cold day i saw
01:32:39 ◼ ► a lot of gray recently i wonder why that might be or a deep blue on a rainy night mercury uses a glanceable
01:32:46 ◼ ► chart layout to present the hourly and daily forecast in a way that feels intuitive right away
01:32:51 ◼ ► my first interaction with mercury weather was when jason came to visit me and he had a widget on his
01:32:58 ◼ ► ipad home screen and i was like what is going on in that widget and then he got to tell me about
01:33:04 ◼ ► mercury's trip forecast feature which i think you're very excited about now it is so this is why i got
01:33:10 ◼ ► mercury weather the first time as i was asking people because when we went to new zealand i ended up
01:33:15 ◼ ► writing a shortcut that gave me because we had a whole two-week itinerary that would query apple
01:33:22 ◼ ► weather and get me back the weather in this city in these two days and then what was the forecast for
01:33:27 ◼ ► the next two days in this other city and then what was the forecast for that and and somebody said have you
01:33:32 ◼ ► seen mercury weather mercury weather has a trip feature so you put in and you can do a way in
01:33:38 ◼ ► advance you put in i'm going to be in london these days and in its main view and in its widget it will
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01:33:53 ◼ ► oregon to visit our kids i had a forecast for like the next three days in mill valley and then the three
01:33:59 ◼ ► days we were in portland and then go back and then back to mill valley um when my wife was going to
01:34:05 ◼ ► minnesota like you're like oh the weather's really nice now it's very cold oh that was very nice again and
01:34:11 ◼ ► i love it so when i went to london i could put in my whole trip i could do it way in advance and then
01:34:16 ◼ ► just as it got closer suddenly my weather widget from mercury was showing me not just what the weather
01:34:23 ◼ ► was going to be like where i was at home but then oh like and then you're going to be in london and
01:34:27 ◼ ► here's what the weather's gonna be like i don't know like this is such a good idea i'm actually surprised
01:34:34 ◼ ► that it hasn't been stolen by everybody same but it hasn't mercury had it they and and and that is why i am
01:34:40 ◼ ► a mercury weather subscriber because it's so great to have that feature especially if you travel a lot
01:34:46 ◼ ► or if you're traveling to different places because you can put them all in you can put a little give
01:34:50 ◼ ► it a name give it a little icon and and then you're looking at a personal forecast not a forecast for a
01:34:55 ◼ ► location the location is you it's super smart i love it mercury also offers storm and hurricane
01:35:02 ◼ ► tracking for when weather gets serious it has maps lie positions forecast path cones and intensity
01:35:08 ◼ ► plus widgets as well i know i don't even know what that means but i know that you storm chasers do
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01:35:18 ◼ ► your home screen overall it is a gorgeous interface is a delight to check the weather every day even on
01:35:24 ◼ ► gray and rainy ones like i have the app's business model is simple there are no ads they don't sell your
01:35:29 ◼ ► data it's available on all apple platforms except for tv os you can download it use the standard features
01:35:39 ◼ ► app slash upgrade to download mercury weather now use that link so they'll know that you came from
01:35:44 ◼ ► this show that is mercury weather dot app slash upgrade to try it out and get all the standard
01:35:50 ◼ ► features for free and there is a link in the show notes as well thanks to mercury weather for their
01:36:01 ◼ ► john asks do either of you think that the siri brand has been so tarnished and associated with failure
01:36:09 ◼ ► after failure that when apple finally gets apple intelligence together they should just go with a new
01:36:13 ◼ ► name i don't in for a penny in for a pound let's get it right it's it's you know i'd say it's easier to
01:36:21 ◼ ► rehab a known brand than it is to create a new brand yeah i think that people are forgiving believe it or
01:36:28 ◼ ► not i think that all you have to say is we've got a whole new siri and it's way better than the old
01:36:33 ◼ ► one and people are like oh i'll try the new siri i don't think anybody's like i won't try anything
01:36:37 ◼ ► called siri because siri wronged me i just don't think that's a voice that i tried um i just don't
01:36:43 ◼ ► believe it mr bones i just don't believe it i i think siri is a known name and the most important
01:36:48 ◼ ► thing is that it's known and it hasn't committed crimes it's just not been that great but like
01:36:52 ◼ ► it's known and all they have to do is say we made siri way better that's all they are so i i just i
01:37:00 ◼ ► don't believe it i know that there's this narrative out there that is like oh the siri brand is so
01:37:04 ◼ ► tarnished uh i think most most of that is among people like us who pay a lot more attention to it than
01:37:10 ◼ ► the regular people in the real world do i think people make jokes about it right like you see jokes
01:37:15 ◼ ► about on tv but but i think in that regard then you're you're you're you're kind of level of
01:37:20 ◼ ► expectations so low that all you have to do is make it a little bit better and everyone will say hey siri's
01:37:25 ◼ ► really good now and it might be still not as good as you would want it to be but you can kind of you
01:37:30 ◼ ► get that rub i would also say that all of these voice assistants have bad reputations to a certain
01:37:35 ◼ ► degree because they've all been bad yeah um but like i just think it's branding 101 apple has spent you
01:37:42 ◼ ► know whatever 15 years branding siri you know the name that's the most important thing it is
01:37:49 ◼ ► that that is it that is it maybe you can turn you can rehab that brand all you have to do literally
01:37:55 ◼ ► is say hey we made siri great it's better than it's ever been before try it out that's all they have to
01:37:59 ◼ ► do if they if they can now you then it has to work you actually do have to yeah you can't just say it
01:38:06 ◼ ► you actually do have to have done the work i'm not a believer in in throwing it away and and and
01:38:11 ◼ ► coming up with a new i just don't i just don't think that makes sense jeremy says do you think
01:38:18 ◼ ► we'll be able to rotate an open folded iphone so that the screen is tall it may be a nice way to get
01:38:25 ◼ ► long scrolling lists of what seems like an otherwise squat phone so if you turned it to its side yeah
01:38:31 ◼ ► will it will it do the the the screen flipping like an ipad does i don't know maybe although my guess is
01:38:38 ◼ ► probably not because of the because of the the crease in the in the center horizontal why would
01:38:45 ◼ ► that matter i don't know here i let's not even go there because here's the bottom line for jeremy which
01:38:51 ◼ ► is it's a four by three display on the inside rotating it gets you nothing it makes it very slightly
01:38:57 ◼ ► taller it's not a long display it's basically a square display so i don't think it's going to get you what you
01:39:03 ◼ ► what do you want that'll bet maybe maybe the question is how it's all ergonomically you know
01:39:14 ◼ ► like if you hold it sideways it flips closed or something you're like oh no i gotta mastodon right
01:39:19 ◼ ► yeah yeah but this is what i'm saying is it's not going to get you a lot and i it depends on how apple
01:39:24 ◼ ► implements it but like if holding it that way is kind of awkward because it's sort of like then you're
01:39:27 ◼ ► putting pressure in places where it's like going to try to close or something i don't know i don't know
01:39:32 ◼ ► but i i just maybe it'll help a little bit but i think the message that i want to send here is
01:39:38 ◼ ► turning four by three into three by four is not going to get you a lot okay what is the ipad mini
01:39:43 ◼ ► is that four by three pretty if it's not it's pretty close four by three is the traditional ipad
01:39:50 ◼ ► it's not the aspect ratio of every ipad now but most ipads are in that ballpark because i feel like
01:39:56 ◼ ► an ipad you turn it like that it does like if you're reading a book or whatever it feels more
01:40:01 ◼ ► natural to have it in a portrait than a than a landscape so i don't know if you're reading a
01:40:06 ◼ ► book on on the foldable iphone i think you probably want like two pages right oh yeah actually oh yeah
01:40:12 ◼ ► that's probably what you want i'd love that i'm getting i'm rounding in on uh apple in china now by
01:40:17 ◼ ► the way i'm like not very far away from the end my my i was reading every night when i would kind of
01:40:22 ◼ ► like give the baby a bottle to sleep but i've stopped doing it now so i now need to find other
01:40:25 ◼ ► places in my day to read the book but um it's uh i'm at the the part with the iphone 10r when the
01:40:33 ◼ ► iphone 10r kind of like falls apart i had a blast from the past i love that yeah great book man oh my
01:40:38 ◼ ► god it's so good uh a good book what while we're in this random aside i don't remember if i shared this
01:40:43 ◼ ► with you or not but there's a chapter called red apple and i'm convinced that was the original title
01:40:49 ◼ ► for this book because that's too good the name is too good but i think it's not as descriptive as
01:40:55 ◼ ► apple in china but i think if you've ever come up with the name red apple like that's the name of the
01:41:00 ◼ ► book unless they tell you it can't be surely it's like a perfect name for this book anyway
01:41:05 ◼ ► coming back to the show steven says probably a weird thought but considering the m1 pro and max chips
01:41:13 ◼ ► were released in 2021 how many years do you think we can expect apple to keep supporting them with
01:41:19 ◼ ► new os features i was considering picking up an m1 max macbook pro as a second computer
01:41:24 ◼ ► so i looked this up today tahoe this is a refresher tahoe is the last mac os version that will support
01:41:33 ◼ ► intel so the next version of mac os the lowest kind of system like the the intro system spec will be the
01:41:43 ◼ ► m1 so then it's like then how long after that is it another two years is it three four years but yes
01:41:49 ◼ ► this is the tahoe is the last operating system that will support any intel computers so we don't know
01:41:57 ◼ ► but what i will say is i expect it to be a long time yeah i expect apple to to support apple silicon
01:42:04 ◼ ► for a very long time because it's their chip design because there are lots and lots of m1s
01:42:10 ◼ ► out there yes because apple was selling m new m1 macbook airs this year oh my word because apple is
01:42:17 ◼ ► still still selling just started selling a macbook neo that is using a very low powered apple silicon chip
01:42:28 ◼ ► i think apple's silicon strategy eventually they they will drop support for older chips i think it's
01:42:37 ◼ ► going to be a really long time i think they will maybe drop features new features maybe there will be
01:42:44 ◼ ► some new features that do not go back that far right maybe um it's hardware but like just how the the
01:42:53 ◼ ► studio display xdr doesn't support certain apple silicon yeah they're already doing that right
01:42:59 ◼ ► there's there's some like gating there about what that chips can do that's probably based on the
01:43:05 ◼ ► thunderbolt more than the chip it is or it's based on the chip whatever i think there will be more
01:43:09 ◼ ► software features like that but my gut feeling is that apple is going to keep support for apple silicon
01:43:14 ◼ ► macs on mac os for a very long time and that when they do give it up they'll probably give it up
01:43:19 ◼ ► piecemeal well they'll say well it'll still run and you'll get our security benefits but this feature
01:43:26 ◼ ► won't be there they did that a little bit in the intel era i think they're going to be very motivated
01:43:30 ◼ ► to keep apple silicon max on the current version of the os for as long as they can magnified by the fact
01:43:38 ◼ ► that again the m1 macbook air was being sold this year and the macbook neo is not that different than
01:43:44 ◼ ► the m1 macbook air in a lot of ways so that leads me to believe that it will be supported for a long
01:43:51 ◼ ► time because that's the thing like these are all apple chips so it's like can i boot it up and run
01:43:57 ◼ ► the apple chips i don't see why apple wouldn't try to keep that window open as long as possible
01:44:02 ◼ ► and if there's anything that doesn't cross you know cross the quality bar or whatever you just make that
01:44:08 ◼ ► feature not available on a on an older system i feel like that's what they're going to try to do
01:44:13 ◼ ► for a long time i could be wrong but like i just don't see it i just don't see apple in two years
01:44:18 ◼ ► saying no more m1 support i especially since they'll you know you'll have a relatively recent m1 air that
01:44:25 ◼ ► you bought and what is it where does that leave the macbook neo i feel like when they make those
01:44:29 ◼ ► commitments to sell those products they are committing to those systems for a while um again i could be wrong
01:44:34 ◼ ► but i just since they control everything here and since apple silicon has so much kind of good about it
01:44:41 ◼ ► and is custom built to run these operating systems i am i am skeptical um but you know they do it with
01:44:49 ◼ ► the iphone and the ipad those all those all fall off eventually so maybe it will with mac os but i'd be
01:44:54 ◼ ► surprised if it wasn't several years out now and nick writes in and says about two and a half years ago
01:45:00 ◼ ► we got my high school daughter a refurbished m1 macbook air with 16 gigabytes of ram and a 256 gigabyte
01:45:07 ◼ ► ssd she uses about half of this space she's currently a senior and i'm fortunate enough to be able to
01:45:12 ◼ ► afford to get her a new machine for college in the fall my question if i want to get her something that
01:45:17 ◼ ► lasts four years am i better off getting a neo or a m5 macbook air i'm tempted by the shiny new neo
01:45:34 ◼ ► i gut feeling i for for something that'll last four years and you're fortunate enough to be able to
01:45:44 ◼ ► afford to get her a new machine i would look at the macbook air i think so i would look at the m5
01:45:50 ◼ ► macbook air i would also look and see if there are any uh discounted m4 macbook airs floating around
01:45:55 ◼ ► because or even a refurb because like the m5 is nice but you could probably save a little bit of
01:46:03 ◼ ► money on an m4 and m4 is great too and it's going to be way more powerful than the neo anyway
01:46:08 ◼ ► but depends on how she uses it i mean if she's not really pushing it the neo is probably fine but
01:46:17 ◼ ► if you're if you really want it to be something that's going to take her whole college career
01:46:22 ◼ ► and you have the you know you're able to afford it as nick's message writes i would say look at the air
01:46:29 ◼ ► look at the m5 and the m4 that might be discounted um because that i have every confidence that those
01:46:36 ◼ ► computers will be perfectly fine in four years the macbook neo you know in four years it may be showing
01:46:43 ◼ ► its age we'll see um i mean look if you said i don't have the budget for anything more than the
01:46:52 ◼ ► neo i would say the neo would be fine but if you've got a little more budget you can get a lot more with
01:46:57 ◼ ► an air i agree if you'd like to send in a question of your own or you have any feedback or follow up
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