Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► from relay this is upgrade episode 616 the marvel universe for may 18th 2026 i am your host jason snell mike hurley is on assignment this episode is still brought to you though even though mike is on assignment by delete me squarespace claude and steam clock and joining me filling in for mike uh is

00:00:29 ◼   ► his fellow relay co-founder mr stephen hackett hi stephen hey jason thanks for having me thanks for being here thanks for helping out with mike gone this i do not want this show to be a monologue because that would be super boring no no one needs that let's not do that nobody wants it i i don't want it and i would be the one monologuing and i don't want it so i don't want to inflict that on anybody else yeah look we've said this before i you and i don't get to talk about tech very much in public

00:00:59 ◼   ► and so when we do it's always a treat yeah um so i'm always happy together together we talk about it a lot but not together right yeah yeah yeah together in public we we're also talking behind the scenes all the time all the time we're on a podcast together talking about tech and even though i am the guest yes you are the host yes i don't have time for this steven because i think we've got a snell talk question from you from me from me that's what i was i was trying to get there i saw i saw you i thought you might need a little

00:01:29 ◼   ► a little uh a little uh helping hand just helping you out jason i know that you have been slowly collecting more apple gear and viewers of upgrade see it right because it's behind you yes um what are some recent additions and i would love to know also what's on your short list what would you love to have added so one of the dangerous things about making old computers behind me part of my video setup is that it

00:01:59 ◼   ► gives me an excuse to buy old computers yeah although i haven't done a lot of that i actually haven't bought a lot of stuff recently i did buy a a trash can mac pro

00:02:11 ◼   ► because we and that got that bounced around a few different podcasts i i felt like we were at the low point where

00:02:18 ◼   ► it was no longer useful as a computer but no longer vintage enough to rise in price yes and i saw you could get one for like 180 bucks and i'm like

00:02:26 ◼   ► they are the perfect price right now yeah because it looks great i theoretically it works i just i haven't set

00:02:33 ◼   ► it up theoretically it works but for now um i have to find a

00:02:38 ◼   ► uh the right display adapter which i probably have i just haven't bothered to do it to get it to a more

00:02:45 ◼   ► modern display but otherwise uh it probably works i assume it works so that there's that it has i know it has

00:02:53 ◼   ► hdmi out mine is behind me but you can't see it's not in frame it's got hdmi but i guess it also has

00:02:58 ◼   ► thunderbolt 2 i can just pop it to a tv in my in my house that that would work that's what you want is

00:03:04 ◼   ► i can make up my new um plex server is uh no uh so i've got that but the big things came last week i got

00:03:12 ◼   ► two more i got two more items that were on my list one of them was high on my list and one of them was

00:03:18 ◼   ► just kind of i thought it might be so there's a i'm not gonna say it's a tragic story it's a sad human

00:03:24 ◼   ► story i used to work at mac user back in the 90s um and i showed up as a summer intern a couple weeks

00:03:34 ◼   ► after the editor-in-chief of mac user left for another job and that guy his name was john zilber

00:03:39 ◼   ► and um and as a result all the people i worked with at mac user back then knew john i never knew john

00:03:45 ◼   ► but they all knew john and john passed away a few weeks ago and my friend jim who i worked with uh at

00:03:52 ◼   ► mac user back in the day um said the family is having some trouble figuring out what's on old macs

00:03:59 ◼   ► figuring out if they're functional or not and uh he was wondering if i could help them and and

00:04:06 ◼   ► especially one of the tasks and you'll appreciate this is they couldn't actually use some of them

00:04:13 ◼   ► because they didn't have an adb keyboard or mouse right yeah it may start up but then you can't

00:04:21 ◼   ► interact what do you do because these are pre-iMac and therefore they don't have they have the old

00:04:27 ◼   ► um apple desktop bus so and he sent me a picture and that was i mean i do you knew what he was doing

00:04:33 ◼   ► he sent me a picture and i looked at the picture and i was like is that an emate yes is that an original

00:04:41 ◼   ► g3 ibook yes and so i said you know i i said get them in touch with me and i will help them and i went

00:04:49 ◼   ► down there they're they're um south just south of san francisco and i went down there and i brought

00:04:54 ◼   ► with me apple extended keyboard um or apple keyboard i didn't bring the big one i have a smaller one that

00:05:01 ◼   ► you know why you don't drive that big of a car i mean you need to run a u-haul to use the extended

00:05:06 ◼   ► two and i was worried do i have adb mice and i do i had two so i brought an adb mouse and i brought the

00:05:13 ◼   ► blue scuzzy which is for those who don't know it's basically like a raspberry pi that is attached

00:05:20 ◼   ► um to a scuzzy port and it reads off of sd cards it reads disc images um so you can pop in an sd card

00:05:30 ◼   ► and basically i was worried that they wanted to get some personal stuff off of them which they didn't

00:05:37 ◼   ► actually want these were systems that were very very old obviously and they didn't they weren't

00:05:41 ◼   ► worried about that they actually just wanted to determine would they boot and so there there were

00:05:46 ◼   ► three systems there that they were wondering about one of them was a beige g3 um and what did we figure

00:05:55 ◼   ► out i figured i i powered it on and uh i could hear the hard drive going clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk

00:06:02 ◼   ► and i said i said that'll be easy to take the hard drive out of because it's a it's a big tower

00:06:08 ◼   ► um also that hard drive is dead so don't worry about it yeah yeah there was a power mac 7200 or

00:06:14 ◼   ► something so a desktop power mac those back in those days those were also actually pretty easy to open

00:06:19 ◼   ► and that one i said um we couldn't get video out that was it turns out the big challenge was mac video

00:06:25 ◼   ► to uh a modern monitor it is very hard it's hard it's really hard because mac video you have to you

00:06:31 ◼   ► end up with an adapter which which he had on both of these systems an adapter with a bunch of dip

00:06:35 ◼   ► switches on it yep that goes to vga and we plugged in a vga monitor and none of them lit up and so we

00:06:41 ◼   ► really don't know like was it trying to boot that one made a little more positive hard drive noises

00:06:47 ◼   ► and i said you should probably just get it get in there and and rip it out because they're worried

00:06:52 ◼   ► about personal stuff on it so they just yeah just just remove it yeah and i said you should be able

00:06:57 ◼   ► to do that oh they had a g4 cube which booted sometimes but never to a screen that actually

00:07:03 ◼   ► loaded the os and i said that one you're gonna have to look that's more modern so you're gonna

00:07:07 ◼   ► have to look online about how to remove the hard drive i took it i opened it up and i said that's

00:07:10 ◼   ► the hard drive but you're gonna have to take some pieces apart in order to get it out of there yeah

00:07:14 ◼   ► see the difference is i would have gone with a full tool set and i would have like just stripped

00:07:19 ◼   ► those babies down beyond my uh beyond my interest or capability um so i did not do that that was i

00:07:25 ◼   ► was i was strictly the the blue scuzzy was as far as it went and there was a uh there was a mac se and

00:07:31 ◼   ► the funny thing is it was an se not an se 30 and i i was like uh and it wouldn't boot and i realized

00:07:36 ◼   ► actually that the hard drive was blinking blinking sos in morse code yeah which is a funny thing that

00:07:42 ◼   ► hard drives did back then it was actually blinking you know long long long short short short but that

00:07:48 ◼   ► one i was able to download system 608 onto blue scuzzy as an image and pop it on the back and turn

00:07:54 ◼   ► it on and it booted and so i said so this one you can sell because they're just going to sell this

00:07:59 ◼   ► stuff on on ebay um i said you could sell this as boots but the heart you know x boots from external

00:08:06 ◼   ► but the hard drive internally is dead right which is very common when you're shopping for this stuff

00:08:12 ◼   ► like i mean really at this point if i if i get anything i kind of just assume that age i just kind

00:08:19 ◼   ► of assume the internal storage is dead because if it's not it will be soon it will be soon exactly

00:08:24 ◼   ► but um i wanted to reassure them so that one blinking sos it's i said it's a goner i said if he was like a

00:08:30 ◼   ► former head of state or something i would recommend you absolutely remove all these drives and sledgehammer

00:08:36 ◼   ► but um he's not and so nobody is going to ever attempt to do forensics on that drive to pull off

00:08:42 ◼   ► all the platters to find out what was on a mac se in 1993 you'd be surprised though how many times over

00:08:48 ◼   ► the years i've gotten something either purchased or you know sent from a listener or a reader and it just

00:08:54 ◼   ► is full of stuff i have like i have a power book my power book 170 or 180 whatever it is that i got for the

00:09:00 ◼   ► 20 max for 2020 series that's just got somebody's stuff on it like right down to the the connectics

00:09:07 ◼   ► power book utilities is like every time i open it on that thing it's got his name it's like registered

00:09:12 ◼   ► to this guy and i'm like i don't know who that guy is but this was his computer that's a little weird

00:09:16 ◼   ► yeah it's when you're decommissioning a computer ideally you should wipe it um and after the fact

00:09:24 ◼   ► yeah yeah it's just it can be weird so anyway i walked away with an emate

00:09:29 ◼   ► that's awesome and uh does it work they say it works but they kept the power plug because i said

00:09:36 ◼   ► i could get another power plug although my newton power adapter doesn't have enough power so i had

00:09:40 ◼   ► to order a power adapter for it yeah it's a different wattage i think yeah so i i but i think what they

00:09:46 ◼   ► said is that it was it was um it had a login code so um i was i'm gonna have to reset it which is fine

00:09:53 ◼   ► you just wipe it and reset it and then you can get in but i've got that that's fun because i never i spent like

00:09:59 ◼   ► 15 minutes with one in the 90s and never again so i'm excited to have that um one of the unique i told

00:10:08 ◼   ► them the story about how johnny ive and in that period was just trying to make things with translucent

00:10:13 ◼   ► plastic and nobody would listen and since there was a beige g3 there i was able to put uh point at the

00:10:18 ◼   ► little plastic button button on the side and say see this is this is him crying to be let out

00:10:23 ◼   ► mm-hmm um and i got i got a um it's a graphite um g3 power book which very nice i i don't i didn't

00:10:33 ◼   ► especially need it but it it it's fully functional i mean the battery's dead but it runs and um my mom

00:10:43 ◼   ► used that that was her first when they when my parents moved into their motor home and were full-time

00:10:48 ◼   ► motor homers we got her an orange i book and she could take it because in those days there wasn't

00:10:56 ◼   ► even wi-fi at the park so she would take it up to the front office where there was a modem plug you

00:11:02 ◼   ► could plug your phone line into your computer and dial in to get your email and that's what they did

00:11:08 ◼   ► um and so i have sort of fond memories of that and so um i got that one too also it's such it's such a

00:11:15 ◼   ► unique looking laptop so that's what i got now i got i got an email i got so it's fun i i don't what's

00:11:21 ◼   ► on my short list honestly there's very little on my short list at this point um i i don't because so

00:11:30 ◼   ► many of these things are like i kind of like being able to take pictures of them or have them in the

00:11:35 ◼   ► background and all that i'm mostly just interested in how they look i will say honestly steven

00:11:43 ◼   ► the modern mac pro is on my list for when it falls in price to the point where it doesn't cost anything

00:11:52 ◼   ► anymore like the trash can and i will get that because i've got i've got a g4 here i've got a

00:11:59 ◼   ► couple power mac g4s here i don't have a g5 i mean maybe but like i they're just interesting to me and

00:12:06 ◼   ► that one looks looks particularly interesting so maybe but like i i'm not i i i'm not feeling like

00:12:12 ◼   ► there's a white whale out there for me do you have anything left that i mean i feel like you've got

00:12:16 ◼   ► everything now is there anything out there that you're um i've got a lot pondering um i would love

00:12:22 ◼   ► a lisa that is my that may be the only thing on my list now oh yeah because i've got the like from

00:12:29 ◼   ► my setup's obviously different than it used to be but i can see sort of over the camera

00:12:34 ◼   ► an imac g4 a 20th anniversary mac and a mac portable yeah but i would get a 20th anniversary mac but

00:12:42 ◼   ► they're so expensive that i never will and i got mine 10 years ago and the prices have only gone up

00:12:48 ◼   ► yeah right well there's a you like you mentioned that's the moment it's outmoded but not vintage

00:12:53 ◼   ► yep the mac the 2019 mac pro will hit that and when it does i will get one too because i loved mine

00:12:59 ◼   ► um but i sold it because it was in the beginning of that curve i was like the business owned it

00:13:04 ◼   ► right like i need the value out of it to buy the next computer and so um but no i enjoy this i'm glad

00:13:11 ◼   ► you're getting into it um yeah and uh i will say also for those who want you can't see it as well

00:13:17 ◼   ► on upgrade on back break weekly i'm i'm shot straight on um on the video version and you can

00:13:23 ◼   ► see it and the thing i'm most proud of about my setup which has got these nice ikea shelves that

00:13:27 ◼   ► i got which is entirely inspired by the pot the old pod cabin yeah which had these same shelves and i

00:13:33 ◼   ► really liked it um and so i got them so um everything that's back there that you see on mac break weekly

00:13:40 ◼   ► anyway all boots all of it the g4 cube the 128 uh or i guess it's a 512 um the apple 2c like all this

00:13:50 ◼   ► all the stuff back there boots which is um they're not just there for sure the only thing that i have

00:13:55 ◼   ► that's totally non-functional is the mac portable and again i it's kind of not worth it to me to even make

00:14:01 ◼   ► the effort to make it functional i just i mean it looks so weird and i was able to get one cheap because

00:14:06 ◼   ► it didn't run that i got it but it's dead yeah i have i don't have a battery you can get a battery

00:14:14 ◼   ► but i have the actual the parts to bring mine back to life and i've just never bothered yeah like

00:14:18 ◼   ► yeah hey podcast a thon let's bring let's bring back the okay the mac part what we learned with

00:14:24 ◼   ► the podcast a thon last year is that what you really want is an extra guest who's not responsible for

00:14:29 ◼   ► podcast a thon things to do work off on the side and you check in with them because if you're if you're

00:14:35 ◼   ► actually trying to entertain people and fix a computer it does not work it doesn't work it's not

00:14:39 ◼   ► not good let's do some follow-up okay before we get into the rest of the show uh we had a lot of

00:14:45 ◼   ► talk um with mike about visual intelligence and airpods and airpods with cameras and what that was

00:14:52 ◼   ► all going to be about and i think i probably said that i thought visual intelligence was kind of useless

00:14:57 ◼   ► and we heard from logan who said i'll be the second person to defend visual intelligence it's good there's

00:15:03 ◼   ► two of you you can start a club now yeah um it takes i use it to identify plants and insects often

00:15:10 ◼   ► but it's best for vintage shopping i love mid-century modern decor it not only accesses google images but

00:15:15 ◼   ► also ebay etsy and pinterest it makes it easy to find an item and purchase it the real issue is there's

00:15:20 ◼   ► no visual intelligence in the photos app if i screenshot something to save for later i have to take another

00:15:25 ◼   ► screenshot to use visual that's not good visual intelligence hopefully that will change in ios 27 yeah

00:15:30 ◼   ► more integration it does it doesn't feel very well integrated that's part of the problem that's one of the

00:15:34 ◼   ► problems with it it really feels tacked on to the the camera and really the camera control experience

00:15:40 ◼   ► um but it is cool that apps can access it i forget if it's home depot or lowe's i've got both on my

00:15:45 ◼   ► phone because oh man suburban dad wow suburban dad but uh one of those apps also supports it and like

00:15:53 ◼   ► it is cool and i like that it exists but i i kind of land where you land like i don't personally have a

00:16:00 ◼   ► use case for it um i hadn't even thought or come across it like this not in the photos app that seems

00:16:07 ◼   ► like a big oversight to me especially when you look at um what google does in android and what they've been

00:16:12 ◼   ► doing for a long time but then the new stuff they announced last week very much like contextual

00:16:17 ◼   ► intelligence like i have this photo in my photo library what is in it right and there's some of

00:16:24 ◼   ► that stuff it knows about pets and plants but it's not the same system right as like the full-blown

00:16:31 ◼   ► visual intelligence it's like an older system they built visual intelligence into the screenshot

00:16:36 ◼   ► interface which when you're just trying to take a screenshot is very annoying it is but um they built

00:16:42 ◼   ► it there and and it's not in photos and and i think there's a a technical reason why you understand

00:16:48 ◼   ► why it's like that but if you're a user you're like why am i having to do this why do i have to take a

00:16:52 ◼   ► screenshot of a screenshot um so thank you to logan jimmy wrote in and said uh regarding the airpods with

00:17:00 ◼   ► camera rumor do you think it's about the tech or about the messaging if it's announced as airpods with

00:17:04 ◼   ► environmental sensors or something does that change the perception consumers won't expect to take

00:17:09 ◼   ► pictures and the public won't assume it's a camera this product would be a boon to accessibility

00:17:12 ◼   ► uh reading science door detection other things the magnifier app already does if apple advertises

00:17:17 ◼   ► it as phone stuff without the phone does that change things and i will just say i heard from some people

00:17:23 ◼   ► who said like if this is like an infrared camera or it's got it's an unusual thing and and they don't

00:17:28 ◼   ► sell it as a camera but as a as a visual sensor or something like something that is it's not about

00:17:34 ◼   ► taking pictures because i don't believe it will be about taking pictures i believe it'll be about

00:17:38 ◼   ► sensing things maybe that makes a difference i don't know yeah the the door detection stuff

00:17:43 ◼   ► is really cool when they rolled that out i think a couple years ago now and yeah clearly cameras that

00:17:50 ◼   ► are sort of well sort of inherently eye level are really useful from an accessibility standpoint

00:17:55 ◼   ► but i think the broader conversation of does apple call it a camera is it perceived as a camera

00:18:02 ◼   ► that's really complicated i think there's enough pushback on things like this like there are lots

00:18:08 ◼   ► of people like the meta ray bands and like the other things but there's a lot of people who really don't

00:18:13 ◼   ► like them and and don't want to be around them or have them in their house like i think no matter how

00:18:20 ◼   ► apple sells it unless it really is not a camera if it's really like this is you know lidar sensors or

00:18:26 ◼   ► something then there's a risk of it kind of going sideways i think it can get away with it if they

00:18:31 ◼   ► said something like it's an infrared uh fisheye camera that's intended to see what's happening

00:18:36 ◼   ► around you but it's not for for taking pictures or videos or something like that where they and like

00:18:40 ◼   ► it's a weird camera is basically what they would be saying they'd use technical things to make them

00:18:44 ◼   ► seem impressive but i think that's what it would be in the bottom line is like oh it's kind of a weird

00:18:48 ◼   ► camera don't worry about it it's not for that we're not taking pictures we're not spying on you

00:18:53 ◼   ► we're just seeing what's in your environment and using it for uh helpful things yeah i think the

00:18:59 ◼   ► other thing that is i think is key on things like the meta products is like some indication to the

00:19:06 ◼   ► other person they're being recorded and i don't know how you do that if this is more of like an

00:19:11 ◼   ► environmental sort of ambient sensor setup but i do think that helps people a little bit be at more

00:19:19 ◼   ► ease with the with these things um this has made me think of something that i haven't had a place to

00:19:25 ◼   ► say it so i'm just going to have it here like i think it's easy to look at at products like the meta

00:19:31 ◼   ► stuff or even something like this airpods with cameras and immediately go to the google glasses

00:19:37 ◼   ► situation but that was a long long time ago when google glasses came out it was unusual for cameras to

00:19:46 ◼   ► be everywhere we a bunch of people already had smartphones but it i think comparing this directly

00:19:54 ◼   ► to like the glass hole situation is not really right or fair but at the same time there are people who

00:20:01 ◼   ► are going to have strong feelings about this and and not not be excited about it um but yeah it's all in

00:20:09 ◼   ► the messaging and i think if apple can talk about it and the use cases really are accessibility uh visual

00:20:17 ◼   ► intelligence you know i as a user can't even see what the cameras see like maybe this is all kind of

00:20:22 ◼   ► going into these apps and things um there's got to be really clear about that and i think be able to

00:20:29 ◼   ► explain it in a way that is reassuring not but but also not condescending to people who are concerned

00:20:35 ◼   ► about this stuff right right uh it's gonna gonna be interesting i still i still am trying to imagine

00:20:41 ◼   ► how they sell this product but i guess we'll find out yeah if it ever exists so another bit of follow-up

00:20:47 ◼   ► is about binning and the macbook neo we talked about that a lot um i got one piece of weird feedback who

00:20:53 ◼   ► said jason doesn't understand how binning works he said that binning is what you try to do and i'm like

00:20:58 ◼   ► i never said that but uh i appreciate the feedback i guess uh binning just happens by the way if you

00:21:04 ◼   ► were wondering why binning happens the wall street journal i i find this funny because this is one of

00:21:09 ◼   ► those things where it's like it's a cool angle for the wall street journal and for tech people it's kind

00:21:15 ◼   ► of a known issue but to the non-tech readers it's a cool business story so they did a story called

00:21:20 ◼   ► apple is making hit products and high profits from imperfect chips and the headline is more suspicious

00:21:26 ◼   ► than the story which is just an explainer about how binning works where you've got a wafer and some

00:21:32 ◼   ► of the chips work great and some of the chips don't work at all and some of the chips are in between and

00:21:37 ◼   ► that apple has gotten very good at using some of the you know fail but not too much and using them in

00:21:43 ◼   ► other products which we've been talking about that's what binning is um but thanks to the wall street

00:21:48 ◼   ► journal for explaining it to their audience um so uh mango wrote in and said i have this is great this is a

00:21:55 ◼   ► great letter this is a great letter mango uh coming from the conspiracy theory bureau i have some wild

00:22:00 ◼   ► questions on binning i know journalists have standards but it's also fair to question the basic premise of

00:22:05 ◼   ► a binned a18 pro do we know there are bum cores what if regardless of the system on a chip's test

00:22:12 ◼   ► performance the neo uses too much power or makes too much heat with all cores turned on the a5x for ipad

00:22:19 ◼   ► 3 was the first a series chip with extra gpu cords because retina and the back of that ipod

00:22:24 ◼   ► ipad got really hot i i remember it well worst worst ipad ever yeah thanks for bringing that i replaced it

00:22:31 ◼   ► in like six months oh it was so yes mango the i i appreciate the conspiracy theory maybe they they

00:22:38 ◼   ► deactivated the course for other reasons i think that the what we know is that these are binned the

00:22:45 ◼   ► the thing is if it's not binned if it's just a full price chip they would have had to buy it for full

00:22:50 ◼   ► price and i'm not saying that there aren't some neo a18 pros that are deactivated that may be they may

00:22:59 ◼   ► have had excess of the perfectly good ones that passed the test and they deactivated those already

00:23:06 ◼   ► just because they have no use for the six gpu version it's possible but um you know as we found out

00:23:14 ◼   ► because they're going to do a hot lot and they're going to get more of these um apple's not you know

00:23:19 ◼   ► ordering up broken chips which means the ones that come out fully functional with six gpu cores that they

00:23:26 ◼   ► have to disable they're going to pay full price for those and they'll pay the bin price that you know the

00:23:32 ◼   ► partially broken price for the ones that are partially broken but they will also be paying

00:23:38 ◼   ► full price so that's why they wouldn't do that is that they have to pay tsmc full full price is my

00:23:42 ◼   ► understanding for the ones that work like because if you say that you go in order from tsmc oh i want

00:23:49 ◼   ► what i used to have but one less core well one that's like it's a more time to spend this back up

00:23:54 ◼   ► and and you're going to have bend processors out of that collection exactly yeah you want to you want

00:23:59 ◼   ► to try to make it with six because a certain percentage of them will have a single fail and

00:24:03 ◼   ► those are all usable and the ones that have no failures are all usable yeah so you want to shoot

00:24:09 ◼   ► for the plus it's your design your design is six right and either they turn that off in the neo or

00:24:16 ◼   ► maybe like uh was theorized a couple weeks ago maybe the higher end neo gets one extra core at some

00:24:22 ◼   ► point i don't think it really matters i mean it's interesting from like the business perspective

00:24:29 ◼   ► and like apple doesn't end up in these situations very often but like the the product of the neo like

00:24:36 ◼   ► the story of the neo is so much more than how the number of gpu cores yeah it has like it's a delightful

00:24:43 ◼   ► computer i just set one up yesterday um for one of my kids and it's going through it it's the citrus one

00:24:50 ◼   ► and they're super excited and like it's like yeah it's like a fun laptop that's inexpensive but full

00:24:57 ◼   ► featured and like you know my kids not going to care about how many gpu cores are in it i don't really

00:25:01 ◼   ► care it's just it's the behind the scenes stuff that makes this interesting it doesn't make or break the

00:25:07 ◼   ► product if one core is turned on i'm more concerned about the price of it than anything else that i think

00:25:11 ◼   ► the most important feature of the neo is what it costs right and why there's not an orange one

00:25:15 ◼   ► we'll give it time

00:25:17 ◼   ► they'll get there lemon lime got to jump it in the queue i guess sure

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00:26:47 ◼   ► and relay rumor roundup time steven yeah thank you thank you i appreciate i knew you were going to do

00:26:57 ◼   ► do that one right mark german the sheriff is moseying into town to talk about siri on ios 27 he wrote about

00:27:06 ◼   ► this in his newsletter he wrote a piece about this he's reiterating you know he's he's he reports about

00:27:13 ◼   ► this all year long so as we get closer to wwdc some of what he has to do is sort of like put in the

00:27:18 ◼   ► context of the things he's already reporting so he's already said i think that there's a standalone

00:27:23 ◼   ► siri app for chatting he said users are going to be able to pop into the chat experience via siri or

00:27:30 ◼   ► entering a new search or ask mode by swiping down from the center there's a lot of stuff happening when

00:27:35 ◼   ► you swipe down from the top of the screen but one of them will be basically it's like spotlight but it's

00:27:40 ◼   ► it's siri it's search or ask um unifying that which i think is a good idea and then in terms of privacy

00:27:47 ◼   ► uh mark reports that siri will have a smaller context memory it it will remember previous chat and other

00:27:54 ◼   ► details um it'll be set to auto delete although you can change how long conversations stick around

00:28:01 ◼   ► um and that what he's really saying is apple um apple has to lean into privacy here but they need to

00:28:09 ◼   ► not let their standards get in the way which has been a kind of a bugbear for mark german's kind of

00:28:14 ◼   ► analysis of his reporting for a while now as he feels like apple is struggling with the idea that it's got a

00:28:19 ◼   ► privacy brand and that this stuff all kind of like is not great for privacy and how does it square that

00:28:25 ◼   ► yeah i don't think he's wrong to touch on that i think he hangs a lot of hats on it but

00:28:31 ◼   ► but the i think at the end of the day like people who want an ai product from apple like those those

00:28:41 ◼   ► those people care about privacy that that may even be a primary reason they choose it over something like

00:28:47 ◼   ► chat gpt or claude or god forbid grok but at the same time if it means the product doesn't work

00:28:56 ◼   ► or is like frustrating to use i guess it feels like a very thin landing strip to for this to come down

00:29:04 ◼   ► on and yeah yeah i don't i just don't know how they how they manage that i mean the google relationship

00:29:11 ◼   ► and this is something that german points out is um apple has this private cloud compute branding

00:29:17 ◼   ► and they talk about having things go to the private cloud it doesn't preclude them from using google

00:29:22 ◼   ► because google also has a private tier now where where things get locked up in very much a way inspired

00:29:29 ◼   ► it seems by what apple is doing and so it's possible that what they're going to say and we'll have to

00:29:33 ◼   ► watch for this at wwdc right is they may not describe it they may not brand it as apple servers they may

00:29:41 ◼   ► i mean it depends on how they want to define what private cloud compute is and whether it's apple servers or

00:29:45 ◼   ► whether google servers that do the same thing are counted but it's quite possible that that's what's

00:29:50 ◼   ► going on is that they're actually yeah you know this is not necessarily running on apple servers it may

00:29:55 ◼   ► be running on google servers that are using the same security models the same idea that they can't see it

00:30:01 ◼   ► they can't do anything with it and that they'll make those those claims but i do think they are going

00:30:07 ◼   ► to do that i think that that's one of the things apple really has invested in here is the idea that

00:30:11 ◼   ► you can um you can use these services and none of these people know like all that data is anonymous

00:30:18 ◼   ► essentially and unviewable by the hosts of the servers that you're using right i mean google made an

00:30:26 ◼   ► announcement back in november that they had built effectively what private cloud compute is and does

00:30:33 ◼   ► right maybe that was part of their deal with apple i remember we that was a conversation when the gemini thing

00:30:38 ◼   ► was announced was like is this a factor here that they were able to do this or or willing to do it

00:30:44 ◼   ► i think it's also interesting that apple if they play their cards right they kind of get the best of both

00:30:50 ◼   ► worlds they get access to models that were trained without a lot of privacy rules in place necessarily

00:30:58 ◼   ► but the product they get to build out of that is or does have those higher privacy walls

00:31:05 ◼   ► in place um it that i think is going to be as interesting to hear from them as what the features

00:31:14 ◼   ► are because in a way we know what the features are going to be right they're building a chat bot we know

00:31:18 ◼   ► what those things do um they've already tipped their hand in other areas of the os that that ai can interact

00:31:25 ◼   ► with like image generation and visual intelligence and these other things like we know what their

00:31:29 ◼   ► product is going to be well what we don't know is how it's going to work and they have a story to tell

00:31:35 ◼   ► there yeah it's going to be a challenge um and this is when we're going to parse the details i feel like

00:31:41 ◼   ► is it really is going to come down to how do they pitch this because some i i do believe that the goal of

00:31:48 ◼   ► this is still going to be to maximize privacy i think they can't get away from that and they don't

00:31:52 ◼   ► want to but i it is it is an issue i a piece of feedback i got that i i don't think we're going to

00:32:00 ◼   ► get to in this episode but it was asking about like the idea of the semantic index but you've got multiple

00:32:05 ◼   ► devices and are you syncing data across devices and a lot of times what apple does is you know you're

00:32:11 ◼   ► running the model for photos on device which is why the photo stuff doesn't like it reruns on every

00:32:17 ◼   ► device you've got one of the reasons is it's just a machine learning thing like they're not they're not

00:32:22 ◼   ► passing metadata around they're using their ml model to generate what those all of those keywords are on

00:32:28 ◼   ► your photos um so that's the danger with something like personal context is like you could pass it around

00:32:34 ◼   ► but now you're passing around personal data and it's leaving your phone and i i still feel like if

00:32:39 ◼   ► they do something like personal context which was you know a 24 feature so who knows if they're gonna

00:32:44 ◼   ► ever go back there but if they do go back there um it's very hard to make the claim that you're

00:32:52 ◼   ► passing it around but it's okay versus it never leaves your device so i feel like they're gonna be left

00:32:59 ◼   ► with it's gonna leave it's gonna stay on your device but that that might put them if it puts

00:33:04 ◼   ► them at a disadvantage compared to what their competitors are doing they have to make a choice

00:33:10 ◼   ► and that's that's i think what german's really getting at with a lot of what he says is is apple going to

00:33:18 ◼   ► put itself behind or is it going to break some of its promises in order to stay relevant and i don't know

00:33:27 ◼   ► if it'll come up or not but it's certainly a possibility this very well may not be a keynote

00:33:32 ◼   ► type thing this may be a state of the union it may be a it's buried down in a session somewhere of like

00:33:39 ◼   ► you know get to know the new apple intelligence right and there's a section in there about this

00:33:43 ◼   ► about these things because it does also affect developers right if if a developer is going to tap

00:33:48 ◼   ► into apple intelligence and the gemini model behind it uh through api usage that developer may have

00:33:56 ◼   ► expectations based on how apple builds this and how they structure it so i suspect we'll hear

00:34:01 ◼   ► something even if it's not the headline yeah they got to say something it's just the question of what

00:34:07 ◼   ► what is it what is it also um there was another mark german story that that i was debating whether i

00:34:15 ◼   ► wanted to give this any oxygen or not but i i want to at least mention it which is a very i think

00:34:23 ◼   ► a very weird story about the headline is apple open ai alliance phrase setting up possible legal fight

00:34:32 ◼   ► and it's a very weird story because you know most of mark german's stories are based on his sources at

00:34:38 ◼   ► apple and this there's no question of who his source is because there's an unnamed open ai executive

00:34:45 ◼   ► giving him quotes and and it's not an anonymous i mean they are unnamed mark german like

00:34:54 ◼   ► they can't i i assume they came to him and said we would like to give you some juicy stuff

00:34:59 ◼   ► but you can't name who said it which feels to me like this is an authorized by open ai communication

00:35:06 ◼   ► and the communication itself it's really weird it's basically a giant corporation worth lots and

00:35:15 ◼   ► lots of money goes to the media to say we feel like apple's treated us bad about our ai partnership and

00:35:23 ◼   ► we're talking to lawyers about whether we should sue them it's like the it's the most abstract saber

00:35:33 ◼   ► rattling i've seen in a while where it's like they're not actually threatening to sue them

00:35:38 ◼   ► they're sort of threatening to talk to people about suing them it's it's like a tiny balloon on top of

00:35:46 ◼   ► your trial balloon you know it's like yeah let's see how this feels yeah let's before we release the

00:35:50 ◼   ► trial balloon we we'll we'll put this little little uh party balloon up and see what happens to it

00:35:57 ◼   ► yeah it's just it's very weird also i'm not a lawyer you can sue for anything but i i have a

00:36:05 ◼   ► hard time seeing exactly what their case is which is probably why they're only talking to lawyers and

00:36:10 ◼   ► not filing a lawsuit because they feel like it's sort of like apple didn't try hard enough with this

00:36:15 ◼   ► and not enough people are using it and and other stuff like that and it just seems very weird to me

00:36:22 ◼   ► kind of sour grapes and i think gruber pointed out last week that it's not like open ai's app isn't

00:36:28 ◼   ► very successful in the app store so what what exactly are they complaining about and maybe are

00:36:34 ◼   ► they complaining about the reports that in in ios 27 they're going to be peers to other ai providers

00:36:41 ◼   ► and they're no longer going to be exclusive and they feel like their exclusivity window didn't really

00:36:46 ◼   ► benefit them because i mean look chalk it up to wwdc 24 but like there's a lot of stuff going on about

00:36:55 ◼   ► ai that just didn't work out and you were one of them i mean like yeah and it didn't hurt you

00:37:02 ◼   ► appreciably because the platform has still got lots of open ai users on it so i find it i just it's a

00:37:08 ◼   ► weird story like they want somebody at open ai got bent out of shape about the apple relationship and

00:37:13 ◼   ► just wanted to like really just fire off a flare saying this will get their attention to that we're

00:37:19 ◼   ► unhappy and probably my guess is they were just hoping to get you know somebody to return their

00:37:24 ◼   ► calls about this get some executive to call them and say okay let's move this over we're we're sorry

00:37:30 ◼   ► you're unhappy um it's going to be okay but that i don't know i it was one of the more baffling

00:37:37 ◼   ► stories ever because there's no there's nothing behind it i mean i'm not saying it didn't happen it did

00:37:43 ◼   ► happen i'm just saying there's not even open ai can muster very much in this leak that they're doing

00:37:48 ◼   ► yeah if apple had gone to them and promised hey you're gonna you're gonna see x amount of usage

00:37:55 ◼   ► and if you don't we'll pay you for the difference or you know something like that then they should pay

00:38:02 ◼   ► then then they should pay them yeah but if that was what open ai had on their side wouldn't that be

00:38:09 ◼   ► their statement and not whatever this thing is i agree with you it's weird it feels wishy-washy

00:38:14 ◼   ► you know uh no doubt this didn't go the way either company thought it would go

00:38:21 ◼   ► sure but that's true of literally everything they announced that's the whole wwc 24 story

00:38:27 ◼   ► it's not you it's us that's right but is that justification for this like unless there's some

00:38:33 ◼   ► big thing here we just don't know i i kind of agree with you i don't really see it but um

00:38:39 ◼   ► but you know also is an opportunity to use one of my favorite photos of the last however many years

00:38:44 ◼   ► of tech journalism of uh eddie q speaking to sam altman and it looks like he's um grounding him

00:38:52 ◼   ► yeah staying out too late yeah you're you're you got detention you got to go to the the dean's office

00:38:58 ◼   ► um one other item this this uh just broke this morning i received this uh this link

00:39:04 ◼   ► from my gate correspondent steven hackett don't make me that a mac he's behind the green gate

00:39:13 ◼   ► right now just sticking his head over the green gate saying hinge gate is it going to happen uh

00:39:20 ◼   ► it's another uh weibo leaker this is instant digital and mac rumors has got the the details of what

00:39:27 ◼   ► they're saying and it's funny because actually what they're saying is apple apple's factories are

00:39:34 ◼   ► currently struggling with the hinge of the foldable iphone in its it looks like in its repeated you

00:39:41 ◼   ► know we've seen those videos right where you you open and close the thing a bunch of times on a machine

00:39:45 ◼   ► in order to kind of like model what the wear is and what this report says is that the hinge is

00:39:52 ◼   ► consistently failing to meet the quality control standards under conditions of prolonged

00:39:57 ◼   ► high frequency opening and closing so one of those machines almost certainly however the report also

00:40:04 ◼   ► says it's unlikely to push back the device's expected release window somewhat what noting that

00:40:12 ◼   ► there is still ample time remaining so i guess what they're saying here is this stuff happens and if

00:40:18 ◼   ► they fix it it's not going to delay the product but right now at least as of this report apple has run in

00:40:25 ◼   ► i mean this is clearly somebody in the factories saying to somebody leaking to somebody oh yeah

00:40:30 ◼   ► it just failed a test and so it becomes this story but it's a hard problem right this is part of

00:40:35 ◼   ► new stuff for apple to handle that they've never handled before something like this and they want to get it

00:40:40 ◼   ► right they don't want to have an iphone come out that's got a a bad hinge that that moves badly or

00:40:47 ◼   ► causes a big screen fold because it's moving wrong or or whatever is going on yeah i mean the hinge and the

00:40:55 ◼   ► crease are like the whole game yeah here right and and so many early folding phones failed because of

00:41:01 ◼   ► debris in the hinge or things like that so they're enclosed now and you know i'm sure they'll figure it out i also

00:41:08 ◼   ► think that if if the foldable even if they split the iphone line where the the next the 18 and maybe

00:41:17 ◼   ► the air 2 or in the spring so so the fall is just the pro pro max and foldable like i think the foldable

00:41:23 ◼   ► could also come a little bit later if they need another few weeks but i i would suspect at this point

00:41:32 ◼   ► you would hope that this would not be a showstopper yeah right i mean they did have that issue with the

00:41:38 ◼   ► what i think was basically the um the camera control button which they turned into the action button

00:41:45 ◼   ► late in the game because they were having issues with the camera control style uh non you know not

00:41:52 ◼   ► quite physical button and so they replaced it with a an actual physical button so you know it the product

00:41:59 ◼   ► hasn't been announced if they can't make it work reliably they can just kick it to the spring

00:42:04 ◼   ► yeah or kick it to the following year and they don't want to do that they could do that my understanding

00:42:10 ◼   ► is the way this works is that you know when you're manufacturing these you make the small lots and you

00:42:14 ◼   ► test them but eventually you have to put it on the factory line and then you test those right you're

00:42:22 ◼   ► testing you're testing batches as you go to make sure that it all is going to work okay but you

00:42:28 ◼   ► you know when you go up to the the next level of production i think you need to test it again

00:42:33 ◼   ► and they have names for every level of this you know dvt bvt pvt qvc i don't know they've got they've

00:42:41 ◼   ► got all those levels yeah they do and you need to test them at all those levels and so this sounds to

00:42:46 ◼   ► me like they they brought it up to another level and did a bunch of this testing they're like

00:42:50 ◼   ► not happy with the results and what that suggests to me is that it probably is that something in the way

00:42:57 ◼   ► they're assembled at this level is not how they're assembled at the previous level and they got to

00:43:02 ◼   ► debug it and this stuff probably happens if you know send an anonymous comment about this but my

00:43:08 ◼   ► guess is all this stuff happens all the time this is part of the process of building of putting an

00:43:15 ◼   ► iphone on the factory is you got to go through these cycles where you're like that didn't work

00:43:19 ◼   ► where's the problem why is this hinge now not working when it was working before and then you solve it so

00:43:25 ◼   ► we'll see but but they do have the freedom i mean they don't have the freedom to not ship the next iphone

00:43:31 ◼   ► pro but they do have the freedom to not ship this if they really have a problem with it they they

00:43:35 ◼   ► they got all the latitude in the world with this product because it doesn't exist it hasn't been

00:43:39 ◼   ► announced we all know that it's coming but like they can delay it and it's just not going to be

00:43:44 ◼   ► the end of the world because it's not an existing product that they're updating all right that is

00:43:49 ◼   ► that is the end of uh of rumor roundup we're gonna go to a new thing coming up in our next segment which

00:43:59 ◼   ► is going to be an interview i got to talk to jeffrey kane who wrote the book steve jobs in exile which

00:44:04 ◼   ► is coming out tomorrow as we record this may 19th about the book and steven you heard the interview

00:44:10 ◼   ► because you're a time traveler from the future yes and i think it's i think it's really good i think

00:44:14 ◼   ► it's a lot of fun talking about steve jobs and next and what what steve jobs learned by failing at next

00:44:20 ◼   ► uh yeah which is what the book is all about it's a fascinating conversation it's an area that is not

00:44:26 ◼   ► has not been covered super well like there's some books about next out there but um i've not read the book

00:44:32 ◼   ► right now yeah mine gets here tomorrow and i know i know um and it's the top of my list um but yeah i

00:44:40 ◼   ► think i think people are gonna really like this but before that this episode is brought to you by

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00:46:57 ◼   ► all right now i want to introduce my special guest for this episode it's jeffrey kane author of steve

00:47:06 ◼   ► jobs in exile which is coming out as we uh as we release this episode tomorrow may 19th jeffrey welcome to

00:47:14 ◼   ► upgrade great to be here jason i really enjoyed this book a lot i think people who are interested in

00:47:20 ◼   ► apple history and steve jobs history um will get a lot out of it it's funny so you sent me an email

00:47:27 ◼   ► about this about the same time that i was writing my review of david poeg's book and it's such a great

00:47:33 ◼   ► combination actually because david's book is so focused on being a biography of apple that when steve goes to

00:47:41 ◼   ► next he basically leaves the book and then re-enters when gill amelio is shopping for an operating system

00:47:50 ◼   ► and your book is you know it's got details of what sort of led to steve leaving apple but like

00:47:56 ◼   ► your book is what happened to steve while he was gone which is very dramatic in a an amazing number of ways

00:48:03 ◼   ► well yeah uh yeah while writing it i could see the drama it was something that popped out right at me

00:48:09 ◼   ► but yeah david poeg's book uh excellent book i have a copy on my desk and he goes so in depth and he's

00:48:15 ◼   ► just so exhaustive um so we were joking together that it should our book should be sold as a set you know

00:48:20 ◼   ► mine is like the uh the the middle years when steve disappears from his book and then here's the story

00:48:26 ◼   ► of how steve got through those tough years at next computer um but yeah it's um this um you know this

00:48:34 ◼   ► story uh you know you know i've written tech biographies before written about companies and

00:48:40 ◼   ► what always popped out at me was the sheer amount of drama at next computer as steve jobs was leaving

00:48:46 ◼   ► as he was descending into the wilderness and trying to find his way through these repeat failures um you

00:48:53 ◼   ► know every almost everything he did from the time he left apple in 1985 until about 1995 about 10 years

00:49:00 ◼   ► later was a failure um almost everything the hardware that he made the cube which is one of the famous

00:49:05 ◼   ► items and it's just uh i i was mind blown by the sheer amount of financial terror and you know the

00:49:13 ◼   ► personal bankruptcy that he would have faced if things continued in this direction just a few more

00:49:17 ◼   ► years that's what his his colleagues told me and i was thinking wow you know like if uh if

00:49:22 ◼   ► steve jobs is a guy who uh you know goes through this then you know whatever problems i have in

00:49:29 ◼   ► life or what other people might have uh maybe maybe they're not actually that bad if steve jobs can

00:49:34 ◼   ► survive like total failure and bankruptcy and you know the hardware division of next computer falling

00:49:39 ◼   ► apart um you know maybe uh maybe there's a lesson in here for all of us i had uh i was telling

00:49:45 ◼   ► somebody about having read this book and i said i was like how do i characterize it i thought it's kind of

00:49:50 ◼   ► tough i mean it is it's a good book but like this is not one of these heartwarming stories where steve

00:49:57 ◼   ► jobs steps off stage at apple and he goes into kind of like learn some important lessons in a heartwarming

00:50:02 ◼   ► way and turns it all around like it's a dis it's not even a disaster it's like a series of bad decisions

00:50:12 ◼   ► and missteps and question marks and like it it really you can see that this is this is a guy who is

00:50:23 ◼   ► being humbled by the world at a time when he probably needs to be but like he is absolutely being humbled

00:50:29 ◼   ► when he's gone to to next right and that's the thrust of the story you know we we have this story

00:50:36 ◼   ► we we have this narrative that's often told that there was apple version one and steve left and then

00:50:41 ◼   ► he returned 12 years later and he saved apple and that became apple version two the ipod you know the

00:50:46 ◼   ► iphone the uh the masterpiece age that i think that's a good term for it but you know that's just

00:50:52 ◼   ► our bias that's what we want to see because you know when we're looking at uh great visionaries

00:50:56 ◼   ► like steve jobs who is you know one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our era we look at the stuff that

00:51:03 ◼   ► we want to see we want to look at the successes we want that guy in the turtleneck up there doing the

00:51:08 ◼   ► brilliant keynote you know he always says one more time he holds up his little square rectangle and he can

00:51:14 ◼   ► convince you that that's the future like you know almost nobody else can do that that the power that steve jobs

00:51:19 ◼   ► had but the story that we often don't look at is what does it take to achieve that um you know it's not like steve

00:51:26 ◼   ► just showed up and had a brilliant idea for the iphone and released it and then released you know

00:51:31 ◼   ► ios with it too what really happened was the crucible i mean it was the wilderness it was the suffering and

00:51:38 ◼   ► the pain and the tragedy that he had to go through before he could get to that stage it was years and

00:51:43 ◼   ► years more than a decade of building you know not just thinking of the idea but building the execution

00:51:50 ◼   ► so you know building the company the right team uh the people learning to lead them learning to not alienate

00:51:56 ◼   ► them and steve jobs as we all know was quite a difficult personality so he had the he had to learn that one the

00:52:02 ◼   ► hard way um but you know my book is about the story before all that what does it take to lead apple what does it

00:52:09 ◼   ► take to get to that stage where you can actually be steve jobs and to become steve jobs you've got to go through

00:52:15 ◼   ► that hardship first yeah so steve famously i think and david pogue's book is very good about explaining

00:52:23 ◼   ► this and you talk about it too didn't quit or he didn't get fired but he quit because he kind of was

00:52:30 ◼   ► getting sidelined and forced out and he finally decided he was gonna go but in doing so not only was

00:52:37 ◼   ► that dramatic because he wanted to take a bunch of key people with them but a thing that you detail in the

00:52:41 ◼   ► is his inspiration right he had this moment where he was thinking about a computer that nobody was

00:52:49 ◼   ► building primarily for higher education which i i had no idea about that that there was this idea that

00:52:56 ◼   ► there was a computer that needed to be sufficiently powerful um and affordable enough but a workstation

00:53:04 ◼   ► a higher-end system than a a general purpose personal computer and that that was kind of the genesis of

00:53:10 ◼   ► next was we've got um i you know steve jobs said i think i've got a market that i could fulfill with

00:53:15 ◼   ► something right absolutely in the early years at apple steve created the macintosh which was a historic

00:53:22 ◼   ► moment it's one of the iconic products of history we all know the 1984 commercial but one of the stories

00:53:28 ◼   ► that's often overlooked is that you know when steve would bring that around to serious laboratories

00:53:32 ◼   ► universities you know classrooms he wanted the macintosh installed in all these places and one

00:53:38 ◼   ► of the pieces of feedback that he got from so many leading you know we're talking nobel prize winning

00:53:43 ◼   ► computer scientists physicists they would say uh look steve so you know you have a really cool little

00:53:49 ◼   ► computer there it's fun for writing and it's fun for drawing but take a look at all these uh big giant

00:53:56 ◼   ► supercomputers in my laboratory right here i'm pretty sure this this little macintosh with the smiley face

00:54:01 ◼   ► is not really going to stand up to what i need here that that was the kind of feedback he would get

00:54:05 ◼   ► so one of the um dreams that he had uh you know over time he it didn't occur to him right away it was

00:54:12 ◼   ► kind of a you know something that happened over a few years he realized that the next stage after the

00:54:17 ◼   ► macintosh was going to be what's called a 3m computer and this is a super advanced for the time

00:54:23 ◼   ► for the mid to late 1980s a very advanced computer that can do the latest modeling calculations um has

00:54:30 ◼   ► some potential for artificial intelligence one of the other lesser known stories about steve jobs he

00:54:34 ◼   ► really wanted ai on this thing in the late 80s um and he realized that you know for him to really make

00:54:41 ◼   ► his mark on history because that's what steve always wanted he wanted to be a figure who you know

00:54:46 ◼   ► it wasn't just creating cool things but was you know was pushing forward the trajectory of where

00:54:52 ◼   ► humankind was going he realized that you know he needs to develop something that scientists can use

00:54:58 ◼   ► and university researchers and even intelligence agencies at one point and this was the genesis of

00:55:04 ◼   ► next computer he said i'm going to take what i've been doing at apple and i'm going to step it up a

00:55:08 ◼   ► level i'm going to leave i'm going to start my own company and with this new even cooler computer than

00:55:14 ◼   ► the macintosh i'm going to change the world yeah and uh with his you know with his people that he

00:55:19 ◼   ► assured uh john scully were not major people but were actually major people at apple that he was just

00:55:25 ◼   ► going to take along along for the ride but you mentioned so there is this 3m computer that's the

00:55:31 ◼   ► goal um but i don't know i mean one of the lessons i guess steve jobs did have to learn

00:55:36 ◼   ► is his priorities were kind of all over the place right i mean he famously wanted a beautiful factory

00:55:43 ◼   ► uh they spent a lot of money on their on their facilities and also even when it came to computer

00:55:50 ◼   ► specs right they the computer they ended up with he after all of this time going around and having not

00:55:58 ◼   ► just him but the other people who worked with universities i think dana lewin who is a key

00:56:03 ◼   ► figure in the book and a key figure at next like they i get the impression from your book that they put

00:56:09 ◼   ► in a lot of time to understand the market and understand what this computer needed to be

00:56:15 ◼   ► but as steve kind of like prioritized it the computer they ended up with did not fulfill

00:56:23 ◼   ► the priorities of their customers like it was that was the whole premise of the company and when it got

00:56:30 ◼   ► to the point where that product came it was not a product that they wanted no absolutely it was not

00:56:36 ◼   ► what they wanted and yeah steve steve and next computer they kept making uh wild promises that they

00:56:42 ◼   ► couldn't keep to their customers but here's what was happening and this was the psychology of steve

00:56:47 ◼   ► jobs at the time so um you know he was pushed out of apple he was resentful he was so deeply angry

00:56:52 ◼   ► at john scully uh who was the ceo and a lot of what he did was to get back at apple and get back on

00:57:00 ◼   ► at john scully i mean you know like i i can't personally imagine just the deep pain of you know having

00:57:06 ◼   ► spent uh my entire 20s building one of the most successful computer companies uh ever and then having

00:57:12 ◼   ► that torn away from me and being pushed out and told that i'm no longer needed because you know

00:57:17 ◼   ► steve had his problems and he you know he was difficult but he was really sidelined in those

00:57:21 ◼   ► years in 85 and and uh you know was was uh pushed out so um you know what steve was doing he wasn't

00:57:28 ◼   ► thinking clearly about what the market needed from him he wasn't thinking about what the world truly

00:57:34 ◼   ► wanted from him what people actually wanted and this is what they told him is that you know we want a

00:57:39 ◼   ► machine that can solve our problems which means you know we want something that we can use for

00:57:43 ◼   ► uh an advanced physics experiment you know we want uh you know like the cia would approach him and they

00:57:49 ◼   ► would say we want something we can use for satellite imagery very advanced at the time um but steve wasn't

00:57:56 ◼   ► thinking in terms of what his customers wanted he was thinking in terms of what uh he could show people

00:58:02 ◼   ► that was so brilliant that it would blow them away they would knock down this door uh to his headquarters and

00:58:08 ◼   ► they would just want to buy up the farm and take all the next computers they could he even had a dream

00:58:13 ◼   ► during these years he would he really wanted to um build uh so this factory he set up a factory a

00:58:20 ◼   ► manufacturing plant in fremont california across the bay from the next headquarters and his dream was that

00:58:26 ◼   ► people would fly in from all over the world and they would have their next computer that which is a

00:58:31 ◼   ► perfect beautiful cube made of this this this beautiful magnesium metal that was so exotic uh you know they would

00:58:37 ◼   ► stand there at the factory line and see the motherboard being created and he only used robotic

00:58:42 ◼   ► arms you know and this is back in the 80s you know we're not talking like tech today uh so advanced for

00:58:47 ◼   ► its time and they would make the motherboard and then somebody would put it in the cube and the cube would

00:58:51 ◼   ► come off the assembly line and then they would get to you know pick it up and take it home and and uh you

00:58:56 ◼   ► know have their brilliant new computer um of course you know if that had actually happened that we would

00:59:01 ◼   ► all be using next computers today uh so obviously it didn't succeed by any measure and uh this was his

00:59:08 ◼   ► greatest flaw during these years it was the mismatch between what he thought was his brilliant vision

00:59:13 ◼   ► and um what the people around him the actual businessmen and business executives and women

00:59:19 ◼   ► were um were telling him like you know the world doesn't want a computer just because it's it's a cube

00:59:26 ◼   ► they want something that will allow them to use powerful software that has specific you know

00:59:31 ◼   ► purposes and he just wouldn't listen yeah it it's fascinating because you can see within him

00:59:38 ◼   ► in your book the the brilliance right like he had some really brilliant ideas but they were uncoupled from

00:59:47 ◼   ► any kind of responsibility about what the what the business needed right the business i almost get the sense

00:59:54 ◼   ► and i don't know if you spell it out but i almost get the sense that you know the business was there

00:59:59 ◼   ► as a pretense for him to do the cool stuff that he wanted to do and that it was like the business

01:00:04 ◼   ► had a premise that then he just ignored because he wanted because he wanted the magnesium case and like

01:00:11 ◼   ► all of this impracticality that that that was cool like there's no doubt about it it was cool

01:00:17 ◼   ► but like it didn't lead in a way that's weird if you remember steve jobs when he returned to apple

01:00:24 ◼   ► where there was much more pragmatic pragmatism about it it was cool but also he was often very

01:00:29 ◼   ► pragmatic in the next era it's like i mean maybe does it come down to that there was nobody there to

01:00:37 ◼   ► tell him he was wrong or at least nobody he would listen to well he did listen to people so um you know

01:00:42 ◼   ► he would listen but he had this thing called the hero head roller coaster which was this uh this kind

01:00:48 ◼   ► psychological effect he had on people so you know if you work for steve jobs one day you're a hero

01:00:52 ◼   ► with the most brilliant ideas ever and he loves you uh and then the next day you're a head and everything

01:00:58 ◼   ► you're doing is just crap he would call it literally and he would say redo this do the software again

01:01:03 ◼   ► um this was you know both a strength of his but it was also a weakness and it depended on you know

01:01:09 ◼   ► like what he was working on it was a strength because he was so talented at spotting great people

01:01:16 ◼   ► and getting what he needed out of them he could this is what every single next computer employee told me

01:01:22 ◼   ► that the place was just of any place that that they had worked in their entire careers in silicon valley

01:01:28 ◼   ► it was the most creative the most um pressure cooker the the most visionary um smartest place

01:01:37 ◼   ► they've ever worked and that's because steve jobs was just so um so tough on what he demanded from them

01:01:44 ◼   ► he really knew how to bring the best out of them but then the flip side of that is that he could

01:01:49 ◼   ► quickly turn cruel i mean he was so demanding and so perfectionist that his teams would present him with

01:01:55 ◼   ► really good ideas and they would say this is what the market wants right now they would for example you

01:02:00 ◼   ► know they would set up a a massive distribution network one of the stories in the book they uh so

01:02:05 ◼   ► dan o'lewin his his second uh in command during these years was setting up uh an ibm partnership and they

01:02:12 ◼   ► were going to uh license the next step so the operating system through ibm ibm was the leading computer

01:02:18 ◼   ► company of the day um that's an example of something that could have actually changed the course of

01:02:22 ◼   ► technology because then today yeah any any pc you know we might have the windows option but then

01:02:28 ◼   ► next computers next step might actually be the the operating system that we use today um but steve

01:02:34 ◼   ► you know he decided i don't like ibm uh you know this idea is and i'm gonna blow up this relationship

01:02:41 ◼   ► so the ibm deal just just died off in the end and he he he self-sabotaged i mean he it really is a

01:02:48 ◼   ► tragedy in the in the in a way because he was given everything he needed by some of the top people

01:02:54 ◼   ► in technology at the time and he dismissed them and blew it off and he sewed the the he he sewed the

01:03:02 ◼   ► uh the foundations of his own coming demise his brief demise before he could recover

01:03:08 ◼   ► so you mentioned it there one of the things that really has lingered from reading your book

01:03:13 ◼   ► is i didn't quite realize just how big the missed opportunities were and that what what you just said

01:03:21 ◼   ► is one of the key points in the book i think which is there's a moment where microsoft is no is not yet

01:03:28 ◼   ► a colossus microsoft is not yet kind of cracked with windows becoming the de facto standard for computers

01:03:37 ◼   ► and there's a moment where next which has a lot of technical advantages in terms of its software

01:03:43 ◼   ► and in terms of app building um just it's really interesting technically and they get this deal

01:03:51 ◼   ► with ibm and the case you make in the book is there is a scenario there where if steve jobs

01:03:59 ◼   ► goes down that path next step becomes windows instead of windows and like you said steve just

01:04:10 ◼   ► says i don't want to do that and that's it like enormous business opportunity just blown out the

01:04:15 ◼   ► window right well when i was researching the book i had trouble figuring out um you know what the heck

01:04:21 ◼   ► was going on in his head during these moments and i i had to do a lot of really deep research just

01:04:26 ◼   ► understanding from the people around him uh what he was saying and what he you know what

01:04:30 ◼   ► was he i would ask them like what was he writing on the whiteboard what i mean what why does any

01:04:36 ◼   ► you know supposedly a brilliant visionary like steve jobs line up a deal with ibm and then just blow it

01:04:42 ◼   ► up because he just doesn't want to work with them um well one of the things it came down to was his need

01:04:47 ◼   ► for control and this was something that he had to temper during these years so we all know i mean this is a

01:04:53 ◼   ► well-known part of him steve jobs was a control freak and that's why you know he built the walled

01:04:57 ◼   ► garden at apple that he's so famous for he he really wanted hardware and software software to be unified

01:05:02 ◼   ► and work together and that's one of the reasons why he succeeded that's why apple is still you know a

01:05:07 ◼   ► massive company today and um but in these years uh so this was at steve jobs in his early 30s

01:05:13 ◼   ► he he understood the need for control and he even structured next computer around keeping it a private

01:05:20 ◼   ► company so he would not have to go public and lose control again like what happened to him

01:05:24 ◼   ► at apple um so the entire system was highly tightly controlled also very secretive he said and i i looked

01:05:31 ◼   ► at a lot of this footage of him that hasn't been broadcast before and he would be giving talks in

01:05:36 ◼   ► conference rooms to the employees and he would say i want this to be a very secretive company

01:05:40 ◼   ► do not the only thing you can say is i work at next computer you nobody knows what we're working on

01:05:45 ◼   ► this all comes down to his need to make sure that control is his and even if um you know a great deal

01:05:54 ◼   ► comes along the way if that deal is going to rest control away from steve jobs in any way then he's

01:06:01 ◼   ► going to blow it up and he's going to walk away and that's what ibm he feared was doing the ibm deal

01:06:05 ◼   ► was great i mean the operating system that steve was making was going to be on every single well every

01:06:11 ◼   ► single ibm workstation at least out there and then steve just said uh to heck with it because he

01:06:16 ◼   ► didn't want to lose control of the hardware and software bundle the next cube bundle with next step

01:06:22 ◼   ► he was feared that he was fearing that ibm was gonna uh you know take that away from him by putting

01:06:27 ◼   ► it on their computers so just that's just one example i mean you know another good example ross perot

01:06:33 ◼   ► um the presidential candidate you know for uh i can remember i'm old enough to remember him and i'm sure

01:06:39 ◼   ► a lot of people can he was a major investor in next computer but steve also blew up that relationship

01:06:44 ◼   ► because uh ross who was a military government contractor was going to line up technology contracts

01:06:50 ◼   ► with the intelligence agencies and you know steve jobs being the the hippie at heart who he is

01:06:56 ◼   ► decided that he didn't want that you know he wanted uh you know he wanted that control over his image

01:07:01 ◼   ► and he wanted a computer that would democratize things instead of be handed off to a government

01:07:05 ◼   ► so another lost opportunity imagine if today that had worked out steve jobs might be the world's biggest

01:07:12 ◼   ► uh intelligence agency uh you know he might be like you from james bond the character with all the

01:07:18 ◼   ► gadgets like that would be steve jobs now i'm glad you mentioned that because i was going to mention that

01:07:23 ◼   ► that is the next enormous missed opportunity business opportunity anyway which is

01:07:27 ◼   ► thanks to ross perot um and also thanks to the fact that the next computer ended up being

01:07:33 ◼   ► kind of over spec'd but also overpriced for the target market it turns out it fell into the perfect

01:07:40 ◼   ► market for the intelligence community to analyze those satellite photos and all of that and i can i can hear

01:07:47 ◼   ► him because i do remember ross perot quite well i can hear him reasoning with steve jobs who's like

01:07:53 ◼   ► you know he's invested a lot of money in next at this point he's like look we can sell a lot of next

01:08:00 ◼   ► cubes to the nsa and the cia and like it will be a fat government contract which you know they don't

01:08:09 ◼   ► care how much our computers cost and they will buy a lot of them and we will make a lot of money which

01:08:13 ◼   ► allows the company to continue to progress and the way you put it in the book is steve basically is

01:08:18 ◼   ► like nah i don't want to take money from the government and that's it and like that's it like

01:08:24 ◼   ► he just it it's i mean on one level i guess i admire it but it does it on a business level he is

01:08:32 ◼   ► for a company that we know it's fate and we know that it basically is going to fall on very hard times

01:08:38 ◼   ► it's really staggering to read these stories where these doors are open for him and he just says

01:08:44 ◼   ► i'm not interested and refuses to walk through right it was uh shocking i mean when i was learning about

01:08:51 ◼   ► these stories i was just thinking like come on man steve like everybody knows what's going to happen

01:08:56 ◼   ► here it's so obvious where this is going to end and you keep making the worst possible decision

01:08:59 ◼   ► uh so um yeah i mean it's i i still crack up when i think about some of these stories and you know

01:09:07 ◼   ► the people who lived it still look back on it and think that was so irrational and so bizarre

01:09:11 ◼   ► like i don't know why i put myself through that at next computer but you know it's it's a story that

01:09:16 ◼   ► you know they carry with them the thing about um yeah you know so like this rejecting government

01:09:22 ◼   ► contracts rejecting ibm um there's something really fundamental here that's going on and it's the

01:09:30 ◼   ► problems that steve is having uh realizing what it actually takes to build a business versus just being

01:09:38 ◼   ► the artist um so you know we see during this period steve the artist and he's a brilliant artist he can

01:09:44 ◼   ► spot a beautiful design his cube was inspired by uh you know zen philosophy and architecture and uh you know he

01:09:53 ◼   ► hires the best german designer to come out and make it for him he knows what he needs aesthetically and

01:09:58 ◼   ► he knows that the future is going to look something like this that you know we're going to have an

01:10:03 ◼   ► operating system with these drag and drop icons that's what he was developing as early as the 80s which

01:10:08 ◼   ► is just incredible when you think about the vision but steve even reflected on this at one point in an

01:10:14 ◼   ► interview he said that you know vision is not enough one of the lessons he learned in this period is that the

01:10:19 ◼   ► execution is really the key and you know what is execution if you're building a business it's you

01:10:25 ◼   ► know you need the distribution network you need the reliable supply chain you need a team who you can

01:10:31 ◼   ► call on and trust um you know you need reliable contracts and you know especially if you're in

01:10:37 ◼   ► advanced tech those are corporate and federal government contracts what steve had failed to see early in

01:10:42 ◼   ► these years is that you know building a business you know it's unfortunate like you know you can take

01:10:49 ◼   ► your principles as far as you want but ultimately you have to build the business which means you have

01:10:53 ◼   ► to sell and if you're selling a computer to one market in this case uh university researchers and

01:10:59 ◼   ► they're not buying it then you have to find another market once you grow you know so fine sell to the

01:11:05 ◼   ► federal government sell to the big corporations that steve hated but once you grow then you're in a

01:11:11 ◼   ► position to have the scale and the profitability where you can make the decisions you want

01:11:15 ◼   ► this episode of upgrade is brought to you by claude from anthropic i have been using claude for a lot

01:11:24 ◼   ► of like little technical code problems like not even code css i had a css issue on six colors the other

01:11:31 ◼   ► week because i have glenn writing for me now glenn fleischman and glenn is i don't want to say glenn's

01:11:39 ◼   ► making trouble because that's not accurate um i've internalized all of the weird quirks of our css

01:11:44 ◼   ► and know like not to do certain things because the css isn't right and glenn doesn't have those

01:11:50 ◼   ► limitations he just writes what he thinks is the best way to do his format and what i discovered was

01:11:55 ◼   ► that he was bumping into areas where our css was just lacking so like he was putting images in a bulleted

01:12:02 ◼   ► list and the way it works with our markdown the bulleted list is indented because that's what bulleted

01:12:07 ◼   ► lists are but the images are outside of the bulleted list and therefore aren't indented and i said to

01:12:15 ◼   ► him glenn you can't put images in a bulleted list because then they look like they're outside it and they

01:12:19 ◼   ► break the the level if there's another bullet afterward it looks all wrong well i just i showed claude my

01:12:26 ◼   ► site css and i explained this problem and i said what i'd like is another uh id for our figure class

01:12:34 ◼   ► in our html that doesn't indent like a bulleted list so that i can solve this problem for glenn and you know

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01:12:59 ◼   ► and and i did that twice for two different css issues brought about by glenn being more clever

01:13:06 ◼   ► than our css and i was able to fix them directly without going to the designer who did the css who

01:13:14 ◼   ► hasn't worked on it in 10 years or another designer who hasn't worked on it in two or three years

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01:13:36 ◼   ► a podcast that reads it aloud and i took the one script that i wrote and then i had claude code work

01:13:42 ◼   ► on it with me to generate a podcast that i was happy with which required huge amounts of iteration

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01:15:43 ◼   ► as a um as a side project i'm working on a bunch of stuff around apple at 50 and one of the things that

01:15:54 ◼   ► i did a bit of a dive into was that early dynamic between jobs and wozniak and what what struck me

01:16:02 ◼   ► about the apple one and especially the apple two story is i think steve jobs had a very particular

01:16:12 ◼   ► vision his vision was always about pro taking high technology and making products that felt like

01:16:22 ◼   ► consumer products that felt like appliances and the apple two was the first iteration of that

01:16:27 ◼   ► the mac was the next iteration of that and i think ultimately we saw his vision play out with the ipod

01:16:34 ◼   ► and the iphone and the imac and the ipad right but reading your book what it also made me think is

01:16:43 ◼   ► he was just not an enterprise guy like he kept i think his vision was really about people in their

01:16:51 ◼   ► homes and and then you're like ibm what could be more monolithic and corporate or the the federal

01:16:59 ◼   ► government and especially the cia or the nsa these are and yeah i think some of it was his kind of hippie

01:17:06 ◼   ► background um but i also think he was just so focused on kind of empowering the individual with technology

01:17:12 ◼   ► and i i just don't think he got any joy out of the idea of empowering the you know giant institutions

01:17:20 ◼   ► with computer technology and and that's the best read i've got on why he ran away from ibm and the

01:17:27 ◼   ► government is that like it's just not what he was trying to do with his life well i don't think he

01:17:31 ◼   ► wanted to do that with his life either i agree completely and i think that he was you know he was

01:17:37 ◼   ► just feeling um it felt like a betrayal of his own values a betrayal you know he this is the guy who

01:17:42 ◼   ► had the famous photograph and he was flipping the bird to ibm the ibm building yeah yeah in new york

01:17:48 ◼   ► um you know that that's who he was it was so core to his identity uh that he could not imagine himself

01:17:54 ◼   ► going to in you know enterprise uh software contractor and selling a zillion software packages

01:18:03 ◼   ► to compact for example that was just not his thing and he even said that he remarked on this to a lot

01:18:08 ◼   ► of the people around him he would say you know i just don't like this this is not enjoyable it's just

01:18:12 ◼   ► not who i am um but you know it's it's a company that i can run and uh you know that journey you know

01:18:20 ◼   ► i i had a really interesting conversation with uh one of the key software developers at next computer

01:18:26 ◼   ► one of the um one of the indie software developers who developed for next and he said something really

01:18:33 ◼   ► interesting that stuck with me that you know this was a very dark period for steve because he kept

01:18:40 ◼   ► trying to get access to markets that were not opening to him um you know one of those markets students in

01:18:47 ◼   ► their dorm rooms okay well his computer is way overpriced he's charging them basically a year's tuition to give

01:18:53 ◼   ► them a computer in their dorm room and he's telling them you should cure cancer with this that's literally

01:18:57 ◼   ► a quote of steve's uh you know these markets are not opening but that's really who he wants to be

01:19:02 ◼   ► and the darkness that kind of took over him in this period was because he found himself making these

01:19:08 ◼   ► compromises but this this one developer he remarked and he knew steve well he said that this was

01:19:15 ◼   ► an it was an unusual stage that he needed to go through because if steve had not been put through

01:19:21 ◼   ► that furnace like that blast of you know here's what it takes to build an actual corporation that

01:19:27 ◼   ► can sell to other corporations um he would have become you know this guy wandering in the desert with

01:19:34 ◼   ► you know spring spring hair and you know a giant beard you know just kind of talking nonsense to people

01:19:39 ◼   ► uh he almost thought that this was a kind of refinement and you know it's like a lot of great

01:19:46 ◼   ► leaders out there and it's not just steve a lot of i've studied a lot of presidential biographies a lot

01:19:51 ◼   ► of leaders who can communicate have gone through this and it's a it's a furnace blast that forces you

01:19:58 ◼   ► to take one good hard look is your idea really a great idea or are you just so absorbed in what it is

01:20:05 ◼   ► that you want to do that you just can't you you can't become like that diamond in the rough you you

01:20:09 ◼   ► can't be crushed a bit by your environment and and see what the environment around you actually needs

01:20:14 ◼   ► from you in in thinking about your book one of the things that i i i was realizing is steve kind i mean

01:20:22 ◼   ► apple was targeting a customer base that is sort of was harmonious with what steve jobs kind of wanted to

01:20:28 ◼   ► do and when he left he kind of needed right there were there were lawsuits and threatened lawsuits and

01:20:33 ◼   ► all sorts of other things he kind of needed to run away from apple and in fact promised not to compete

01:20:37 ◼   ► with them and in hindsight that feels like not that they didn't have those opportunities but if steve

01:20:44 ◼   ► wanted to do what he wanted to do that was the the the root of it the fatal the fatal mistake was right

01:20:50 ◼   ► at the beginning which was he was running away from apple because he had to but apple was the place that

01:20:56 ◼   ► that could address bringing technology to the masses rather than like i mean because the tragedy of this

01:21:01 ◼   ► is that steve jobs did not want to be an enterprise software and hot hardware entrepreneur and he founded

01:21:08 ◼   ► an enterprise hardware and software company which so it's like it was just a mismatch so is is one of

01:21:14 ◼   ► the things he learned um that when he went back to apple he he he learned that this was what he wanted to

01:21:21 ◼   ► do and this is this is this is who he wanted to be because i mean next was fortunate to get a phone

01:21:26 ◼   ► call from ellen hancock and gill amelio and get bought by apple so that they could sell and be done

01:21:34 ◼   ► but like was i guess what i'm really asking here is the big question which is what did steve jobs learn

01:21:42 ◼   ► from the next experience because it doesn't read like somebody who got it at next i feel like he

01:21:51 ◼   ► never got it at next got thrown a lifeline and then was able to bring those experiences back to apple

01:21:58 ◼   ► where he could put it all together i i don't unless correct me if i'm wrong i didn't really read that

01:22:03 ◼   ► there was ever a moment when he was at next where suddenly everything clicked and he became the steve jobs

01:22:09 ◼   ► we would come to know yeah so there was no moment you're right there was no single moment maybe the

01:22:14 ◼   ► closest thing to that moment would be the collapse of the next hardware division when they had to uh

01:22:20 ◼   ► throw out the cubes and and one guy literally tried to burn a cube it wouldn't burn because it was made

01:22:24 ◼   ► with a super uh you know the super exotic alloy that like you couldn't find anywhere and it was hyper

01:22:31 ◼   ► resistant to flammability so just like a funny story about how ridiculously perfectionist next was like you

01:22:38 ◼   ► you literally cannot you know point a torch at it and make it burn and that's what steve wanted he

01:22:42 ◼   ► wanted the perfect cube um i i think that you know so it was a series of lessons over time and no steve did

01:22:49 ◼   ► not learn all of them and he actually did make some of the mistakes again but you know over time he was

01:22:55 ◼   ► corrected so it was by no means like you know like a here today steve is doing something bad and tomorrow

01:23:01 ◼   ► he's doing something good it was a very tough and winding road and the lessons were often taught to

01:23:07 ◼   ► him in sequences and it would happen more than once and then finally you know after the fifth time of

01:23:13 ◼   ► something going wrong steve has to step out of his reality distortion field and has to take take a hard

01:23:19 ◼   ► look at what he's doing um so i i think that you know if there's one big lesson that he did learn

01:23:27 ◼   ► it's how to channel the reality distortion properly that's what he was so famous for right i mean that's

01:23:33 ◼   ► what like even from his youngest days at apple he could hold up that motherboard you know at the homebrew

01:23:39 ◼   ► computing club and you know he could just sell it to people and you know he got the check from mike

01:23:43 ◼   ► markula um started apple i mean not you know back then that was really unusual i know today that's

01:23:49 ◼   ► fairly common getting a major paycheck for a startup but he was the pioneer for this kind of thing um

01:23:54 ◼   ► but you know during the middle years at next computer this is when reality distortion hit its limit and then

01:24:02 ◼   ► reality started distorting back at steve and reality started telling him like this can't work anymore um

01:24:08 ◼   ► you know you succeeded because you were 22 and you were cool and smart but you know when you're 32

01:24:13 ◼   ► that's not going to work because you know people see you now as growing more mature you have to start

01:24:18 ◼   ► behaving as a businessman will and you can't behave um you know like a like a young guy young rebellious

01:24:24 ◼   ► guy with cool ideas it just doesn't fly anymore um so that that's you know if there's one transformation

01:24:30 ◼   ► that steve went through it's that transformation it's you know realizing that you have to step out of the

01:24:37 ◼   ► reality distortion field and you know you have to take a good look at things like balance sheets and

01:24:43 ◼   ► distribution networks and you know all the foundational software the enterprise software the whole

01:24:49 ◼   ► grid that exists underneath that one beautiful product that steve was always chasing and it's

01:24:55 ◼   ► ironically once he started focusing on all the nooks and crannies and started thinking about

01:24:59 ◼   ► you know this um this coding element this you know this web object software that makes web web pages

01:25:06 ◼   ► he even admitted in an interview at one point he said this technology it so tech does not change

01:25:11 ◼   ► the world a very un steve thing to say it does not change the world but it makes certain things

01:25:16 ◼   ► easier and he said i'll make software that can make it easier to sell things online and this became the

01:25:21 ◼   ► basis for a lot of the you know dell computer and its success on the internet back in the 90s

01:25:27 ◼   ► once he realized that you know once he realized like you don't need the big world changing idea you need

01:25:33 ◼   ► the infrastructure around it first then ironically he was able to return to apple and recover and

01:25:40 ◼   ► rebuild apple and you know because of that infrastructure that he built at next he was able

01:25:45 ◼   ► to make ios and you know the i the iphone and so forth possible yeah i mean good his his uh recruitment of

01:25:54 ◼   ► avi tavanian and basing next on unix and you know that that is a thing that not only got next bought

01:26:02 ◼   ► by apple but every apple product now basically runs a variant of what was next step which is kind of

01:26:10 ◼   ► amazing when you think about it so there was some good technical backing there i will also point

01:26:15 ◼   ► out like when steve came back to apple it's so everybody wants to mythologize this guy and i

01:26:21 ◼   ► understand why and your book does a really good job of demystifying the steve job story and showing you

01:26:28 ◼   ► the flaws because they are a super important part of who this person was but like he made a lot of bad

01:26:33 ◼   ► decisions at apple in the early days too nobody wants to talk about them we only want to talk about the good

01:26:38 ◼   ► ones nobody really wants to talk about why the g4 cube happened and it was why it was a complete

01:26:43 ◼   ► misfire nobody wants to talk about x serve which was again an attempt to kind of like reach an enterprise

01:26:51 ◼   ► market and it was a failure too like there were a bunch of things that apple tried in the earliest

01:26:56 ◼   ► days of steve jobs's return that were also failures but he was i i do believe having read your book

01:27:04 ◼   ► that he he he learned through failure he was humbled a little bit realized he needed to step

01:27:10 ◼   ► outside himself i think you said that really well and also was finally put back in charge of a brand

01:27:15 ◼   ► in apple that was trying to to reach the people he always wanted to reach you know because he never

01:27:22 ◼   ► wanted it to be a a product for ibm or for the defense department he he wanted to reach people in their homes

01:27:30 ◼   ► and once he was back at apple ha ha he could finally do that and that was where he found his

01:27:35 ◼   ► most success so but boy you're again i i just want to endorse your book again steve jobs in exile jeffrey

01:27:41 ◼   ► kane it's out uh tomorrow basically may 19th it is it's an important pathway to understanding

01:27:51 ◼   ► all of steve jobs i think or at least all of steve jobs as a business person

01:27:57 ◼   ► because you can see the brilliance and you can see the flaws and and there's really i think it's it's a

01:28:04 ◼   ► great era of his life where it it's all going on right and it has a happy ending but boy he

01:28:13 ◼   ► he went through a lot of suffering much of itself inflicted but still a lot of suffering and after

01:28:21 ◼   ► after having such great success at apple and i think about that sometimes reading the book it's like

01:28:24 ◼   ► first john scully sidelines you and you leave the company you founded and then

01:28:29 ◼   ► everything happens at next i mean like the fact that he kept going is kind of amazing yeah it is

01:28:38 ◼   ► amazing and a lot of people would have given up and one of the things i found so fascinating about this

01:28:45 ◼   ► story is all the different touch points the narrative touch points if steve had made a different decision

01:28:51 ◼   ► even just a slightly different decision at any of these many dozens of points in the story uh he

01:28:57 ◼   ► would have failed he would have probably been written out of history uh and then apple would

01:29:02 ◼   ► have probably gone out of business because he would not have returned so you know next is the pivotal these

01:29:07 ◼   ► are the pivotal years of the biography of steve jobs because if next had never happened then apple as we know

01:29:13 ◼   ► it i would argue would have never happened and you know we might we might all be using i don't know

01:29:19 ◼   ► compact pcs uh with next step load on them or something i don't know something different although

01:29:24 ◼   ► if he had made better decisions we'd all be using pcs running next step so there we go there we go maybe

01:29:29 ◼   ► idm still who knows yeah yeah it's anyway it is um i i agree with david pogue uh and you i think this is a great

01:29:39 ◼   ► uh part of the 50th anniversary of apple is to consider this part of the story where one of the

01:29:45 ◼   ► founders goes away and then he comes back and famously saves the company what happened when he

01:29:49 ◼   ► was off stage in david pogue's book the answer is read steve jobs in exile by jeffrey kane jeffrey

01:29:56 ◼   ► thank you so much for being on upgrade and for talking to me about this i really enjoyed the book like i said

01:30:01 ◼   ► there are moments where i'm just shaking my head but it is so fascinating and there's so much in there that i

01:30:06 ◼   ► had never heard before you have so many great sources for people who worked at next so i really

01:30:11 ◼   ► highly recommend the book and thank you so much for talking to me about it great to be here jason

01:30:15 ◼   ► this episode of upgrade is also brought to you by steam clock a lot of mobile apps aren't great they're

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01:31:55 ◼   ► supporting upgrade and all of relay time now for ask upgrade to okay you gotta i'm not good at it i

01:32:06 ◼   ► don't do it every week i know you're warming up the blazers are warming up it's fine thomas writes in

01:32:11 ◼   ► given apple's desire to do things on device here we go we got it i'm curious how you would see

01:32:15 ◼   ► personal context going when having more than one device you've spoken about using third-party email

01:32:20 ◼   ► clients on your mac so won't all your email be missing from context there won't any difference in apps

01:32:24 ◼   ► between devices yield a different context on each covered this briefly earlier thomas yes this is a

01:32:30 ◼   ► concern i don't use apple mail on my devices i use uh mindstream yep so there's a few options here like

01:32:40 ◼   ► first off i don't think they're going to sync like i said before i don't think they're going to sync

01:32:43 ◼   ► across devices i think it's going to be like photos there's going to that means that yes there will be

01:32:46 ◼   ► a different context on each i i the question is does apple do something like say client you know

01:32:53 ◼   ► certain kinds of apps calendar apps client apps or whatever or calendars or emails or whatever can

01:32:58 ◼   ► opt in to be indexed and then they're in the system donate donate their content yeah to the index yeah

01:33:04 ◼   ► it's it's you could do it that way now apple tends to roll things out just for first-party clients and

01:33:09 ◼   ► then add third-party support later but they change stuff maybe they'll change that um the other way this

01:33:16 ◼   ► could go and i don't love it but it could go this way i have i have my calendar in calendar with

01:33:25 ◼   ► everything turned off because there are certain contexts where you have to add an item to the calendar

01:33:33 ◼   ► and it wants to do it in the system calendar and not fantastical and so i just have to keep that on

01:33:39 ◼   ► in parallel and and i do see a scenario where you might have to actually put your email in mail

01:33:46 ◼   ► and then not use mail which is stupid but it's possible that that would be the way um i don't

01:33:52 ◼   ► like it i think this is why you need to support third parties if you're apple so that you can get

01:33:57 ◼   ► the best experience but apple i mean apple does this all the time where they're like we got a great new

01:34:04 ◼   ► feature requires use of all of our apps right and then in year two or three it comes around to to others

01:34:12 ◼   ► you know maybe we already are in year two or three because they talked about all this stuff in 24 um

01:34:18 ◼   ► it it is a very interesting question and i hope that at least for some sorts of apps they can donate

01:34:24 ◼   ► their their data um you know in terms of like the differences between your devices that's how a lot of

01:34:33 ◼   ► stuff is right like the core stuff like calendars and notes and things you know kind of everywhere but

01:34:39 ◼   ► i don't know if if you don't get the exact same result on your macbook air and then you

01:34:45 ◼   ► walk down the hall with your iphone in your hand and do it again like is that the end of the world like

01:34:51 ◼   ► i think just most people think about this as a phone feature right and and maybe that's all it is we don't

01:35:00 ◼   ► we don't know that but i i don't think it's going to be that big of a deal i hope and they may not i

01:35:07 ◼   ► mean they may not do it that's the other thing that i'm i'm open to the idea that this personal

01:35:11 ◼   ► context concept is just going to get thrown away yeah it's definitely possible yeah yeah or or they

01:35:17 ◼   ► they they refactor it to something that's a little bit different and uses icloud and i i mean i honestly

01:35:23 ◼   ► don't know what they're going to do um but i it is one of the technical challenges that we've

01:35:29 ◼   ► we've been talking about really for two years now when ever since they announced it there were a lot

01:35:33 ◼   ► of questions about personal context that would only be answered in the fall of 2024 when we oh

01:35:38 ◼   ► still asking them bob wrote in and said jason have you checked out the mlb app on vision pro lately i

01:35:45 ◼   ► got all the baseball questions in here for you steven great i really like the 3d game tracking during

01:35:49 ◼   ► the live playing of the video i don't think they had that enabled the last time i checked it out

01:35:53 ◼   ► i was on an episode of the vision pros podcast april 30th episode 65 and we talked about the mlb app the

01:36:01 ◼   ► new this season's mlb app for vision pro is fantastic because they have they are now using basically like

01:36:08 ◼   ► video game player models and the the way mlb system works they're tracking in real time all player movement

01:36:15 ◼   ► on the field the ball and the player and the bat and they've turned it into like it looks like a video

01:36:21 ◼   ► game you're in a 3d space and like you see the batter swing the bat and you see the ball go where

01:36:28 ◼   ► it's going and you see the all the outfielders move and previously on vision pro this was uh they were all

01:36:33 ◼   ► like dots you were watching dots move around but now it's it's like animated versions of players like

01:36:40 ◼   ► video game versions of players and it's really impressive um my experience has been that they've

01:36:46 ◼   ► got it working perfectly syncing it with the audio of so radio and this is what i heard from somebody

01:36:52 ◼   ► who's who wrote in and said that they had um they loved it because they had a game that they couldn't

01:36:57 ◼   ► watch because it was blacked out and they put the radio on and watched the 3d version of the vision

01:37:02 ◼   ► pro and they said it was a pretty good experience and i agree i thought it was a pretty good experience

01:37:07 ◼   ► i have yet to get the video to sync up with the action um i don't know what the difference is there

01:37:14 ◼   ► but what you really want is the stat cast data that's powering it to be in sync with what you're

01:37:20 ◼   ► watching otherwise like it's no fun to have the pitch come in and then 10 seconds pass and then the pitch

01:37:29 ◼   ► comes in on the video or or the opposite either way it's not fun you really want it to be in sync

01:37:35 ◼   ► whereas the audio version yeah it's it's it's kind of magical actually you're listening to a radio

01:37:41 ◼   ► description of a baseball game while you're watching this video game version of the baseball game it's

01:37:46 ◼   ► pretty fun and you can change where you are so they've done some work there i i lament the standard

01:37:51 ◼   ► mlb app they updated mlb that app mlb at bat is what it used to be called we gave it so many different

01:37:58 ◼   ► awards at mac world back in the day because it was a cutting edge iphone app so good and i gotta be

01:38:05 ◼   ► honest the current version of the mlb app is garbage it's just terrible disappointing like i used to be able

01:38:13 ◼   ► to check really easily like what the scores were now the scores are all like big and you have to scroll a

01:38:18 ◼   ► lot and it's hard to scan it and the ipad version is bad the phone version is bad it's it's just a it's

01:38:24 ◼   ► a mess um and there are you know there are there are so many better ways of doing a baseball app than

01:38:33 ◼   ► what the current official mlb app is doing um it's just very disappointing so i hope i don't know what's

01:38:41 ◼   ► going on over there it feels very much to me like they brought in a new team of people who were like

01:38:46 ◼   ► given the instruction to make it identical on all platforms and it does feel like as an iphone

01:38:51 ◼   ► user i don't know how bad or good the android version was maybe it was good now it's bad too

01:38:55 ◼   ► but it feels to me like somebody rolled in and said we need a consistent experience everywhere

01:39:00 ◼   ► and the new consistent experience is bad yeah you know so much software is made that way now and i think

01:39:07 ◼   ► it's such a mistake because how many people in the world are going to use mlb on their iphone in their left

01:39:13 ◼   ► pocket and their pixel phone in their right pocket right it's it's easier for them it's you know they

01:39:21 ◼   ► can have one design team probably still going to have different development teams to target the different

01:39:26 ◼   ► platforms but it's uh it's such a mistake so much of the time i think to to do that because what you end

01:39:33 ◼   ► up doing is your app on all platforms is worse right it's not just that the iphone app gets a little more like

01:39:39 ◼   ► android is that the android app is also not as good as it could be or you know if it's if it's on the

01:39:45 ◼   ► desktop and you end up using electron or something well then the mac app's not as good as it could be

01:39:49 ◼   ► it's just it's so frustrating to see yeah it's it's uh it's it's not good and uh it is it is kind of a trend

01:39:56 ◼   ► um so i hope they i hope they get it together but um right now it's just it's it's bad but the vision pro

01:40:03 ◼   ► to go back to that the vision pro app actually got a lot better and it's very interesting it's still

01:40:09 ◼   ► weird and experimental but everything on the vision pro is weird and experimental but the adding

01:40:12 ◼   ► the animated players makes it so much more fun so if you've got a vision pro and you like baseball

01:40:19 ◼   ► it's worth a check out uh matthias writes i have been wondering if focusing on services is the original

01:40:26 ◼   ► sin for apple that poisoned everything if this was the case would separating apple and google from their

01:40:33 ◼   ► stores fix it original sin i mean i would say making more money than they ever really intended to on the

01:40:43 ◼   ► app store and on google safari referrals was the original sin um generated enormous amounts of revenue

01:40:51 ◼   ► i think what we at least popularly think of services is more like eyewash to fit the services narrative by

01:40:58 ◼   ► giving it some main characters because we all know that like apple tv is not driving the services

01:41:06 ◼   ► revenue it's the app store and it's safari you know google search and those other things are good and

01:41:15 ◼   ► they may drive some growth and that's good but like even there i would say apple care is more of a

01:41:21 ◼   ► driver it's it's not the stuff that gets all the attention in services it's it's apple care revenue

01:41:29 ◼   ► and icloud revenue and safari search revenue and app store cut revenue and app store subscription revenue

01:41:37 ◼   ► like that's what drives it so i think you have to look there and so if matthias is saying you know

01:41:43 ◼   ► separating the app store you know would that fix it i mean app stores exist for a reason and i think

01:41:50 ◼   ► that it's probably a good reason but it has led them down this path but i don't think it's just think

01:41:56 ◼   ► about what the services revenue is because apple spending money on tv shows is not what got apple

01:42:02 ◼   ► here no it's so small compared to the rest of it you know back in uh i guess this was in 2021

01:42:09 ◼   ► during epic versus apple a phil schiller email came out during discovery and this is quoting from that email

01:42:17 ◼   ► uh we'll put a link in the show notes uh do we think our 70 30 split will last forever i'm a staunch

01:42:24 ◼   ► supporter of the 70 30 split and keeping it simple and consistent across our stores i don't think that

01:42:29 ◼   ► 70 30 will last unchanged forever i think someday we will see enough challenge from another platform or

01:42:35 ◼   ► web-based solution to want to adjust our model i think the question moves from if to when and how and

01:42:43 ◼   ► then he actually goes on to talking about like he lays out an example uh again quoting from the email

01:42:49 ◼   ► i'm sorry it says long quote but i think it's important just as one thought we are making over

01:42:53 ◼   ► 1 billion a year in profit from the app store is that enough to then think about a model where we ratchet

01:42:59 ◼   ► down from 70 30 to 75 25 or even 80 20 if if we can maintain a 1 billion dollar a year run rate i know

01:43:08 ◼   ► that's controversial but i just tee it up as another way to look at the size of the business

01:43:13 ◼   ► what we want to achieve and how we stay competitive i think schiller had it right in that email which he

01:43:20 ◼   ► sent so the the discovery was in 2021 do you know when he sent that email 2013 2011 2011 yeah

01:43:28 ◼   ► yeah come on yeah yeah they they they made a choice and this is something that i know people have talked

01:43:35 ◼   ► about um on other podcasts about the tim cook era but like this is a great example of that whether it

01:43:40 ◼   ► was tim cook driving it or whether it was uh the cfo driving it or or whatever the fact is that under

01:43:47 ◼   ► tim cook's watch they made a decision even though phil schiller was like the app store was never meant to be

01:43:55 ◼   ► this huge of a revenue generator and we are it is such an asset to the iphone and it'll get us in

01:44:01 ◼   ► trouble and they said we are willing to do all of that because we are making we're just rolling in

01:44:07 ◼   ► it that's what they decided and you know i i know we talk about this a lot this idea that um apple acts

01:44:14 ◼   ► like the underdog even and doesn't understand that they're the bully now but this is a great example of

01:44:19 ◼   ► that where apple apple saying we're never going to give an inch and we need to take every dollar

01:44:25 ◼   ► is an understandable behavior from when steve jobs came back to apple

01:44:30 ◼   ► and it doesn't really fly anymore with anybody and i think it endangers i mean when matthias asked this

01:44:37 ◼   ► he's saying separating apple from the app store it's like that would be very bad for apple i think that would

01:44:43 ◼   ► be bad for users but like do you want to risk that like in order to take every dollar off the table

01:44:50 ◼   ► instead of only some of the dollars plus you would have i forgive me because i i've ranted about this

01:44:55 ◼   ► on upgrade before but like the classic one is i don't think because of apple's status as the platform

01:45:02 ◼   ► owner that they would do badly in a more competitive situation i think they have so many other advantages

01:45:08 ◼   ► that they would continue to do well and i think in the eu we're seeing that with all the changes the eu

01:45:13 ◼   ► has made i don't think it's appreciably affected apple's business at all however apple seems to be just

01:45:19 ◼   ► afraid of competition not that they couldn't compete but but as i've said before what's better than

01:45:28 ◼   ► competition is not having competition and if you can just not you force everybody to do what you want

01:45:36 ◼   ► then that's great because you can charge what you want and make a lot of money but i think that they

01:45:42 ◼   ► could compete and compete well and i think it yes i i it's hard not to look at that phil schiller email

01:45:48 ◼   ► and think of the road not taken there yeah for sure but yes original if you're looking for original sins

01:45:55 ◼   ► there's one um last question joey says randomly does the upgrade intro song have a little bit of mic or

01:46:03 ◼   ► someone's voice mixed into it i feel like i can hear a very quiet man's voice but i'm not really

01:46:08 ◼   ► sure so does it it doesn't there does sound like there's somebody in there at the very beginning

01:46:15 ◼   ► going like in the background i think it's something that's from a loop i don't have the original like

01:46:22 ◼   ► multi setup version but those two files that we play for upgrade there's the like the synth version and

01:46:29 ◼   ► then there's the electric guitar version i asked for one after we got the other and there's the one

01:46:33 ◼   ► that i use i sneak into the show sometimes and then the one that mike uses um and now jim uses that one

01:46:39 ◼   ► so i don't get to sneak anything into the show anymore but um those all come from before the show started

01:46:44 ◼   ► and they're all from the hard drive of chris breen who who generated the theme song um and i think it's

01:46:51 ◼   ► just an artifact of like a loop that he's using there um but i don't know if it's anybody's voice

01:46:57 ◼   ► it's chris breen's but i think it's probably if it's it's actually just something that's from one of

01:47:02 ◼   ► the loops he used in building the the the upgrade theme song so i i think of it i think it's there every

01:47:09 ◼   ► time too joey but um it's not us i'll put it that way you want to hear me on a theme song i'm on half the

01:47:15 ◼   ► robot or not theme songs but that's about it me and john we're on those um and that brings us to

01:47:23 ◼   ► the end steven thank you so much for sitting in for mike i appreciate it it's good to have a it's good

01:47:28 ◼   ► again to talk about technology on a podcast with you because we just normally don't do this in public so

01:47:33 ◼   ► it's fun yeah thank you for having me um and uh people should go check out that book it's gonna be

01:47:39 ◼   ► awesome yeah yeah steve jobs in exile it's it's i mean boy there's a lot of bad decisions being made

01:47:47 ◼   ► in there you just got to go in knowing this is going to not be a story of steve jobs leaving apple apple

01:47:51 ◼   ► and triumph thing it is the opposite he leaves apple and it's bad and then he comes back to apple and it's

01:47:57 ◼   ► okay again so people should check that out people should check out what steven is doing 512pixels.net

01:48:06 ◼   ► and the connected podcast here on relay where you and a couple other gentlemen chat about tech

01:48:12 ◼   ► topics and do silly fun things yeah there's japes all the all the time all the time and uh yeah we're

01:48:21 ◼   ► like upgrade we're gearing up for our wwc games y'all have your draft we'll have the rickies yep it's uh

01:48:27 ◼   ► wc is like uh you know i've seen indiana jones where he's running away from the big rock that's kind

01:48:33 ◼   ► of how i feel right now about wbc like it's just it's coming for us yeah it's true it's true it is

01:48:39 ◼   ► it's gonna crush us if we don't keep moving uh everybody out there thank you for listening send

01:48:43 ◼   ► us your feedback follow up and questions at upgradefeedback.com thanks to our members who

01:48:48 ◼   ► support us and let us keep doing this with upgrade plus this week steven and i are going to talk a

01:48:52 ◼   ► little bit about some mac os security get upgrade plus.com you can find us on youtube by searching for

01:48:59 ◼   ► upgrade podcast thanks to our sponsors this week we had delete me squarespace claude and steam clock

01:49:06 ◼   ► and thanks again to all of you for listening mike will be back next week thank you to steven one last

01:49:10 ◼   ► time until next time steven hackett say goodbye bye y'all