Upgrade

00:00:09 ◼   ► From relay, this is Upgrade episode number six.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Three, one, that's a big number.

00:00:15 ◼   ► It is brought to you this time by Factor Squarespace and Backblaze.

00:00:19 ◼   ► I am your regular host, Jason Snell, but I'm reading the introduction, which means

00:00:23 ◼   ► Mike Hurley is gone on assignment.

00:00:25 ◼   ► We did an episode out of time last week.

00:00:28 ◼   ► This week we are doing an episode in time.

00:00:31 ◼   ► And joining me just in time is our special guest host this week, Dan

00:00:36 ◼   ► Morin.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Hi, Dan.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Hi, Jason.

00:00:38 ◼   ► I was ready to be introduced as your irregular co-host.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Well, you are the first one.

00:00:44 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:00:44 ◼   ► I don't want to judge the host, just not on not on this show.

00:00:47 ◼   ► I don't want to judge you.

00:00:48 ◼   ► We so we do the Six Colors podcast almost every Friday.

00:00:52 ◼   ► And if you're you could you have to be a member to do this,

00:00:54 ◼   ► to become a member of Six Colors, and you get that hear us every

00:00:57 ◼   ► Friday.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Uh except for last Friday, where we were both traveling.

00:01:00 ◼   ► And uh the promise was that we would come on upgrade instead and give

00:01:04 ◼   ► everybody uh a whole episode of us talking about stuff.

00:01:08 ◼   ► As the prophecy has foretold, here we are.

00:01:11 ◼   ► As far as I know, Mike is like in the air right now, and

00:01:13 ◼   ► if not, he will soon be in the air.

00:01:15 ◼   ► He's flying home.

00:01:15 ◼   ► In a plane.

00:01:16 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe a hot air balloon.

00:01:18 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Oh.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Um, and of course, this is the summer of fun.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Summer of fun!

00:01:23 ◼   ► Summer of fun!

00:01:24 ◼   ► And uh, what's more fun than Apple?

00:01:26 ◼   ► Financial results, those are coming up later on the show.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Well, it's fun if you're Apple, I guess.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Super fun.

00:01:32 ◼   ► I mean, and lucrative.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Less less fun for us.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Less fun for others, I suppose that's true.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Um, so uh we'll let's start with a little bit.

00:01:43 ◼   ► There's no time for any of this, Jason.

00:01:44 ◼   ► We don't, because it's time for Snell Talk.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Do you want to read the Snell Talk question to me?

00:01:48 ◼   ► I would love to read the Snell Talk question.

00:01:50 ◼   ► This is from Will.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Will says, Jason, on Upgrade Plus recently, you recommended a plethora of TV shows.

00:01:55 ◼   ► By the way, Will, extra credit for the word plethora.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Yeah, word.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Plethera of TV shows, and then you also talk about all the books you

00:02:01 ◼   ► read, both for design in California and for fun, as well as all the

00:01:59 ◼   ► work for all the various writing and recording you do.

00:02:07 ◼   ► How do you actually have time to do all of these things?

00:02:10 ◼   ► I love I love these questions.

00:02:12 ◼   ► And I'm glad that you got to ask it because part of my answer

00:02:15 ◼   ► I think is near and dear to your heart, and then I'm gonna turn

00:02:17 ◼   ► the tables on you.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Okay.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Uh like, okay, for for design in California, I am not reading all the

00:02:24 ◼   ► books.

00:02:25 ◼   ► I because I have a database full of the text of all the books,

00:02:28 ◼   ► and I can search around and I can find the relevant chapters for the

00:02:31 ◼   ► story I'm trying to tell.

00:02:33 ◼   ► But there are books that I do read, and I have to put them

00:02:35 ◼   ► in my book reading queue.

00:02:36 ◼   ► But I do read a lot of books.

00:02:38 ◼   ► So I just finished a book last night on the plane, coming home.

00:02:40 ◼   ► I love reading books.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I do read a very large number of books by some people's standards, although

00:02:45 ◼   ► there are other people we know, Dan, who read way more books than we

00:02:48 ◼   ► do.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Scott McNulty.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:50 ◼   ► Um, Fred Kiesh.

00:02:52 ◼   ► I think he writes reads like a book a day or something.

00:02:54 ◼   ► It's just wild, these people who read.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So I I guess I see how people see me when I say I

00:02:59 ◼   ► wrote read like 80 books.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Is they're like, how is that possible?

00:03:02 ◼   ► It's like, well, here's my my Pat answer, but it's true.

00:03:06 ◼   ► I don't play games.

00:03:08 ◼   ► I think that that's the real answer is I I listened to my friends

00:03:12 ◼   ► talk about the games they're playing and the thing.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Like our our dear friend, Tony Sindalar.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Yes.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Was just having a conversation about the new Lego Batman game.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Uh yes, yes.

00:03:27 ◼   ► And he said that he 100% did it.

00:03:30 ◼   ► He did every single thing in it.

00:03:32 ◼   ► A massive, massive game.

00:03:34 ◼   ► It's a big game.

00:03:35 ◼   ► It's a very big game.

00:03:36 ◼   ► And that was when I at that moment where I was like, yeah, see,

00:03:39 ◼   ► I like video games.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Fine, but I am one of those people who it's it's gonna be very

00:03:45 ◼   ► hard for me to commit to playing a video game for I'm I'm like,

00:03:49 ◼   ► I'm not gonna play a video game for 30 hours.

00:03:44 ◼   ► It's just never gonna happen.

00:03:52 ◼   ► So I really like those, what John Saracusa calls the artsy fartsy games that

00:03:56 ◼   ► are like five.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Like I did um Hurdling, which Panic published, which is a journey, it's kind

00:04:02 ◼   ► of like journey vibes a little bit.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And it I think it I think it was a total of about five

00:04:06 ◼   ► hours.

00:04:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like a it's like it's a little longer than watching a movie.

00:04:10 ◼   ► It's like a mini-series.

00:04:12 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:04:14 ◼   ► So that was um uh that was a time commitment I could do.

00:04:21 ◼   ► I I wouldn't do it regularly.

00:04:22 ◼   ► I mean, we do we watch, we watch a lot of uh movies and

00:04:25 ◼   ► TV and I read a lot of books.

00:04:27 ◼   ► And that I mean that kind of covers it.

00:04:29 ◼   ► And so it's very hard for me to find time.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Also, I I really try to prioritize stuff I can do with Lauren when

00:04:38 ◼   ► it's when she's home and I'm home and it's our entertainment time, and and

00:04:43 ◼   ► there are games that you can play.

00:04:44 ◼   ► We I think we just hand it off the controller for hurling, and there's

00:04:47 ◼   ► some games I was reading about um was it Big Walk that Panic it's

00:04:52 ◼   ► from the people who did Untitled Goose Game.

00:04:54 ◼   ► There was just a report, a uh review of it this morning, I think

00:04:56 ◼   ► in the merch because I sent it to my wife saying this could be

00:04:59 ◼   ► our next game.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Yeah, and I looked at that and I thought, well, that even though it's

00:05:02 ◼   ► a very long, open-ended game, it's a co-op game.

00:05:06 ◼   ► And that's part for me, that's part of it too, is a um it

00:05:11 ◼   ► is stuff like we can do together.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Like we played Journey together and it was the same thing.

00:05:14 ◼   ► We like with Hurtling, we just handed the controller back and forth for various

00:05:17 ◼   ► levels.

00:05:18 ◼   ► So I only I watched half the levels and played half the levels, but

00:05:21 ◼   ► it was great.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Um so I I I don't know how my so my turning the tables

00:05:26 ◼   ► question is how do you find time to do all the stuff you do

00:05:29 ◼   ► and play games and you've got a little kid?

00:05:32 ◼   ► How Dan?

00:05:33 ◼   ► How is it possible?

00:05:34 ◼   ► See, I'm taking Will's side here now.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Oh, how the turntables have turned.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Um I don't play that many games.

00:05:41 ◼   ► I think I view games as kind of fungible with uh like TV for

00:05:46 ◼   ► me, in terms of a thing that I often do, like when I'm yeah,

00:05:50 ◼   ► like there's TV shows I watch with my wife, and there's TV shows I

00:05:53 ◼   ► watch by myself because she's not interested.

00:05:55 ◼   ► And there's games that I play with my wife, and then there's games I

00:05:57 ◼   ► play by myself because she's not interested.

00:05:59 ◼   ► Like you, I really enjoy doing co-op games with my wife.

00:06:02 ◼   ► We played Baldur's Gate 3.

00:06:03 ◼   ► We put in like 120 hours on that game.

00:06:06 ◼   ► And that's because for like several months, it was our largely instead of watching

00:06:10 ◼   ► TV thing.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Like we put our kid to bed, we have like an hour, maybe two

00:06:15 ◼   ► to like stay up before we go to bed, and that was like what

00:06:18 ◼   ► we did.

00:06:18 ◼   ► You know, we sit down and we play the game for a couple hours,

00:06:20 ◼   ► and we worked our way through the entire game.

00:06:22 ◼   ► It was super fun.

00:06:23 ◼   ► But I also it was interesting.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I was having this conversation with some of the people that we were hanging

00:06:27 ◼   ► out with on vacation last week, because a lot of them are married couples,

00:06:30 ◼   ► a little bit younger than some of them have kids, some of them don't.

00:06:32 ◼   ► And so we were discussing that, and it it there's a lot of people

00:06:35 ◼   ► who are like, you know, my partner is not interested in playing in playing

00:06:38 ◼   ► video games.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Um, and so that's a thing that I do by myself.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Uh, and I think it really just depends on on what people are interested

00:06:46 ◼   ► in.

00:06:46 ◼   ► I I don't play that many games.

00:06:48 ◼   ► I've been playing the there was a recent uh James Bond game called First

00:06:52 ◼   ► Light, which I've played a bunch of, but haven't finished, and it's just because

00:06:57 ◼   ► I got busy and I just don't have that much time to like spend

00:07:02 ◼   ► I I like break it up.

00:07:03 ◼   ► Like I do like hour chunks here and there.

00:07:05 ◼   ► I don't sit down and play a 30-hour game, you know, in 30 hours.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Shirts.

00:07:08 ◼   ► That would be that would be real bad.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Yeah, don't do that.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Um, but like before that, I was playing um Ghost of Yote, which is

00:07:14 ◼   ► a sequel to like a samurai game on the PS5, and it's a very

00:07:14 ◼   ► long game, and I was like picking away at it.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I played it for months, and then I just got like to a point

00:07:25 ◼   ► of being, I'm just tired and I need something else, and then I've started

00:07:28 ◼   ► playing the James Bond game.

00:07:29 ◼   ► It's like, I'll go back to it at some point.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But I had put so much time into it because I I feel like

00:07:34 ◼   ► I get like Tony, get very detail-oriented, like I'm gonna check off all these

00:07:37 ◼   ► boxes.

00:07:38 ◼   ► But yeah, it's a thing I do instead of watching TV.

00:07:41 ◼   ► If like my wife is just, you know, I'm gonna watch this show that

00:07:44 ◼   ► I'm into, or she's doing some work or something like that.

00:07:46 ◼   ► That'll be my like I'll burn an hour playing this game.

00:07:48 ◼   ► But I don't read nearly as many books as you do, so I probably

00:07:52 ◼   ► read about half as many books as you do.

00:07:53 ◼   ► So you write more books than I do, though.

00:07:55 ◼   ► So that's I probably do, yes.

00:07:57 ◼   ► I will also say, you know, we do podcasts here in the evenings, and

00:08:02 ◼   ► so Lauren watches a bunch of stuff that I don't watch because she's got

00:08:07 ◼   ► shows she she has as her, like when I'm in here doing a podcast,

00:08:11 ◼   ► she's yeah, she's watching that show.

00:08:12 ◼   ► But there's so much good TV on, it's also very hard to like I

00:08:15 ◼   ► I feel like we have an enormous backlog of um good TV shows right

00:08:20 ◼   ► now.

00:08:21 ◼   ► That is the biggest challenge too, because my wife gets very like she's she

00:08:25 ◼   ► runs hot and cold on like shows.

00:08:27 ◼   ► She'll get really into it and we'll do nothing but like binge a show

00:08:29 ◼   ► for and then still taper off.

00:08:32 ◼   ► So like we still have the last half of last season of silo.

00:08:35 ◼   ► Oh wow.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Yeah, and I'm just like, we should just finish this because the new season's

00:08:39 ◼   ► coming up.

00:08:39 ◼   ► We just blasted through the whole season of silo because we I got the

00:08:42 ◼   ► have the screeners, and that was like yeah, that picked up speed as it

00:08:46 ◼   ► went, where we were like watching one every day.

00:08:47 ◼   ► But like we finally last night, again, after a week of vacation, so we

00:08:51 ◼   ► were hanging out with people and stuff.

00:08:52 ◼   ► We weren't really watching TV.

00:08:54 ◼   ► We finally watched the season opener of Strange New Worlds last night.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Which is like a week and a half old.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:08:59 ◼   ► My God, a Star Trek show I haven't watched in like a week and

00:09:02 ◼   ► a half.

00:09:02 ◼   ► This is wild.

00:09:03 ◼   ► That's it.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:04 ◼   ► I mean, there's just we do live in a in a world where there

00:09:07 ◼   ► is uh there is there are so many entertainment options and there's only so

00:09:12 ◼   ► much time in the day.

00:09:14 ◼   ► And oh the other thing I was gonna say to Will is the other

00:09:16 ◼   ► my other big time hole is that I'm a sports fan.

00:09:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and so I don't have that.

00:09:23 ◼   ► I escape on that front.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Yeah, and and like the Giants are having a terrible year this year, but

00:09:28 ◼   ► like when the Giants are having a good year, you know, a baseball game

00:09:33 ◼   ► is like three hours long, two and a half hours long.

00:09:36 ◼   ► And if I want to sit down, and I enjoy sitting down and watching

00:09:39 ◼   ► a baseball game, but you know, that blows a hole in your evening right

00:09:43 ◼   ► there.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Like that's what you're doing that evening.

00:09:45 ◼   ► You're not reading a book, you're not watching a TV show, you're watching a

00:09:48 ◼   ► baseball game for the whole time.

00:09:50 ◼   ► The Red Sox were having a real bad season, and then they turned it

00:09:53 ◼   ► around, yeah.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Something happened.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah, that didn't happen.

00:09:55 ◼   ► The Giants are just trading all their players and they're done.

00:09:57 ◼   ► But um, and I have not as a I mean, the funny thing is

00:10:01 ◼   ► it's actually kind of optimal in a way, where back in 2021, the Giants

00:10:07 ◼   ► won like 107 games, and like that was such an entertaining season, and we

00:10:11 ◼   ► watched so many games that year because it was so entertaining.

00:10:14 ◼   ► The good news is when the product is bad, you get your time back.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Yeah, don't watch.

00:10:19 ◼   ► So it's kind of nice.

00:10:20 ◼   ► We watched a bunch of World Cup games, as I know you did.

00:10:23 ◼   ► So that was also like a time limit.

00:10:25 ◼   ► And we did the Olympics earlier this year too.

00:10:26 ◼   ► So like it's got like there's time limited events too sometimes that come up,

00:10:30 ◼   ► and yeah, that that eats a whole lot.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Sports is sports can really be, you know, and I'm a college football fan

00:10:35 ◼   ► in the fall and and uh there and the baseball playoffs, I'll absolutely but

00:10:39 ◼   ► I mean the baseball playoffs really do kind of capture us for a month

00:10:42 ◼   ► where it's it's a lot less likely to watch stuff and the World Cup

00:10:44 ◼   ► was a lot of fun.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Um being a uh Premier League fan in the US is actually nice because

00:10:51 ◼   ► it's all like on weekend mornings so it doesn't interfere with the rest of

00:10:55 ◼   ► my life but um but yeah that's so that that eats up time too.

00:10:58 ◼   ► So there's lots of places it goes.

00:11:00 ◼   ► Um but I feel like the one that is a thing that I theoretically

00:11:03 ◼   ► would like to do but I I never do is play video games because

00:11:06 ◼   ► I I have I have bought so many video games and consoles and things

00:11:11 ◼   ► over the years and yet I never use even like four percent of oh

00:11:16 ◼   ► yeah I still have a I have a switch too that I got for

00:11:18 ◼   ► Christmas and I haven't played it in months because I just again there's just

00:11:22 ◼   ► no time like there's other stuff.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Yeah I have a switch too and I I've actually bought a couple of

00:11:26 ◼   ► games for us to play on the Switch too and we still haven't played

00:11:28 ◼   ► them yet but maybe sometime I don't know uh well thank you Will for

00:11:32 ◼   ► your question and if you want to uh go to upgradefeedback.com and leave a

00:11:36 ◼   ► snow talk question of course you can do that too um by just going

00:11:40 ◼   ► to the website I just mentioned that's how that works it's the internet come

00:11:43 ◼   ► on I remember the first time I saw a URL on a billboard it

00:11:46 ◼   ► was in the 90s driving up one on one in San Francisco the place

00:11:49 ◼   ► where it's all like the mind blowing AI billboards now.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:52 ◼   ► And somebody I don't even remember what it was but somebody had a like

00:11:55 ◼   ► a maybe it was like Yahoo or something but it was like somebody had

00:11:57 ◼   ► a URL on a billboard and I was like what is happening and now

00:12:01 ◼   ► now it's like QR QR codes on billboards.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Yeah well not and it's also like literally would you like this completely basic

00:12:08 ◼   ► thing?

00:12:09 ◼   ► Go to a website.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Like like there's no no talking to people there's no phone numbers anymore and

00:12:13 ◼   ► there's nothing it's just or it's scan this QR code.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Would you like to order food at this airport restaurant?

00:12:19 ◼   ► Scan the QR code.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I drove from Boston to Delaware last week.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And when you are driving through New Jersey, like the New York, New Jersey

00:12:28 ◼   ► area, Connecticut too, there is a the genre of like legal injury billboard is

00:12:36 ◼   ► insane.

00:12:37 ◼   ► That's the one thing about the weird AI billboards in the Bay Area, especially

00:12:42 ◼   ► in San Francisco and down the Silicon Valley, like the 101 corridor.

00:12:46 ◼   ► The nice thing about it is it is a real break from the law

00:12:50 ◼   ► firms.

00:12:51 ◼   ► It's yeah, real breaks.

00:12:53 ◼   ► So many.

00:12:53 ◼   ► We have all these weird um electronic billboards in the East Bay.

00:12:57 ◼   ► When I'm driving to Oakland, which I do pretty frequently, um we have all

00:13:01 ◼   ► these electronic billboards.

00:13:03 ◼   ► They're, you know, they they rotate.

00:13:04 ◼   ► They're there's giant screens.

00:13:06 ◼   ► And um sometimes they get like all fancy and they're like, oh, we like

00:13:10 ◼   ► we're the official law firm of the Giants.

00:13:12 ◼   ► Here's the Giants score, or we're the official law firm of the 49ers, here's

00:13:16 ◼   ► the 49ers score, which is fun that they can do that when the game

00:13:19 ◼   ► is going on.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Although I did see a billboard the other day that was for somebody who

00:13:24 ◼   ► was uh it was it was like Bay Area get excited, the World Cup

00:13:28 ◼   ► is coming to the Bay Area, and it said it's coming in minus 38

00:13:32 ◼   ► days.

00:13:33 ◼   ► Someone, someone no one was ready to release that billboard, I guess.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And I I keep thinking, what was the catastrophic chain of events that led

00:13:40 ◼   ► to that that screen being shown?

00:13:42 ◼   ► And I kind of feel like it was like underneath a layer of a

00:13:44 ◼   ► bunch of other stuff that timed out.

00:13:46 ◼   ► And so it was and it ended up being visible when obviously nobody ever

00:13:50 ◼   ► intended to be visible two months after the World Cup.

00:13:53 ◼   ► I I also just really have to share this.

00:13:55 ◼   ► This is not from this most recent trip, but I think last year's trip,

00:13:58 ◼   ► um, some gu, some lawyer got Christopher McDonald to be on his billboard, which

00:14:06 ◼   ► a mute in like Connecticut or something.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Oh, doing another like I have Hillmore.

00:14:10 ◼   ► Yes, and I kept passing all of these billboards.

00:14:13 ◼   ► I'm like, I hope he got paid real well.

00:14:16 ◼   ► I bet he did.

00:14:17 ◼   ► Or it's his need.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Also, the absurdity.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Yeah, the absurdity of Christopher McDonald is like, yeah, sure, I'll do a billboard

00:14:24 ◼   ► thing.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:24 ◼   ► I mean, this is funny.

00:14:25 ◼   ► This is all people.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I want to.

00:14:27 ◼   ► I I since I love the show hacks, I want to see him on

00:14:29 ◼   ► a casino billboard.

00:14:30 ◼   ► That's what I want.

00:14:31 ◼   ► I'm you know what?

00:14:32 ◼   ► It can be a good one.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Or Christoph McDonald's place where you can see it anywhere.

00:14:35 ◼   ► Also, he was on um Star Trek, and nobody should forget that.

00:14:38 ◼   ► He's he usually plays a CAD, but he was actually a sweet guy on

00:14:41 ◼   ► that next generation episode.

00:14:43 ◼   ► All right, let's move on to a little bit of follow-up.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Just a little bit.

00:14:46 ◼   ► This is uh the segment, Dan, when when uh you don't have to take

00:14:49 ◼   ► any of the blame because you weren't here when we did this.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't do nothing.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Uh Dave wrote in.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Um we were talking about the iPhone upgrade program, which we're gonna talk about

00:14:56 ◼   ► on this show.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Oh boy, are we?

00:14:58 ◼   ► Um, because I got somebody here who's in the program.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Hello.

00:15:02 ◼   ► So uh we'll get to that.

00:15:03 ◼   ► But Dave wrote in and said, I have great news for the guy.

00:15:06 ◼   ► We had a we had a person who wrote in who's using Mint Mobile

00:15:09 ◼   ► but thinks he can't join the iPhone upgrade format program.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Now the bad news is the iPhone upgrade program can no longer be joined.

00:15:15 ◼   ► But the good news is that Dave uses Mint and is on the upgrade

00:15:19 ◼   ► program.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Uh, and now literally, Dave points out on this upgrade program as well, by

00:15:24 ◼   ► picking a T-Mobile phone because uh Mint is owned by T Mobile and is

00:15:28 ◼   ► an MVNO T Mobile, and it may be that that's the case.

00:15:31 ◼   ► This is not news you can use though, unfortunately, because the upgrade program is

00:15:38 ◼   ► being discontinued, and we will talk about that in a little bit, because there's

00:15:43 ◼   ► things happening there, and I think Dan has feelings about it.

00:15:46 ◼   ► I do.

00:15:46 ◼   ► But before we do that, I would like to tell you about our first

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00:17:57 ◼   ► Rumor Roundup time, Dan.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Yeehaw!

00:18:00 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Mark German, the sheriff of Rumortown is back with more.

00:18:08 ◼   ► We had two weeks of Mark German.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So that's good because we were pretty light.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Yeah, it was.

00:18:16 ◼   ► This week was pretty pretty light.

00:18:17 ◼   ► But last week, I so he he actually reported last week about the kind

00:18:23 ◼   ► of onslaught of home tech.

00:18:25 ◼   ► He's sort of resetting, he's reported a lot of this before, but kind of

00:18:28 ◼   ► resetting what's going to happen this fall and maybe into early next year.

00:18:31 ◼   ► He says the much, much rumored by him home pod with a screenslash home

00:18:37 ◼   ► controller tablet product, whatever it is.

00:18:39 ◼   ► I've seen some people call it the home pad.

00:18:41 ◼   ► I don't know what they're gonna call it.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:18:44 ◼   ► Uh could be coming this fall alongside a new Apple TV 4K and HomePod

00:18:49 ◼   ► Mini.

00:18:49 ◼   ► The idea being that they will all be upgraded so that they work with

00:18:53 ◼   ► some version of Siri AI.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Um set to release, he says the Apple TV and Home Pod Mini this

00:19:00 ◼   ► fall for sure, and the home hub between October and early next year.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And of course, he's reported previously that the John Turnis uh era is fitting

00:19:10 ◼   ► for all of this because John Turnis is one of the people who sort

00:19:13 ◼   ► of like championed Apple pushing into the smart home.

00:19:17 ◼   ► So it we may be we may finally be there.

00:19:19 ◼   ► I I actually keep picturing in my mind the idea of like a like

00:19:22 ◼   ► a home event almost in October where they roll out their home strategy.

00:19:26 ◼   ► Because it feels like they've got a lot of the pieces here.

00:19:28 ◼   ► They just have failed to put it together.

00:19:31 ◼   ► I wonder if they will so if they release a new home pod mini

00:19:34 ◼   ► and Apple TV and like kind of an event and like you know that

00:19:37 ◼   ► in itself is maybe you know a little sparse but I wonder if they

00:19:41 ◼   ► would tease this you know home pad or something there as well.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Oh like you know well they do that sometimes right they especially things that

00:19:49 ◼   ► require some developer buy-in it might be like hey and next you know month

00:19:53 ◼   ► to early spring we're gonna ship this product that has a screen I think

00:19:59 ◼   ► there's an argument there that it might be a case where they pre-announce something

00:20:02 ◼   ► to give a little more critical mass to this whole genre yeah um and

00:20:07 ◼   ► say like look it's not just the home pod mini in the Apple TV

00:20:10 ◼   ► look that's fine and there's no new those are big yeah that's not a

00:20:13 ◼   ► big tent pole product that's with the screen that's a big deal especially if

00:20:17 ◼   ► I I'm very curious to see what the Siri AI integration is going to

00:20:21 ◼   ► be because we have a couple models right now in terms of things like

00:20:26 ◼   ► you know uh the phone versus right the watch does it run on the

00:20:30 ◼   ► watch or is it only run like sort of on the watch.

00:20:33 ◼   ► I mean it's it's it's leaning hard on the iPhone that's attached to the

00:20:37 ◼   ► iPhone yeah so so there's a couple different possibilities right I can see something

00:20:41 ◼   ► like a home pod mini following that same chart like because it doesn't have

00:20:45 ◼   ► the horsepower like even if they upgrade the chip in it it's not gonna

00:20:48 ◼   ► be it's not gonna be a brand new chip for reasons.

00:20:52 ◼   ► And so you're gonna need to sort of offload some of that computing.

00:20:55 ◼   ► But fundamentally the challenge is that you have these devices right now that are

00:20:59 ◼   ► supposed to be entry points into your smart home and they're not very smart.

00:21:03 ◼   ► And if you start like in September, you know, people start getting uh Siri

00:21:07 ◼   ► AI on their phones, and then they go to their home pod and they're

00:21:10 ◼   ► like, why is this thing so dumb?

00:21:12 ◼   ► And that's a frustrating experience because you have to remember which Siri you're talking

00:21:17 ◼   ► to.

00:21:17 ◼   ► And if you get used to this, oh, there's all these great new features

00:21:19 ◼   ► that Siri AI can do and all this stuff it can do.

00:21:22 ◼   ► And if your home pod mini is still key, I found some web results

00:21:24 ◼   ► for you.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Look at them on your iPhone, you're gonna be annoyed.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it is the I think we called this a couple years ago when

00:21:31 ◼   ► we thought there would be Apple Intelligence and there wasn't really.

00:21:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:34 ◼   ► Um, it was like Siri fragmentation, the idea that you've got smart Siri in

00:21:39 ◼   ► some places and dumb Siri in other places.

00:21:40 ◼   ► And I what I want to say is you can't do that.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Now they can do it.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Yeah, it's it's unavoidable because everybody's own who owns a home pod mini, you're

00:21:47 ◼   ► probably not getting sorry, your your Siri stays dumb, probably.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I I I wish that they could do something as simple

00:21:54 ◼   ► as a I mean, a simple, okay, I'm overstating it, but like a software

00:21:57 ◼   ► update that basically says don't if there's a if there's a Siri AI capable

00:22:00 ◼   ► device around, don't answer the question on the home pod.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Like just don't do it.

00:22:05 ◼   ► But I'm not sure that they can even do that.

00:22:06 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And it's a way to sell new home pods or whatever.

00:22:09 ◼   ► I wonder about the Apple TV 4K, just because one of the advantages of

00:22:13 ◼   ► having a product like that, they already use it as the home hub for

00:22:16 ◼   ► automation and thread and or matter and whatever else they're doing there.

00:22:19 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff that you can you can rely on an Apple

00:22:22 ◼   ► TV for.

00:22:23 ◼   ► I wonder if it if you've got devices that are incapable of doing Siri

00:22:27 ◼   ► AI, I wonder if they bulk up the Apple TV 4K so that it

00:22:32 ◼   ► is so that your other home devices don't necessarily have to go to your

00:22:38 ◼   ► phone.

00:22:38 ◼   ► They could go to your Apple TV, or maybe this new this new screen,

00:22:43 ◼   ► this this new home pad or whatever you want to call it, that might

00:22:46 ◼   ► also be another way to be one of those kind of controllers because you

00:22:50 ◼   ► want to have the problem with having everything go to your your phone is

00:22:54 ◼   ► first off, different people have different phones and they will have different capabilities.

00:22:57 ◼   ► And second, sometimes you those people leave.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:01 ◼   ► I have this problem with you know, my wife and I have you both

00:23:03 ◼   ► use the home pod mini, and you know, uh sometimes it doesn't recognize one

00:23:08 ◼   ► of the other and it tells you like, oh, you have to go re-authenticate.

00:23:11 ◼   ► Tell us once again that who you are.

00:23:13 ◼   ► Um and I think the Apple TV thing is really interesting too because one

00:23:18 ◼   ► of the other so we saw that price increase for it.

00:23:21 ◼   ► And a lot of people speculated this is to sort of, you know, adjust

00:23:26 ◼   ► people before a new Apple TV comes out.

00:23:29 ◼   ► And one of the ways they could justify that price tag if they felt

00:23:32 ◼   ► like they had to was okay, now it's got Siri AI and it does

00:23:35 ◼   ► all this other ancillary stuff too.

00:23:37 ◼   ► It also helps compensate for the fact that uh TV OS27 basically did not

00:23:42 ◼   ► get any new features, right?

00:23:44 ◼   ► Nothing, nothing really of note this year.

00:23:47 ◼   ► And so that could help bulk up that product because the people who have

00:23:50 ◼   ► an Apple TV are gonna be like, I it's barely worth it to upgrade

00:23:54 ◼   ► the software, much less buy a new box at this point.

00:23:57 ◼   ► So yeah, if you want to sell some more Apple TVs and some home

00:24:00 ◼   ► pod minis, then you need to make them do something that they don't already

00:24:03 ◼   ► do.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Right.

00:24:04 ◼   ► The AI enabled stuff might be a way to do that.

00:24:07 ◼   ► I do wonder, I I mean, German said that the this homepad for lack

00:24:12 ◼   ► of a better word, uh, is is gonna have some facial recognition so you

00:24:15 ◼   ► or or voice recognition features so that you're gonna be able to, you know,

00:24:19 ◼   ► the way he puts it, it might be plausibly more of a multi-user product,

00:24:25 ◼   ► which is good, right?

00:24:26 ◼   ► Like they they've done some steps in this way where where it's like voice

00:24:29 ◼   ► recognition and things like that.

00:24:30 ◼   ► But like really, if you're in a house and you have personal information from

00:24:34 ◼   ► various people, knowing which data source to access on a query, knowing which phone

00:24:41 ◼   ► to look at, whatever it is, would make the product better.

00:24:44 ◼   ► And it makes me think that maybe that product is also smarter than a

00:24:44 ◼   ► home pod.

00:24:51 ◼   ► And if that's the case, then maybe you know it's an alternative.

00:24:55 ◼   ► You don't want an Apple TV, this thing will also be your hub.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And I, you know, there's a lot of skepticism about that about this product.

00:25:03 ◼   ► And um, like when I'm on MacBreak Weekly, I definitely get there's a lot

00:25:06 ◼   ► of people are like, why do you even need well?

00:25:08 ◼   ► Why does there need to be another home pod?

00:25:09 ◼   ► And it's like I first off, having had an Echo Show and a Google

00:25:14 ◼   ► Nest home, whatever, the bar is on is not even, there's no bar.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Those products are so terrible.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Uh, David Pogue wrote a piece today on his Substack about how bad Alexa

00:25:24 ◼   ► Plus is, by the way, that's hilarious, where he had to do all the

00:25:26 ◼   ► things that Amazon says you should try, and they it failed at all, but

00:25:30 ◼   ► like four of them.

00:25:31 ◼   ► It's uh just amazing.

00:25:32 ◼   ► And we'll see how Siri AI does with that too.

00:25:34 ◼   ► But my point is that these other products with screens that let you do

00:25:38 ◼   ► theoretically voice control and show some widgets and let you control things in your

00:25:41 ◼   ► home, they're not in the Apple ecosystem and they're bad.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So there's a real ripe opportunity there for people to have, even if it's

00:25:49 ◼   ► just like pretty basic, like show me my photos and turn on these lights

00:25:54 ◼   ► or adjust the thermostat or whatever.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Like it the bar is super low.

00:25:58 ◼   ► I see this whole category of products now, you know, kind of like the

00:26:02 ◼   ► terminal and things like that, where it's like, hey, here's your calendar and it's

00:26:05 ◼   ► on your fridge or whatever.

00:26:06 ◼   ► You know, here's some photos.

00:26:08 ◼   ► I just saw another one today.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Um Skylight, I think is one.

00:26:13 ◼   ► Anyways, it's the idea of having a screen that shows stuff that's like visual

00:26:16 ◼   ► information that people in your household need to like refer to.

00:26:19 ◼   ► And it's maybe a smaller market, but it is a market.

00:26:22 ◼   ► There are all these products that have cropped up to do this kind of

00:26:25 ◼   ► thing.

00:26:26 ◼   ► And the the advantage of Apple doing it itself is it lowers the barrier

00:26:31 ◼   ► to entry, right?

00:26:29 ◼   ► A lot of those products are like setting it up is going to be

00:26:34 ◼   ► kind of technical.

00:26:29 ◼   ► You're gonna have to jump through some hoops, et cetera.

00:26:36 ◼   ► Whereas if Apple approaches it with its usual Apple system, it's like you know,

00:26:41 ◼   ► you you plug it in, you wave your phone near it or something, and

00:26:45 ◼   ► you're basically done, probably.

00:26:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:46 ◼   ► So I I think there's a lot there.

00:26:48 ◼   ► And I think, you know, the promise of all those screen-based systems were high.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I mean, when I first got I got an echo show, I think the

00:26:55 ◼   ► very first one, and you know, simple things like I can see all the

00:26:58 ◼   ► timers I've set, you know, that is legit useful because that was one of

00:27:02 ◼   ► the places that these voice assistants were really good, but it was frustrating to

00:27:06 ◼   ► like, oh, it would be really nice if I could see all these things.

00:27:09 ◼   ► Um, and so I think you know, the place they aired is in I

00:27:12 ◼   ► think taking them too far out of what was useful.

00:27:15 ◼   ► It's like, oh, now you're gonna watch YouTube videos while you cook dinner.

00:27:19 ◼   ► I was like, only if I don't want to keep my fingers because I'm

00:27:23 ◼   ► cutting something off if I'm paying attention to a video while I'm cutting vegetables.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's I mean, people do have like TVs in their kitchen and stuff,

00:27:30 ◼   ► but I never really got the appeal of that.

00:27:32 ◼   ► No, it's it I I can't wait.

00:27:33 ◼   ► I I mean we we've talked before about how um all of those mysterious

00:27:39 ◼   ► upgrades to video cameras in home kit secure video seem to suggest that Apple

00:27:43 ◼   ► suddenly cares about video cameras, which seems to suggest Apple's gonna make a video

00:27:47 ◼   ► camera.

00:27:47 ◼   ► And German has said he's he's squirrely about it.

00:27:50 ◼   ► He said, I think that his latest report was an indoor video camera, which

00:27:55 ◼   ► I am much less interested in than an outdoor video camera, but also a

00:27:59 ◼   ► doorbell like a ring-like thing, which is that's your outdoor something.

00:28:03 ◼   ► I don't, I don't my house is so small, I do not need a

00:28:05 ◼   ► doorbell, but I do have a video camera outside.

00:28:08 ◼   ► I have the Accara, which is home Kit Secure Video, and it has benefited

00:28:11 ◼   ► greatly from the new features.

00:28:12 ◼   ► So that, yeah, I I really want an event.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Look, Apple events are about storytelling.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Otherwise, you just do a press release.

00:28:19 ◼   ► Storytelling is part of the reason you do a whole event, and Apple will

00:28:23 ◼   ► invite people somewhere and they'll have like press demos and they will have a

00:28:26 ◼   ► video and they will be able to tell their story.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And if they have a new home strategy and it includes some products that

00:28:33 ◼   ► that don't exist yet, which means you can't you can't use the, you know,

00:28:37 ◼   ► uh suppress sales of the existing ones because they don't exist to lay out

00:28:41 ◼   ► their whole strategy and say, we're doing these now, and coming later this year,

00:28:44 ◼   ► we'll have these other products and and have a more expansive view of Apple's

00:28:49 ◼   ► home strategy.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Like I want to hear them, if they're gonna do this, they need to

00:28:52 ◼   ► tell that story.

00:28:53 ◼   ► And I I hope they do it.

00:28:55 ◼   ► To your earlier point about John Turnus being a good tie-in for that, it's

00:28:59 ◼   ► also a good opportunity for him to put his stamp on something, right?

00:29:02 ◼   ► Like to say, okay, here's an event, you know, would would Tim have done

00:29:06 ◼   ► this event?

00:29:07 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:29:07 ◼   ► But like it feels fresh and new when it's a different CEO coming out

00:29:11 ◼   ► and being like, hey, I've got this exciting new initiative to tell you all

00:29:14 ◼   ► about, right?

00:29:14 ◼   ► Like that's a good moment for you as a CEO in the early days

00:29:18 ◼   ► of your leadership, is to be able to come out and say, here's a

00:29:21 ◼   ► bunch of new products.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And you're like, whoa, this guy.

00:29:24 ◼   ► Yeah, clearly, he built all these products himself in the last two months.

00:29:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Yeah, he's that he's just a busy guy.

00:29:29 ◼   ► He's just doing doing he's killing it.

00:29:32 ◼   ► All right, well, we will keep an eye on that.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Let's talk about the uh Apple upgrade program, which Apple has announced.

00:29:40 ◼   ► It is a new Apple upgrade program.

00:29:42 ◼   ► It is not to be confused with this, the original upgrade program that you're

00:29:47 ◼   ► listening to right now.

00:29:48 ◼   ► It replaces the existing iPhone upgrade program with one that covers not just the

00:29:52 ◼   ► iPhone, but the Mac, the iPad, the Apple Watch.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Turns it from a loan into a lease.

00:29:58 ◼   ► You have been an iPhone upgrade program user for many, many years.

00:30:03 ◼   ► Since the beginning, I think.

00:29:59 ◼   ► I think I was there first year.

00:30:05 ◼   ► So you wrote a piece on six colors about like all your concerns about

00:30:08 ◼   ► what it might be.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Now that we know what Apple's doing here, this is a deal with Klarna,

00:30:14 ◼   ► although it's really kind of branded as Apple.

00:30:16 ◼   ► And the idea is that you are going to choose a length and you

00:30:20 ◼   ► get an amount to pay, and then at the end, you either turn in

00:30:23 ◼   ► the device or you buy out the rest of the lease.

00:30:27 ◼   ► Um, what are you thinking now, especially about I mean, we it goes beyond

00:30:32 ◼   ► the iPhone and we should talk about that, but let's start with just sort

00:30:35 ◼   ► of compared to the product that they were selling, which was the iPhone upgrade

00:30:39 ◼   ► program that you've been on and that is now going to be ending next

00:30:43 ◼   ► year.

00:30:44 ◼   ► How you know what what strikes you about what's different about Apple's approach here?

00:30:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, look, there's a few things here, right?

00:30:51 ◼   ► There's the mechanics of it, and then there's some stuff that's more vibe-based.

00:30:55 ◼   ► I think if you sit down and look at the numbers, the numbers are

00:30:58 ◼   ► comparable.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Um, you know, you you look at the the I looked at my uh

00:31:03 ◼   ► iPhone, I've got a 17 Pro, it's just the base level 256.

00:31:08 ◼   ► For the last year on the iPhone upgrade program, I've been paying, I think

00:31:10 ◼   ► $57 a month, which is, you know, it's divided by 24 or whatever.

00:31:16 ◼   ► But you can upgrade after 12.

00:31:17 ◼   ► All right.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Under the new program, if I go and look at like, okay, I want

00:31:20 ◼   ► to buy the same exact phone I've got now, how much is it gonna

00:31:23 ◼   ► cost me to lease that?

00:31:25 ◼   ► It's a little bit cheaper.

00:31:27 ◼   ► It's like uh, I want to say 40, $40 dollars or so for a

00:31:31 ◼   ► 12-year lease.

00:31:32 ◼   ► This is one of the, or a 12 um month lease.

00:31:35 ◼   ► This is one of the interesting facts is like nominally the price you're paying

00:31:39 ◼   ► over the course of time is divided up into like 24 payments, I think.

00:31:43 ◼   ► But if in a 12-month lease, you're still only paying only part of the

00:31:44 ◼   ► value of the phone, essentially.

00:31:49 ◼   ► Um $46 is the 12-month lease now through the Apple upgrade program.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Now that's cheaper, but in large part that's because the previous iPhone upgrade program

00:32:00 ◼   ► bundled Apple Care with it.

00:32:01 ◼   ► So for that $57, I was paying $11 more per month, but I got

00:32:05 ◼   ► Apple Care Plus, I believe, with theft and loss.

00:32:08 ◼   ► That's now they also Apple tweaked the prices of Apple Care stuff.

00:32:12 ◼   ► So that's now $14.

00:32:14 ◼   ► So if you wanted to get Apple Care on top of that, setting aside

00:32:18 ◼   ► one thing I'll talk about in a second, then you're gonna pay more.

00:32:21 ◼   ► Not a lot more, but a little more.

00:32:23 ◼   ► Um obviously there's also Apple Care One, which they introduced uh late last year,

00:32:28 ◼   ► early this year, um, which essentially is your monthly thing that covers several different

00:32:33 ◼   ► devices.

00:32:34 ◼   ► So you could, if you have multiple Apple devices, maybe you would save some

00:32:38 ◼   ► money if you have Apple Care in all of them.

00:32:40 ◼   ► Uh like many people, I think including you, I do not tend to be

00:32:44 ◼   ► an Apple career subscriber.

00:32:45 ◼   ► I got it with the phone, which was nice.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I don't think I have ever used it in the decade, right?

00:32:50 ◼   ► This is insurance.

00:32:51 ◼   ► This is what happens.

00:32:52 ◼   ► I paid uh for that because I did not really have a choice to

00:32:55 ◼   ► not pay for it, and I never used it.

00:32:57 ◼   ► Um so yeah, I could save money on this plan.

00:33:00 ◼   ► That would be nice.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Um, but now we enter into a couple other things that I think are

00:33:06 ◼   ► tricky.

00:33:06 ◼   ► The upgrade path is a question.

00:33:08 ◼   ► I mean, so they say you can upgrade at the end of your term

00:33:10 ◼   ► of your month, the term of your uh lease.

00:33:13 ◼   ► So that's 12 months for this particular one.

00:33:15 ◼   ► Um you can upgrade sooner with a fee.

00:33:18 ◼   ► There is like on the current system, which is a loan, not a lease,

00:33:22 ◼   ► you can sort of buy out your loan.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Um there's questions of what are the additional fees.

00:33:27 ◼   ► I poked around a little bit to see if I could find the you

00:33:29 ◼   ► know nitty-gritty details of this.

00:33:33 ◼   ► And I had not been able to find like a place that just laid

00:33:36 ◼   ► all out all of the like here is the terms of the Apple upgrade

00:33:39 ◼   ► program.

00:33:39 ◼   ► I'm sure it's in there, but you might have to go further down the

00:33:42 ◼   ► process to get there.

00:33:43 ◼   ► And so that is kind of one question for me is there are a

00:33:46 ◼   ► couple places that allude to fees that you might have to play pay if

00:33:50 ◼   ► you want to do things like terminate your lease early.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Um that is a question to me.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And as always, with these kinds of programs, you always kind of wonder, well,

00:34:00 ◼   ► how are the people making their money, right?

00:34:03 ◼   ► Um that was always a question with, you know, in the case of the

00:34:07 ◼   ► uh the previous iPhone upgrade program, this was a loan underwritten by Citizens Bank.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Um, and you essentially like, you know, they lent you money to buy a

00:34:17 ◼   ► phone, but it was your phone.

00:34:18 ◼   ► In this case, you are essentially renting a phone.

00:34:21 ◼   ► It may be to a certain degree a distinction difference, but I think there

00:34:24 ◼   ► is slightly something there because you are more, I think, beholden to the terms

00:34:28 ◼   ► of this deal potentially.

00:34:30 ◼   ► And I think this is where the question of Clarna comes in because I

00:34:33 ◼   ► think this is this is more of a vibes thing.

00:34:35 ◼   ► It's like, I don't associate anything great with Claren.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Mainly because one of the things they're known for are those buy now pay

00:34:41 ◼   ► later ideas, right?

00:34:42 ◼   ► Where it's like you pay something and sort of finance it over the short

00:34:45 ◼   ► term.

00:34:45 ◼   ► And in theory, it's all cheap.

00:34:46 ◼   ► It's a zero interest loan, but you got to read the fine print.

00:34:49 ◼   ► And if you miss plans or mispayments, you potentially rack up some costs.

00:34:54 ◼   ► So I think I have some questions about that before I would sort of

00:34:58 ◼   ► step in and immediately be like, okay, this is a great substitute.

00:35:01 ◼   ► Um I I think Apple is still working hard to try and make sure

00:35:06 ◼   ► that they're uh the Apple brand promise is still delivered by this.

00:35:11 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:11 ◼   ► But it's tricky because there is a different partner.

00:35:15 ◼   ► And I think the thing about citizens having like a bank involved was like,

00:35:14 ◼   ► well, it's a bank, you know.

00:35:20 ◼   ► Like I don't need to be like, how does the bank make its money?

00:35:23 ◼   ► I know how the banks make their money.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And I felt like in that case, the loan was very well managed.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I never really had a problem with any of them.

00:35:31 ◼   ► You know, I had some problems like mechanically with the upgrade program.

00:35:34 ◼   ► Every once in a while you'd run into something weird where it's like, hey,

00:35:37 ◼   ► you didn't ship your phone back to us.

00:35:38 ◼   ► And I was like, yes, I did.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Um, but I I worked it all got worked out.

00:35:43 ◼   ► And so I guess the question is in the future, if something goes wrong,

00:35:47 ◼   ► am I gonna have to talk to Apple or am I gonna have to

00:35:49 ◼   ► talk to Klarna?

00:35:50 ◼   ► Because I know which of those I'd rather do.

00:35:52 ◼   ► Um and it it has me a little wary of this program.

00:35:57 ◼   ► I'm not gonna say it's a bad deal because I think anybody who's run

00:36:00 ◼   ► the numbers has been like, it's very comparable.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Um, but I I do have some questions about the implementation.

00:36:06 ◼   ► And my biggest experience with the iPhone upgrade program over the course of it

00:36:10 ◼   ► was that it started very rough and it got better over time.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So a part of me is a little worried about the prospect of being

00:36:18 ◼   ► a guinea pig with an unknown partner in the mix.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Because if something does go wrong, it how difficult is it going to be

00:36:27 ◼   ► for me to untangle all of that?

00:36:29 ◼   ► Because time has a value as well.

00:36:31 ◼   ► So, you know, like I said, some of this is very vibes based, where

00:36:36 ◼   ► it's like, I feel a slightly uneasy of it or just wary about it.

00:36:41 ◼   ► And I'm not quite ready to dive right in, but I I do appreciate

00:36:45 ◼   ► that it is a it is not sort of overtly a like much worse

00:36:51 ◼   ► deal, from what I can tell.

00:36:53 ◼   ► It's just different.

00:36:54 ◼   ► And it's different.

00:36:55 ◼   ► And you're right, vibes is part of it.

00:36:57 ◼   ► I think uh uh all the analysis I've seen from people who've kind of

00:36:59 ◼   ► run the numbers are saying, look, and this is true of literally everything that's

00:37:04 ◼   ► ever been the case with buying, even buying outright a device, which is if

00:37:09 ◼   ► you put in the work, you buy it yourself, you've got the money to

00:37:12 ◼   ► buy it up front, and then you use it, and then at that perfect

00:37:15 ◼   ► moment where you want to get something new, you sell it to someone, you

00:37:19 ◼   ► can make you it will be better off than using a program like this.

00:37:24 ◼   ► But the thing is, you have to have the money up front and you

00:37:26 ◼   ► have to put in the effort to sell it.

00:37:28 ◼   ► And I know for a lot of people, um, this is why, okay, why

00:37:31 ◼   ► did why does the Apple trade in not pay off as well as some

00:37:34 ◼   ► other trade-ins do?

00:37:35 ◼   ► And the answer is because you're you're giving money away for convenience because then

00:37:39 ◼   ► you just do it as part of your Apple transaction when you buy your

00:37:42 ◼   ► new phone is give them your old phone and they buy it back and

00:37:44 ◼   ► they give you credit, and it's easy.

00:37:46 ◼   ► And like, could you sell that phone for more on you know Craigslist or

00:37:51 ◼   ► eBay or to a friend or from a third-party buyback service that has slightly

00:37:57 ◼   ► better rates than Apple's?

00:37:58 ◼   ► Yes, you could, but most people are not going to because it's just more

00:38:02 ◼   ► effort.

00:38:03 ◼   ► And so it's a little bit more to do it this way.

00:38:06 ◼   ► But most people, I think the argument goes, um, are gonna be either not

00:38:12 ◼   ► gonna look or are going to say that I'm not gonna go down that

00:38:15 ◼   ► path.

00:38:16 ◼   ► It's just too complicated.

00:38:17 ◼   ► It does sound that ultimately, I mean, I think a lot of our listeners,

00:38:21 ◼   ► especially, the reason that the a program like this appeals, and I think it's

00:38:24 ◼   ► why it appeals to you, is you get a new phone every year.

00:38:27 ◼   ► And the the part of that is you give your old phone back and

00:38:30 ◼   ► get the new phone.

00:38:31 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:38:31 ◼   ► You don't have to worry.

00:38:32 ◼   ► And there is something, as you said, like the selling it comes with a

00:38:35 ◼   ► cost because there's an idea that like uh what happens if you've slightly dinged

00:38:40 ◼   ► up your phone, right?

00:38:41 ◼   ► Like how much damage is it before Apple will accept it back versus how

00:38:45 ◼   ► much damage is it before somebody else who wants to buy that phone will

00:38:47 ◼   ► be like, that's a little too dinged up for me.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And there and there is there is a cost there.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:52 ◼   ► So that that's all part of the challenge.

00:38:53 ◼   ► But I I think like the appeal of this, because I know the other

00:38:57 ◼   ► part of this is I know that a lot of people are like, well,

00:39:00 ◼   ► I just buy it every year.

00:39:01 ◼   ► And that's what I do.

00:39:02 ◼   ► I just buy a buy a phone.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Um, but it's not just, oh, I don't have the money in the bank.

00:39:06 ◼   ► That is part of it for some people, but it's it's what um I

00:39:10 ◼   ► think you get out of it, which is it is reliability.

00:39:15 ◼   ► It in that that for some people who are looking at their budgets, they

00:39:19 ◼   ► like the idea of spending a fixed amount that they know they're gonna be

00:39:23 ◼   ► spending for the next year.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Not that every September they're gonna get a bill for a thousand and something

00:39:29 ◼   ► dollars, and that there's value in saying I would rather not, and it's it's

00:39:34 ◼   ► essentially interest-free, right?

00:39:35 ◼   ► So it's not I anything other than I just want to spread this out

00:39:39 ◼   ► so it's the same number every month because then my expenses are flat every

00:39:42 ◼   ► month.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:44 ◼   ► And there are still alternatives if you have the Apple card, you can finance

00:39:47 ◼   ► it over the Apple card on sort of the same plan where you kind

00:39:52 ◼   ► of just pay in installments, but you're essentially buying outright, but like paying an

00:39:57 ◼   ► installments.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Slightly different, you don't get the same upgrade like treadmill from that because you

00:40:02 ◼   ► aren't immediately like it's not part of a program.

00:40:06 ◼   ► You're still gonna have to trade it back into Apple.

00:40:08 ◼   ► But like, you know, you can do that with Apple, right?

00:40:10 ◼   ► When you buy a new phone from Apple, they they're like, Do you want

00:40:13 ◼   ► to trade one in?

00:40:13 ◼   ► Like the Apple card, uh, this is all US only, right?

00:40:16 ◼   ► By the way, it's just part of it too.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Is it and that there's, I mean, it's just financial stuff is so restrictive

00:40:21 ◼   ► and it it obviously it shows the limits of Apple's powers that they at

00:40:25 ◼   ► least initially there are only certain places, this is their number one market, and

00:40:28 ◼   ► so they're gonna choose it, but also it's their home market and they're more

00:40:29 ◼   ► comfortable with the with the regulations and all of that.

00:40:34 ◼   ► But obviously also not according to German, not so comfortable that they wanted to

00:40:38 ◼   ► set up their own bank or whatever, right?

00:40:40 ◼   ► Like they really like having financial partners.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Yeah, they briefly had like a financial like company that they kind of created

00:40:47 ◼   ► and then they wound it down.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I think because they decided it was more trouble than it's worth.

00:40:51 ◼   ► And I can't blame them for that.

00:40:52 ◼   ► I mean, well, it goes to the whole Tim Tim Cook doctrine of like

00:40:56 ◼   ► you need to control the stuff that that is in inherent and inimical to

00:41:00 ◼   ► your business.

00:41:00 ◼   ► And uh, you know what?

00:41:01 ◼   ► I think they decided this finance stuff is not.

00:41:04 ◼   ► It's it's just we don't need to be the ones who own this.

00:41:07 ◼   ► It's like we could just let do we want to do spread it over

00:41:09 ◼   ► four payments?

00:41:10 ◼   ► Let's just let Klarna do that.

00:41:11 ◼   ► We don't need to do that.

00:41:12 ◼   ► Or we do we need a financial backer.

00:41:14 ◼   ► And and so Klarna here is not a silent partner, but it is vibes

00:41:18 ◼   ► aside, it is basically just the the engine powering this from a financial and

00:41:25 ◼   ► regulatory perspective.

00:41:26 ◼   ► And I think that's reasonable.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Now now we gotta expand this.

00:41:30 ◼   ► This also covers the Mac, the iPad, the Apple Watch, the big tick, the

00:41:34 ◼   ► big ticket items.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Vision Pro, uh the big ticket items are covered in this as well.

00:41:41 ◼   ► And this is uh I want to read a couple of of quotes from

00:41:43 ◼   ► Mark German's take on this because I thought we're out of the room around

00:41:46 ◼   ► up now, but like uh German, I you know that I thought were cynical,

00:41:53 ◼   ► maybe.

00:41:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:54 ◼   ► German as a pundit is interesting, and then also the worldview of Bloomberg, right,

00:41:58 ◼   ► and all financial journalism is fascinating because they often have a very different worldview

00:42:02 ◼   ► than somebody who's more of a technology person.

00:42:05 ◼   ► Uh but he said that Apple could be could end up building turning its

00:42:09 ◼   ► hardware business into, quote, potentially the largest subscription provider in history.

00:42:14 ◼   ► And ultimately, Apple is changing the psychology of the purchase.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Now, I think this is interesting because on one level, I actually kind of

00:42:24 ◼   ► like where he's going here.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Where prices are going up.

00:42:29 ◼   ► Prices have gone up or and are about to go up and may go

00:42:33 ◼   ► up for a while.

00:42:33 ◼   ► Everything is more expensive than it used to be.

00:42:36 ◼   ► And there are a lot of people in Apple's ecosystem who are, in fact,

00:42:40 ◼   ► I think a lot of our listeners, and we are like this too, where

00:42:44 ◼   ► the way we live our lives is we go from Apple device to Apple

00:42:47 ◼   ► device to Apple device, right?

00:42:50 ◼   ► And this is sort of Apple's opportunity to say, why don't you not buy

00:42:58 ◼   ► products anymore?

00:43:00 ◼   ► Why don't you just get them and add them to your bill?

00:43:04 ◼   ► And if you think about it, they already got Apple One, they've got Apple

00:43:07 ◼   ► Care One.

00:43:08 ◼   ► Now they're going to add this program that has gives you the ability to

00:43:12 ◼   ► basically say, send me, like we said about the iPhone program, send me a

00:43:17 ◼   ► monthly bill.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I know what it's going to be.

00:43:19 ◼   ► And when I reach the point where I want a new whatever, and they

00:43:23 ◼   ► all have terms, right?

00:43:24 ◼   ► So if you say, well, what if I want to keep that map quickare

00:43:26 ◼   ► for three years?

00:43:27 ◼   ► Well, at a certain point, you either upgrade it or you just pay it

00:43:30 ◼   ► off.

00:43:31 ◼   ► You buy it out, yeah.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And then you have it.

00:43:33 ◼   ► So there is a decision point, but it could be 24 or 36 months

00:43:36 ◼   ► out.

00:43:37 ◼   ► Like, I look, I'm somebody who just buys this stuff up front.

00:43:40 ◼   ► So it's it's not for me, but I kind of see the appeal on

00:43:45 ◼   ► a on one level of like if you're just always gonna get a new

00:43:48 ◼   ► Mac every couple years and a new iPhone every year, having a just put

00:43:53 ◼   ► it on my bill, my Apple tithe that is now whatever it is a

00:43:58 ◼   ► month, but you just have the Apple stuff and it's an understandable number that

00:44:03 ◼   ► hits your credit card every month.

00:43:59 ◼   ► I get it.

00:44:06 ◼   ► I I mean I knew people, as I'm sure you have, who you know

00:44:10 ◼   ► always leased cars, right?

00:44:12 ◼   ► They they're like I'm gonna put a car lease for I've never done that

00:44:16 ◼   ► either.

00:44:16 ◼   ► But it's like I'm gonna get a car for three years, I'm gonna get

00:44:18 ◼   ► a new car.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Um and right.

00:44:20 ◼   ► Some people are gonna be that, and some people are gonna be the me

00:44:22 ◼   ► uh thing where uh and you, which is I'm gonna buy a car and

00:44:25 ◼   ► then I'm gonna keep that car a very long time.

00:44:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I and I but I get the appeal.

00:44:30 ◼   ► I mean, if you're a person who is like likes cars and like doesn't

00:44:33 ◼   ► want to deal with like ongoing maintenance as cars, you know, age and break

00:44:36 ◼   ► down once you get a new car.

00:44:38 ◼   ► Um and it's kind of interesting.

00:44:40 ◼   ► I mean, you know, one of German's points was also about sort of the

00:44:42 ◼   ► marketing of it.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And I just was, you know, in our uh went to the iPhone page

00:44:46 ◼   ► and it says right up front, so from 10.9, this iPhone 17 Pro from

00:44:49 ◼   ► 1099 or 40, 45.79 cents a month for 24 months, next line, lease from

00:44:56 ◼   ► 31.99 for 24 months with Apple upgrade.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And it's like, boy, right?

00:45:02 ◼   ► Like, I see those numbers and I'm like, well, why is it why is

00:45:05 ◼   ► it so much cheaper?

00:45:05 ◼   ► But I can only just pay, I could pay $32 a month and get

00:45:09 ◼   ► it and get this great iPhone, this top of the line iPhone.

00:45:12 ◼   ► Like, yeah, you know, there's a lot of work going into that.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And I think, you know, it's also nice for Apple because not just in

00:45:19 ◼   ► terms of services revenue, but in terms of smoothing their revenue a bit, right?

00:45:23 ◼   ► They get these giant quarters when the new iPhone comes out.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:25 ◼   ► And you're like, well, what if we could take some of that income and

00:45:27 ◼   ► divide it up so that every month we get paid a little bit?

00:45:31 ◼   ► Just spread it out.

00:45:32 ◼   ► There's something to that to the from their financial perspective.

00:45:35 ◼   ► And we should say they're also carrier deals.

00:45:37 ◼   ► So there are other, if you're thinking about this, um your carrier also has

00:45:42 ◼   ► deals, they're different, and you may prefer to work with Apple than work with

00:45:44 ◼   ► your carrier because there's probably greater trust.

00:45:47 ◼   ► Although I I would I I think I said on a Mac break last

00:45:50 ◼   ► week that like I've been on ATT since it was singular.

00:45:55 ◼   ► Um in fact, I think I've been on ATT since it was ATT before

00:45:58 ◼   ► it was singular, and then it became singular and then it became ATT.

00:46:01 ◼   ► I think I just missed the singular years.

00:46:03 ◼   ► And I only have one cell phone service that gives me bars at my

00:46:09 ◼   ► house and it's ATT.

00:46:11 ◼   ► So I'm never leaving ATT.

00:46:12 ◼   ► I'm just never leaving ATT.

00:46:14 ◼   ► And yet I never ever, ever look, even look at their offers.

00:46:19 ◼   ► And like I know I know the cell phone companies are evil and bad.

00:46:24 ◼   ► I I know, but I probably am not saving money I could save because

00:46:30 ◼   ► they're gonna give me the same offer that they'd give to retain a customer

00:46:33 ◼   ► who might churn, and I know I'm never gonna churn.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And yet, so people should look.

00:46:38 ◼   ► I I guess what I'm saying is I know you don't like your carrier,

00:46:40 ◼   ► uh, or you like them less than Apple, maybe, but uh also a thing

00:46:44 ◼   ► to consider.

00:46:45 ◼   ► There are there are lots of there are lots of companies that would like

00:46:47 ◼   ► to, in exchange for a commitment, get a monthly fee from you.

00:46:50 ◼   ► I guess that's why you want your business.

00:46:52 ◼   ► And yeah, absolutely.

00:46:53 ◼   ► But beyond the phone, though, I think like the Mac, it gets really interesting.

00:46:56 ◼   ► The Mac, the iPad, the Apple Watch, where you could just say, you know,

00:47:01 ◼   ► I always want to have an Apple Watch.

00:47:03 ◼   ► I always wanted to be relatively new.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Do I want to go through it it's back to convenience again?

00:47:09 ◼   ► The trouble of buying an Apple Watch and then trying to gauge when its

00:47:12 ◼   ► battery is bad, and do I want to buy full price a new Apple

00:47:16 ◼   ► Watch?

00:47:17 ◼   ► Or do I want to commit to an Apple Watch for two years or

00:47:20 ◼   ► three years, and then know that when it's over, it goes away, and I

00:47:24 ◼   ► commit to a new one for two or three years.

00:47:26 ◼   ► I can see the appeal.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I do.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I mean, and I think, look, it's not an exact analogy, but like if

00:47:32 ◼   ► you're nice, if you are lucky enough and privileged enough to be in the

00:47:35 ◼   ► position to be able to choose, do I want to rent this apartment or

00:47:38 ◼   ► buy a house?

00:47:39 ◼   ► There are different considerations that go into that.

00:47:42 ◼   ► And I think obviously more considerations in the case of renting versus buying a

00:47:45 ◼   ► house.

00:47:46 ◼   ► But yeah, there is something to be said for if you're renting a place,

00:47:49 ◼   ► it's like, well, you can terminate your lease and walk away and rent someplace

00:47:53 ◼   ► else, generally.

00:47:54 ◼   ► Whereas if you got a house, well, now you gotta sell a house.

00:47:57 ◼   ► Um, you know, it it changes the dynamics.

00:47:59 ◼   ► Uh the prices, you know, change.

00:48:01 ◼   ► You have to worry about things like financing.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Um, if you miss a payment, right, like that is an issue as well.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Like, and that's where, again, where companies like Klarna are and probably to a

00:48:12 ◼   ► certain extent the citizens one loan that you got, like they want or assume

00:48:18 ◼   ► some number of people will miss payments and they will make some money on

00:48:21 ◼   ► those people, whether it's via interest or via fees or whatever.

00:48:26 ◼   ► And so, you know, if you are somebody who feels like, well, I can

00:48:29 ◼   ► very confidently make 45 dollars a month payments, then maybe this is a good,

00:48:34 ◼   ► a good plan for you.

00:48:35 ◼   ► I I don't know.

00:48:36 ◼   ► I I on the face of it, I feel like there's no reason I

00:48:39 ◼   ► shouldn't be willing to just switch to this program, but I also feel like

00:48:44 ◼   ► I just don't just not sure.

00:48:47 ◼   ► Like you said, the vibes are weird.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Vibes.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And then I mean, you've got because you're already in the iPhone upgrade program,

00:48:52 ◼   ► you've got a year to think about it before they wind down this program,

00:48:55 ◼   ► right?

00:48:56 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I I I have to, I can't, I have to change

00:49:00 ◼   ► now because if I'm going to get a new phone this fall, I have

00:49:04 ◼   ► to get out.

00:49:04 ◼   ► And so this, and this is the other part of this equation, right?

00:49:07 ◼   ► Like, A, prices are getting you mentioned this before, but prices are getting higher.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Yes.

00:49:11 ◼   ► B, Apple is poised to unveil the most expensive iPhone that it has ever

00:49:16 ◼   ► made.

00:49:16 ◼   ► Yes.

00:49:14 ◼   ► And that, and by a lot.

00:49:19 ◼   ► And so there's an interesting question there, right?

00:49:21 ◼   ► Do you want to pay 2,000 plus dollars, you know, for a brand new

00:49:25 ◼   ► phone?

00:49:26 ◼   ► Or would you rather just pay $70 a month?

00:49:29 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:49:30 ◼   ► And I I, you know, $7 a month seems like a lot better deal.

00:49:34 ◼   ► But where I always think to myself, and I I'm sure you do too,

00:49:37 ◼   ► where's the catch?

00:49:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:38 ◼   ► And and I I don't, I can't find it, and that makes me warier.

00:49:42 ◼   ► Like if I know what the catch is, I feel like, okay, I'm fully

00:49:45 ◼   ► informed and I'll go in, like knowing that's gonna be the issue, and I

00:49:49 ◼   ► know that it's not gonna be an issue for me, or I'll know how

00:49:51 ◼   ► to avoid it.

00:49:52 ◼   ► But when I can't tell what the catch is, I'm like, well, am I

00:49:55 ◼   ► gonna get got right?

00:49:56 ◼   ► Like, am I going to miss something in the fine print and realize, you

00:49:59 ◼   ► know, when a year comes around, it's like, oh, well, you owe us this

00:50:02 ◼   ► money, or no, you can't do this.

00:50:04 ◼   ► And so, you know, I had a lot of concerns when this report first

00:50:06 ◼   ► came out because we also saw a similar report at the same time that

00:50:09 ◼   ► said, like, Apple's building these features in that can restrict the use of a

00:50:12 ◼   ► phone.

00:50:13 ◼   ► Now, they came out very publicly, I noted, including with attributed statements to people

00:50:18 ◼   ► saying we're not going to do that for this program.

00:50:21 ◼   ► And I think that was real smart to get in front of that because

00:50:24 ◼   ► you know there was a lot of concern around it.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Yeah, quite rightly.

00:50:27 ◼   ► But but yeah, absolutely.

00:50:28 ◼   ► If they're building those features, they're for somebody else in some other market that

00:50:31 ◼   ► is probably gonna be pretty ugly.

00:50:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, the good news is you've got, you know, I guess six

00:50:36 ◼   ► weeks to figure it out.

00:50:37 ◼   ► The bad news, the bad news is I think for Apple is you're taking

00:50:42 ◼   ► people out of a program and you're making them reconsider their options, and they're

00:50:45 ◼   ► not always gonna throw down with you and your new option.

00:50:47 ◼   ► You're giving everybody a chance to rethink it.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I think it's a great opportunity for the people who are in that program

00:50:52 ◼   ► and people who have thought about that program to think, what how do I

00:50:55 ◼   ► want to approach this, especially as these prices go up?

00:50:59 ◼   ► Does this work better for me?

00:50:59 ◼   ► Because look, I'm somebody who pays my credit card off every month, right?

00:51:05 ◼   ► But I use a credit card, but I pay it off every month, which

00:51:07 ◼   ► means other than a credit card fee, annual fee for some of the cards

00:51:10 ◼   ► that we've got.

00:51:12 ◼   ► I'm not ever hitting their interest rate.

00:51:14 ◼   ► And these are zero interest rate loans or their leases at basically the same

00:51:19 ◼   ► kind of terms.

00:51:21 ◼   ► So there, if you're responsible and do what you need to do, it's actually

00:51:27 ◼   ► your financial benefit because instead of you could take the money that you're not

00:51:32 ◼   ► paying up front and have it earn interest or whatever elsewhere at a rate

00:51:39 ◼   ► that, you know, because it's in your pocket instead of being in their pocket.

00:51:43 ◼   ► So you could make that argument, but there's a lot of catches, and you

00:51:47 ◼   ► got to think about it and you got to be smart about it.

00:51:49 ◼   ► And a lot of people, a lot of these companies, this goes back to

00:51:51 ◼   ► your vibes.

00:51:52 ◼   ► A lot of these companies make their bank on people who fall through those

00:51:57 ◼   ► cracks, who don't make the payments.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Yeah, or out over their skis, you know, or aren't great at managing their

00:52:04 ◼   ► money.

00:52:04 ◼   ► And that's I think that's the struggle with it is it it's it feels

00:52:08 ◼   ► gross at times, but it is also the world that we live in.

00:52:11 ◼   ► So yes, the world is gross.

00:52:13 ◼   ► So great.

00:52:13 ◼   ► Yeah, the world is gross at times.

00:52:14 ◼   ► So amazing.

00:52:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:16 ◼   ► Just a little uh heartwarming moment there from your upgrade program.

00:52:21 ◼   ► The good anyway, I I got six weeks.

00:52:23 ◼   ► I'll be I'm definitely gonna be thinking about this.

00:52:25 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be a big question, especially when I see the price

00:52:28 ◼   ► tag on that folding phone because I am interested in the folding phone.

00:52:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:31 ◼   ► And am I gonna be able to cough up however many thousands of dollars

00:52:34 ◼   ► it will be?

00:52:35 ◼   ► Or am I gonna think to myself, well, it's just so much easier if

00:52:38 ◼   ► I only have to pay them 70 bucks a month or whatever.

00:52:40 ◼   ► And I think it's a tough, tough question.

00:52:42 ◼   ► We'll have to see.

00:52:44 ◼   ► This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Backblaze.

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00:54:10 ◼   ► Money, money, money, money, who has all the money?

00:54:14 ◼   ► Money, money, money, money.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Who has all the money?

00:54:18 ◼   ► Money, money, money, money.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Who has all the money?

00:54:24 ◼   ► It's Apple.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Apple results time.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Everybody's favorite time of the quarter.

00:54:30 ◼   ► We get to hear the song.

00:54:32 ◼   ► When I'm not on my show, I can still hear the dulcet tones of

00:54:34 ◼   ► Lex Friedman.

00:54:35 ◼   ► That's right.

00:54:29 ◼   ► My good friend and co-host.

00:54:36 ◼   ► You can't escape Lex uh because he made the greatest earworm he'll ever make,

00:54:40 ◼   ► which is the Apple Money song.

00:54:42 ◼   ► Um lyrics by me, by the way, but they're not many lyrics.

00:54:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that word is going to be uh well deserved.

00:54:51 ◼   ► It's my poetry.

00:54:52 ◼   ► It's like that's my slam poetry is the money, Apple Money poetry.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Um yet another record quarter, Dan.

00:54:58 ◼   ► Well, uh now I feel like you and I, because we do this usually

00:55:01 ◼   ► on YouTube uh every quarter.

00:55:03 ◼   ► We didn't do it this time, so here it is.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Yet another record quarter, Dan, 109.4 billion continuing their streak.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Will we ever have a quarter under 100 billion from Apple again?

00:55:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:55:13 ◼   ► Uh not unless something goes real wrong.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Yeah, real bad.

00:55:15 ◼   ► That would be bad for John Turnus.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Up 16% year over year.

00:55:18 ◼   ► It's the third straight quarter of double digit year over year revenue growth.

00:55:22 ◼   ► I don't know if anybody saw that coming.

00:55:23 ◼   ► Their ninth straight quarter of year over year growth.

00:55:26 ◼   ► They made $9.8 billion in profit, and their gross margins were above 50%, although

00:55:34 ◼   ► a lot of that was driven a few points of it by tariff refunds,

00:55:39 ◼   ► which then they promised the president they would uh invest back in America.

00:55:43 ◼   ► Uh we're like we're good, we're good, we promise we'll be good.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Um, third straight quarter of strong growth in China and iPhone up 22%, Mac

00:55:52 ◼   ► up 29%, services up 12%, wearables up six percent, and the iPad down six

00:55:58 ◼   ► percent.

00:55:59 ◼   ► Uh but uh again, just an incredibly strong quarter of performance from Apple here.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I you know, like we said, the 100 million or 100 billion, excuse

00:56:11 ◼   ► me.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Now we're talking about real money, has quickly become just the default for Apple

00:56:16 ◼   ► for revenue.

00:56:17 ◼   ► And that's astounding because it was not that long ago that we were talking

00:56:21 ◼   ► about, oh, when when is 100 billion going to be just the normal quarter?

00:56:24 ◼   ► And I that was like a year less than a year ago, Jason.

00:56:27 ◼   ► I think we were talking about that.

00:56:29 ◼   ► And so uh, you know, somebody pointed out that Tim like the it was

00:56:34 ◼   ► a hundred and like they made like a hundred and eight billion in revenue

00:56:37 ◼   ► the first year Tim was CEO.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And they made that and in a quarter in a non-holiday quarter.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Yeah, kind of, I mean, yeah, we're going into uh uh a couple big

00:56:47 ◼   ► quarters coming up, so it feels like watching that graph change is gonna be

00:56:52 ◼   ► kind of fascinating.

00:56:54 ◼   ► Um there's a there's a lot to unpack here.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Um that that growth, particularly, I think in in was it the iPhone and

00:57:01 ◼   ► the Mac?

00:57:02 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:57:03 ◼   ► Was it 22 and 29% growth, I think, respectively.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Year over year.

00:57:07 ◼   ► It's and and they specifically called out the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Neo

00:57:10 ◼   ► as strong performers, and they said the Neo has been especially popular and strongly

00:57:15 ◼   ► suggested that they are struggling to meet meet demand for the Neo, and that

00:57:21 ◼   ► um I've got a great line here about the Mac and the iPhone because

00:57:25 ◼   ► those numbers, right, are huge.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And they asked, and they're supply constrained, like they can't make enough.

00:57:31 ◼   ► The they they they could have sold more, but they are having these problems.

00:57:34 ◼   ► And we know that some of that is is will, which we'll talk about

00:57:38 ◼   ► in a second, is about the RAM shortages and issue issues with volume at

00:57:42 ◼   ► TSMC for the systems on the chip.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Advanced nodes.

00:57:46 ◼   ► But this is what, yeah, we've gone from the legacy nodes.

00:57:48 ◼   ► Now the legacy nodes are not the problem.

00:57:50 ◼   ► It's the advanced nodes that are the problem.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Tim Cook said the root cause of this is not a supply issue.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Because everybody's like, oh yeah, you know, the problem is supply.

00:57:59 ◼   ► And he's like, it's a demand forecast issue.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Our bad, he says.

00:58:03 ◼   ► The iPhone and the Mac are both doing remarkably better than we thought they

00:58:07 ◼   ► would do.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And we had high expectations.

00:58:10 ◼   ► It wasn't that our expectations were low.

00:58:12 ◼   ► We we we really tried everybody.

00:58:14 ◼   ► But as you can see, these are extraordinary numbers, and the supply chain just

00:58:19 ◼   ► has less flexibility in it than normal.

00:58:21 ◼   ► We've been pulling supply ahead.

00:58:23 ◼   ► At some point there's a limit to that.

00:58:25 ◼   ► And so we've got a quarter that we're gonna be scrambling on the supply

00:58:28 ◼   ► side, essentially.

00:58:29 ◼   ► This isn't a partner or supplier issue.

00:58:32 ◼   ► The issue is an incredibly strong iPhone and Mac product cycle that has yielded

00:58:37 ◼   ► a demand beyond our expectations.

00:58:39 ◼   ► And he's right, like the iPhone 17 cycle has been way up, and I

00:58:43 ◼   ► think beyond because up isn't the problem, up beyond what Apple thought it would

00:58:47 ◼   ► be up.

00:58:47 ◼   ► And the MacBook Neo, doing well, I'm sure Apple thought it would do well.

00:58:51 ◼   ► It did way more than even they expected it would do.

00:58:54 ◼   ► This is also Tim Cook not throwing TSMC under the bus, right?

00:58:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:58:59 ◼   ► It's a double-barreled problem, right?

00:59:02 ◼   ► It is high demand and supply constraints.

00:59:07 ◼   ► I think the less flexibility line is so key there.

00:59:10 ◼   ► Because I I think what he's implying, and I think this is true, is

00:59:15 ◼   ► if you miss with your expectations, you're basically saying I didn't order enough, right?

00:59:20 ◼   ► I thought we would sell a thousand, we sold two thousand.

00:59:22 ◼   ► I didn't, I only ordered a thousand.

00:59:24 ◼   ► So what are we?

00:59:25 ◼   ► How do we so that's part of it?

00:59:28 ◼   ► But the other part of it is, right?

00:59:29 ◼   ► Perhaps in another era, TSMC would have more flexibility to increase their orders, but

00:59:35 ◼   ► they don't because they are maxed out everywhere with AI chips and stuff in

00:59:41 ◼   ► addition to Apple.

00:59:42 ◼   ► So it's it's not TSMC's fault, is what he's saying.

00:59:46 ◼   ► But we have to say one of the consequences of it, TSMC having all

00:59:52 ◼   ► of these other clients is that they can't turn the dial on Apple's order

00:59:58 ◼   ► and Apple underordered.

00:59:59 ◼   ► So Apple has to pay for it.

01:00:01 ◼   ► If you, as you said, if you forecast you're gonna sell a thousand and

01:00:04 ◼   ► you sell 2,000, you're in trouble.

01:00:06 ◼   ► If you can't then go to your supplier and be like, hey, how much

01:00:09 ◼   ► should we pay you for another thousand?

01:00:11 ◼   ► And they're just like, we can't do it.

01:00:13 ◼   ► We do not have the space to make these things, then you're really in

01:00:16 ◼   ► trouble.

01:00:17 ◼   ► And so I'm kind of fascinated by this because some of this, so I

01:00:21 ◼   ► don't know your read on this, but like we they talk a little bit

01:00:23 ◼   ► about the memory shortages and stuff like that.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Obviously, a lot of this is getting driven by AI related stuff.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Yes, right.

01:00:28 ◼   ► There's a all the Ramgeddon, Ram Armageddon stuff is is driven by that.

01:00:32 ◼   ► But I'm also trying to wonder how much of the demand for stuff is

01:00:35 ◼   ► AI driven, right?

01:00:36 ◼   ► For certainly for higher end stuff like the MacBook Pro, and they talked about

01:00:39 ◼   ► demand on that, or the Mac Studio or the Mac Mini, there is definitely

01:00:44 ◼   ► some demand from people using them for AI workflows, right?

01:00:48 ◼   ► We know people who bought a ton of Mac minis and they started taking

01:00:50 ◼   ► models off sale, right?

01:00:51 ◼   ► And like that is it is fascinating to watch a singular inflection point that

01:00:58 ◼   ► has shifted in and affected both supply and demand because the demand is so

01:01:04 ◼   ► high that the supply can't keep up.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And so they're two sides of the same coin to a certain degree, and

01:01:11 ◼   ► it means that they are kind of like a like a wave amplification thing

01:01:15 ◼   ► where you get two waves that like intersect and it like makes the wave

01:01:18 ◼   ► even bigger.

01:01:19 ◼   ► You're dealing with this thing that, as he, you know, Cook has has called

01:01:23 ◼   ► it a hundred-year flood.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Um it just doesn't happen very often.

01:01:27 ◼   ► So it is fascinating to see why what things have drive driven demand and

01:01:29 ◼   ► why they're driving demand and why supply is not able to keep up.

01:01:37 ◼   ► And Apple is usually a company that, as they said, they do a really

01:01:40 ◼   ► good job of forecasting these things.

01:01:42 ◼   ► Uh, the iPhone one in particular, I am I am especially fascinated by because

01:01:45 ◼   ► it wouldn't seem to me that there is a clear driver there, right?

01:01:50 ◼   ► Like, there's not like, oh, it's this one thing that these products do that

01:01:55 ◼   ► no old products could do, and therefore people want to buy them to do

01:01:59 ◼   ► X, right?

01:02:01 ◼   ► There's a lot of good things in this product line.

01:02:03 ◼   ► I think that's what's doing it, is like the 17's a really good phone.

01:02:07 ◼   ► It it is a strong, I mean, at the time we knew it, right?

01:02:11 ◼   ► As reviewers, we were like, wow, iPhone 17, 17 Pro, like this is a

01:02:15 ◼   ► really good product line.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Other than people being like, oh no, the iPhone Air is no good.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Well, like it hasn't hurt them at all.

01:02:21 ◼   ► But like pulling all of those pro features down into the 17, and then

01:02:24 ◼   ► the new that aluminum body and the orange one and all like it it

01:02:29 ◼   ► didn't feel at the time, it felt like a really solid upgrade, but I

01:02:32 ◼   ► felt it was it was almost like we real ones know that this is

01:02:35 ◼   ► a good year for the iPhone.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Turns out real ones knew everybody else knew too.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And that's like it's 30% increase, right?

01:02:42 ◼   ► Like that that is beyond the like, oh, this is a good product.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It's not a wholesale redesign of the product line, right?

01:02:49 ◼   ► Or or a killer new feature, right?

01:02:51 ◼   ► Right.

01:02:51 ◼   ► There's not one killer new feature in this.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And so I I kind of looked at that and thinking to myself, like,

01:02:56 ◼   ► are people buying iPhones to chain them together and use them in AI workflows?

01:03:00 ◼   ► Like, what is going on?

01:03:01 ◼   ► Like iPhone Air, it's gonna be great for it.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Just everybody get on it.

01:03:05 ◼   ► Stack of them.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just it is, and and I remember talking about this about the

01:03:09 ◼   ► Neo, um, when there are all the stories about, oh, they're not gonna how

01:03:12 ◼   ► many Neos can they make?

01:03:13 ◼   ► And I do wonder how many choices they make that are like make more

01:03:17 ◼   ► of this one, make uh German wrote at one point that Apple's pushing people

01:03:20 ◼   ► toward the low-end MacBook Pro instead of the MacBook Air right now for like

01:03:24 ◼   ► back to school and stuff.

01:03:25 ◼   ► And it's like, well, it's kind of an inventory issue, isn't it?

01:03:27 ◼   ► And and I know that you know, if you've only got a finite number

01:03:30 ◼   ► of chips, you can make decisions like which product will you produce.

01:03:35 ◼   ► Yeah, and so that's fascinating.

01:03:37 ◼   ► But um, you know, uh the the Neo success is a great example of

01:03:42 ◼   ► this, uh and and maybe the MacBook Pro too, where Apple I just I'm

01:03:48 ◼   ► fascinated by the fact that Apple's decision making generally seems pretty careful and uh

01:03:54 ◼   ► and knowledgeable, and they don't miss and they don't lack confidence in their own

01:04:01 ◼   ► products, not by this much, yeah.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:04:04 ◼   ► They don't sandbag and they don't, you know, they're not like they're not modest

01:04:09 ◼   ► about it.

01:04:09 ◼   ► Oh no, it's a nice product.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Maybe people the Neo, like I'm sure people at Apple believe the Neo is

01:04:14 ◼   ► gonna be a huge hit.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I'm fascinated by the fact that they still undersold it.

01:04:19 ◼   ► Yes, and what does that say about their decision making and will it change

01:04:22 ◼   ► in the future?

01:04:23 ◼   ► And and similarly, um, the iPhone 17.

01:04:26 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure they thought it was great, but clearly they had no idea

01:04:33 ◼   ► that there would be a sales surge on the 17 because it really isn't

01:04:36 ◼   ► like like you said, it's better in lots of ways.

01:04:40 ◼   ► Uh we were talking in the previous segment about like expensive phones coming and

01:04:45 ◼   ► about buying programs.

01:04:46 ◼   ► And I've got to be honest, the more I read about that, the more

01:04:50 ◼   ► I think, little orange iPhone 17 Pro, I love you.

01:04:53 ◼   ► I'm never gonna let you go.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Like on one level, it's like maybe I'll just keep this phone for uh

01:04:59 ◼   ► for a while because I love it so much.

01:04:59 ◼   ► So it it's strong.

01:05:03 ◼   ► I just am fascinated by the fact that even Apple, a company that does

01:05:06 ◼   ► not lack confidence, didn't understand how much people were gonna want to buy these

01:05:11 ◼   ► products.

01:05:11 ◼   ► It's fascinating.

01:05:12 ◼   ► It also casts into sort of fascinating like retrospect now the price raising decisions.

01:05:19 ◼   ► Because somewhere in there, they're looking at the data and they're saying the Neo

01:05:24 ◼   ► has done so well that if we bump, even if we bump the price

01:05:27 ◼   ► by a hundred bucks and we will lose some customers because of that, it

01:05:32 ◼   ► will not matter because we are selling so many.

01:05:35 ◼   ► Like I think, I think they allowed them more elasticity in their pricing because

01:05:40 ◼   ► they could look at these results and be like, look, this stuff is selling

01:05:43 ◼   ► like hotcakes.

01:05:45 ◼   ► And if we charge a little bit more, yeah, we'll we'll fuse some people

01:05:49 ◼   ► will say that's too rich for my blood, but a lot of them won't.

01:05:53 ◼   ► And uh that's a really interesting position to be in for them.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Uh, because they are not a company that to, you know, the the Neo

01:06:00 ◼   ► we all talked about is this is not a company that plays in this

01:06:03 ◼   ► part of the market.

01:06:04 ◼   ► And they walked in and immediately were like, we are selling this like it

01:06:08 ◼   ► is bananas, right?

01:06:09 ◼   ► Uh, and then they jacked the price a little bit after like six months,

01:06:13 ◼   ► less than six months.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Um just a fascinating ability.

01:06:17 ◼   ► I I was drawn, you know, so you do a bunch of charts over

01:06:19 ◼   ► at Six Colors, uh a couple of them grab my attention.

01:06:22 ◼   ► I thought the one that really has kind of a fascinating look to it

01:06:26 ◼   ► is that uh your product versus services total profit.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Ah, yes, the march.

01:06:31 ◼   ► This has yes, it's the lot, it's Nessy, Nessy beneath the waves.

01:06:35 ◼   ► I always think of it because the services as this nice gradual ramp, and

01:06:40 ◼   ► then the product is this spiky, like, you know, dorsal fins of sharks.

01:06:45 ◼   ► Um, and you can kind of look at it over a long period and

01:06:44 ◼   ► think to yourself, okay.

01:06:49 ◼   ► What are the trends?

01:06:50 ◼   ► What are we seeing, right?

01:06:50 ◼   ► Like fascinating to me that in this most recent quarter, the services actually took

01:06:55 ◼   ► a little bit of a dip.

01:06:56 ◼   ► It did.

01:06:57 ◼   ► But the product line, like, and we're used to seeing those peaks get higher

01:07:00 ◼   ► and higher.

01:07:01 ◼   ► And that peak from the last holiday quarter is high.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Like, look at that.

01:07:05 ◼   ► Way up there.

01:07:06 ◼   ► But then when it came back down, it's still pretty high.

01:07:09 ◼   ► That's the thing that got me is it's like it's still in the what,

01:07:13 ◼   ► like 30, low 30s, 30s for total profit.

01:07:16 ◼   ► This one went up when they usually go down in Q3.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Although they exact some of that's the tariffs, right?

01:07:20 ◼   ► I like the tariffs.

01:07:21 ◼   ► Tariff refunds fed that push that up by uh I think one or two

01:07:26 ◼   ► points, essentially.

01:07:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:28 ◼   ► But but it's still high.

01:07:30 ◼   ► And I mean And the services being soft, because the services was down sequentially,

01:07:35 ◼   ► which hasn't happened in like four years.

01:07:37 ◼   ► I look three or three or four years.

01:07:39 ◼   ► It's up year over year, but it was down sequentially.

01:07:42 ◼   ► And what Apple will tell you, they got lots of excuses.

01:07:46 ◼   ► Um I think foreign exchange headwinds.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I love it, love a headwind.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Love a headwind is probably a big part of it.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I enjoyed how they tried to throw a lot of uh uh chum in

01:08:00 ◼   ► the water, or maybe it's chaff.

01:08:01 ◼   ► It's like what is it in a submarine movie?

01:08:03 ◼   ► They gotta blow the chaff, yeah.

01:08:04 ◼   ► They blow the chaff out of the bag so that the the torpedo doesn't

01:08:07 ◼   ► hit them.

01:08:07 ◼   ► The trip is moving.

01:08:08 ◼   ► So they're like, the one that made me laugh the most is they're like,

01:08:10 ◼   ► well, you know, last year we released F1 and it made a lot of

01:08:13 ◼   ► money.

01:08:14 ◼   ► Yes.

01:08:14 ◼   ► And this year we didn't release a movie, and so that's one reason why

01:08:17 ◼   ► services might be a little softer.

01:08:19 ◼   ► And I'm like, really?

01:08:20 ◼   ► I mean, they're like, it was one of the most profitable movies last year.

01:08:22 ◼   ► Like, I mean, even then, it only made a few hundred million, probably.

01:08:26 ◼   ► Like, um, and then they also tried to blame regulations for mean old judges

01:08:29 ◼   ► and regulators that made them share things and not that one text links.

01:08:29 ◼   ► Link out.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that one got me the most, right?

01:08:37 ◼   ► Because uh Kevin Perek was talking, and he mentioned, like, look at all this.

01:08:43 ◼   ► They have they have hit us so well.

01:08:44 ◼   ► This is in the same section.

01:08:45 ◼   ► We had the theatrical release of F1, one of the highest grossing sports films

01:08:48 ◼   ► in history.

01:08:48 ◼   ► And this year we didn't have a theatre release.

01:08:50 ◼   ► We also had some factors on the app store.

01:08:52 ◼   ► Like we said, headwinds and mobile gaming.

01:08:54 ◼   ► Keep in mind we also made some changes to App Store business model in

01:08:56 ◼   ► certain countries.

01:08:57 ◼   ► But in the US, we do continue to operate under a court ruling impacting

01:09:00 ◼   ► link out transactions.

01:09:02 ◼   ► We're pleased the Supreme Court will hear our deal.

01:09:04 ◼   ► Then there's a beat.

01:09:05 ◼   ► And then he says, Despite this, the app store did set a June quarter

01:09:08 ◼   ► revenue record.

01:09:09 ◼   ► I'm like, Well, what are you complaining about?

01:09:11 ◼   ► That got me.

01:09:12 ◼   ► I know, I know, I know.

01:09:14 ◼   ► I I did the one note that I sounded like it had the ring

01:09:17 ◼   ► of truth about it, is headwinds in mobile gaming that they saw.

01:09:20 ◼   ► Because that's kind of random.

01:09:21 ◼   ► They saw some issues with mobile gaming.

01:09:24 ◼   ► There's huge app store revenue ratifications for mobile gaming, and that there were issues

01:09:28 ◼   ► with mobile gaming, but still the app store set a quarter record.

01:09:32 ◼   ► So I mean, I love that they pitch it like, well, we persevered.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Yeah, we persevered buckled down and we still set a record.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Mean old judge we just kept collecting the money.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Made allowed people to link to the internet from their apps, and uh despite

01:09:47 ◼   ► that, and it didn't hurt our business.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Nevertheless, we we persisted.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I I thought that was pretty pretty rich for uh if you'll excuse

01:09:57 ◼   ► the expression.

01:09:58 ◼   ► Um everything Apple does is pretty rich these days, so that's fair.

01:10:02 ◼   ► That's fair.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Oh, um, we talked about systems on chips, but uh RAM obviously is the

01:10:07 ◼   ► other thing that's being driven by uh the AI boom and RAM shortages are

01:10:12 ◼   ► are causing problems, and I just thought I I thought Tim Cook made it

01:10:16 ◼   ► very clear that, and this is one of the reasons that Apple stock actually

01:10:20 ◼   ► took a tumble afterward, even though they did have all these successes, because he

01:10:23 ◼   ► basically said, in addition to the having to scramble on the supplier side for

01:10:28 ◼   ► for systems on chips for advanced nodes, you know, basically memory, the prices keep

01:10:34 ◼   ► going up.

01:10:35 ◼   ► He said they went up.

01:10:36 ◼   ► Yeah, we said they'd go up more last time and they did.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Next time they're gonna go up more and they're gonna keep going up for

01:10:41 ◼   ► the foreseeable future.

01:10:43 ◼   ► And he said, I think most chillingly, that Apple has been pulling stuff from

01:10:49 ◼   ► its carryover inventory.

01:10:50 ◼   ► Basically, they've got stuff on hand that they've been using to make it make

01:10:56 ◼   ► a little more sense financially, but we're gonna run out of that stuff.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Yeah, because at some point they they have everything.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Yeah, they've sold everything.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:05 ◼   ► That that is a challenge.

01:11:07 ◼   ► We have not seen the end of this demand issue because yeah, you they

01:11:11 ◼   ► talked about the carry-in inventory being one of the things that offset uh the

01:11:15 ◼   ► problems, you know, these quarters, and they they say, like, okay, we had that

01:11:18 ◼   ► the last quarter and the quarter before, we you know, we benefited from that.

01:11:22 ◼   ► But yeah, there's only a certain amount of time that that stuff you have

01:11:25 ◼   ► in the warehouse stays there because eventually you will sell it all, and then

01:11:29 ◼   ► you will not have as much carry-in inventory, or at least as not carrying

01:11:33 ◼   ► inventory that you paid last quarter's prices for.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:36 ◼   ► That's the key, is like we bought this.

01:11:38 ◼   ► It's you know, arbitrage sort of like we bought this like you know, six

01:11:42 ◼   ► months ago, and the RAM prices were not that bad, but eventually we will

01:11:45 ◼   ► sell that.

01:11:46 ◼   ► We will book the invent the you know revenue from it, and now we're

01:11:49 ◼   ► gonna have to start selling all the stuff that we paid more for.

01:11:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:52 ◼   ► And now that's the stuff, yeah.

01:11:53 ◼   ► That's why we raised prices when we did, right?

01:11:55 ◼   ► Because they're trying to sort of soften that blow.

01:11:58 ◼   ► It's like, well, we uh, you know, paid more for it, so let's sell

01:11:59 ◼   ► it for more.

01:12:02 ◼   ► Um, but you know, that's a that's a difficult treadmill too, right?

01:12:06 ◼   ► Because I I have to assume the pricing changes were done with a with

01:12:10 ◼   ► some foresight here and thinking about like, right, we can weather this storm if

01:12:14 ◼   ► it's six months.

01:12:16 ◼   ► But if it's like we don't know, you know, a year, two years, might

01:12:18 ◼   ► be more, like you presumably rose the you know, raise the prices enough so

01:12:24 ◼   ► that you don't have to raise them again.

01:12:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I it may also be challenged.

01:12:28 ◼   ► They raised it maybe enough so that the next time they do a new

01:12:31 ◼   ► version of something, they'll raise it again.

01:12:33 ◼   ► That's yeah, that's their they do have a little bit of possibility there.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And I think we're all waiting to see what those you know, iPhone prices

01:12:39 ◼   ► look like in the fall.

01:12:40 ◼   ► He also did a Cook did an oblique, and this was his last, right?

01:12:43 ◼   ► Last earnings call.

01:12:44 ◼   ► This is his 90th and final earnings call.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Um, he did a little oblique reference to basically there are only three manuf

01:12:51 ◼   ► m memory manufacturers.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Yes.

01:12:53 ◼   ► And uh it would be sure be nice if there were more, which is

01:12:56 ◼   ► the you know, Apple trying to get a a a RAM provider in China

01:13:00 ◼   ► into the mix at least temporarily as a stopgap here, and how that has

01:13:04 ◼   ► all sorts of uh uh political fallout.

01:13:07 ◼   ► There are lots of senators who want to make hay on how you're funding

01:13:10 ◼   ► the communist party and um and you're gonna destroy uh American RAM manufacturing by

01:13:17 ◼   ► doing this.

01:13:17 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, I look, I my opinion is that if if

01:13:23 ◼   ► you get uh the government to say we'll give you two years, I don't

01:13:27 ◼   ► think it does anything other than maybe reduce the harm of all this.

01:13:30 ◼   ► But I guess if you're if you're concerned that the other RAM manufacturers will

01:13:34 ◼   ► not have as much leverage over the entire market, I I guess that's a

01:13:36 ◼   ► government decision to make.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Is do you are you more concerned about Apple um struggling to release products?

01:13:42 ◼   ► Are you more concerned with a a couple years of um good revenue going

01:13:46 ◼   ► to a Chinese RAM manufacturer that's tied in with the government there.

01:13:49 ◼   ► I don't know that I guess that's for the for the US government to

01:13:52 ◼   ► decide but um but he did at least obliquely reference the thing that's been

01:13:59 ◼   ► reported in lots of places that Apple's trying I still feel like um in

01:14:03 ◼   ► the end this comes down to is there a is there a quid pro

01:14:06 ◼   ► quo here is is this is this where Tim Cook calls on Donald Trump

01:14:12 ◼   ► and says look we're putting a lot of money into the U.S.

01:14:15 ◼   ► We're committed to the U.S.

01:14:16 ◼   ► we're committed to building more RAM factories in the US but yeah right now

01:14:21 ◼   ► we are bleeding help us takes too long yeah and I I've seen people

01:14:25 ◼   ► say yeah but it's not going to happen because the senators are really grumpy

01:14:28 ◼   ► about it and you know Chuck Schumer and Ted Cruz are angry about it.

01:14:32 ◼   ► And it's like I I in a normal functioning US government I would agree

01:14:37 ◼   ► that that might be an issue but I don't know I kind of feel

01:14:40 ◼   ► like if Donald Trump was like fine then who's gonna stop him yeah I

01:14:45 ◼   ► think that I think that's fair.

01:14:46 ◼   ► I mean I I don't know I mean you know I I look at

01:14:50 ◼   ► some of this and think to myself they've tried a lot of things like

01:14:53 ◼   ► I I also noted they had um one of Ben Wright's he's asked them

01:14:57 ◼   ► like about the like fabs in Arizona.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:00 ◼   ► Uh and and this was Tim came back and be like look it's not

01:15:02 ◼   ► the suppliers like we just have too much and I it to my and

01:15:05 ◼   ► we're spending money in Arizona lines on that one.

01:15:07 ◼   ► Yeah my read between the lines on that is like look we see he

01:15:09 ◼   ► says we source do source over a hundred million components this year out of

01:15:12 ◼   ► Arizona.

01:15:13 ◼   ► Um I think they are basically getting as much as they can out of

01:15:16 ◼   ► those, right?

01:15:17 ◼   ► Like those are kind of limited.

01:15:18 ◼   ► There're spinning up small fabs, they're still spinning up new fabs there, and in

01:15:22 ◼   ► Colorado too.

01:15:23 ◼   ► And yeah.

01:15:24 ◼   ► And Apple's, you know, investing whatever they're saying 30 billion yeah in US manufacturing

01:15:28 ◼   ► and and they talked about that a lot.

01:15:30 ◼   ► And you know, that's great.

01:15:32 ◼   ► But like, I feel like part of their argument is we are invested in

01:15:35 ◼   ► the future of manufacturing.

01:15:37 ◼   ► He said, Cook actually said, look, we're doing this thing in Houston where we're

01:15:41 ◼   ► bringing in people from our suppliers and other suppliers and showing them how they're

01:15:46 ◼   ► they're trying to set up a thing where they're literally like, we're gonna show

01:15:49 ◼   ► you how we manufacture things because we want to invest in American manufacturing.

01:15:55 ◼   ► But and he said the goal is over the long term to increase the

01:15:59 ◼   ► capacity of American companies and American factories to do this production work, but it

01:16:04 ◼   ► will take time.

01:16:05 ◼   ► And so the argument is while we're doing that, it would sure be nice

01:16:08 ◼   ► if we could buy some RAM from over here in China to save us

01:16:13 ◼   ► from the current, you know, temporary peril that we're in.

01:16:16 ◼   ► The counter argument would be um, well, yeah, but you're enabling, you know, if

01:16:21 ◼   ► there's a big glut, the American factories are going to be in trouble in

01:16:24 ◼   ► the future.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Maybe you shouldn't do that.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Sure.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Right.

01:16:26 ◼   ► And just as your point, you said 30 billion.

01:16:28 ◼   ► That was just their deal with broadcom.

01:16:30 ◼   ► You're right.

01:16:30 ◼   ► They're 600 billion.

01:16:31 ◼   ► 600 billion in the US for the American manufacturing program.

01:16:33 ◼   ► You're right.

01:16:34 ◼   ► The broadcomb those terra-free funds, so enjoy that.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Broadcom alone.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Finally, for this, I just had a favorite thing that Tim Cook said that

01:16:42 ◼   ► I thought was funny.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And uh I put it in my piece at six colors, but I want

01:16:46 ◼   ► to read it here.

01:16:47 ◼   ► Somebody asked about the price increases, right?

01:16:49 ◼   ► You you and I have talked about this.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Mike and I have talked about it on the show.

01:16:52 ◼   ► It's like, if you're Apple, how do you choose?

01:16:54 ◼   ► What's your methodology for choosing to raise the Apple TV by that, or raise

01:16:58 ◼   ► the the the iPad mini by that, and raise the the MacBook Air by

01:17:03 ◼   ► that?

01:17:03 ◼   ► And somebody asked him, and so Cook said, in terms of our philosophy on

01:17:09 ◼   ► dollars or percentages, we look at units, revenue, and margin, and then come to

01:17:14 ◼   ► a business judgment as to how to handle that.

01:17:14 ◼   ► And so it's not a mathematical formula that gets us to a specific result.

01:17:22 ◼   ► We're just looking at one dimension of that.

01:17:24 ◼   ► We look at all three dimensions and think about it over the long term

01:17:28 ◼   ► instead of a 90-day clock.

01:17:30 ◼   ► Hopefully that helps.

01:17:32 ◼   ► And I'm like, I felt like Morpheus was explaining the matrix to me a

01:17:36 ◼   ► little bit.

01:17:37 ◼   ► One can think of it three-dimensionally.

01:17:39 ◼   ► You've been thinking, get out of your two-dimensional perspective.

01:17:41 ◼   ► Or it's like Captain Kirk realizing that Khan is not going to go up

01:17:45 ◼   ► and down, that he's thinking in two dimensions.

01:17:47 ◼   ► It's that Tim Cook is playing 3D chess out here.

01:17:50 ◼   ► He's playing 3D chess.

01:17:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:52 ◼   ► I I laughed at that.

01:17:54 ◼   ► And I also thought, I don't know if you thought to like this as

01:17:57 ◼   ► well, Jason, but I was like, it's Tim's last call.

01:17:59 ◼   ► And it seems fitting that everything is about the supply chain.

01:18:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Like, uh send him off to play the hits, right?

01:18:05 ◼   ► This is Tim Cook's opportunity.

01:18:07 ◼   ► He's like, ah, I this is a pitch right down the middle for me.

01:18:11 ◼   ► This is my jam.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Uh, and if you ask John Turnis about anything, he'll just smile and nod

01:18:17 ◼   ► and say uh two lines of platitudes, which I thought was also my favorite

01:18:21 ◼   ► moment.

01:18:22 ◼   ► Turnis was on the call and he didn't say a word.

01:18:24 ◼   ► And then as we're getting toward the end, somebody is like, hey John, how

01:18:26 ◼   ► do you feel about all this?

01:18:27 ◼   ► And he's like, hey, everybody, great to be here.

01:18:30 ◼   ► I believe everything that Tim says is great.

01:18:31 ◼   ► And I'll see you next time.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Bye.

01:18:33 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, I I thought that was an amazing moment because I

01:18:36 ◼   ► they there's this hesitation, right?

01:18:38 ◼   ► And you're like sitting there going, like, well, they must have been prepared for

01:18:42 ◼   ► someone to ask him something.

01:18:44 ◼   ► He was then also, yeah.

01:18:46 ◼   ► Also, also I had that moment of they're gonna be like, well, John's not

01:18:49 ◼   ► really taking questions.

01:18:49 ◼   ► I was like, we can't do that.

01:18:50 ◼   ► He's gonna be the CEO.

01:18:51 ◼   ► He needs to be able to say his legs.

01:18:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:53 ◼   ► Uh but I thought it was a great moment of John Turnus being like,

01:18:57 ◼   ► Me.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Um, Tim's moment, right?

01:19:01 ◼   ► I thought that was important.

01:18:59 ◼   ► No, obviously not.

01:19:03 ◼   ► He's very diplomatic.

01:19:04 ◼   ► I will be I am fascinated because this answered a question that we had

01:19:07 ◼   ► last time, which is will John Turnus be on the calls?

01:19:09 ◼   ► And the answer seems to be yes, he said.

01:19:11 ◼   ► He is going to take the Tim.

01:19:12 ◼   ► Yeah, like they said basically in the future, he will be taking these calls.

01:19:15 ◼   ► Um fascinating.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Let's be clear.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Steve Jobs is not always on the calls.

01:19:20 ◼   ► He was not.

01:19:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:21 ◼   ► And I I don't blame him.

01:19:23 ◼   ► I remember the the thrill.

01:19:25 ◼   ► Yeah, because I have also been here, too.

01:19:27 ◼   ► I don't want to, I don't want to say I've done 90 analyst calls,

01:19:30 ◼   ► but I've done a lot.

01:19:31 ◼   ► It's approaching that.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And Tim used to run the analyst call.

01:19:35 ◼   ► Um I remember the thrill when you'd get on the call and they'd be

01:19:40 ◼   ► like, Steve Jobs is here and he wants to talk to you.

01:19:43 ◼   ► And it's like, whoa, what is he gonna do?

01:19:44 ◼   ► What's that guy gonna do now?

01:19:45 ◼   ► To me?

01:19:46 ◼   ► He wants to talk to me.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Well, I mean, all of us collectively.

01:19:48 ◼   ► Yeah, Jason, I I will say, I think I I'm gonna tube my own

01:19:53 ◼   ► my own heart a little bit, which is I think back in when I

01:19:55 ◼   ► was at MacUser.com or at blog at Macworld, I think I started live blogging

01:20:01 ◼   ► these financial calls because generally Macworld would have like a like a story about

01:20:05 ◼   ► it.

01:20:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:05 ◼   ► But like I started live blogging them, and I think that was early, fairly

01:20:09 ◼   ► early on in people like actually transcribing them.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Um I remember that too, like being like, Steve's here.

01:20:17 ◼   ► And I felt like once Steve would show up a few times, I feel

01:20:19 ◼   ► like that's when everybody else kind of also got into live vlogging it because

01:20:22 ◼   ► they're like, oh, it's not just a boring financial call.

01:20:24 ◼   ► Steve Jobs is here.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:25 ◼   ► He's doing 10 a tight 10 on whatever he's mad about this month.

01:20:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:30 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

01:20:32 ◼   ► Fun, fun stuff.

01:20:33 ◼   ► I also want to call out my other favorite line from this, which made

01:20:35 ◼   ► me laugh as I was walking, I was like walking to the drugstore at

01:20:38 ◼   ► the beach, and I'm listening to my airport.

01:20:40 ◼   ► This is how messed up we are, bit, by the way, everybody.

01:20:42 ◼   ► It's like for us, for us, this is like the with Tim Cook leaving,

01:20:46 ◼   ► it's like a major cast member of a favorite TV show leaving.

01:20:49 ◼   ► Because it's like all of these stupid financial analysts are like characters in the

01:20:54 ◼   ► drama.

01:20:55 ◼   ► You get to know them over time.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Uh, and here they're all saying goodbye to Tim.

01:21:00 ◼   ► And then, yes, you end up in this deranged situation where you're on vacation

01:21:04 ◼   ► near the beach listening to an earnings talk.

01:21:07 ◼   ► Chuckling at somebody asking for some more color.

01:21:10 ◼   ► Yeah, it was Kevin Perick doing the overview and saying wearables, home and accessory

01:21:13 ◼   ► revenue was 7.9 billion, up 6% year of year driven by strength and wearables

01:21:17 ◼   ► and accessories.

01:21:18 ◼   ► And I had a moment thinking, isn't that the whole category?

01:21:22 ◼   ► Like that's driven by strength and I forgot that home was there.

01:21:26 ◼   ► I forgot home is a thing in that moment.

01:21:28 ◼   ► Because I thought I heard him say wearables and accessory was up driven by

01:21:31 ◼   ► strength and wearables and accessories.

01:21:33 ◼   ► And I was like, what?

01:21:34 ◼   ► No, that was a that was the uh that's their little teaser, a little

01:21:37 ◼   ► foreshadowing the whole home analysis.

01:21:39 ◼   ► What of home?

01:21:40 ◼   ► Lurking, like the Death Star rising over Scara.

01:21:44 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:21:44 ◼   ► There's my Star Wars analysis.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:21:46 ◼   ► I appreciate it.

01:21:46 ◼   ► I knew we I knew we'd get some Star Wars in there eventually.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Oh boy.

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01:23:52 ◼   ► Time now for Ask Upgrade.

01:23:57 ◼   ► Whoa.

01:23:59 ◼   ► I brought my own laser.

01:24:00 ◼   ► It's a blaster.

01:24:01 ◼   ► It was a blaster.

01:24:02 ◼   ► I had to grab it off my shelf, but there it is.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:24:06 ◼   ► Um, real lasers flying.

01:24:09 ◼   ► Or blaster bolts.

01:24:10 ◼   ► Real quote unquote real lasers.

01:24:12 ◼   ► In Star Wars, are those is the implication those are basically energy beams?

01:24:16 ◼   ► Or do they have like little things that fly?

01:24:18 ◼   ► No, there's little I it's like Bonagas that's little pellets of energy.

01:24:23 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:24:24 ◼   ► It's not like phasers where like a phaser beam shoots out, right?

01:24:27 ◼   ► And like you see like little packets of energy.

01:24:30 ◼   ► I'm not I'm sure I have a technical manual over here on my shelf

01:24:33 ◼   ► somewhere.

01:24:34 ◼   ► And is it a wave or a particle?

01:24:36 ◼   ► Nobody really knows anyway.

01:24:37 ◼   ► Either one.

01:24:38 ◼   ► Um Nate writes in and says, I've been holding onto my iPhone 13 mini

01:24:43 ◼   ► for a while, but I feel like it may be finally time to let

01:24:45 ◼   ► it go before prices increase.

01:24:47 ◼   ► Jason as a former lover of the mini.

01:24:49 ◼   ► I mean, I still love it.

01:24:50 ◼   ► I just don't have it anymore.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Will the air give the same feeling of a small phone?

01:24:54 ◼   ► Or am I better off with an orange pro that has smaller overall dimensions

01:24:58 ◼   ► for the screen size?

01:24:59 ◼   ► John also writes in, I'm someone who's clinging desperately to my iPhone 13 mini.

01:25:03 ◼   ► I'd love to know if I'm going to be completely SOL for an iPhone

01:25:07 ◼   ► that could do Siri AI that isn't huge.

01:25:09 ◼   ► I've tried larger phones and I just find that I cannot use any of

01:25:13 ◼   ► them single-handed.

01:25:15 ◼   ► And Joel wrote in and said, I got an iPhone 13 mini because I

01:25:18 ◼   ► was getting RSI pain from trying to stretch and use a 12 Pro one-handed.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Since the mini phones aren't an option anymore, I'm seriously considering going to the

01:25:26 ◼   ► 17 Pro Max so that it's so ridiculously large that one handed use isn't

01:25:31 ◼   ► an option.

01:25:31 ◼   ► Do you think that'll work?

01:25:33 ◼   ► So we have this is I'm coming out of the woodwork, Jason.

01:25:36 ◼   ► 13 mini roundup.

01:25:37 ◼   ► Uh and I do have multiple.

01:25:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:25:40 ◼   ► In blue.

01:25:41 ◼   ► It's beautiful, but I don't use it anymore.

01:25:43 ◼   ► A bunch of questions.

01:25:44 ◼   ► I love Joel saying maybe I should just get the largest phone possible because

01:25:51 ◼   ► then I can't do that.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Screen myself out of it.

01:25:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:53 ◼   ► I kind of like that.

01:25:55 ◼   ► Um that might be good.

01:25:57 ◼   ► You could also get the 17 plus, which would be cheaper, but also huge.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Ergonomics are weird, right?

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like I didn't even realize how I type until I took video of my

01:26:10 ◼   ► hands typing, and I was like, I do what?

01:26:12 ◼   ► Because you just don't even think about it.

01:26:14 ◼   ► And small changes can completely change how you use uh a device.

01:26:19 ◼   ► So like if you can't use it one-handed, I think that's actually a pretty

01:26:23 ◼   ► clever option to like make it so you can't, and then you won't.

01:26:27 ◼   ► And then you won't hurt your hand, which is what was happening to Joel.

01:26:31 ◼   ► Um for the others, I mean, in terms of the current products that are

01:26:35 ◼   ► out there, I do love my 17 Pro.

01:26:37 ◼   ► I was gonna mention the air.

01:26:39 ◼   ► The air is thin and light, which is nice, but it's actually wider than

01:26:45 ◼   ► the 17 Pro.

01:26:46 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:26:48 ◼   ► So I think depending on your sensitivity, there's some things about the air I

01:26:52 ◼   ► think are really nice.

01:26:53 ◼   ► In fact, it might even be good for Joel.

01:26:56 ◼   ► Um, because it it it is wider, so it's nice and light in your

01:27:00 ◼   ► pocket, but then when you take it out, it's like you're using, I mean,

01:27:03 ◼   ► it's appreciably larger than the than the 17 Pro.

01:27:06 ◼   ► It feels it feels wider to me.

01:27:07 ◼   ► I use it ergonomically very differently.

01:27:09 ◼   ► I do a lot of hold it in one hand, poke with the other

01:27:12 ◼   ► hand with that.

01:27:13 ◼   ► Whereas on my iPhone 17 Pro, I do a lot more kind of like

01:27:16 ◼   ► hold it and kind of graze with my thumb, which is that how Joel

01:27:19 ◼   ► got RSI.

01:27:21 ◼   ► So maybe.

01:27:22 ◼   ► The the the chat is pointing out there is not a 17 plus.

01:27:26 ◼   ► Oh, is there not?

01:27:27 ◼   ► Oh, because it's the air.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Well, you got a 16 plus.

01:27:29 ◼   ► So try that.

01:27:30 ◼   ► Pro Max Joel knows pretty good.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Joel knows.

01:27:33 ◼   ► Um, so I'm gonna do, Dan.

01:27:36 ◼   ► Are you ready for my big brain, my Galaxy Brain idea?

01:27:39 ◼   ► Yeah, please open up that big brain.

01:27:41 ◼   ► Nate, John, Joel, galaxy Brain idea here, folding iPhone.

01:27:47 ◼   ► I believe you mean Galaxy Brain S.

01:27:44 ◼   ► Yeah, it could be.

01:27:50 ◼   ► Galaxy Fold S brain.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Sorry.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:54 ◼   ► Yeah, in fact, because we there we now have an idea of what screen

01:27:57 ◼   ► Apple's going to use because Samsung released or announced a phone that's got the

01:28:02 ◼   ► same dimensions as the ones that everybody 3D finds.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Because it's probably the same.

01:28:06 ◼   ► Because they made the literally make the screens.

01:28:08 ◼   ► They made the panel.

01:28:09 ◼   ► They get to go first.

01:28:10 ◼   ► It's not ideal for these guys may not want this.

01:28:14 ◼   ► But what I will say about it is, and it's going to be wide,

01:28:17 ◼   ► but it's not going to be tall.

01:28:19 ◼   ► And it's going to be thick, right?

01:28:21 ◼   ► Because it's a folding thing.

01:28:23 ◼   ► But what I will say is it will be smaller in your pocket, and

01:28:27 ◼   ► it will be small when you hold it like a phone, right?

01:28:30 ◼   ► Like that's one of the issues that the Samsung phone has that the Apple

01:28:34 ◼   ► phone is going to have to deal with, which is Apple has, as iPhone

01:28:38 ◼   ► mini users know very well, it for a while now, apps have just assumed

01:28:42 ◼   ► that iPhones are tall.

01:28:44 ◼   ► And the iPhone mini, sometimes you'd use an app and you're like, uh, I

01:28:47 ◼   ► can't tap that button.

01:28:49 ◼   ► It's not on the screen because the phone is not that as big as

01:28:54 ◼   ► the app thinks it is.

01:28:55 ◼   ► And Apple's gonna have to deal with that.

01:28:56 ◼   ► But the folded up version of the screen, it will be wide, so maybe

01:29:00 ◼   ► not ideal for Joel, but it will be small in footprint.

01:29:05 ◼   ► And then you can open it up and you got a little like almost

01:29:08 ◼   ► iPad mini that you can use two handed, which is also a nice ergonomic

01:29:12 ◼   ► thing.

01:29:12 ◼   ► I know it's gonna cost a lot of money.

01:29:13 ◼   ► It's not gonna be for everybody.

01:29:15 ◼   ► For the price of only three iPhone 13 minis, you can get a small

01:29:19 ◼   ► phone again.

01:29:19 ◼   ► Buy three of them and tape them together and see how that feels.

01:29:23 ◼   ► I look forward to Apple uh announcing this as the most ergonomic iPhone they've

01:29:28 ◼   ► ever built.

01:29:28 ◼   ► I mean, I love my Pro Max, but if we're just talking ergonomics here,

01:29:32 ◼   ► um it's worth holding an iPhone Air in your hand if you haven't, because

01:29:37 ◼   ► what do you like about the mini?

01:29:39 ◼   ► Is it the size?

01:29:40 ◼   ► Is it the lightness?

01:29:41 ◼   ► You may find a different set of trade-offs is interesting, that it's this light

01:29:45 ◼   ► thin phone and it's got a big screen.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Maybe that's a nicer feature.

01:29:50 ◼   ► Um, I do like my iPhone 17 Pro.

01:29:53 ◼   ► The idea of going and getting a Pro Max is very interesting in terms

01:29:56 ◼   ► of just making it not an option to use it one-handed for Joel.

01:30:01 ◼   ► And I don't know, like I am kidding, but I'm also not kidding.

01:30:06 ◼   ► I wonder in the long run if the folding phone will actually be something

01:30:11 ◼   ► that appeals to fans of smaller phones because when it's folded, it's small.

01:30:16 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:30:17 ◼   ► I mean, my good pal John Moltz is a longtime mini phone stand.

01:30:22 ◼   ► And I think if it were not for the price tag, I think would

01:30:25 ◼   ► seriously consider it.