00:00:00 ◼ ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 614. Today's show is brought to you by Backplace and 11 Labs. I'm your keynote chairman, Federico Witticci, and I'm joined by the annual chairman himself, Stephen Hackett. Hello and welcome back, Stephen.
00:00:25 ◼ ► Yes, chairman only, and we are in this rotating phase of connected hosts. It was me and Mike last week. You and me today. I will be gone next week.
00:00:43 ◼ ► Yeah. Some shows, you know, they bend over backwards to have everyone on every episode. I just don't think we got to do that.
00:00:53 ◼ ► Yeah, go to the beach. You don't need to bank episodes. Well, that's that. Upgrade, that's that.
00:00:58 ◼ ► We appreciate you, Mike and Jason. Thank you. But we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that.
00:01:03 ◼ ► A friend of mine listens to Upgrade. He doesn't listen to Connected because, like, we're friends, and he's like, it's weird to hear you on a podcast.
00:01:11 ◼ ► But sometimes he's like, if I took a shot every time your name is mentioned on Upgrade or ATP, I would die. I was like, yeah, that happened a lot this week. I'm sorry. Like, but this week's Upgrade is very good. People should go. Look, sometimes people think, oh, an out of time one is not going to be good. And like, no, they did a good job.
00:01:44 ◼ ► Yes. So, Kevin wrote in, Stephen, install a weather station. I just got one and love having it. Does it do anything useful? No. Did my wife say it is dumb? Yes.
00:01:56 ◼ ► Do I know the maximum wind gust at my house was 15.2 miles an hour today? Yes. You too can have this knowledge and the fun of installing a mast on your roof.
00:02:10 ◼ ► I know. I have really thought about it over the years. And like, it'd be, I don't think it'd be that difficult to do. I just haven't, I haven't done it.
00:02:26 ◼ ► Like, like, I'm not sure if there's an English word for it. In Italian, there's a word for like, if you're the type of person whose mood gets really affected by the weather.
00:02:37 ◼ ► No, I'm not, I'm not that, but I am super tuned into it. I mean, we have, we've talked about this. We have some pretty bad weather here sometimes.
00:02:46 ◼ ► And I am SkyWarn certified. I'll put that link in the show notes. I used to not tell people that, but now I do.
00:03:07 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. And then I told, I, I'm sure I joked about you being like in the movie Twister.
00:03:41 ◼ ► You know? And in a way, the three of us are kind of like that to this point. We have made
00:03:49 ◼ ► some jokes before. We have told some stories before. That's why you got to keep things fresh
00:04:12 ◼ ► No. And I would, I would need some, I think I would have to have somebody, if I needed a
00:04:18 ◼ ► mask on the roof, I think I'd have to hire somebody to do that. My old house, I had no problem getting
00:04:24 ◼ ► on the roof, but the new house, the roof is very steep and much taller. And I don't know.
00:04:35 ◼ ► me. So. I mean, at any age, falling off the roof will probably kill you. It's true. Yeah.
00:04:41 ◼ ► You know? Um, I'm going to take this next one, Steven, if you don't mind. Please. Uh, Josh
00:04:46 ◼ ► wrote in saying, while this is merely a thought exercise. Yes. I wanted your input. If Mac OS
00:04:53 ◼ ► were to go away or you were unable to run it anymore, what would you use for a desktop OS?
00:05:01 ◼ ► Hmm. It's a good question. This is quite timely for me. Okay. One of the things that I wanted
00:05:08 ◼ ► to do, I think I told Mike about this. Um, there was no particular reason. I just wanted to mess
00:05:16 ◼ ► around with it. I had a, a spare mini PC lying around. As one does. I, as one does. I bought
00:05:26 ◼ ► it for MPC, my show about portable gaming a few months ago. It's a, it's a, it's a B-Link
00:05:32 ◼ ► SCR9 Pro. It's got an AMD GPU in it. It's not like, it's not like Streaks Halo or anything,
00:05:39 ◼ ► but it's a pretty decent, it looks like a, it looks like a fake Mac mini, but it's made
00:05:44 ◼ ► by this Chinese company and it's a mini PC that runs Windows. I, I flashed, uh, Bazite,
00:05:52 ◼ ► Bazite on it for MPC months ago. Then I stopped using it and it just sat in a drawer for a few
00:06:07 ◼ ► months. And once I got the internet downstairs, I just wanted to mess around with the idea of
00:06:14 ◼ ► having codecs, uh, autonomously install a Linux distro on it. You may be wondering how and why
00:06:24 ◼ ► the why is no particular reason just to waste tokens effectively. And just to mess around with
00:06:30 ◼ ► the concept, the concept being that I discovered the existence of these two accessories. One is called
00:06:44 ◼ ► Um, the finger bot is literally, the finger bot is a piece of plastic with a little moving finger
00:06:51 ◼ ► that is also like a plastic hook that is operated via Bluetooth by this KVM. This KVM, imagine like a
00:06:57 ◼ ► little dock that plugs with HDMI into the back of the mini PC, but the KVM itself is connected to the
00:07:05 ◼ ► internet as its own little operating system. And basically it's like, imagine if it was like a VNC,
00:07:12 ◼ ► imagine if it was like a physical VNC client that you physically plug into the back of a computer
00:07:18 ◼ ► and it lets you see the display, it acts as a display, but it also can be accessed via a web app,
00:07:27 ◼ ► can run tail scale and can simulate keyboard and mouse. That can be connected to an AI. It can be
00:07:37 ◼ ► connected to a coding agent, right? And I successfully managed to use Codex to wipe the, uh, uh, the Linux,
00:07:52 ◼ ► Enter the BIOS of the mini PC and download, um, what did I put? Um, how do you say in English?
00:08:05 ◼ ► Ubuntu? Ubuntu? Ubuntu. Ubuntu? Okay. It's the same in Italian. Put Ubuntu on it all on its own.
00:08:13 ◼ ► I just gave it my username and the password that I wanted. Then I manually changed the password,
00:08:19 ◼ ► but, uh, Codex did it all on my behalf. So I didn't have to mess with any of the installation.
00:08:25 ◼ ► The thing is, once I got in, I didn't really like it. So I automated the process of, uh, of wiping the
00:08:36 ◼ ► previous Linux distro and installing the thing, doing the BIOS dance, rebooting multiple times.
00:08:42 ◼ ► The thing is, I don't really like Ubuntu and I don't really like Linux. Um, so to add, to go back to
00:08:49 ◼ ► Josh's question, probably Windows 11 and it sucks. And look, maybe I am ignorant. I'm sure that there's,
00:09:00 ◼ ► I know that there's another really popular Linux distro, but I'm not going to install a Linux distro made
00:09:09 ◼ ► by fascists. That's my thing also, uh, you know? Um, so I'm not going to do that even though it's really
00:09:16 ◼ ► popular these days. Maybe Ubuntu was the wrong choice. Maybe there's another that's more of my taste. Maybe I
00:09:22 ◼ ► should have gone with Fedora. I look, I don't know. What I do know is that I appreciate a good UI. And so
00:09:29 ◼ ► Mac OS is my gold standard. I also hate Windows 11. Yeah, it's bad. But I find it to be more intuitive
00:09:38 ◼ ► than Ubuntu still. So I don't know. Didn't really like Ubuntu though. I'll, I'll tell you that much.
00:09:46 ◼ ► Yeah. Uh, there's so many options for Linux, right? Like if you don't like one, you can like another,
00:09:55 ◼ ► or if you don't like the interface, you can change, you know, a lot about it. Um, I, I do think the
00:10:03 ◼ ► gaming Linux world is really interesting. Obviously you have Steam OS, which you could run, right? Like
00:10:08 ◼ ► I think you could run it. You can run it in desktop mode. Yes. Probably a better idea. Yeah.
00:10:14 ◼ ► It might be. Um, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. I could get Steam OS on it downstairs. Yeah. And
00:10:25 ◼ ► remote play from it in my apartment. It's not remote. It's local. Oh my God. It's right there.
00:10:32 ◼ ► Oh my God. Yes. You should go explore that. Okay. Uh, it is an interesting question. I didn't mind
00:10:39 ◼ ► Windows 10. Windows 11 has a lot of stuff. I don't, and I'm not a daily Windows user by any means, but
00:10:45 ◼ ► there's some, some pretty gross stuff in Windows 11. Um, I think I could, I could get used to Linux.
00:10:52 ◼ ► Um, I would like, I mean, Windows has this too now, but I would like that sort of under the covers,
00:10:57 ◼ ► it's relatively familiar, right? As someone who uses a lot of stuff in Mac OS sort of under,
00:11:02 ◼ ► under the covers. But then I think about like the applications I rely on every day and I would not
00:11:09 ◼ ► want to be stuck doing everything in a browser, right? Like something like notion, which I use
00:11:16 ◼ ► a lot every single day, there's not an official Linux app for that. Some people have, have done
00:11:23 ◼ ► some stuff and it's basically like a wrapper and, you know, I mean, that's, that's all it really is
00:11:27 ◼ ► on the Mac, but I don't want notion stuck in a tab in a browser. Right. Um, so that would be something I
00:11:33 ◼ ► would need to look at. I really need to decide like what apps do I really want to be native? And that
00:11:39 ◼ ► would, that would be a factor for me at least. Um, another thing that, you know, I'm now like
00:11:46 ◼ ► branching off Josh's hypothetical with another one. Like if my iPhone still exists in this world,
00:11:53 ◼ ► like that also brings out a lot of questions, right? Cause like with windows, you can use the
00:11:59 ◼ ► iCloud, uh, control panel and you have access to a lot of iCloud data within windows. It's not
00:12:05 ◼ ► perfect, but it's better than nothing. And like, am I looking at also doing something else for my
00:12:18 ◼ ► any operating system is not just an operating system. It's the level of services and data
00:12:23 ◼ ► that come along with it. And so it would be tough. Like I would like to say like, yeah,
00:12:28 ◼ ► I'd go to Linux and really enjoy it and like get a cool think pad, but the features I want,
00:12:34 ◼ ► um, and the, the niceties I want may, I would have to look at windows, I think, which I don't
00:12:40 ◼ ► love. But, um, thankfully I don't think Mac OS is going anywhere, but boy, it would be like,
00:12:47 ◼ ► I would rather run Mac OS and Android than anything else plus iOS. Cause I make my living and sit all day
00:12:59 ◼ ► Hmm. Yeah. Mac OS, like despite the drama with Tahoe and the UI and despite the many, many permission prompts
00:13:12 ◼ ► that they have added over the years, it is still so much better than windows at really anything. I
00:13:21 ◼ ► mean, set aside the fact that all of the cool apps and new AI stuff is happening on Mac OS just as an
00:13:29 ◼ ► operating system. Like, even if you just consider the vanilla OS experience, so much better than setting
00:13:35 ◼ ► up windows 11 vanilla from scratch. And I know because I've set up multiple handles, I have a gaming PC,
00:13:41 ◼ ► just it's so much nicer and ergonomic, secure, whatever you want to call it, than whatever Microsoft is
00:13:50 ◼ ► doing with windows. Um, so Josh, I don't, I, I don't know. I really don't know. I, I do think I'm going to
00:14:03 ◼ ► Could be fun. Um, I think, I think SteamOS is really interesting and I think like the, their hardware,
00:14:10 ◼ ► like Valve's hardware is super interesting to me and we haven't seen the, or the, the headset is not
00:14:15 ◼ ► shipped. It's, you know, assumedly close, but who knows with Ramageddon, but I think their OS is just
00:14:23 ◼ ► interesting. And because of SteamOS, there is a lot of momentum or much more momentum with like
00:14:30 ◼ ► gaming on Linux than there has been. And I think that's great. You know, a lot of what holds it back
00:14:36 ◼ ► from what I've read and watched is a lot of the DRM or like anti-cheat stuff. But if this continues to
00:14:42 ◼ ► be more popular and game engine developers work more on this front, like it may be that in the future,
00:14:51 ◼ ► you don't have to run Windows to be a PC gamer, right? That would be, that'd be a really interesting
00:14:56 ◼ ► feature. Okay. We've got some, uh, some tiny topics. The first one is the Galaxy Z Fold 8.
00:15:07 ◼ ► This is the, the short boy. We've talked about this. It's, uh, basically the form factor. I think of what
00:15:20 ◼ ► uh, like early impressions, I guess now a week ago, but, uh, reviews are out. And I read through a
00:15:27 ◼ ► couple, one of the verge and one on in gadget. And I just wanted to pull some stuff out of this and
00:15:32 ◼ ► get your, get your temperature on, on this phone. Um, so Dominic Preston at the verge, uh, in their
00:15:40 ◼ ► review said that the Z Fold 8 feels comfortable, natural, and normal despite being the shortest and
00:15:47 ◼ ► widest phone I can remember using. And thanks to the four by three in our display that are suited to
00:15:53 ◼ ► both reading and watching video. I'm using this foldable more than I have with previous models.
00:15:59 ◼ ► And they go on to say that they're using it more open. Like they're with previous foldables that
00:16:06 ◼ ► were, that were more the candy bar size of screen that they'd use it more like a closed phone and
00:16:12 ◼ ► then only open it when they were going to multitask or something. But having this four by three inner
00:16:19 ◼ ► display has a lot of benefits. And it made me think about the original iPad, right? iPads now the,
00:16:24 ◼ ► the, the screen ratios different between them. Um, but that four by three, like that was a big deal
00:16:32 ◼ ► with the original iPad, right? Yeah. Yeah. I had that vibe looking at this. Um, I was really interested
00:16:39 ◼ ► too in the typing experience. Like the, the most interesting thing to me thinking about Apple's potential
00:16:45 ◼ ► foldable and this is like how useful is the outside screen? Cause you don't want to open it to do
00:16:49 ◼ ► everything, right? Like the, you want to be able to use it closed. I think for most people, one hand
00:16:55 ◼ ► uses could be difficult with this. A lot of reviews, um, including Sam, uh, Rutherford's over on Engadget
00:17:03 ◼ ► talks about like basically, um, two thumb typing on the out, even on the outside screen, because it's a
00:17:12 ◼ ► a little wide for most people. And I still, I still worry about that. I think a little bit,
00:17:17 ◼ ► I would say that I'm very curious about this phone. I did not go in and order this phone,
00:17:25 ◼ ► but reading the reviews and reading the sort of the first impressions of like typing on it and watching
00:17:34 ◼ ► videos on it has me really excited for the iPhone fold, whatever it's going to be called. Um,
00:17:41 ◼ ► I think it's going to be an adjustment for me to go to something that is even shorter than an iPhone 17
00:17:48 ◼ ► pro. I am definitely happy that I stopped using the pro max because the, um, going from pro max to a
00:17:55 ◼ ► fold to a squat screen probably wouldn't, would have been a really big shock for my habits. So adjusting to
00:18:04 ◼ ► the 17 pro over the past few months has been the right call, but this is going to be even smaller
00:18:09 ◼ ► than that. It's going to be like iPhone mini size almost. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Now the, the typing with
00:18:15 ◼ ► two thumbs and the wide aspect ratio, I think I'm going to be happy about that. My fingers and my wrists
00:18:21 ◼ ► get uncomfortable if I type for too long on a phone with two thumbs. And so having something that is a
00:18:27 ◼ ► little bit wider, I think is going to help me. Um, I, I think what's going to be strange is having a
00:18:34 ◼ ► short screen when reading and when scrolling social media, when doing those types of things that
00:18:39 ◼ ► benefit from, um, from having more room to breathe on a portrait orientation. That said, uh, the thing
00:18:49 ◼ ► that everybody is saying about like, when you open it up, it does look like, it does feel like a tablet.
00:18:53 ◼ ► Yeah. That's the, the really exciting part for me. Like that has always been the strange part of the
00:19:01 ◼ ► previous era of Android foldables. Um, you open them up and it's a square and it's not really what
00:19:07 ◼ ► you expect from a tablet in any orientation, right? Because it was just a square aspect ratio. So
00:19:12 ◼ ► doing split view is strange. Uh, if you want to do like the vertical splits, if you want to do the
00:19:18 ◼ ► horizontal splits, that's even stranger. Uh, really the only good thing about square shaped Android
00:19:25 ◼ ► foldables is video game emulation for older consoles because they, they are, you know, they can benefit
00:19:32 ◼ ► from that, like almost four by three or almost one to one aspect ratio. But any sort of multitasking
00:19:39 ◼ ► was so weird because you multitask on a school on a, on a, on an unfolded square quote unquote tablet,
00:19:47 ◼ ► you get basically two narrow apps in split view. And that's not really nice. Now, in this case,
00:19:56 ◼ ► you're basically getting an iPad mini with two apps side by side that are short on the vertical side,
00:20:04 ◼ ► but more comfortable on, in the landscape orientation, right? So I think it's going to be fine.
00:20:12 ◼ ► Um, I don't think, I think Samsung has the right hardware, wrong ecosystem. Maybe I think,
00:20:21 ◼ ► I think it's going to be much better to witness all of this and to test all of this on a, on a much
00:20:28 ◼ ► more vibrant app ecosystem such as iOS. If developers put in the work, assuming they do, I, I, we know they
00:20:36 ◼ ► will. Yeah. In the betas, right. iPhone screen mirroring is resizable. And I was like, I don't
00:20:45 ◼ ► know why we would do this. Just, you know, be prepared for it. It's like, well, of course we,
00:20:49 ◼ ► we know what's coming, but I was thinking about this the other day about, um, Apple really has paved the
00:20:56 ◼ ► way for this for a long time, whether or not they knew they were going to do a foldable when they started
00:21:00 ◼ ► of this. I don't know. I think primarily initially it was to benefit the iPad itself of, Hey, you know,
00:21:07 ◼ ► back in the day, iOS and iPad iOS apps were separate. Like they actually were separate in the beginning
00:21:13 ◼ ► and now they're universal. And Apple has slowly over time broken down the walls between the iPhone and
00:21:21 ◼ ► iPad where their sort of ultimate version of an iOS app from Apple's perspective is an app that works
00:21:29 ◼ ► basically seamlessly across the iPhone, iPad, and, and maybe even the Mac just running on, on Apple
00:21:35 ◼ ► Silicon. Right. And the UI and the features just do what they're supposed to do as it is used on
00:21:43 ◼ ► different sizes and different developers have done that to, to different degrees. And yes, of course,
00:21:49 ◼ ► there are apps that can only work on the iPhone maybe because of, uh, you know, sensors or something
00:21:55 ◼ ► like that. But if a developer has gone down this path with Apple over the last several years, then yeah,
00:22:02 ◼ ► you may need to do some tweaking to get your iPhone app layout to work nicely on the fold because we
00:22:10 ◼ ► don't know exactly how they're going to implement it from like a, um, you know, what does the device tell
00:22:15 ◼ ► the app it is kind of perspective, but I'm hoping that even, yeah, there's going to be some weirdness
00:22:22 ◼ ► on day one where like developers are kind of figuring out best practice for a screen this size, but I think
00:22:30 ◼ ► they'll get there relatively quickly, even if the fold is a small percentage of the user base, which I
00:22:36 ◼ ► think it will be for the foreseeable future, cause it's going to be expensive. And a lot of people don't want to
00:22:42 ◼ ► spend that money on the phone, can't spend that kind of, uh, money on a phone, or if they can and want to,
00:22:47 ◼ ► they may sit out gen one, they may say, let's just see how this goes. Right. And so I think Apple making
00:22:54 ◼ ► it as easy as possible for developers to adopt this, uh, is only a good thing. And I am, I've been nervous
00:23:03 ◼ ► about the size, you know, I 3d printed one and like, it's, it's pretty small. It's, it's pretty squat, but reading
00:23:10 ◼ ► these reviews, watching the coverage of the Z Fold 8 has, has helped me understand the benefits of this screen
00:23:27 ◼ ► No, no. If, if the foldable was going to be a year off still, maybe? Yes. To like, yeah.
00:23:38 ◼ ► Understand the form factor and be able to talk about it. But look, we're recording this on July 30th.
00:23:43 ◼ ► We're going to have iPhones at six weeks. Like it's not, not a big deal. Um, and it's a lot of money,
00:23:49 ◼ ► uh, you know, and I, the Android phone I keep on hand is a pixel. I think I have like a 9a right now.
00:23:54 ◼ ► Like it's, that keeps me in the Android world enough to be able to talk about it without
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00:25:21 ◼ ► iOS 27 is full of small improvements. And one of them that I think I had missed but the Mac
00:25:57 ◼ ► Who would, if it were up to them, they would never text. They would just send voice messages
00:26:03 ◼ ► back and forth. At that point, just call somebody. It's my feeling. I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of
00:26:09 ◼ ► this, not a huge user of this. Um, and so I am glad that now when I was 27, you can, you can do
00:26:16 ◼ ► a couple of things with this button. So the feature is, uh, you can change the button to record audio.
00:26:23 ◼ ► So sending the voice message, you can turn it to start dictation, which is a little weird to me
00:26:33 ◼ ► Um, or what I have done on my phone is you can turn it off where there's no microphone button
00:26:40 ◼ ► in the, in the text field. And if I want to dictate, which I do sometimes, I can go hit
00:26:45 ◼ ► the dictate button like I can in every other app and I'm free. I'm free from the shackles of the
00:26:55 ◼ ► I don't know. Voice messaging is a, almost a default, uh, at this point for communications
00:27:05 ◼ ► with real life friends and acquaintances here. Okay. Um, this has been happening for the better
00:27:12 ◼ ► part of a decade. Uh, what obviously we've talked about this before. What's app is the default
00:27:18 ◼ ► communication system in Italy for everything. And a lot of places, I mean, the U S is unusual
00:27:24 ◼ ► that it's I message. Yeah. Uh, you, you obviously talk to your friends and family on WhatsApp about
00:27:31 ◼ ► you also, you know, I was booking a restaurant and hotel today and they had WhatsApp links on their
00:27:38 ◼ ► websites. Like it's normal to get in touch with businesses, with doctors, with friends and family,
00:27:44 ◼ ► and just anybody. When, when I needed to communicate with the electrician who got my work done for the
00:27:49 ◼ ► internet stuff last week, we also exchanged the voice messages on WhatsApp. And the thing about it
00:27:57 ◼ ► is WhatsApp has a really good UI for those voice messages. You can tap and hold on the microphone
00:28:04 ◼ ► button and slide it up to lock the recording mode. And then you can tap it again. When you're done
00:28:10 ◼ ► recording, you can scrub through those recordings easily. You can play them back at 1.5 X or 2 X,
00:28:19 ◼ ► especially if you're dealing with people who talk slowly or send you a really long message. You can
00:28:23 ◼ ► transcribe those messages in multiple languages and you can read through the transcript if you don't want
00:28:29 ◼ ► to listen. Um, it's a really good UI for it. And it's really nicely done. Uh, the Apple version
00:28:37 ◼ ► is not, it's been getting better over the years. For many years, they were stuck on this weird
00:28:43 ◼ ► behavior where you need to raise your phone to your ear to listen to an, to a voice message.
00:28:49 ◼ ► And, and then it would, and then it disappeared. Now I think they fixed that, but I still find the
00:28:56 ◼ ► overall UI for it to be, to be inferior to WhatsApp. I think a few weeks ago, Sylvia sent me a voice
00:29:05 ◼ ► message on, on iMessage for whatever reason. And I just remember thinking, oh my God, this is so much
00:29:10 ◼ ► worse than what WhatsApp has. I think it's also better in Telegram. I don't really use Telegram.
00:29:16 ◼ ► Uh, but yeah, it's, uh, I am glad that Apple is following this trend, uh, especially for people
00:29:23 ◼ ► outside the US. I am surprised that this, this thing with voice messages hasn't really taken off
00:29:29 ◼ ► in the United States. Um, there's a benefit to being able to use your voice in a, in a synchronous
00:29:37 ◼ ► way. I don't, I really dislike phone calls because you, with a phone call, you got to make a decision
00:29:45 ◼ ► about what you're going to say on the spot. Right. Uh, whereas a voice message is more like a podcast.
00:29:50 ◼ ► If you don't like what you said, you can just redo it or you can just ramble, you know? And, and, and,
00:29:56 ◼ ► and then you're not obligated to answer immediately. If, if, if we are on a phone call, if I call you
00:30:02 ◼ ► and I ask you a question and you don't answer me for five minutes, I'm just going to hang up or,
00:30:06 ◼ ► or I'm going to, or I'm going to think you're weird. Right. Whereas with the voice message,
00:30:11 ◼ ► message, you can listen and then you can think about it, think about your answer, massage your
00:30:16 ◼ ► answer a little bit, and then you can send a reply back. So it's like, it combines the convenience of
00:30:23 ◼ ► texting with the more personal touch of voice. It's like, what is a, what, what are two unrelated
00:30:31 ◼ ► things that people put together and discovered they were good? Don't say pineapple on pizza.
00:30:35 ◼ ► Peanut butter and banana. Peanut butter and jelly. Okay. Okay. That also. I love it. I love it. Yes.
00:30:44 ◼ ► It's like that. Yeah. Okay. It's, it does seem like Apple should add more of these features.
00:30:51 ◼ ► One day, one day, Steven out of the blue with no context, just start sending Mary a voice messages.
00:30:58 ◼ ► Let's see what happens. Just pretend like it's a normal thing that you do. Oh yeah. Just like,
00:31:04 ◼ ► oh, Hey, what's up? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Can you, can you, uh, add this to the grocery list or
00:31:09 ◼ ► whatever? Yes. Yes. She, I think she'd be like, are you okay? Like, are you, are you being held hostage?
00:31:15 ◼ ► Can you not use your hands right now? What are you doing? Oh man. Uh, yeah. I'm glad this is,
00:31:23 ◼ ► this can be, it can be turned off and, but people, I mean, people use it. It's, it's, it's wild to me.
00:31:31 ◼ ► And my guess is people here because messages is dominant and WhatsApp is, is not as much that
00:31:38 ◼ ► people don't even know that WhatsApp like has those features, like the transcription and the,
00:31:42 ◼ ► the, the speed control. Like, yeah, Apple should, Apple should adopt some of that probably. Like if
00:31:48 ◼ ► you're going to have this feature, make it good, but I'm also glad I can ignore it. Yeah.
00:31:53 ◼ ► Can we talk about cars? Oh, we can talk about cars. Yes. Yes. Uh, late last week, Apple and Ford
00:32:00 ◼ ► of all people, all companies, uh, they announced, uh, what they are calling or, or the use of what
00:32:08 ◼ ► Apple is calling map kit for automotive. So Ford is working on what they're calling their universal
00:32:17 ◼ ► electric vehicle platform. So this is GM has one of these, I forget what GM's is called, but basically
00:32:23 ◼ ► what it is, it's the electric components of a, they're building kind of one underlying electrical
00:32:31 ◼ ► platform that they can build different cars on top of. So GM has this Ford is building theirs. The
00:32:38 ◼ ► first vehicle they're going to put out is a midsize, small to midsize pickup truck that's supposed to be
00:32:44 ◼ ► out in the States in 2027, but there'll be SUVs on that platform, probably sedans on that platform.
00:32:53 ◼ ► Instead of reinventing the batteries and the motors and how it all, you know, works instead of
00:33:00 ◼ ► reinventing that for every model, you have one underlying architecture and car companies have done this
00:33:06 ◼ ► forever, right? Like, uh, actually Ford, uh, as an example, back in the day had like the Fox platform,
00:33:13 ◼ ► and that was underneath a bunch of different cars that didn't all look the same, right? There were
00:33:19 ◼ ► different cars with different features and different power levels and sold in different parts of the
00:33:24 ◼ ► market, but underneath same platform. So Ford's working on this and because car companies can't help
00:33:33 ◼ ► themselves when they make an electric vehicle, they think we should read, do everything like this
00:33:38 ◼ ► should be a spaceship. And that's the fault of Tesla. I think because a lot of these companies for a long
00:33:44 ◼ ► time have sort of chased Tesla in the, in these, in these areas. Um, a lot of that is, has to do with
00:33:50 ◼ ► the infotainment, what's on the screen, right? So more and more in modern vehicles, the, the screen is big
00:33:59 ◼ ► and it controls everything. And it's the, the center point of all the controls, which I don't love. I'd
00:34:05 ◼ ► rather have buttons, but maybe I'm old. I don't know. Yeah. So the announcement is that the
00:34:13 ◼ ► you EV platform is going to have Apple maps built in. So in the Ford software, right? So, so not CarPlay,
00:34:27 ◼ ► not Android auto, but like the built-in base software is going to be using Apple maps and
00:34:34 ◼ ► to accommodate this, we have this new map kit for automotive SDK, which I don't think we've heard
00:34:40 ◼ ► of before this press release that I can remember. No, that that's a new name. I think, I think so.
00:34:44 ◼ ► It's not a great name. Um, but, uh, especially cause Google's is called Google automotive services,
00:34:56 ◼ ► but maps is getting some, some features to accommodate this, including the, uh, integration with
00:35:06 ◼ ► charging locations. And so maps and the car can communicate to precondition the battery for fast
00:35:14 ◼ ► charging, which has been a shortcoming of CarPlay based maps for a long time. In fact, if you go
00:35:22 ◼ ► talk to Rivian or Tesla or some other companies, they will say, one reason we're not doing this is
00:35:27 ◼ ► because we need the integration between maps and the software and the battery. So all this can happen.
00:35:33 ◼ ► So Apple is very slowly moving in that direction, which I think is good. Um, and it's also, I think,
00:35:41 ◼ ► a bit of a rebuttal of CarPlay Ultra. So last year, Ford CEO, Jim Farley said in an interview with Joanna
00:35:47 ◼ ► Stern, we don't like the execution of round one of CarPlay Ultra, but we're very committed to Apple.
00:35:53 ◼ ► I've talked to Tim many times about this. Okay. First of all, like name dropping Tim Cook by the first
00:35:59 ◼ ► name. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Tim, my friend, Tim. Yeah. We just text. You think they use voice
00:36:04 ◼ ► messages, Jim Farley and Tim Cook? Probably, probably, probably. I bet they do. The disappearing ones.
00:36:13 ◼ ► Don't want this to show up in court disappears after two minutes. Uh, that's fantastic. Um, CarPlay
00:36:22 ◼ ► Ultra, right, was the idea that Apple's UI was going to extend everywhere in the car, including what is
00:36:29 ◼ ► also increasingly popular in new vehicles is the gauge cluster screen, and that you could have
00:36:37 ◼ ► Apple UI everywhere, and then the car manufacturer could punch through that UI for things that they
00:36:42 ◼ ► needed to do. Basically, no one has done that, I think, except Aston Martin and like one car. Like,
00:36:47 ◼ ► this is not, uh, not what people, what, not what car manufacturers want. In fact, you go far enough,
00:36:54 ◼ ► you have GM who's saying we're not even doing car play. You don't even get that. We, we want to
00:36:59 ◼ ► control the entire experience. Um, and a lot of them are relying on the Google automotive services,
00:37:06 ◼ ► which is an OS for infotainment systems, a bunch of Google services, a Google maps, play store and
00:37:12 ◼ ► assistant. And then on top of it, you can run Android auto and car play. So Ford is going down this road.
00:37:19 ◼ ► is the first time that we've seen Apple maps integrated directly into a vehicle. Uh, I suspect
00:37:26 ◼ ► that we will see more of this. Like, I think there are companies that want to work with Apple,
00:37:32 ◼ ► but we're unwilling to do car play ultra. And this could be, um, could be a middle ground for a lot of,
00:37:40 ◼ ► a lot of folks, which I think, I think makes sense. Yeah. What happened to car play ultra?
00:37:46 ◼ ► I think it's just dead. It's, I mean, at this point, right, it's essentially done for, um,
00:37:54 ◼ ► also I want to go back for a second to that map kit for automotive SDK. Um, I have a car with the Google
00:38:11 ◼ ► Yeah. So it's different from Android auto, right? Android auto is basically car play. You need to
00:38:16 ◼ ► have an Android phone. This is like, you literally have Google services built into your car dashboard
00:38:21 ◼ ► and your car infotainment system. And it's really nice. For example, one of the things that I like about
00:38:29 ◼ ► is that, um, so you need to have a Google account. You need to have, uh, I just log in with my personal
00:38:35 ◼ ► Gmail account. Uh, you have access to the Play Store, right? And you can install third-party apps
00:38:42 ◼ ► into your car from the Play Store, including browsers. Right. You may be wondering, why would you want to
00:38:47 ◼ ► use a browser? Those browsers you cannot use while you're driving. Yeah. Some apps have the restrictions
00:38:52 ◼ ► when you're driving. Uh, they are literally blocked off in the UI. As soon as you, uh, park your car,
00:38:59 ◼ ► so maybe you're waiting for something, you can use a browser to just, I don't know, read the news,
00:39:03 ◼ ► read Mac stories, read 512px.net in Vivaldi, as one does, obviously. Yeah. I mean, you know,
00:39:10 ◼ ► the single static site generated website is so fast to load in your Volvo. So fast to load in your Volvo.
00:39:15 ◼ ► I'm building for the future, baby. I know, right? And this stuff is built, this is not on top of car,
00:39:22 ◼ ► or not within the bounds of car play oriented auto. This is on the car itself. It's on the car itself.
00:39:28 ◼ ► No need to have a phone. The car has a built-in cellular plan that I got from Volvo that, you know,
00:39:35 ◼ ► renews every few years or something. Um, it gets software updates, right? It's like having a mini
00:39:42 ◼ ► computer inside. So it gets software updates. It tells you, uh, doesn't tell you a change log for
00:39:49 ◼ ► those software updates. So a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I got an Apple music app for the Volvo
00:39:56 ◼ ► that was not available before, uh, used to be that only Spotify and title were available in my car,
00:40:02 ◼ ► uh, with the Google services. Now there's also Apple music and it's nicely done. Um, you, the other thing
00:40:10 ◼ ► that I like about it and the reason why, even though I can use Android auto, I can use car play. I do keep
00:40:17 ◼ ► my phone always plugged in. So I get access to car play and phone calls and, you know, other apps
00:40:23 ◼ ► that I have with car play integration. What is superior about the Google system is that it can
00:40:30 ◼ ► inject UI into the main screen, which is a portrait orientation display on the Volvo, but also, uh, in
00:40:39 ◼ ► front of my steering wheel. So for example, Google maps directions, I get a bigger overview on the main
00:40:46 ◼ ► display, which is like, uh, the size of an iPad essentially, but I also get the close up turn
00:40:53 ◼ ► by turn directions above my steering wheel. And only Google maps with the Google automotive services can do
00:40:59 ◼ ► that. When I use car play with my phone, I only get the main display. I get nothing on above the
00:41:08 ◼ ► steering wheel. So, uh, that's why for directions, I have to use Google maps because I get, you know,
00:41:14 ◼ ► uh, it's just more convenient for me to see, Hey, you gotta make a left here, you know, just above my
00:41:19 ◼ ► steering wheel. I do think on some cars, car play can do more than one screen, but then it's like,
00:41:25 ◼ ► is dependent on the car. And you know, it's, this is a messy space, right? Because even, even amongst
00:41:33 ◼ ► the same car brand, right? Like even among Volvo, I think there are some differences, obviously in
00:41:38 ◼ ► model year and like generation of car, but you know, uh, one car over here may get revised and then the
00:41:46 ◼ ► other, the other ones don't for another year or two. Right. So it's, it's kind of a moving target,
00:41:51 ◼ ► all this stuff. Yeah. It's all kind of confusing right now with the, with the car play ecosystem,
00:41:57 ◼ ► because like some cars can do it. Other cars cannot, but I hope that this extends beyond Ford,
00:42:07 ◼ ► because if the, if Apple is serious about this map kit for automotive, um, I actually would love to see
00:42:13 ◼ ► a more generalized, like Apple for automotive, like, and I don't know exactly, like, should it be a,
00:42:21 ◼ ► should it be a separate thing from car play? Like Google does that they have Google automotive
00:42:33 ◼ ► Volvo provided me with the cellular connectivity. I just needed to sign in with my Google account.
00:42:39 ◼ ► I would imagine that a similar Apple automotive system, I could just sign in with my Apple account.
00:42:52 ◼ ► Yeah. Cause like even just in maps, there's data of yours that you want, right? Like you want your
00:42:57 ◼ ► favorites. Um, one of the best features of maps is you can send directions to your phone from the Mac app.
00:43:05 ◼ ► Like that would be awesome. I can plan out my route on my laptop and then say, you know,
00:43:10 ◼ ► send to car and it's there waiting for me. Like even just within maps, forget all the other stuff
00:43:17 ◼ ► Apple Canon should do here just within maps. It would be awesome to have more tie in with the ecosystem.
00:43:34 ◼ ► Uh, us only us only for now. Um, and only this midsize four door electric pickup truck.
00:43:40 ◼ ► So this, this will take a while to, to, to be out in the world. Um, but I do hope Apple keeps pushing it.
00:43:47 ◼ ► Like I think more and more, this is going to be the case where the car and the, the mapping and everything else are going to be more integrated.
00:44:02 ◼ ► I just have a CarPlay screen. That's like, I don't know. It's like seven inches. It's not big.
00:44:08 ◼ ► Like it's basically the size of the iPhone pro max, um, no gauge cluster display. Like it is, it is older and that's great. Cause like CarPlay is my complete experience in my truck. Like the only time I use the, like the head unit radio itself is if I want to listen to FM radio.
00:44:27 ◼ ► I feel one of this is like sports radio or something, but past that everything is CarPlay routed through my phone. And that is how a lot of people experience this stuff now, but more and more, it's going to be like your Volvo or like these Fords where yes, like you may still want to use CarPlay because your podcast app isn't built in or your want to use iMessage, right.
00:44:52 ◼ ► And things that aren't baked into the car yet. But there is this middle ground, I think that is happening. And that honestly, if Apple doesn't do this and more and more companies turn to Google automotive services, what if Google says, you know what, actually we're going to kind of degrade the CarPlay experience.
00:45:09 ◼ ► We're not going to let you do all the things you can do. Like that hurts CarPlay. It hurts Apple. And Apple's in this position where in the U S at least the overwhelming majority of consumers buying cars say that CarPlay is a must have. It is certainly true for me.
00:45:28 ◼ ► We just bought my daughter a car because she's driving now and it did not have CarPlay in it. And I retrofitted it in because like she's used to it in our cars and I want her to have access to maps and things like the car we bought her older didn't have any navigation, didn't have anything. It's like a CD player basically.
00:45:46 ◼ ► And now she has this and it's a must for us, for our family. A lot of people are there. And so CarPlay, I think it's one reason they did CarPlay Ultra.
00:45:56 ◼ ► In one way, CarPlay is kind of in a dangerous spot that Apple doesn't control what's underneath it, right. CarPlay is a layer on top of all this stuff.
00:46:06 ◼ ► And increasingly the companies that control the lower layers want more control. That's why GM booted CarPlay off their platform. That's bad for Apple. Now, for me, it means I would not think about buying a GM car. I wouldn't anyways, but I want CarPlay. And so they kind of have to do this. I hope this is successful. And I hope it's just the start because I think there's a lot of opportunity here to make something really good.
00:46:32 ◼ ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Eleven Labs. How many of you have been put on hold, gone through three levels of a phone menu, gotten transferred to the wrong department, had to repeat your account number for a fourth time, just to be told the office you're trying to reach is closed?
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00:47:26 ◼ ► Whatever needs to happen. The voice sounds like a human. The response time feels immediate with low latency performance.
00:47:37 ◼ ► If you run a business of any kind with customer operations, support, sales, or onboarding, you can start a demo at 11labs.io slash connected.
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00:48:18 ◼ ► We should congratulate our friends, Mike and Jason, because according to these notes here, the upgrade program is now part of Apple.
00:48:45 ◼ ► It is being replaced in the U.S. with the Apple upgrade program, confusingly named for those of us in this neck of the woods.
00:49:00 ◼ ► Apple's partnered with Klarna for this, which is one of those buy now, pay later services.
00:49:05 ◼ ► There's a lot of detail here that's pretty boring to talk about, so we're going to have a bunch of links in the show notes.
00:49:12 ◼ ► The one I would definitely check out is the Verge article, because Emma Roth did the work to compare all the pricing between the Apple upgrade program, your monthly lease payment, the MSRP, how much you pay over the lifetime of the lease, and then your buyout amount.
00:49:30 ◼ ► And what Apple is saying is if you opt into this program, you're going to have a monthly lease payment.
00:49:36 ◼ ► So you don't own this device, which is a deal breaker for a lot of people, but you will never pay more than the full price of the device over three years.
00:49:45 ◼ ► In some cases, according to Emma Roth's chart here, you could save a lot of money, but when you get to the end of it, you have the option to purchase the device by paying the difference.
00:49:59 ◼ ► And so if you've paid in $1,000 over three years for the device is $1,200, you pay the $200 and it's yours.
00:50:05 ◼ ► You can end the contract and return the device to Apple, in which case you lose any resale or trade in value.
00:50:12 ◼ ► Or probably what they want you to do is you upgrade to another device and then you switch to whatever monthly payment that new device has.
00:50:43 ◼ ► It is different also than what you have through cell carriers, where it's like, okay, I'm paying my phone off over the course of a couple of years, but I own the phone at the end of it.
00:51:00 ◼ ► What I would say about this, before we kind of get into our feelings about it, is that any program like this, the devil is in the details.
00:51:20 ◼ ► In which case, you're paying the same amount as you would new, but you're paying it over time.
00:51:27 ◼ ► Maybe you're somebody who does want to upgrade every two to three years, and you don't want to pay for a phone outright, and the ownership question doesn't bother you.
00:51:36 ◼ ► In which case, maybe you get on this thing, and it's effectively no different than the iPhone upgrade program, really, in that sense.
00:51:46 ◼ ► Another detail that I had missed initially, but Gruber pointed out today, if you lease an iPhone through this in the U.S.,
00:51:58 ◼ ► So if you use an MVNO, U.S. Cellular, there's a bunch of them, Trump Mobile, you can't actually take advantage of this, because it's tied in with the big three.
00:52:13 ◼ ► You should definitely understand the ramifications of your decision-making when you go into this.
00:52:34 ◼ ► I feel like, with these things being so expensive, when you want to pay for them up front,
00:52:57 ◼ ► The things that I want to upgrade on an annual basis, you're basically subscribing to the iPhone, right?
00:53:15 ◼ ► I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel more comfortable doing this with portable devices that I switch on an annual basis anyway.
00:53:22 ◼ ► Because I know myself, I want to have the latest iPhone anyway, and they're expensive for something that I want to purchase on an annual basis, right?
00:53:41 ◼ ► If I'm purchasing this thing every September and spending lots of money every September, and then I'm going to sell it, is it really mine?
00:53:48 ◼ ► Yes, technically, it is mine for those 12 months, but it's an impermanent purchase, if you think about it.
00:53:59 ◼ ► It's a computer that I own, that I care for, that I keep for three, four, maybe even five years.
00:54:53 ◼ ► Like in the Discord, Zoe, who was on the iPhone upgrade program, mentioned that the 12-month lease
00:55:04 ◼ ► And I think if you are going to upgrade on a regular basis, and the ownership thing doesn't bother you,
00:55:29 ◼ ► There was a report earlier in the week that someone found this restricted mode in iOS 27,
00:55:56 ◼ ► And then you've got, like, credit issues and a bunch of other stuff that could be a problem.
00:56:09 ◼ ► But if you can make the payments and it works out for you financially and you're okay with the potential downsides,
00:56:17 ◼ ► then I guess more options aren't bad, you know, even if it can feel a little bit weird.
00:56:38 ◼ ► Like, OTJ Jr. wrote, with the new program, ownership at the end is not an option, which actually isn't true because you can buy it out.
00:56:47 ◼ ► But when your lease is over, you're empty-handed and face it with leasing again, buying out the lease or buying it full price with no trade-in, which is objectively worse.
00:56:58 ◼ ► And I think what you said is really interesting about, like, ah, the Mac is something that you wouldn't do because it's something that you buy and hold on to for a long time.
00:57:21 ◼ ► I think it's interesting that it's happening now as we are certainly on the cusp of iPhones becoming even more expensive.
00:57:43 ◼ ► And so, it is a way, I think, to hedge against that if you're Apple and if you're these other companies.
00:57:52 ◼ ► Well, if you want to lease this closing, I have a great deal for you because it's here.
00:58:05 ◼ ► If you want to find stuff you talked about, it's on the web at relay.fm slash connected.
00:58:19 ◼ ► And you can join and get connected pro, which is the longer and ad free version of the show.
00:58:29 ◼ ► If you use the coupon code tinyheads15 between now and July 31st, which is the day after we record this, then you get 15% off an annual subscription to connected pro, either new or if you're reactivating an expired one.