Upgrade

00:00:09 ◼   ► From relay, this is Upgrade, episode six hundred and thirty-eight for September twenty-first twenty

00:00:15 ◼   ► twenty six.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Indeed, tw this episode is brought to you by Claude, Squarespace, Century, and Backblaze.

00:00:22 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Hi Jason Snell.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Hi Mike Hurley.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Twenty-first of September never was a cloudy day.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Good to be here.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:00:31 ◼   ► I have a snail talk question for you.

00:00:32 ◼   ► It comes from Omar who says with the iOS twenty seven update, Jason, are

00:00:37 ◼   ► you using the tiny home screen or lock screen clock or are you using

00:00:40 ◼   ► the giant one?

00:00:42 ◼   ► I am a giant I guess.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Traditionally giant clock lock clock lock.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Clock lock clock locker.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Clock lock clocker.

00:00:52 ◼   ► I was looking clock locker.

00:00:53 ◼   ► Big clock locker, Mike.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Big clock locker.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Dangerous phrase to just keep saying over dangerous.

00:00:59 ◼   ► But we did it 'cause we're professionals.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I was playing around with this today and and I get the idea behind

00:01:03 ◼   ► the small clock.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Like I understand why they added it, but I just do not like it

00:01:08 ◼   ► compared to the large one that they have.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I agree.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Um and and also like, you know, like I I set up a new

00:01:14 ◼   ► uh lock screen wallpaper a couple of days ago.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Sophia took uh Adina took a really great photo of Sophia and I was

00:01:20 ◼   ► able to pull it down and and the time goes behind her head a

00:01:23 ◼   ► little bit and the color of her hair reflects against the the clock and

00:01:26 ◼   ► like who doesn't want to set up a wallpaper like that?

00:01:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I love it.

00:01:29 ◼   ► I really love it.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Although I will I will ask again Apple, I'm putting this out into the

00:01:33 ◼   ► world.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Let me do the big clock stretching for the other typefaces you have for

00:01:39 ◼   ► the clock.

00:01:41 ◼   ► You they have a bunch of different options for clock style, but only one

00:01:45 ◼   ► of them can do the like pull it down and make it huge.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I want to use the New York timeface uh typeface for the for the

00:01:52 ◼   ► clock instead of the

00:01:54 ◼   ► timeface.

00:01:55 ◼   ► They should call it that.

00:01:55 ◼   ► They should call it that when it's a clock font time face.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what clock lockers do.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Clock lockers.

00:02:00 ◼   ► If you'd like to send that a snow talk question of your own, just

00:02:03 ◼   ► go to upgradefeedback.com and you can do that.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Let's talk about Saint Jude.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Let's do that.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Let's let's let's let's get this business started.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Stop the silliness.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Now it's serious business.

00:02:17 ◼   ► Yeah, like I've been thinking about I mean in a lot of like photo

00:02:20 ◼   ► reminders uh the past week, 'cause this would usually be the time when the

00:02:24 ◼   ► podcast of thumb would have happened already.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Um but right I'm actually getting ready to fly out to Memphis this weekend.

00:02:31 ◼   ► So next week's episode of Upgrade, I will be in Memphis recording and you

00:02:35 ◼   ► will still be at home.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I will not be And then we'll be together later in the week because

00:02:40 ◼   ► the podcast a thon for twenty twenty six is happening on Friday, October second.

00:02:46 ◼   ► September continues to October this year.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Um what did you call it?

00:02:50 ◼   ► The thirty second, thirty second of October.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Something like that.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Thirty second of October, yeah.

00:02:57 ◼   ► The podcaster thumb will be the finale of the campaign.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Thirty second of September.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I'm sorry, thirty second of September.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Thirty second of October is November first.

00:03:04 ◼   ► That's And that's just confusing that's just confusing.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Uh twelve PM to twelve AM Eastern time on the relay YouTube channel.

00:03:12 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes because you can go and you

00:03:14 ◼   ► can click remind me.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Um we're gonna be hanging out for twelve hours raising money for the kids

00:03:19 ◼   ► of St.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Jude.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Um, it's gonna be me and Jason and Stephen Hackett, Kathy Campbell, Casey Liss,

00:03:26 ◼   ► Brad Dowdy.

00:03:27 ◼   ► We're all gonna be hanging out and having a great time uh from the

00:03:30 ◼   ► campus, streaming live, playing games and lots of tons uh tons of fun stuff

00:03:35 ◼   ► with a really cool theme this year, um which I'm very excited for people

00:03:39 ◼   ► to see.

00:03:39 ◼   ► It's a Western theme.

00:03:40 ◼   ► And I've seen some I've seen some hints of what is being built out

00:03:45 ◼   ► and uh I'm very excited for everybody to see it because it's gonna look

00:03:48 ◼   ► like a great time.

00:03:48 ◼   ► But why do we do this?

00:03:49 ◼   ► We don't do this for fun.

00:03:52 ◼   ► We do this because we are raising money for St.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Jude Children's Research Hospital.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Uh, I want to talk about some cool stuff that St.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Jude is doing.

00:04:01 ◼   ► In June 2025, 31 students graduated from the St.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

00:04:08 ◼   ► The school offers a PhD in biomedical science and MSG and MS degrees in

00:04:13 ◼   ► clinical investigations, global child health, biomedical sciences, and as of August twenty twenty five,

00:04:19 ◼   ► applied biomedical data sciences.

00:04:21 ◼   ► The graduate school has now awarded degrees to more than one hundred and thirty

00:04:25 ◼   ► students since twenty fifteen equipping the next generation of leaders in research, medicine and

00:04:30 ◼   ► global health.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Because this is part of what St.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Jude is all about.

00:04:33 ◼   ► It is giving the tools to people so they can push forward into the

00:04:37 ◼   ► future so we can cure childhood cancer.

00:04:39 ◼   ► Because that is what this whole endeavor is about is about making sure that

00:04:44 ◼   ► no kids have cancer, that no kids die in the dawn of life.

00:04:48 ◼   ► We do not accept this outcome.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Childhood cancer can be defeated and we can do it if we do it

00:04:54 ◼   ► together.

00:04:55 ◼   ► This September help Saint Jude give kids with cancer more hope for more tomorrow's.

00:05:01 ◼   ► We're inviting you as part of the relay community to help us reach our

00:05:04 ◼   ► goal of seven hundred thousand dollars raised for the kids of St.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Jude this September for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

00:05:09 ◼   ► As always, there are multiple ways to support the campaign.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Go to Saint Jude.org slash relay and make a donation.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Your donation can unlock some fun rewards for you.

00:05:18 ◼   ► You can uh when you make a donation, make so you make sure you

00:05:21 ◼   ► click the blue search employer button on the donation summary page, it's which is

00:05:25 ◼   ► all about gif uh employer matching.

00:05:27 ◼   ► So maybe your company will double your donation.

00:05:30 ◼   ► And mark your calendars because the twenty twenty six podcast design is on Friday,

00:05:34 ◼   ► October second.

00:05:35 ◼   ► It's It's the grand finale of the campaign.

00:05:37 ◼   ► We'll be running from twelve to twelve Eastern on Relay's YouTube channel because more

00:05:42 ◼   ► cures, more hope means more tomorrow.

00:05:44 ◼   ► It's gotta sent you to org slash relay to donate or start a fundraiser

00:05:48 ◼   ► today.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Uh Uh it's time for some follow up.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Uh Will wrote in and said, I wanted to say that the Australian Prime

00:05:57 ◼   ► Minister was meeting with Tim Cook this week, uh, not John Turners, obviously.

00:06:01 ◼   ► So it seems Tim is taking the political responsibilities for all countries not just

00:06:05 ◼   ► the US, not just China, everywhere.

00:06:08 ◼   ► Uh b he is Apple's ambassador to the world, you know, and get and

00:06:12 ◼   ► getting paid forty million dollars for it.

00:06:14 ◼   ► It's what we assumed, right?

00:06:15 ◼   ► But and it but it's interesting to see it starting already, right?

00:06:18 ◼   ► That he's out there, he's he's doing this stuff now.

00:06:21 ◼   ► He was absent from the iPhone launch, right?

00:06:23 ◼   ► Like I there were Apple executives around, Tim Cook's not one of them, which

00:06:27 ◼   ► is great.

00:06:28 ◼   ► He's behind the scenes now.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Yep.

00:06:30 ◼   ► And doing the ambassadorship role that's a good thing.

00:06:33 ◼   ► Shaking hands.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Kissing babies.

00:06:35 ◼   ► Yep.

00:06:35 ◼   ► Whatever.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Yep.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Which I just think is good, right?

00:06:38 ◼   ► That's what we want to see.

00:06:39 ◼   ► It's what we expected and I think it is it's good to see it

00:06:43 ◼   ► start playing out already.

00:06:44 ◼   ► It's like you'd say it's fast, but this work never stops.

00:06:49 ◼   ► Friday he was the CEO, Monday he's in this role now.

00:06:52 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I wanted to mention as well, so uh we were talking a bit about

00:06:56 ◼   ► Siri AI and third party apps this week uh last week.

00:06:59 ◼   ► I had a few people write in to tell me that Siri AI will

00:07:03 ◼   ► apparently learn which third party apps you like to use for tasks over time.

00:07:07 ◼   ► So essentially right now you have to say like make a task in to-doist

00:07:12 ◼   ► or or whatever.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Um but I have people write in to tell me that over time it

00:07:18 ◼   ► will learn.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Now

00:07:20 ◼   ► I accept this.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I just don't think this is a good user experience.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Like, how do I know that Siri has learned this?

00:07:28 ◼   ► Like if you know, if if am I a month in of asking for

00:07:32 ◼   ► it to add a task to to doist and then I just try one

00:07:36 ◼   ► day not saying that to see if it works.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Like, I don't like the unpredictability.

00:07:41 ◼   ► Like I was playing around with this today and like asking questions to get

00:07:45 ◼   ► it to show my task list.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And if I kept asking the question in the same way, it would show

00:07:51 ◼   ► me it with to-doist.

00:07:53 ◼   ► But if I asked the question slightly differently, it wouldn't.

00:07:55 ◼   ► And I assume that it's pulling from the context that it's building inside of

00:07:59 ◼   ► the Siri app, right?

00:08:00 ◼   ► It's probably how it does this.

00:08:01 ◼   ► But I just don't think that this is the user experience.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Like why can't I assign like tasks to apps?

00:08:11 ◼   ► Like how you can assign names to contacts.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Like you can say, you know, I could say Jason was my brother to

00:08:17 ◼   ► Syria, but we've been able to do this for years and then if I

00:08:19 ◼   ► say call my brother, it knows you're my brother and it'll call you.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:08:23 ◼   ► So if I s you know, I should be able to say to the

00:08:26 ◼   ► system, even just speak it to the system, if anything to do with a

00:08:30 ◼   ► calendar, always open Fantastical.

00:08:32 ◼   ► Like I I don't think this should just be some some like I try

00:08:35 ◼   ► to to insist upon the system.

00:08:38 ◼   ► Also also it's proac it should be proactive, right?

00:08:40 ◼   ► It should say when you t when you do a to-doist prompt it should

00:08:44 ◼   ► say, You seem to be using to doist a lot.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Do you want me to just assume that all of your to-do's are in

00:08:49 ◼   ► to doist?

00:08:50 ◼   ► And if you say yes, then it's like okay, I'll remember that, right?

00:08:53 ◼   ► Like that that's part of what this should be.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:55 ◼   ► I I get the feeling that as much as we praise Siri AI for

00:08:59 ◼   ► being actually functional and useful, that um they they made a point of focusing

00:09:07 ◼   ► on features that are uh uh Apple entirely Apple based and under Apple's control.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Yep.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Which I'm not opposed as a place to start, but it can't stop there.

00:09:21 ◼   ► That's the that's the thing they need is they they need to

00:09:25 ◼   ► They they need to keep going.

00:09:27 ◼   ► And this is one of those clear areas is other apps do exist.

00:09:31 ◼   ► They are part of your ecosystem.

00:09:32 ◼   ► They're they're actually part of your advantage, but your system needs I mean I

00:09:39 ◼   ► complain about this a lot where um I use Fantastical

00:09:44 ◼   ► and I I think you still can't set a default calendar app.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think so.

00:09:55 ◼   ► And it's just like, come on.

00:09:57 ◼   ► Apple needs to accept that you you know, the App Store is an important

00:10:02 ◼   ► part of what they do.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And perhaps that means that they need to support this stuff.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And I get I get it.

00:10:07 ◼   ► You're trying to ship this thing.

00:10:09 ◼   ► But phase two has got to be dealing with third-party apps better, including defaults.

00:10:14 ◼   ► Yep.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Um, and that includes in Siri AI.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Like, and I would actually go so far as to say if

00:10:22 ◼   ► I try to add an event and it says I can add that to

00:10:26 ◼   ► calendar, I'm like, no, no, use Fantastical.

00:10:29 ◼   ► It should be like, okay, I did it.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Do you want me to you assume you are using Fantastical from now on?

00:10:34 ◼   ► Like it should know that.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Like I think it is really great that there is a third party developer

00:10:41 ◼   ► story from day one with the new Siri AI, because it would have not

00:10:44 ◼   ► been a surprise if there just wasn't at all.

00:10:46 ◼   ► Like nothing.

00:10:47 ◼   ► It's like it's great that there is a way to use it.

00:10:50 ◼   ► It is absolutely not the best implementation of how they could do this.

00:10:56 ◼   ► And I really hope I mean I'd love it before, but for iOS twenty

00:11:00 ◼   ► eight, like round this out and make it a much, much better experience.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Oh, I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna say I'm gonna say this is a

00:11:07 ◼   ► this is a twenty seven point three.

00:11:09 ◼   ► I mean, yes, like this needs to happen this cycle.

00:11:11 ◼   ► They need to be better.

00:11:12 ◼   ► This stuff needs to advance during this cycle and this is one of those

00:11:15 ◼   ► areas where I understand because a lot of people would say, well, of course,

00:11:19 ◼   ► it's Apple.

00:11:20 ◼   ► They just uh they want you to use their products and only their products.

00:11:23 ◼   ► But it's like, but no, that's not it.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Like this is the whole point here is that Apple strength is not Apple

00:11:29 ◼   ► Strength is its ecosystem, and that means the third-party apps too.

00:11:32 ◼   ► That's part of their advantage here.

00:11:33 ◼   ► That's part of their advantage to using on-device intelligence, is that your apps are

00:11:37 ◼   ► on those devices.

00:11:38 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:38 ◼   ► So they need to get to that and they need to get to that

00:11:41 ◼   ► quickly.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Kev wrote in to say to continue Siri chats on the Apple Watch.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Invoke Siri while the chat thread is open in the app.

00:11:50 ◼   ► You can do this with the digital crown or by saying the trigger phrase.

00:11:53 ◼   ► So this was me saying that you couldn't continue a conversation.

00:11:58 ◼   ► Well it you can, but I think again this UI is incredibly strange, right?

00:12:03 ◼   ► That like if you're reading a a previous conversation in the Siri app, there

00:12:08 ◼   ► is no visual way to suggest that you can continue that conversation.

00:12:13 ◼   ► What you have to do is start essentially what would be a new request,

00:12:17 ◼   ► and it knows that you're in that conversation, and then you can ask questions

00:12:21 ◼   ► about it and continue it.

00:12:23 ◼   ► It's great that that works, but that is a really weird way of doing

00:12:27 ◼   ► it because that's not how it works in the phone app, right?

00:12:30 ◼   ► In the phone app, there is a a button to start typing and there's

00:12:34 ◼   ► a button to start talking in the UI of the app.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Like that's what needs to be in the UI of Siri.

00:12:40 ◼   ► In the same way that this is how it works when you're sending an

00:12:43 ◼   ► iMessage, right?

00:12:44 ◼   ► Like you're you're sending an iMessage to someone in the watch app, but like

00:12:47 ◼   ► you're reading through you they then have buttons to continue that conversation.

00:12:51 ◼   ► So it's great that it's there, like 'cause it was super weird if it

00:12:55 ◼   ► wasn't but again I think they need to tweak this.

00:12:57 ◼   ► And I do want to make a another random aside.

00:12:59 ◼   ► So I just had another great experience a couple of days ago.

00:13:02 ◼   ► So like just how

00:13:05 ◼   ► how good Siri is now that it is conversational and gets information from the

00:13:12 ◼   ► web in an efficient way.

00:13:13 ◼   ► So I was walking down the street and I was listening to the Acquired

00:13:17 ◼   ► podcast.

00:13:17 ◼   ► There was an episode about Google.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Um and they were talking about iOS and Android market share.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And the numbers that they were giving for Android market share just seemed too

00:13:27 ◼   ► high to me.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And so I was talking to Siri back and forth about kind of like

00:13:32 ◼   ► how Android and iOS market share breaks down, how it's over time, w how

00:13:36 ◼   ► it's bigger or not in different markets.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And it was just like a great long back and forth that I had

00:13:41 ◼   ► with this with my iPhone while walking.

00:13:44 ◼   ► And then I went back to my podcast.

00:13:46 ◼   ► And it's like I just love that I can have this by just pressing

00:13:51 ◼   ► down on a button on my phone on my watch.

00:13:54 ◼   ► I don't have to go to another app and get this information.

00:13:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:57 ◼   ► There was somebody in I think the Six Colors Discord who said that they're

00:14:01 ◼   ► um They uh were on a long car trip and they had a similar

00:14:05 ◼   ► thing where they were able to ask a bunch of questions and get in

00:14:08 ◼   ► and dig into the details with Siri AI, and it just, you know, it

00:14:12 ◼   ► worked for almost everything.

00:14:14 ◼   ► I think he said that the one thing that it didn't and this is

00:14:16 ◼   ► a funny use case that it totally should do, is they were driving they're

00:14:18 ◼   ► like in New England, they drive were driving past like a big lake and

00:14:21 ◼   ► they're like, What lake is this?

00:14:23 ◼   ► And it didn't.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Which is funny because you should actually be able to look at Apple maps

00:14:27 ◼   ► and say, Is there a lake nearby?

00:14:29 ◼   ► And that's again, it's a thing that it can't currently do.

00:14:31 ◼   ► But like it's encouraging.

00:14:33 ◼   ► I bet if you said what lake am I near, right?

00:14:36 ◼   ► Like it would be that.

00:14:37 ◼   ► But like when you said like what is this?

00:14:39 ◼   ► It's probably th the system is looking for an image, right?

00:14:42 ◼   ► Or for the camera or or something like that, you know?

00:14:44 ◼   ► But but still a good start, I would say.

00:14:46 ◼   ► That people are i are discovering this and exploring it.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And I do think that that's the biggest hurdle Apple has to get over

00:14:51 ◼   ► now is people just not being used to using Siri.

00:14:54 ◼   ► But they are a lot of them used to using chatbots.

00:14:56 ◼   ► So if you can get make that connection and be like you can treat

00:14:59 ◼   ► Siri like a chatbot now, then um then this feature opens up for people.

00:15:04 ◼   ► A few years ago, we were talking a lot about how GM General Motors

00:15:09 ◼   ► were was killing CarPlay and Android Auto.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Three years ago they three they basically declared we're not gonna do production in

00:15:17 ◼   ► our tech company now.

00:15:19 ◼   ► We're gonna make a better experience.

00:15:21 ◼   ► No more CarPlay.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Well CarPlay and Android Auto are still available and options on several 2027 Cadillacs.

00:15:28 ◼   ► I'll read a quote here from uh this came from Carbuzz.

00:15:32 ◼   ► You quoted on Six Colors.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Cadillac is continuing to evolve its infotainment strategy across the EV portfolio based on

00:15:39 ◼   ► customer feedback while also prioritizing the native in vehicle experience, a Cadillac representative told

00:15:45 ◼   ► Carbuz.

00:15:46 ◼   ► This just sounds like uh they gave up on that plan.

00:15:49 ◼   ► Yeah, and there's um actually since that story there's been another story

00:15:54 ◼   ► where the um the GMC

00:15:58 ◼   ► Sierra and the sh new twenty-seven Chevy Silverado also have CarPlay.

00:16:05 ◼   ► And it's very funny too.

00:16:06 ◼   ► So basically they are

00:16:09 ◼   ► They haven't done a big press release.

00:16:10 ◼   ► This is very much in the un it's like Apple saying, Hell, you know,

00:16:13 ◼   ► we're not gonna say, Yay, we got rid of the butterfly keyboard, we listened

00:16:16 ◼   ► to your complaints.

00:16:17 ◼   ► They say, Look, we got this amazing new keyboard that's even better than all

00:16:20 ◼   ► previous keyboards, right?

00:16:21 ◼   ► So they're GM's not gonna do a press release that says, You're right, we

00:16:25 ◼   ► screwed up.

00:16:26 ◼   ► CarPlay and Android Auto are important.

00:16:28 ◼   ► Um, we're gonna bring bring it back.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Instead, they just have brought it back to new models and it's like, huh,

00:16:33 ◼   ► that's interesting.

00:16:34 ◼   ► I thought you said they were going away.

00:16:35 ◼   ► They're like, no, no.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And and they they had that classic line, the um continue to evolve our

00:16:40 ◼   ► strategy, right?

00:16:40 ◼   ► Like, okay, well that means that you changed your mind, but okay, whatever, press

00:16:44 ◼   ► release speak.

00:16:45 ◼   ► It's interesting to me um because

00:16:50 ◼   ► the way they've spun this is like we've invented a revolutionary new UI element.

00:16:58 ◼   ► So just to back up, back into 2023 one of their asinine complaints about

00:17:03 ◼   ► this was, we don't have Apple taking over our interface.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Our interface is very important.

00:17:08 ◼   ► And everybody was like, What are you talking about?

00:17:11 ◼   ► You don't have to take over the whole interface.

00:17:14 ◼   ► A lot of cars include CarPlay as an app that appears in a window.

00:17:18 ◼   ► It's surrounded by your own Chrome.

00:17:20 ◼   ► You can toggle other controls and then bring CarPlay back.

00:17:23 ◼   ► It's not a big deal.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Why are you saying we don't want it it to take over our whole

00:17:28 ◼   ► interface?

00:17:29 ◼   ► Well, as a part of this rollout now,

00:17:32 ◼   ► three years later, they're like, We've done a new innovative thing where we're we're

00:17:38 ◼   ► putting it in a window and it doesn't take over our whole interface.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I'm like, Whatever gets you through the night, GM.

00:17:46 ◼   ► Whatever.

00:17:47 ◼   ► Whatever you want to whatever story you want to tell.

00:17:49 ◼   ► Like, yeah, yeah, uh, that's how it works.

00:17:51 ◼   ► So anyway, um it does seem like what the Ford exec said at the

00:17:58 ◼   ► time, which was

00:18:00 ◼   ► all our people want CarPlay.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Everybody who buys a new car wants CarPlay.

00:18:05 ◼   ► And keep in mind the stats for for new car buyers are staggering.

00:18:08 ◼   ► You might think, well, you know, not everybody is demanding car play uh in

00:18:13 ◼   ► the world.

00:18:14 ◼   ► But when you look at new car buyers, because I would I would imagine

00:18:18 ◼   ► that used car buyers care a lot less about it.

00:18:21 ◼   ► You're buying a used car.

00:18:23 ◼   ► You are spending less money on a car.

00:18:25 ◼   ► But new car buyers want CarPlay.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Like 90 plus percent of new car buyers want to connect their smartphone and

00:18:33 ◼   ► have it work with their car because our smartphones are our most important technology

00:18:38 ◼   ► device and our most personal.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Um, they obviously realized this was going to be a huge liability for them

00:18:44 ◼   ► and presumably people inside GM who are like, we could just put it in

00:18:48 ◼   ► a window.

00:18:48 ◼   ► What is your problem?

00:18:49 ◼   ► They finally have gotten over it.

00:18:51 ◼   ► So it's a it's a win for for consumers because they're gonna be able

00:18:55 ◼   ► to shop for GM cars and put them in their buying decisions too because

00:19:00 ◼   ► GM isn't closing the door on and saying no.

00:19:03 ◼   ► If you use a uh an app that are that is not ported to

00:19:08 ◼   ► our platform, you can't use our platform and you know, change your podcast app

00:19:13 ◼   ► in order to buy a car.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And like people aren't gonna do it.

00:19:16 ◼   ► They're just not gonna do it.

00:19:17 ◼   ► So um it's good news.

00:19:19 ◼   ► It's this is a rare uh technology win for consumers.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Um, so you know, good job.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And good job to whoever I mean getting corporations to change their policies when

00:19:31 ◼   ► they come out with a bold statement like that and then have to back

00:19:34 ◼   ► it down after three years, like that's not that doesn't happen every day.

00:19:38 ◼   ► So it's pretty impressive.

00:19:40 ◼   ► And I just threw this one in here for you.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Uh books have released a couple of new e readers, weird e readers that

00:19:46 ◼   ► I thought you might be interested in.

00:19:48 ◼   ► So a new version of the Palmer, which is their hand it's their phone

00:19:51 ◼   ► one.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Their Android.

00:19:53 ◼   ► It's a phone, yeah.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I showed it to you uh uh you saw that for the first time

00:19:56 ◼   ► like what, three years ago at the uh at the podcaston where you're like,

00:19:59 ◼   ► What is that?

00:20:00 ◼   ► And I th I immediately took a selfie road, I think.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Yes you did it, yeah.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Uh it features a new design.

00:20:06 ◼   ► It's more kind of like fancy looking design support for a stylus.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Um their color version has a stylus.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Loves that, yeah.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Um this version has a feature Android 16 though, which I'm sure will feel

00:20:18 ◼   ► much better than Android eleven and the Palmer two.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I'm sure the problem with Android and and um XT Inc.

00:20:24 ◼   ► the weird maker or maker of weird little e-readers, they also announced that they're

00:20:28 ◼   ► gonna do a a larger um uh uh device that runs Android.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Okay and my problem with this, I mean, and you're like well, that's great,

00:20:37 ◼   ► because then they can just run the Kindle and Kobo software and you don't

00:20:39 ◼   ► have to worry about how you get books on these things.

00:20:41 ◼   ► And that's true, but what I've learned over trying all these things out is

00:20:45 ◼   ► Android is built for phones and it's built for um hot fast refresh color

00:20:51 ◼   ► screens and getting them to adapt to e ink is a challenge.

00:20:55 ◼   ► Not that it can't be done and it's gotten better over time.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And we may get to the point where it's not.

00:21:02 ◼   ► But I, you know, I I remain skeptical just because every time I try

00:21:06 ◼   ► it I end up thinking nobody should do this.

00:21:09 ◼   ► No.

00:21:10 ◼   ► Um but uh but that is also going on.

00:21:13 ◼   ► And then yeah, the um They also made a little one.

00:21:15 ◼   ► E reader news XT Inc.

00:21:17 ◼   ► So XT Inc.

00:21:18 ◼   ► has a uh has a new e-reader that uh that I've got that is

00:21:24 ◼   ► still using CrossPoint, which is the open source firmware that's really, really great.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Um but this one's got a touch screen and a little home button touch

00:21:31 ◼   ► home button, and uh and most importantly, it's got lighting, so you can read

00:21:36 ◼   ► it in the dark.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Oh, is this the pro one that you were talking?

00:21:39 ◼   ► Yeah, this is the four pro.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Okay.

00:21:40 ◼   ► You and Dan were talking about this, I think, when he was on.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Yeah, the XD Inc.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Fourth Pro.

00:21:44 ◼   ► It's it's um it's pretty great.

00:21:46 ◼   ► But they are now also gonna do based, I think on a similar um

00:21:50 ◼   ► hardware size as that, they're gonna do uh an Android-based one.

00:21:54 ◼   ► So Books is doing uh Pico and then XDE Inc is making a big

00:21:59 ◼   ► one.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And Books, yeah, Books is making a a cross point-based e-reader.

00:22:05 ◼   ► Yes.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Using ESP an ESP32.

00:22:08 ◼   ► So they're going the other way.

00:22:09 ◼   ► So yeah, everybody's mixing up and everybody's doing weird e-readers and uh we'll see

00:22:14 ◼   ► where we'll we'll see where all this goes.

00:22:16 ◼   ► But I I like it that that that at least people are trying some

00:22:18 ◼   ► stuff because you know you look at a Kindle or a Kobo and they

00:22:21 ◼   ► basically are no different than they were ten years ago.

00:22:24 ◼   ► I mean yeah the the screens are better and the they're in color or

00:22:28 ◼   ► whatever, but they're like they're kind of the same shapes and sizes that they've

00:22:31 ◼   ► always been.

00:22:32 ◼   ► And these I I like that these like the little the the the point

00:22:35 ◼   ► of that that four Pro from XT Inc.

00:22:37 ◼   ► is it's a hundred dollars.

00:22:40 ◼   ► I mean, right?

00:22:41 ◼   ► The big problem is how do you get books on it?

00:22:44 ◼   ► And because it it won't support the Kindle or the Kobo stores.

00:22:47 ◼   ► Um, and that's a problem.

00:22:48 ◼   ► So Android might be the solution, but it might not be.

00:22:51 ◼   ► And the Android versions are not gonna cost.

00:22:53 ◼   ► $100 because you have to use a much more powerful set of tech to

00:22:59 ◼   ► run Android than you do to run an a little tiny teeny tiny open

00:23:02 ◼   ► source ESP32 e-reader operating system.

00:23:05 ◼   ► But it's a fun little corner of the market.

00:23:07 ◼   ► And it's nice when we have this era of tech giants to have these

00:23:10 ◼   ► like just super weird super weird hardware powered by an open source project that

00:23:16 ◼   ► you sideload using your web browser like I love it.

00:23:19 ◼   ► That's it's very cool.

00:23:22 ◼   ► This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic.

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00:23:49 ◼   ► So I think we spoke about it before, but I was trying to find

00:23:52 ◼   ► some software to help us make a kind of like a production uh schedule,

00:23:55 ◼   ► production workflow.

00:23:56 ◼   ► And I've just been unhappy with everything that we've been using.

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00:26:12 ◼   ► So you have had a Mac mini for review, the M six Mac Mini

00:26:18 ◼   ► for a few days now.

00:26:19 ◼   ► Um

00:26:21 ◼   ► and you wrote an article on six colours and I thought we would go

00:26:24 ◼   ► through some of this.

00:26:25 ◼   ► And Okay.

00:26:26 ◼   ► I mean really the the article that you've written, it's a story about the

00:26:30 ◼   ► M six, not really about the Mag Mini.

00:26:32 ◼   ► It is.

00:26:33 ◼   ► They they did not send me so they sent Federico, quite rightly, a high

00:26:36 ◼   ► end M five Ultra Mech studio.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:39 ◼   ► They sent me a a base model M six.

00:26:41 ◼   ► Mac Mini, which is fine 'cause that's the new chip.

00:26:44 ◼   ► I actually think that it's the the one that I would have chosen for

00:26:47 ◼   ► myself.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:48 ◼   ► And the things that Federico's doing, which by the way, Federico's put a great

00:26:51 ◼   ► article on backstories today of him doing local AI stuff with the M five

00:26:56 ◼   ► Ultra Mac Studio.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Like and it's amazing.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Like you can kind of see what the the local AI capabilities of this

00:27:04 ◼   ► chip and this hardware and these so much data that goes over my head,

00:27:08 ◼   ► but he made some really nice charts too, and the story that he tells

00:27:11 ◼   ► is really good.

00:27:12 ◼   ► But yeah, you're not gonna do that stuff, right?

00:27:14 ◼   ► Like that's just not your bag.

00:27:15 ◼   ► It's that's not my thing.

00:27:16 ◼   ► I'm not interested in that.

00:27:17 ◼   ► He was the he's the right person to write that story.

00:27:19 ◼   ► But I am very interested in the fact that this is the M6, which

00:27:23 ◼   ► is the start of a new Apple Silicon generation for the Mac, and possibly

00:27:27 ◼   ► also the end of it.

00:27:29 ◼   ► And so that's the most interesting thing about the product.

00:27:31 ◼   ► There's not much different.

00:27:33 ◼   ► Um, it is still the tiny one that they introduced with the M4.

00:27:37 ◼   ► They upgraded the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth finally to seven and six, respectively, and two

00:27:41 ◼   ► it's two point five gigabit Ethernet instead of one, I guess, as the standard,

00:27:46 ◼   ► and then ten is configurable.

00:27:48 ◼   ► The big change is that it costs, you know, fifty percent more than the

00:27:52 ◼   ► M4 version did when it launched.

00:27:54 ◼   ► They also upgraded the price.

00:27:57 ◼   ► It's very expensive.

00:27:58 ◼   ► They really upgraded that price.

00:27:59 ◼   ► Those are the in my mind, my review is about two things.

00:28:02 ◼   ► It's about Hey, Mac Mini's fun, but um not as fun as it was

00:28:06 ◼   ► because it costs way more.

00:28:07 ◼   ► And the M six, what does it mean?

00:28:10 ◼   ► How do we judge it based on where Apple has been up to now

00:28:15 ◼   ► with um Mac chips?

00:28:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Basically those are the two stories of about this product.

00:28:20 ◼   ► There's a there's a fun there is I mean it's it's a bit it's

00:28:23 ◼   ► unnecessary, but a fun thing, like you know, you you do your charts for

00:28:26 ◼   ► performance, you could have done a chart for price, you know.

00:28:29 ◼   ► It's like 50% year over year of growth on price.

00:28:33 ◼   ► It would be yeah.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And if you pull it out, what what a funny one?

00:28:36 ◼   ► Because I always hear from those people who are like Killjoys, who are very

00:28:40 ◼   ► much like You mentioned a price from the past.

00:28:42 ◼   ► You should say how much is in today's dollars.

00:28:45 ◼   ► I get that a lot.

00:28:46 ◼   ► Oh right.

00:28:47 ◼   ► And I do that voice because not because that can't be a good observation,

00:28:50 ◼   ► because of but because a lot of times it is it is it uh

00:28:54 ◼   ► misunderstands how podcasts work or even how writing works where like you can't mention

00:29:01 ◼   ► past prices every time and normalize them for present prices.

00:29:06 ◼   ► You just can't.

00:29:07 ◼   ► It's not you can't.

00:29:09 ◼   ► That said, I was tickled to discover that that original 499 Mac Mini, the

00:29:15 ◼   ► very first, you know, PowerPC Mac Mini, that was the one that was $4.99,

00:29:20 ◼   ► because the next year they raised it to $599, in today's dollars.

00:29:25 ◼   ► It's like eight forty or something.

00:29:26 ◼   ► It's still less than eight ninety nine.

00:29:28 ◼   ► So uh nearly adjusted

00:29:31 ◼   ► nearly adjusted even adjusted for inflation, the new Mac Mini is more expensive.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Close.

00:29:37 ◼   ► Close.

00:29:38 ◼   ► So let's talk about the six.

00:29:41 ◼   ► So as a reminder, the M six is the first actually first two nanometer

00:29:45 ◼   ► chip, right?

00:29:45 ◼   ► Like they announced this one before the A twenty pro came out in the

00:29:49 ◼   ► new iPhones.

00:29:50 ◼   ► So we knew about the M six first, then the A twenty came out

00:29:54 ◼   ► and now the M six has come out.

00:29:57 ◼   ► It's

00:29:59 ◼   ► this chip is the first one to get all three core types in the

00:30:04 ◼   ► base.

00:30:04 ◼   ► That's wild.

00:30:05 ◼   ► We thought they were playing just semantic games and they were like, no, no,

00:30:08 ◼   ► we've got a super core and a performance core, and they're different, and they

00:30:11 ◼   ► used them in different chips.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And they remember they renamed chips uh that used to be called performance, but

00:30:17 ◼   ► they decided I think what ended up happening is those chips were new cores

00:30:22 ◼   ► and they just called them performance cores because that's what they always called the

00:30:27 ◼   ► high end core.

00:30:28 ◼   ► And then and then somebody was like, No, no, no, no, no.

00:30:30 ◼   ► We're gonna use both kinds of cores and future processors.

00:30:34 ◼   ► So you can't call them the same thing because they're different.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Yep.

00:30:37 ◼   ► And and maybe that was a marketing decision.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Maybe the chip people were like, you misunderstood how this is.

00:30:43 ◼   ► I don't know what was going on there.

00:30:44 ◼   ► So they retroactively renamed the high-end cores in the M5 to super from performance.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And we thought, okay, you know, whatever.

00:30:52 ◼   ► But it turns out part of what they were thinking is, well, in the

00:30:55 ◼   ► M6 generation, we're going to have all three core types.

00:30:59 ◼   ► We're going to have two supers for Four performances and six efficiencies, which is

00:31:03 ◼   ► what this chip has.

00:31:05 ◼   ► So it's 12 CPU cores, but two of them are designed.

00:31:10 ◼   ► They're super.

00:31:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:31:11 ◼   ► They're super.

00:31:12 ◼   ► They're designed for single-threaded performance at maximum um speed.

00:31:18 ◼   ► So the idea there is you've got a task and it can't be chopped

00:31:21 ◼   ► up into little bits and fed to different CPU cores.

00:31:23 ◼   ► It just needs to be done as fast as possible.

00:31:26 ◼   ► Super cores do that.

00:31:27 ◼   ► And that's a kind of I mean, what they're doing here is they're computer

00:31:30 ◼   ► tasks are organized and structured and trying to build their chips in a way

00:31:35 ◼   ► that's the most efficient for all of these different kinds of jobs.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Because there are some jobs that are single-threaded, beefy tasks that just need to

00:31:43 ◼   ► be handled.

00:31:44 ◼   ► And the supercore will crank up and eat power.

00:31:47 ◼   ► I mean they'll they'll probably say, well no, they're if they're very efficient, they'll

00:31:51 ◼   ► say.

00:31:51 ◼   ► But like relative to other cores, they are happy to sp to crank up

00:31:55 ◼   ► to high speed high power in order to solve this task fast.

00:32:00 ◼   ► The performance cores that are like the ones we're used to, Apple says they're

00:32:07 ◼   ► more about multi-threaded tasks.

00:32:09 ◼   ► So they're beefy tasks, but they're able to chop them up into more bits.

00:32:13 ◼   ► So you've got four of those.

00:32:14 ◼   ► So if the task can be chopped up, the system scheduler will throw those

00:32:18 ◼   ► to the performance course and they will do that and they i they succeed

00:32:22 ◼   ► um well at that.

00:32:24 ◼   ► And then the efficiency cores, a lot of stuff our computers do is just

00:32:27 ◼   ► happening in the background.

00:32:28 ◼   ► And it doesn't need it isn't like super high priority.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Yes.

00:32:32 ◼   ► It just needs to happen in an efficient way.

00:32:34 ◼   ► And the efficiency cores are happy to take that, which is why these computers

00:32:38 ◼   ► generally um have great battery life if they're laptops and don't use a lot

00:32:41 ◼   ► of power, is because unless you're running something that's super intense, your computer's kind

00:32:46 ◼   ► of bubbling along in the background, the pricey cores just don't do anything.

00:32:51 ◼   ► They they shut off.

00:32:53 ◼   ► They're not pulling power.

00:32:54 ◼   ► And those super efficient cores just kind of bubble along.

00:32:57 ◼   ► And there's six of them.

00:32:58 ◼   ► So like you can have a lot of like little tasks that are going

00:33:01 ◼   ► on.

00:33:02 ◼   ► And it's like your computer is, you know, barely using energy because they're so

00:33:06 ◼   ► efficient.

00:33:06 ◼   ► So that they they mix them all together, which is just it's it's a

00:33:09 ◼   ► first and it's in this low end M six, which is funny that they

00:33:13 ◼   ► that this is where it it comes out the uh the the first time

00:33:16 ◼   ► is in in the M6.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Yeah, the you know, the inclusion of of these cores essentially just makes the

00:33:23 ◼   ► whole processor efficient, right?

00:33:24 ◼   ► Because it is it's not using what it doesn't need to use for any

00:33:29 ◼   ► particular task.

00:33:30 ◼   ► You're not trying to push efficiency calls further than they can go.

00:33:34 ◼   ► You're not using put uh performance cores or super calls in places that they're

00:33:39 ◼   ► not needed.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Like that's their package, right?

00:33:42 ◼   ► The the idea here, I think, is, like I said, they're profiling what jobs

00:33:47 ◼   ► computers do, right?

00:33:48 ◼   ► That's part of the job of the Apple Silicon Engineers is what is what

00:33:53 ◼   ► is a a Mac OS uh spread of tasks look like.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And pr the first thing they did is say,

00:34:00 ◼   ► there's a bunch of things that are low level and not priority that we

00:34:04 ◼   ► can really save energy on.

00:34:06 ◼   ► And there are a bunch of tasks that are high priority and we should

00:34:10 ◼   ► spend the power to do them because that is what makes your computer feel

00:34:14 ◼   ► fast.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Um and then obviously as they as they moved along, this is the sixth

00:34:19 ◼   ► generation of these M chips, they looked at it and said, On the Mac,

00:34:23 ◼   ► at least they're are kind of three.

00:34:26 ◼   ► There are there are the cause I I think a lot of times computer

00:34:29 ◼   ► people are like, everything needs to be multi-threaded, right?

00:34:33 ◼   ► Like, oh the dream of the multi-threaded.

00:34:35 ◼   ► And and the reality is some stuff is just single threaded.

00:34:37 ◼   ► It's just gonna be single threaded for reasons.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Maybe it's reasons of the software being inefficient.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Maybe it's reasons of the job not being appropriately chunked into threads.

00:34:46 ◼   ► It needs to run once.

00:34:47 ◼   ► It needs to run fast.

00:34:49 ◼   ► And so they do that profiling and they're like, all right, I guess maybe

00:34:52 ◼   ► we need three different cores.

00:34:54 ◼   ► And then you have a system scheduler that's smart that says You go here,

00:34:57 ◼   ► you go there.

00:34:58 ◼   ► You get this, you get that, you get this, you get that.

00:35:00 ◼   ► And if they can tune all that well, what they get is a ideally

00:35:04 ◼   ► is a processor that is super fast when it needs to be, whether it's

00:35:08 ◼   ► single core or multi-threaded jobs, but most of the time is not using power,

00:35:14 ◼   ► so you get good battery life on your laptops, which are three quarters of

00:35:17 ◼   ► the max that Apple sells.

00:35:19 ◼   ► It's like as you mentioned, right?

00:35:20 ◼   ► Like wouldn't it be great if every piece of software was multi-threaded?

00:35:23 ◼   ► And that's a nice idea.

00:35:25 ◼   ► But you can't design your chip for something that doesn't exist.

00:35:30 ◼   ► And the fact that there is still a lot of software and a lot

00:35:32 ◼   ► of processes that require single core performance, put good single core chips in the

00:35:37 ◼   ► machine to handle that, right?

00:35:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Um I'm gonna put on my John Syracusa hat for a moment and say,

00:35:43 ◼   ► Well, you you can you can design your chips for things that don't exist

00:35:49 ◼   ► But you shouldn't.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:50 ◼   ► I think that this is the like That would be bad.

00:35:53 ◼   ► I think my brain tends to move towards business ro like uh No, I

00:35:58 ◼   ► get it.

00:35:58 ◼   ► I get it.

00:35:58 ◼   ► I just I I I have my own energy on Syracuse has said, Well

00:36:01 ◼   ► you can, Mike.

00:36:02 ◼   ► You you you can do it.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Absolutely can, Jim.

00:36:04 ◼   ► Just don't do it.

00:36:05 ◼   ► You absolutely can do that.

00:36:06 ◼   ► But

00:36:08 ◼   ► I wouldn't.

00:36:08 ◼   ► You could.

00:36:09 ◼   ► I wouldn't.

00:36:10 ◼   ► So it's really interesting.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Again, this is the just to be clear.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:13 ◼   ► This is the low end chip.

00:36:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:15 ◼   ► This is the low end, the the M six.

00:36:17 ◼   ► This will be in a MacBook Air next year, right?

00:36:19 ◼   ► And it's got these three different kinds of cores.

00:36:22 ◼   ► Like it's wild.

00:36:23 ◼   ► It's wild.

00:36:23 ◼   ► But wait, there's more.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Twelve GPU cores, each of a neural accelerator.

00:36:27 ◼   ► So that was made.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Neural accelerators.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Not new to the M series, because the M five had them.

00:36:33 ◼   ► This is the idea that they uh again, this is a realism thing versus

00:36:37 ◼   ► an idealism thing where Apple had had like the neural engine.

00:36:40 ◼   ► They're like, ah, we've got our own neural Processor, it's great.

00:36:43 ◼   ► People should probably use that for AI jobs.

00:36:46 ◼   ► And the AI world is like, we're just gonna use GPUs.

00:36:49 ◼   ► Yep.

00:36:50 ◼   ► And like you can be persuasive and say you should really use take advantage

00:36:53 ◼   ► of the neural engine.

00:36:54 ◼   ► It's like great, great, great.

00:36:55 ◼   ► But there's gonna be stuff out there that's just like, no, this just runs

00:36:58 ◼   ► on the GPU.

00:36:59 ◼   ► I've seen this with a lot of the AI stuff that I use for

00:37:01 ◼   ► like uh

00:37:02 ◼   ► a lot of the transcription models.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I'll be or or or an audio cleanup model in isotope or something.

00:37:09 ◼   ► And And you play the game like, what does this what does this command

00:37:14 ◼   ► do?

00:37:15 ◼   ► And sometimes it's oh, this is on the CPU.

00:37:17 ◼   ► And sometimes it's like, oh, this is on the GPU.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And like there's no way to tell how they built it.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Um and so the neural accelerator, which they introduced with the M five,

00:37:29 ◼   ► is a a way to take GPU cores, Apple's GPU cores, and make them

00:37:34 ◼   ► better for AI tasks in a way that they weren't before.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Because some people are going to be running serious AI tasks on GPUs and

00:37:42 ◼   ► not on the neural neural engine, and that's

00:37:45 ◼   ► you should make it better.

00:37:46 ◼   ► And so they did.

00:37:47 ◼   ► It's new.

00:37:48 ◼   ► This is one of the confusing things about the new Mac Mini, right?

00:37:51 ◼   ► It's new in the Mac Mini because the Mac Mini didn't have an M5

00:37:56 ◼   ► before, it had an M4 before.

00:37:58 ◼   ► So whether it's the high end Mac Mini that's got the M5 Pro, uh,

00:38:02 ◼   ► or it's the low end Mac Mini that's got the M6, neither of them

00:38:05 ◼   ► had the neural accelerators with the GPUs before because they were M4s before.

00:38:10 ◼   ► But it's not actually new to the chip.

00:38:13 ◼   ► It's new to the computer.

00:38:14 ◼   ► But it's important because again, it affects uh GPU performance, especially AI based GPU

00:38:22 ◼   ► performance.

00:38:23 ◼   ► And you mentioned the Neural Engine.

00:38:24 ◼   ► This is a ship has the dual sixteen core Neural Engine um where they've

00:38:30 ◼   ► essentially just put two of them in there.

00:38:31 ◼   ► There's just two of them.

00:38:32 ◼   ► Yeah, and that it's exactly like the A twenty.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:35 ◼   ► So it's obviously just that is the generational thing they decide to do.

00:38:38 ◼   ► And it's funny, I I assume that this is a relatively low cost thing

00:38:45 ◼   ► for Apple to do to boost their um their neural processor power.

00:38:51 ◼   ► And again, I don't know whether they're seeing like everybody everybody's hungry for more

00:38:56 ◼   ► neural engine performance, or if they're just pointing at it and saying, you should

00:39:02 ◼   ► really look at the Neural Engine.

00:39:04 ◼   ► It's very powerful.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Or if it's even just because some of their competitors talk about NPUs now

00:39:09 ◼   ► in their in their computers a lot, the AI PCs and stuff like that.

00:39:13 ◼   ► And this allows them to say, well now we've got two 16 core neural

00:39:17 ◼   ► engines in addition to our CPU and our GPU.

00:39:19 ◼   ► So try that on for size, right?

00:39:21 ◼   ► Like I I I don't know what the motivator is here, but given that

00:39:25 ◼   ► it's also in the phone chips, my guess is it was a why not.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Like this doesn't have a a great deal of cost to us to include

00:39:32 ◼   ► this.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Maybe I'm like, Oh, it has incredible cost.

00:39:35 ◼   ► But like it strikes me as something where they're like, We could do this

00:39:39 ◼   ► relatively easily and double our neural uh engine power.

00:39:43 ◼   ► So why don't so they did it.

00:39:44 ◼   ► And it's easier than advancing it or whatever.

00:39:47 ◼   ► Right?

00:39:48 ◼   ► Like the the way to do it right now is to just put a

00:39:50 ◼   ► second one in rather than making it better.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Part of the chip game and every time there's a new chip we talk

00:39:55 ◼   ► about this, but like part of the chip game here is you can't upgrade

00:39:59 ◼   ► every component every time, right?

00:40:01 ◼   ► Like and and if you look at my charts, I went into this a

00:40:03 ◼   ► little bit where you can see like this was a good year for GPUs.

00:40:07 ◼   ► This was a good year for multi, you know, for multi core performance.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And every year is not a good year for GPUs.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Every year is not a good year for uh CPUs because there's a new

00:40:18 ◼   ► core design.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Like that's not how they do it.

00:40:21 ◼   ► It goes one and one, two, three, four, five six.

00:40:25 ◼   ► But what it doesn't do is that every every component got upgraded.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Like they they do it in in waves.

00:40:32 ◼   ► And so, you know, the neural engine upgrade is not that the neural engine

00:40:37 ◼   ► cores are new, because I'm sure they're not.

00:40:39 ◼   ► It's that there's more there's twice as many.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Like, and that's a great way.

00:40:44 ◼   ► If you've got a year, this is foreshadowing.

00:40:46 ◼   ► If you've got a year where your actual upgrade on a particular core type

00:40:52 ◼   ► is not particularly interesting,

00:40:55 ◼   ► what you can do is just add more cores.

00:40:58 ◼   ► And then you get a speed improvement.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Which is not cheating.

00:41:01 ◼   ► It's just another way to do it.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Yep.

00:41:03 ◼   ► I was thinking about this today, right?

00:41:05 ◼   ► I was thinking about the CPU, I was thinking about the GPU, the Neural

00:41:09 ◼   ► Engine.

00:41:09 ◼   ► I don't know about you, Jason.

00:41:11 ◼   ► I have no idea how these things work.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Like, I have absolutely zero idea.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I have a vague idea which doesn't doesn't help.

00:41:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:19 ◼   ► I have a vague idea which is worse because you realize how little you

00:41:22 ◼   ► know about it.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It's like, you know, it's like I don't even I just have no idea.

00:41:31 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:41:32 ◼   ► Look, there's computers, there's like silicon, there's like a wafer.

00:41:35 ◼   ► There's in a fab.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Fab.

00:41:37 ◼   ► I've been in a fab.

00:41:38 ◼   ► I wore a bunny suit and a fab.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Did you get the secret in that?

00:41:42 ◼   ► I I saw the I saw the uh the big um the big discs,

00:41:46 ◼   ► the big silicon wafers that they did that that they inscribe.

00:41:51 ◼   ► You know, yeah, that's why I am who I am now, which is somebody

00:41:55 ◼   ► who knows exactly how little he knows about chips.

00:41:58 ◼   ► Right.

00:41:58 ◼   ► So I c I've come a long way.

00:42:00 ◼   ► My time in Fishkill New York at the IBM fab really made an impression.

00:42:06 ◼   ► It's it really is just like it absolutely feels like magic to me.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Like it really

00:42:13 ◼   ► is.

00:42:14 ◼   ► I'm sure there are people that understand, but I don't know what plane of

00:42:19 ◼   ► existence they're operating on.

00:42:21 ◼   ► There there Mike, they these do not appear magically.

00:42:24 ◼   ► There are lots of people who understand it.

00:42:26 ◼   ► Many of them are at TSMC.

00:42:28 ◼   ► A bunch of others are in with uh Johnny Sruji in the lab.

00:42:32 ◼   ► They are they are, you know, very bright people who understand this stuff at

00:42:36 ◼   ► a deep level.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I did say I'm sure that they are.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Like I I I was confident that people do exist up.

00:42:41 ◼   ► That's good, yes.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:42:43 ◼   ► I th yeah, but it's a little like saying, you know, I'm sure that

00:42:46 ◼   ► the earth is is round.

00:42:48 ◼   ► I am sure.

00:42:49 ◼   ► Yeah I am sure.

00:42:50 ◼   ► I'm sure.

00:42:51 ◼   ► I I'm just gonna say I bet that not everybody that works on this

00:42:55 ◼   ► fully understands it though.

00:42:57 ◼   ► Like Well I mean, I think I think that at some point you're so

00:43:00 ◼   ► deep down in that you may only know one portion of it.

00:43:03 ◼   ► It is amazing.

00:43:04 ◼   ► This is this is amazing and it is one of these areas where Apple

00:43:06 ◼   ► Apple has especially excelled.

00:43:07 ◼   ► The it it's pretty incredible that Apple is at this point.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Um so yeah.

00:43:13 ◼   ► Um Let's talk some numbers.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Let's talk some numbers.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:17 ◼   ► So in your testing, the M six is eleven percent faster in single core

00:43:21 ◼   ► than the M5 and 13% faster in multi-core than the M5.

00:43:26 ◼   ► You didn't seem particularly thrilled with these numbers.

00:43:32 ◼   ► These numbers are fine, right?

00:43:37 ◼   ► It is

00:43:39 ◼   ► average.

00:43:40 ◼   ► Again, I'm not trying

00:43:42 ◼   ► to damn the M6 with faint praise.

00:43:44 ◼   ► I'm trying to say that the M6 is exactly in line.

00:43:46 ◼   ► I have in my article, you will see I brought out all the charts.

00:43:49 ◼   ► I've got these charts of like charting M1 to M6 performance in a bunch

00:43:54 ◼   ► of different ways.

00:43:56 ◼   ► And the line goes up, the trend line goes up.

00:43:58 ◼   ► But what happens, like I said a minute ago, is from generation to generation,

00:44:04 ◼   ► aspects of the tr of the uh generational change are up or up or

00:44:09 ◼   ► down from the trend line, right?

00:44:10 ◼   ► Like you've got your good generations that lift everything and you're not bad, but

00:44:15 ◼   ► like your generations where not a lot changes.

00:44:17 ◼   ► And that is the bottom line with the M6 is just not to put

00:44:21 ◼   ► too fine a point on it.

00:44:22 ◼   ► Single core CPU growth basically dead average.

00:44:27 ◼   ► Multi-core CPU growth,

00:44:30 ◼   ► basically dead average.

00:44:33 ◼   ► Good, but kind of dead average.

00:44:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:36 ◼   ► GPU growth on the chip chip, M5 to M6, dead on average, 24%.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Which is good.

00:44:43 ◼   ► That's like a really I mean, the the truth is.

00:44:45 ◼   ► Apple Silicon as an era, every year, essentially, you get

00:44:52 ◼   ► ten to twenty percent better CPUs and ten to twenty to thirty percent better

00:44:58 ◼   ► GPU in your chip.

00:45:01 ◼   ► So every generation of MacBook Air is, you know, fifteen to twenty five, depending

00:45:06 ◼   ► on how you measure, percent faster.

00:45:08 ◼   ► That's great.

00:45:09 ◼   ► That is for those who think back to the Intel era.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Think back to when you'd wait like two and a half, three years for

00:45:15 ◼   ► a new version and it would be eight percent faster.

00:45:17 ◼   ► This is remarkable.

00:45:18 ◼   ► And the pace of progress, that's why I have those charts that go one,

00:45:22 ◼   ► two, three, four, five, six, is you can see what has been going on

00:45:26 ◼   ► in Apple Silicon.

00:45:28 ◼   ► But I also have to say and be clear about it, the M6 is

00:45:33 ◼   ► not an outlier.

00:45:34 ◼   ► The M6 is the usual.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Yep.

00:45:38 ◼   ► And um

00:45:41 ◼   ► to resolve my foreshadowing,

00:45:44 ◼   ► if you divide the GPU scores on the M6 by the number of GPU

00:45:51 ◼   ► cores on the M6, which is 12 instead of 10 on the M5.

00:45:56 ◼   ► Yep.

00:45:57 ◼   ► What you find is that per core, it was not a 24% improvement.

00:46:03 ◼   ► It was a 3% improvement, which is a classic that Apple has done throughout

00:46:08 ◼   ► this era, which is if your core doesn't get faster, put in more cores

00:46:13 ◼   ► instead.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:14 ◼   ► I mean, it works.

00:46:16 ◼   ► And your core and the tr and again, just to be clear, your cores

00:46:21 ◼   ► your GPU cores can't get faster every year.

00:46:23 ◼   ► They can't because you've also got to do all these other things to the

00:46:26 ◼   ► chips.

00:46:27 ◼   ► They are not capable of upgrading every single thing every year.

00:46:29 ◼   ► It's just not possible.

00:46:30 ◼   ► And they don't try.

00:46:31 ◼   ► So in the end, the M6 generation, if I look at it, is up

00:46:37 ◼   ► to up to par with a dramatically impressive march of M series processors.

00:46:44 ◼   ► But what I can't say is, well, they really killed it with the CPUs

00:46:48 ◼   ► this year or whatever.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Like I can't say that.

00:46:51 ◼   ► Um I guess the doubling the neural engine again

00:46:56 ◼   ► is good.

00:46:57 ◼   ► Like they did a good job.

00:46:58 ◼   ► The the those those neural scores.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Uh if you look at at like Geekbench AI, like

00:47:05 ◼   ► they're a lot better 'cause they've got if you look at the neural engine

00:47:08 ◼   ► scores, 'cause they have twice as many, right?

00:47:12 ◼   ► Like, okay great.

00:47:14 ◼   ► What what though and this is my thesis that I think is the we

00:47:17 ◼   ► it was the weirdest part of my article when I got there because I

00:47:19 ◼   ► was like, I think I I think this is what I think here.

00:47:21 ◼   ► I think I need to say this, which is I look at this and

00:47:25 ◼   ► I think about Mark German's reporting.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Yeah, that they killed the M6 Pro and Max and are going straight to

00:47:33 ◼   ► M7.

00:47:35 ◼   ► And I think if your next chip generation that you know about as Apple

00:47:40 ◼   ► is, according to Mark Gurman, a remarkable improvement

00:47:46 ◼   ► in all the things that you're prioritizing, which is on device AI and graphics

00:47:52 ◼   ► intensive software, which is what Mark Gurman reported.

00:47:56 ◼   ► If that presumably that means your neural engines and your GPUs, especially in M

00:48:01 ◼   ► seven, are gonna blow you away.

00:48:03 ◼   ► M six is just sort of like, it's there.

00:48:05 ◼   ► They added more cores, but the GPU didn't get better the core itself.

00:48:09 ◼   ► But M seven you look at and you go, Oh boy this is awesome.

00:48:14 ◼   ► And now that we've seen M six, I can see why you'd kill the

00:48:17 ◼   ► rest of the M six line.

00:48:19 ◼   ► I totally do.

00:48:20 ◼   ► I see it.

00:48:21 ◼   ► Not that it's bad, but that it's not particularly interesting.

00:48:25 ◼   ► It's not a leap.

00:48:26 ◼   ► It's just a step.

00:48:27 ◼   ► And if they've got M7 ready to go next year, and they're thinking like,

00:48:33 ◼   ► wait a second, we're gonna release M6 Pro systems and waste our time with

00:48:38 ◼   ► them in 27 when we could just wait six months, maybe nine months, and

00:48:43 ◼   ► put out the M7s that are so much better.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Like, everything I've seen in the base M6 makes me say, I understand why

00:48:51 ◼   ► they killed the M six Pro and Max, if that is if that is

00:48:55 ◼   ► the case.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Because if they've got that next generation and it's incredibly impressive,

00:49:01 ◼   ► what are we doing here?

00:49:02 ◼   ► Like I would make that decision.

00:49:03 ◼   ► I totally understand it.

00:49:04 ◼   ► If if that's what's going on, it kind of makes sense.

00:49:08 ◼   ► Like you've got standard pace chip.

00:49:11 ◼   ► We can do another year at standard pace.

00:49:13 ◼   ► Maybe we're feeling the pressure of AI.

00:49:17 ◼   ► And maybe our only thing, our only card to play on AI is the

00:49:20 ◼   ► power of our on device, AI.

00:49:22 ◼   ► See Federico's review for more, right?

00:49:24 ◼   ► Well, if that's our card to play right now, because chips are where we're

00:49:28 ◼   ► good and AI models is not where we're good, then taking your next generation

00:49:32 ◼   ► that has big leaps and tabling your current generation that doesn't is the most

00:49:39 ◼   ► rational thing you could possibly do.

00:49:41 ◼   ► So having stared directly into the M6, I get it.

00:49:45 ◼   ► I get it.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Your overall feeling though, it's just I really liked reading this, was let me

00:49:51 ◼   ► be clear, kind of about the Mac Mini.

00:49:54 ◼   ► I love it.

00:49:55 ◼   ► It's amazing.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I love the Mac I mean that that's the thing, is I I I

00:49:58 ◼   ► I finished writing about the chips and I'm like, okay.

00:50:00 ◼   ► This is a Mac mini review, what do I say?

00:50:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:03 ◼   ► And I got out my old Mac Minis.

00:50:04 ◼   ► I've had a Mac mini since the first one uh running as a server

00:50:07 ◼   ► in my house, basically.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Um

00:50:10 ◼   ► And I remember when like I literally wrote a blog post call I Mac

00:50:14 ◼   ► Mini, I want to believe.

00:50:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:16 ◼   ► I remember.

00:50:16 ◼   ► That was like they're not gonna kill it, right?

00:50:19 ◼   ► They they really shouldn't, right?

00:50:21 ◼   ► Like it it fills so many ecological niches that no other Mac fills that

00:50:25 ◼   ► you you you need to have it, right?

00:50:28 ◼   ► And so to be where we are now, where they did finally do a

00:50:31 ◼   ► redesign of the design and it's amazing.

00:50:33 ◼   ► The two by two or what, five by five by two thing.

00:50:37 ◼   ► It's it's laughably we were we were before we started the show, like I

00:50:41 ◼   ► laid the i iPhone s eighteen pro max on top of the Mac Mini

00:50:46 ◼   ► and like it's so much longer than the the phone phone is than the

00:50:52 ◼   ► Mac Mini.

00:50:53 ◼   ► It's like it's hilarious.

00:50:54 ◼   ► It's like, oh yeah, that thing's really small.

00:50:58 ◼   ► But um it's a great little product.

00:51:00 ◼   ► I'm so glad that it exists.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Apple Silicon has given it a new lease on life.

00:51:05 ◼   ► I love that the tiny size means it fits in more places.

00:51:08 ◼   ► It doesn't just fit into your ecosystem.

00:51:10 ◼   ► It literally fits into wherever you want to tuck it.

00:51:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:15 ◼   ► And the only, you know, the only downside is the price.

00:51:17 ◼   ► And and regarding that, and this is how I end the story, right?

00:51:20 ◼   ► Like regarding that, I think the important thing to me is at its old

00:51:27 ◼   ► price,

00:51:29 ◼   ► you and thinking of it as an ecological niche filler, you would say, I

00:51:34 ◼   ► could just get a Mac mini to do that and plug it in somewhere

00:51:37 ◼   ► in your life.

00:51:38 ◼   ► Like people, they're they're and I say more technical people who are more comfortable

00:51:42 ◼   ► with this, do that all the time.

00:51:44 ◼   ► With I I could stick an ESP32 here, or I could stick a Raspberry

00:51:48 ◼   ► Pi here, right?

00:51:49 ◼   ► I could stick a Mac Mini here.

00:51:51 ◼   ► If you're a Mac user, this is the advice I gave to you about

00:51:53 ◼   ► like do I want to have a uh some sort of a NAS?

00:51:57 ◼   ► And I was like, well, you might want a Mac because that's why I

00:52:01 ◼   ► run a Mac server is I'm just more comfortable.

00:52:03 ◼   ► I can do command line stuff but like if I could run an app

00:52:05 ◼   ► and then see how it's like I just know how to use that.

00:52:10 ◼   ► And when but when and I understand why they do it, I understand the

00:52:14 ◼   ► world we live in now, but when you raise the price of that Mac

00:52:17 ◼   ► Mini by 50%, it is no longer a why don't I just plug a

00:52:21 ◼   ► Mac Mini there?

00:52:23 ◼   ► It's just not.

00:52:24 ◼   ► It is now a.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Do I need a new computer?

00:52:28 ◼   ► Will this give me an upgrade that would be valuable to me?

00:52:30 ◼   ► Especially if you've got like an external display you bought a studio display a

00:52:33 ◼   ► few years ago.

00:52:34 ◼   ► You you bought a Mac Mini around then, and uh it's the the computer's

00:52:39 ◼   ► getting along in the teeth, but the

00:52:42 ◼   ► the display is fine, right?

00:52:43 ◼   ► You can look at this and you can make a calculation and say It's

00:52:47 ◼   ► worth it.

00:52:48 ◼   ► I could get the base Mac Mini.

00:52:49 ◼   ► That would be pretty nice.

00:52:50 ◼   ► You could do that, but we have lost something.

00:52:53 ◼   ► There's no doubt about it.

00:52:54 ◼   ► We have lost something because

00:52:57 ◼   ► that was the most affordable desktop Mac ever made.

00:53:00 ◼   ► The M4 Mac Mini by you know today's dollars to go back to today's

00:53:05 ◼   ► dollars.

00:53:06 ◼   ► And that era is over for now.

00:53:08 ◼   ► And that's a bummer because it is such a great product.

00:53:10 ◼   ► And it was really great when you could just say, why wouldn't I buy

00:53:14 ◼   ► a Mac mini and stick it there?

00:53:16 ◼   ► And that was a really nice period of time that's over.

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00:55:27 ◼   ► It's iPhone time.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Jason.

00:55:30 ◼   ► It is.

00:55:30 ◼   ► We're not uh again, we're not in Memphis.

00:55:33 ◼   ► It's like the last few years, new iPhone day has been when we're in

00:55:38 ◼   ► Memphis.

00:55:38 ◼   ► And so we've had we've gotten together in person and you know you and

00:55:43 ◼   ► me and Steven and several other people and and gotten a look at the

00:55:46 ◼   ► new iPhones.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Yep.

00:55:47 ◼   ► And um we intelligently moved the podcastathon back.

00:55:52 ◼   ► I I I love that we were like, hey, it's high season for us.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Let's do a telethon right then.

00:55:57 ◼   ► But it's nice to not have all those things happening simultaneously.

00:56:01 ◼   ► But yeah, I've got I've got um so you I've got an eighteen pro

00:56:05 ◼   ► Max here that is a review unit from Apple and I've got a Apple

00:56:08 ◼   ► Watch series twelve here.

00:56:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:56:10 ◼   ► And I you've got a new um iPhone eighteen pro and a new watch

00:56:15 ◼   ► and a series twelve series twelve ceramic.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Look, I just got this, I was working on the Mac Mini review.

00:56:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:24 ◼   ► I just got this phone on Friday.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Yep.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Um, or maybe Thursday.

00:56:27 ◼   ► It w it you know and and it was busy with the Mac Mini

00:56:30 ◼   ► and all the embargo reviews came out, right?

00:56:33 ◼   ► So I've got to do long-term review where I think about it.

00:56:36 ◼   ► So I am wearing the series twelve and I'm sleeping, you know, using it

00:56:42 ◼   ► so that I can do sleep tracking and I can look like I'm trying

00:56:44 ◼   ► to do a commit I'm committing to it for a while.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Before I review it so that I can do something that's more meaningful because

00:56:53 ◼   ► you know, everybody else the embargo the great thing about embargo review is that

00:56:56 ◼   ► you're there at that first moment to weigh in.

00:56:59 ◼   ► The bad thing about embargo review is, and I saw people posting this, it's

00:57:03 ◼   ► like, I've been using this iPhone for three days and here's my complete review.

00:57:07 ◼   ► Like three days?

00:57:09 ◼   ► Like

00:57:10 ◼   ► it's very hard.

00:57:11 ◼   ► You you're you're having to make snap decisions about these products to review them

00:57:15 ◼   ► that fast.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Well, I don't have that problem here.

00:57:18 ◼   ► So I'm taking my time.

00:57:20 ◼   ► Um but I do have one snap judgment that I can render because the

00:57:25 ◼   ► great mystery was Jason Snell snap judgment.

00:57:28 ◼   ► It is

00:57:30 ◼   ► color czar update.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Um the cla the classic question uh and we could even call this the

00:57:36 ◼   ► MacBook Air sky blue question, is

00:57:41 ◼   ► Is it a color?

00:57:42 ◼   ► How blue is it?

00:57:45 ◼   ► Is it actually a color or is it a slight sheen in certain angles

00:57:50 ◼   ► of light, uh, that makes it not silver.

00:57:53 ◼   ► And my my I am happy to report that Apple sent me a Glacier

00:57:58 ◼   ► iPhone.

00:57:59 ◼   ► And I am happy to report that the Glacier iPhone is Actually blue.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it is really notably blue.

00:58:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:07 ◼   ► You couldn't miss it.

00:58:08 ◼   ► It's not for everyone.

00:58:09 ◼   ► I know it's not for you.

00:58:11 ◼   ► I look, I agree that it is blue.

00:58:14 ◼   ► I don't like the blue that it is, right?

00:58:16 ◼   ► Like I would buy them, but it's not black.

00:58:18 ◼   ► The glacier.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Probably.

00:58:20 ◼   ► I mean the black would be tempting.

00:58:21 ◼   ► I might just buy the black, but I would be tempted by the blue.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Having lived with an orange phone for a year, I would be tempted by

00:58:28 ◼   ► the blue because it's not a bright blue, but it's a nice blue.

00:58:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:32 ◼   ► An actual blue color from Apple.

00:58:36 ◼   ► So I haven't seen the burgundy.

00:58:38 ◼   ► You saw the burgundy?

00:58:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:39 ◼   ► I look, I appreciate

00:58:43 ◼   ► That colour that people like that colour.

00:58:46 ◼   ► I do not like that color.

00:58:48 ◼   ► Like I d I I just don't like the way it looks.

00:58:52 ◼   ► Like it's too it's too dark for me.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Um it's definitely a colour, right?

00:58:57 ◼   ► Like it's not like um it's not like the way in which the duo

00:59:01 ◼   ► is blue is that it's kind of black, but maybe blue, right?

00:59:04 ◼   ► Like from the images that I've seen.

00:59:06 ◼   ► This is this is a reddish purple, right?

00:59:09 ◼   ► Like it is burgundy.

00:59:11 ◼   ► I just don't like that.

00:59:13 ◼   ► But I actually that burgundy, it's not for me.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Like it that is for a particular type of customer, not the customer the

00:59:21 ◼   ► orange was for.

00:59:22 ◼   ► Right.

00:59:23 ◼   ► And I actually appreciate that right?

00:59:25 ◼   ► The orange was a very bold statement for a certain type of customer, it

00:59:29 ◼   ► was not for everyone.

00:59:30 ◼   ► The burgundy is the same and I like that they're probably not the same

00:59:34 ◼   ► people.

00:59:34 ◼   ► Like I don't I don't think the tastes align.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I think, w overlap it in that way.

00:59:40 ◼   ► And really, you know, like a lot of people that would've liked the orange

00:59:43 ◼   ► will probably like the glacier.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I I it's still not for me.

00:59:48 ◼   ► I went with silver for mine.

00:59:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:51 ◼   ► Which

00:59:52 ◼   ► I like the silver.

00:59:54 ◼   ► It is not the choice that I want to make.

00:59:57 ◼   ► It's the choice that I did make based on the lineup.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:00:01 ◼   ► But it's like

01:00:03 ◼   ► I miss the orange.

01:00:05 ◼   ► But the colours, they're just not not what I what what I would have

01:00:08 ◼   ► wanted really.

01:00:09 ◼   ► You know, like maybe I would have gone with the Glacier if I would

01:00:12 ◼   ► have seen it before I ordered, but I didn't see it and feel bad

01:00:15 ◼   ► about the fact that I didn't go with it.

01:00:17 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:00:18 ◼   ► Sure.

01:00:18 ◼   ► I get it.

01:00:19 ◼   ► I get it.

01:00:20 ◼   ► 'Cause it's

01:00:22 ◼   ► it's it's very light.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Um I have had the phone since Friday and I've been using it since

01:00:27 ◼   ► Friday, so I think I probably have more to say about the eighteen probe

01:00:31 ◼   ► than you do.

01:00:32 ◼   ► You you probably do.

01:00:33 ◼   ► I mean I have taken some pictures with the Pro Max, but I am

01:00:36 ◼   ► not using it as my primary phone because it's too big.

01:00:38 ◼   ► And also probably I'm gonna be getting a different phone next month.

01:00:42 ◼   ► Oh yeah, of course.

01:00:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:44 ◼   ► So all right, so I have a few things with it.

01:00:45 ◼   ► So I've done uh I did the whole transfer This time I I like

01:00:48 ◼   ► to just mix it up.

01:00:49 ◼   ► This time I chose iCloud backup um as my way to get to get

01:00:53 ◼   ► used to the phone and it was fine.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Uh I do have a feeling, another feeling about the setup process, just in

01:00:59 ◼   ► general, setting up an iPhone is such a complicated experience.

01:01:03 ◼   ► Like you are jumping through so many hoops and I'm not even setting up

01:01:08 ◼   ► from zero.

01:01:09 ◼   ► Like I I'm I have decided with the duo I'm gonna set it up

01:01:12 ◼   ► fresh because I've not done that in a long time and I think that

01:01:15 ◼   ► that device it could be interesting to to have a different set of apps

01:01:19 ◼   ► than what I have on my regular iPhone.

01:01:21 ◼   ► I don't know but I'm gonna set that up as a fresh iPhone.

01:01:23 ◼   ► 'Cause I also just wanna go through that experience.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Like what is it like to start from zero and and go go through

01:01:29 ◼   ► that today because now that we have like the indexing, it is yet another

01:01:35 ◼   ► thing that is added into the getting a new phone experience.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Right?

01:01:41 ◼   ► Like you don't have to do anything about the optimizing search and series indexing,

01:01:45 ◼   ► but it is going to impact your experience of a new phone for a

01:01:49 ◼   ► period of time.

01:01:52 ◼   ► And I will go back to what I said when we kind of learned

01:01:55 ◼   ► this fact that this index does not move from device to device.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Like I just think Apple needs to work out a way to do it.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Like let me plug the phones in to each other and do it that

01:02:05 ◼   ► way.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Like work out a way to do this because I just I don't think

01:02:09 ◼   ► that this is going to result in a good experience for people over time.

01:02:13 ◼   ► Because I expect that index just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

01:02:18 ◼   ► It doesn't get smaller.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And and so I don't I don't really n think it's a great experience.

01:02:24 ◼   ► You know, like I'm I I it's still going.

01:02:26 ◼   ► Now I'm on point two.

01:02:28 ◼   ► Um I put uh which it I put twenty seven point two on my

01:02:32 ◼   ► iPhone.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And I think this might be a new thing for point two 'cause I

01:02:36 ◼   ► didn't remember seeing it before there's a percentage now.

01:02:39 ◼   ► It says I'm eighty seven percent.

01:02:41 ◼   ► Then that's been going for four days.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Like and I'm still not done.

01:02:45 ◼   ► And and so I'm just not sure that we're we're doing this the right

01:02:49 ◼   ► way.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Like uh it it's adding another step into the transfer process.

01:02:54 ◼   ► But anyway, the dynamic island is smaller.

01:02:59 ◼   ► I'm already used to that.

01:03:00 ◼   ► I don't know it's it anymore.

01:03:02 ◼   ► But I do get the long lasting benefit of the extra live activity space,

01:03:07 ◼   ► which I am already enjoying that you can do up to three, but if

01:03:11 ◼   ► you have two, you get a full sized one and a little one, right?

01:03:15 ◼   ► Where before it would just shrink them both down.

01:03:17 ◼   ► So I benefit from that already.

01:03:19 ◼   ► I'm experiencing that already and I'm pleased about that.

01:03:22 ◼   ► I've been having some

01:03:25 ◼   ► I've been having more face ID failures, but I'm not willing to say that

01:03:29 ◼   ► that is

01:03:31 ◼   ► necessarily the hardware change as much as it is with any phone.

01:03:35 ◼   ► I've had to do my face ID again, and it may just be getting

01:03:38 ◼   ► used to me.

01:03:39 ◼   ► Um but I have noticed that that I've had more face ID failures than

01:03:43 ◼   ► I expected.

01:03:43 ◼   ► So I'm gonna keep an eye on that 'cause I don't I don't really

01:03:45 ◼   ► And the face ID sensors are under the screen now.

01:03:47 ◼   ► So and at the left are in a different location.

01:03:50 ◼   ► I don't know if that makes a difference, right?

01:03:51 ◼   ► It might might make a difference, you know, like maybe the way I'm holding

01:03:55 ◼   ► my phone or where I have my phone placed or whatever, i it it

01:03:58 ◼   ► might be impacting it more.

01:04:00 ◼   ► This is a thing that I think might just be a me thing, and

01:04:03 ◼   ► I'm not sure about this yet.

01:04:05 ◼   ► I feel like the display is cooler like more blue.

01:04:09 ◼   ► Now, there's this.

01:04:11 ◼   ► One, I could be right.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Two, it could be an optical illusion because my phone is silver and not

01:04:15 ◼   ► orange.

01:04:16 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

01:04:17 ◼   ► That like I may be getting like m my eye might be tricked, but

01:04:20 ◼   ► it's I keep noticing it though.

01:04:23 ◼   ► Like I keep picking up my phone and I'm like, huh, that looks more

01:04:26 ◼   ► blue.

01:04:26 ◼   ► And I've checked all my settings.

01:04:27 ◼   ► I have true tone turned on.

01:04:29 ◼   ► I have night shift turned on the way that I like them.

01:04:31 ◼   ► But I'm noticing it.

01:04:33 ◼   ► But there's nothing I can do about that.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:04:35 ◼   ► This is all just like nitpicky stuff.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I want to talk about photographic styles because this is maybe the thing that

01:04:40 ◼   ► I tried the most.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I'll say I've taken pictures with by the way with the camera.

01:04:44 ◼   ► I don't know, man.

01:04:45 ◼   ► Like I and I'm not I'm not down on it.

01:04:48 ◼   ► It's like I know that my phone is now doing more with the aperture

01:04:51 ◼   ► and stuff like that, and that's great, and I'm sure that's gonna be good

01:04:53 ◼   ► over time.

01:04:54 ◼   ► I do not have the eye for that.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:57 ◼   ► Um, but I look forward to playing with it more.

01:05:00 ◼   ► I've been playing with it a little bit and like changing some of the

01:05:03 ◼   ► aperture stuff and

01:05:05 ◼   ► uh my expectation is like with a lot of camera stuff it will pay

01:05:09 ◼   ► off over the years but I'm just not that person.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Um and I have no doubt that people are gonna make some interesting camera

01:05:15 ◼   ► apps that I'll play around with that will make it a bit more fun

01:05:18 ◼   ► and easy for me to understand what I'm doing with the aperture stuff.

01:05:22 ◼   ► Uh but it's there.

01:05:24 ◼   ► Photographic styles is something I care more about because I I've been an advocate

01:05:28 ◼   ► for this feature since they introduced it because I really like it.

01:05:32 ◼   ► I shoot with a permanent photographic style.

01:05:35 ◼   ► I have a slightly tweaked version of the gold style.

01:05:38 ◼   ► All of my photos are taken in a photographic style.

01:05:40 ◼   ► You can change this in settings, by the way.

01:05:42 ◼   ► In camera settings, you can have a a default and you can do it

01:05:45 ◼   ► there rather than needing to enable it every time um or accidentally turn it

01:05:49 ◼   ► on or off.

01:05:50 ◼   ► Whatever.

01:05:50 ◼   ► There's a there's a preserved settings feature and you can set it up in

01:05:53 ◼   ► there, which is how I've done it.

01:05:55 ◼   ► And they've added in the photographic styles this time the texture area, right?

01:05:59 ◼   ► So you can do a few effects, but the one that I've been the

01:06:01 ◼   ► most interested in is the film effects and the grain.

01:06:06 ◼   ► The thing is you cannot adjust the amount of grain that it adds to

01:06:10 ◼   ► an image.

01:06:11 ◼   ► It is a binary on and off which is not like a lot of

01:06:14 ◼   ► the other photographic style stuff.

01:06:16 ◼   ► Like they have this new film

01:06:19 ◼   ► feature in the texture area.

01:06:20 ◼   ► You can turn the film on, it automatically turns the grain on, but you

01:06:24 ◼   ► can turn the grain off and keep the film look on.

01:06:27 ◼   ► And the film look can be adjusted.

01:06:29 ◼   ► So how much of an impact do you want it to have on your

01:06:32 ◼   ► image to make it look more or less like a film photo?

01:06:36 ◼   ► But the grain is just a binary thing.

01:06:38 ◼   ► And I would like the ability to adjust it a little bit more.

01:06:41 ◼   ► I I don't always want the maximum amount of grain that it will apply

01:06:45 ◼   ► to an image.

01:06:46 ◼   ► And Apple said, and I understand it, I've seen it in my testing, that

01:06:49 ◼   ► they apply the grain selectively, like the amount that they'll apply but sometimes I

01:06:56 ◼   ► just want a little bit less of it.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Like I've been playing around with the film slider, and I like the film

01:07:04 ◼   ► slider to be at around sixty-five out of a hundred.

01:07:07 ◼   ► That produces the right kind of look to my images, to my tastes.

01:07:13 ◼   ► I would like to bring the grain down a little bit with it, but

01:07:16 ◼   ► you can't do that.

01:07:18 ◼   ► I would like to be able to do that.

01:07:20 ◼   ► The camera app now has loads of buttons.

01:07:22 ◼   ► You can and you can add more buttons.

01:07:25 ◼   ► I would like buttons to switch between st photographic styles more easily.

01:07:29 ◼   ► You it's I would like maybe some presets, right?

01:07:33 ◼   ► I don't want to always shoot all of my images with the film photographic

01:07:37 ◼   ► style stuff attached to it, like the texture stuff.

01:07:40 ◼   ► But I would like to be able to choose to do that rather than

01:07:43 ◼   ► having to go back into the image and edit it later on.

01:07:46 ◼   ► So why don't why can't I just have put put more if I can

01:07:49 ◼   ► put infinite amount of buttons in this thing now, let me add some buttons

01:07:52 ◼   ► in it.

01:07:52 ◼   ► So I would like that.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Um it's funny to me

01:07:57 ◼   ► that the film effects, like all the texture stuff

01:08:02 ◼   ► you do not see them live in the camera app.

01:08:04 ◼   ► They are applied after the image is taken.

01:08:07 ◼   ► Uh huh.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Which is not the way that everything else is with photographic styles.

01:08:12 ◼   ► And now you could argue like it's kind of like uh it's skeworphic in

01:08:16 ◼   ► a way, right?

01:08:16 ◼   ► Like it's developing the film look, like which is the way a film camera

01:08:20 ◼   ► would look.

01:08:21 ◼   ► But it's elegant because you you don't see the live preview, which is what

01:08:24 ◼   ► you get with the rest of photographic styles.

01:08:27 ◼   ► So, oh, and and additionally, the fact that you have to apply this stuff

01:08:32 ◼   ► manually, because you know, you maybe if you if you want to add it

01:08:36 ◼   ► in, if you don't shoot with it all the time like me, I wish

01:08:39 ◼   ► you could apply the same photographic style tweaks or selections to multiple images at

01:08:46 ◼   ► once.

01:08:47 ◼   ► If you if you have five images that you want to make look like

01:08:50 ◼   ► film images you have to go into each one of them and turn it

01:08:53 ◼   ► on.

01:08:55 ◼   ► I actually I I realize now you can do the copy and paste edits,

01:08:58 ◼   ► which I haven't.

01:08:59 ◼   ► I I I know that that

01:09:01 ◼   ► I don't know if edits and photographic styles, I don't think they're the same.

01:09:04 ◼   ► I I don't think a photographic style is a is necessarily an edit.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I wanna try that actually.

01:09:09 ◼   ► I've said that, I haven't tried that because I just realized in this moment

01:09:12 ◼   ► I know that feature exists if I didn't try it.

01:09:14 ◼   ► But I would say that I I've been playing with this and I like

01:09:18 ◼   ► the way that the texture stuff can make my images look.

01:09:22 ◼   ► I would like it if they would expand the functionality set to make it

01:09:27 ◼   ► a little easier to adapt and apply the the texture stuff to the phone.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Right.

01:09:36 ◼   ► It's funny.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Uh y things you and I have in common.

01:09:39 ◼   ► My photographic style is set to gold and over the weekend I added film

01:09:45 ◼   ► and set it to forty five.

01:09:46 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Not not too far off.

01:09:50 ◼   ► So we're not we're not too far off.

01:09:51 ◼   ► Are you doing have you tried the grain?

01:09:53 ◼   ► Did you try the grain?

01:09:55 ◼   ► Uh I have tried it.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I th I think I had it off.

01:09:59 ◼   ► Because here's uh and again, I am not a fancy photographer, so your mileage

01:10:05 ◼   ► may vary, but I looked at all the grain samples and all the reviews

01:10:10 ◼   ► and I thought that's exactly what I don't.

01:10:13 ◼   ► Yep.

01:10:14 ◼   ► That grain.

01:10:14 ◼   ► I like you've got this beautiful continuous tone and now you've added a bunch

01:10:19 ◼   ► of speckles to it.

01:10:20 ◼   ► And I guess it I get that it was a a a limitation of

01:10:23 ◼   ► film and film chemistry and that it there's a great nostalgia for it, but

01:10:28 ◼   ► I don't think it makes pictures look better.

01:10:30 ◼   ► It doesn't make them look better, it makes them look different.

01:10:32 ◼   ► So I will just by the way, uh real time follow up.

01:10:35 ◼   ► Copy and pasting edits does apply any photographic style change that you make.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Nice.

01:10:40 ◼   ► So that's good that that I had that thought 'cause n I've maybe saved

01:10:43 ◼   ► some follow up and now I'm happy 'cause I'll do it differently.

01:10:45 ◼   ► Th this is the thing.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I would say that like the texture stuff, it adds character to an image.

01:10:51 ◼   ► It doesn't make an image better, right?

01:10:52 ◼   ► Like the im you have actually made the image quote unquote worse.

01:10:56 ◼   ► Worse.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Right?

01:10:57 ◼   ► Like you've you have added something that

01:11:03 ◼   ► Has been taken away because we don't need to do that anymore.

01:11:06 ◼   ► And I would say this is true for a lot of the photographic style

01:11:09 ◼   ► stuff anyway, like going back to like or any photo filters or anything, right?

01:11:14 ◼   ► Like you're you're making the images Worse, but it's to evoke a feeling, right?

01:11:19 ◼   ► And like when I look at the images that I'm taking and I'm looking

01:11:23 ◼   ► at the the ones where I've added the film grain and and the grain

01:11:27 ◼   ► and the film effects, they make me feel nostalgic looking at the image, which

01:11:32 ◼   ► I think is kind of the point.

01:11:34 ◼   ► You know, it's like I I I get it, right?

01:11:36 ◼   ► Like I get why someone wouldn't want it, but that's why I also would

01:11:39 ◼   ► like a little bit more control over it, because it it it is a

01:11:42 ◼   ► little aggressive the the grain, and it I don't think it needs to be

01:11:47 ◼   ► as much as it is.

01:11:48 ◼   ► Um and so some some tweaking over it would be good.

01:11:52 ◼   ► My overall feeling about the 18 Pro, it's similar to to what a lot

01:11:58 ◼   ► of the reviewers have come to the conclusion of this is very much an

01:12:03 ◼   ► an S upgrade to the phone.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Like I was saying as well battery life.

01:12:08 ◼   ► I've noticed my battery life is better and that's fantastic, right?

01:12:11 ◼   ► It's a whiz bang feature, but I love having more battery on my phone.

01:12:14 ◼   ► I love that my camera's a little better.

01:12:16 ◼   ► I love that my phone is more powerful.

01:12:17 ◼   ► Awesome.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Uh but yeah, the uh look, I don't know if they chose this to

01:12:23 ◼   ► be such a small update year because of the duo, but it is very

01:12:27 ◼   ► convenient for them that they have this

01:12:31 ◼   ► one of the most exciting iPhones of all time due out four weeks later,

01:12:35 ◼   ► right?

01:12:36 ◼   ► Like this phone is solid.

01:12:38 ◼   ► I would not recommend anybody upgrade from the 17 unless you're having battery life

01:12:43 ◼   ► constraints in you.

01:12:45 ◼   ► If you are a person who is like, oh my god, my phone dies

01:12:48 ◼   ► every day and there is nothing I can do about it, then maybe this

01:12:50 ◼   ► is the phone upgrade for you.

01:12:52 ◼   ► But outside of that e even then, if you've had that phone for a

01:12:56 ◼   ► year, you should just go and get Apple to put a new battery in

01:12:58 ◼   ► it.

01:12:59 ◼   ► But it's like maybe your life no, but maybe your life is maybe it's

01:13:02 ◼   ► always like this, right?

01:13:03 ◼   ► That you are away from a charger for j you need one hour.

01:13:06 ◼   ► You need more battery life.

01:13:07 ◼   ► Okay, sure.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Nothing you can do, right?

01:13:09 ◼   ► I don't know who this person is.

01:13:10 ◼   ► Bottom line, we have to make we have to make an effort to explain

01:13:14 ◼   ► why a normal person would update from a seventeen to an eighteen.

01:13:16 ◼   ► I and I think that's the answer.

01:13:17 ◼   ► Is this a great update?

01:13:19 ◼   ► It's like all the S updates over the years.

01:13:22 ◼   ► This mid the this mid-cycle sort of like set of nice changes.

01:13:27 ◼   ► Um and I think Gruber's review of this was really good.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Cause one of the points that he made that it just every review has

01:13:34 ◼   ► to make Is the iteration is the point.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Um sometimes I've done somebody asked if I was going to do it this

01:13:42 ◼   ► year and it's like it's just a lot of work and it's a mess

01:13:44 ◼   ► and I haven't had the time to do it.

01:13:45 ◼   ► But like sometimes I've written reviews that are basically like, What do you get

01:13:49 ◼   ► if you're upgrading from X to come to Y.

01:13:54 ◼   ► But that's it, right?

01:13:55 ◼   ► Like this is incrementally better than the 17.

01:13:57 ◼   ► You probably shouldn't if you've got a 17.

01:14:00 ◼   ► If you've got a 16, you'll get more.

01:14:02 ◼   ► If you got a 15, you'll get even more.

01:14:03 ◼   ► If you got a 14, you will really be blown away by it.

01:14:06 ◼   ► And that's what the point of this this product is, is it what are

01:14:10 ◼   ► this year's iterations and how do they add?

01:14:12 ◼   ► It's a little like my macOS review where I'm like, also if you didn't

01:14:16 ◼   ► do Tahoe, you're gonna get Tahoe and it's got a lot of features in

01:14:19 ◼   ► it.

01:14:19 ◼   ► Um I've heard from people by the way who didn't do Tahoe and they've

01:14:23 ◼   ► upgraded to Golden Gate and they're like, Oh my god, this design is horrible

01:14:26 ◼   ► and I'm like, now now

01:14:29 ◼   ► now now you don't get to say that.

01:14:31 ◼   ► It's so it's you didn't live through Tahoe, so you don't judge it.

01:14:35 ◼   ► But like from Sequoia to Golden Gate, you're like what are they doing to

01:14:38 ◼   ► the design?

01:14:39 ◼   ► Like, well, yeah, but it's better than it was last year.

01:14:44 ◼   ► So um it's a little like that.

01:14:46 ◼   ► Like the uh i there's nothing wrong.

01:14:47 ◼   ► This has still got the great aluminum back.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Um I like that the colors are a little closer together on the back

01:14:52 ◼   ► instead of being a little different.

01:14:53 ◼   ► But it I love I still love the look.

01:14:56 ◼   ► This phone is this the seventeen eighteen is is looks wise one of the

01:15:00 ◼   ► best looking iPhones.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:02 ◼   ► Let me let me uh and I'll I'll say this because the duo's next

01:15:06 ◼   ► month and the duo may upset all plans.

01:15:09 ◼   ► In fact I suspect it will upset all plans.

01:15:11 ◼   ► Yep.

01:15:12 ◼   ► But if the duo didn't exist, I will tell you that so I get

01:15:17 ◼   ► review units and then I have one that I buy every couple of years.

01:15:21 ◼   ► And I bought my Orange Seventeen 17 Pro.

01:15:25 ◼   ► I would never

01:15:27 ◼   ► give up my Orange 17 Pro for an 18 Pro.

01:15:32 ◼   ► Never.

01:15:32 ◼   ► Because whatever incremental updates it has, and it does have them, quite honestly, I

01:15:37 ◼   ► love my seventeen pro and I love that it's in cosmic orange.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

01:15:42 ◼   ► And so I it just I I don't see it.

01:15:45 ◼   ► I j I just can't see it.

01:15:46 ◼   ► Yeah I'm not sure.

01:15:48 ◼   ► My seventeen pro is gonna become the camera that I record video with and

01:15:52 ◼   ► then I'm gonna trade in that fifteen pro.

01:15:54 ◼   ► Like that's gonna go to that's gonna go in the duo fund.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Uh but I'm keeping the seventeen because I want to look at that orange

01:16:00 ◼   ► every week.

01:16:00 ◼   ► You know, just sitting here.

01:16:01 ◼   ► Yeah we'll be we'll be brought to you by Orange.

01:16:03 ◼   ► I love it.

01:16:04 ◼   ► Let's do that.

01:16:04 ◼   ► But anyway I love I love it and I will I expect to use

01:16:07 ◼   ► it.

01:16:07 ◼   ► And I actually kinda hope

01:16:10 ◼   ► assuming that I'm gonna um embrace the duo and we just don't know, but

01:16:14 ◼   ► like I have strong suspicions that I'm going to love the duo, what I

01:16:17 ◼   ► really like is for ATT to add their number sharing plan.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Right.

01:16:23 ◼   ► And uh keep my my seventeen pro in orange as well uh in the

01:16:29 ◼   ► rotation because I love it so much.

01:16:31 ◼   ► I really do.

01:16:33 ◼   ► But um but if you're shopping for a new iPhone, first off, they still

01:16:37 ◼   ► sell the seventeen, which is pretty great.

01:16:38 ◼   ► The base seventeen is there and it's pretty great because remember it got all

01:16:41 ◼   ► these pro features last year.

01:16:43 ◼   ► It's

01:16:44 ◼   ► a Not as great as it used to be price, but still a good

01:16:47 ◼   ► price.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And um if you're a pro-level buyer and you're three, four years ago, it's

01:16:53 ◼   ► great.

01:16:53 ◼   ► It's just that this is a year where you the increment you feel the

01:16:57 ◼   ► incrementality of Apple's approach because it's just a little bit better.

01:17:04 ◼   ► That's all.

01:17:07 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Sentry.

01:17:10 ◼   ► You get a bug report.

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01:18:29 ◼   ► be doing, which is building new features.

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01:19:01 ◼   ► Our thanks to Sentry for their support of this show and all of Relay.

01:19:07 ◼   ► Now the Apple Watch series twelve.

01:19:09 ◼   ► You had a series eleven, you were wearing one every day?

01:19:12 ◼   ► Uh ten.

01:19:13 ◼   ► Ten series ten that I picked up in uh in Tennessee two years ago.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Okay.

01:19:18 ◼   ► That was when they went thin for the first time, right?

01:19:20 ◼   ► Like the really thin?

01:19:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't remember the year before, but it was the year before.

01:19:25 ◼   ► It was the ten when it got thinner, a lot thinner.

01:19:28 ◼   ► That's when I I jumped in.

01:19:29 ◼   ► So I had a ten and I'm currently wearing a a the review unit

01:19:33 ◼   ► of the twelve, 'cause like I said earlier, I'm gonna commit to it.

01:19:36 ◼   ► I bo moved my cellular to it because I was gonna walk out the

01:19:38 ◼   ► door with it, walking the dog, and I'm like, Well, no, I need to

01:19:41 ◼   ► do this.

01:19:41 ◼   ► So I went through the ATT, like moved me to the new device and

01:19:46 ◼   ► I did all of that.

01:19:47 ◼   ► So, um, so yeah, I'm gonna live with this for a while but I

01:19:50 ◼   ► c I was coming from the 10.

01:19:51 ◼   ► So I it I didn't get the kind of like, wow, it's so much

01:19:54 ◼   ► thinner now kind of feel.

01:19:55 ◼   ► You're now and you're coming from an ultra.

01:19:57 ◼   ► So that's a totally different thing.

01:19:59 ◼   ► So for me, it's not dramatically different in any of those ways.

01:20:03 ◼   ► Um and I'm just, you know, I'm just starting the process of using it.

01:20:07 ◼   ► It's i I've gotten, you know, you gotta add your I went to the

01:20:10 ◼   ► store last night and it was like before I went out the door I

01:20:12 ◼   ► thought, Oh, do I have my credit cards on this thing?

01:20:14 ◼   ► And I didn't so I had to add them and sometimes you gotta put

01:20:17 ◼   ► in a code and you gotta sync them over from your phone and all

01:20:20 ◼   ► of that stuff.

01:20:21 ◼   ► So I've been going through that process to get it up and running so

01:20:24 ◼   ► that I can live with it because I do use my Apple Watch a

01:20:26 ◼   ► lot and I I wanna see what the what the changes and the differences

01:20:30 ◼   ► are.

01:20:30 ◼   ► Of course ironically the biggest thing that's introduced to the series twelve are features

01:20:34 ◼   ► that are not in the uh twenty seven update because they are these controversial

01:20:39 ◼   ► audio features that are gonna wait for another day.

01:20:42 ◼   ► Uh Zoe's asked the question and and it might be more uh helpful for

01:20:46 ◼   ► you to answer, because I do have thoughts but they're different.

01:20:48 ◼   ► Do you have a take on Bezelgate?

01:20:50 ◼   ► So the bezels are bigger.

01:20:51 ◼   ► Is that Bezelgate well actually I do have a take.

01:20:54 ◼   ► Here's my take.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:55 ◼   ► I think Bezelgate as a supergiant star um is gonna go supernova at some

01:21:00 ◼   ► point, but probably not in our lifetimes.

01:21:02 ◼   ► I don't understand.

01:21:03 ◼   ► Wait a second, do you mean you didn't say Betelgeuse?

01:21:06 ◼   ► Well then I don't know what Bezelgate is.

01:21:08 ◼   ► So they'd made some changes to the case on the Apple Watch series twelve

01:21:13 ◼   ► design, which has made the bezels appear to be larger, like the the because

01:21:19 ◼   ► they've kind of extended the glass around a little bit more.

01:21:22 ◼   ► Um There's just a thing people are saying.

01:21:25 ◼   ► The bezels are bigger.

01:21:26 ◼   ► Haven't haven't noticed any issues with it at all.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Yep.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Well I'm with Zoe.

01:21:31 ◼   ► Zoe Zoe said as someone going from series ten to twelve, it's nothing.

01:21:35 ◼   ► And I agree.

01:21:36 ◼   ► It's nothing.

01:21:37 ◼   ► Okay.

01:21:37 ◼   ► Uh I mean I would say that like the bezels on this are bigger

01:21:42 ◼   ► than the ones on like the the screen bezels from my ultra two, but

01:21:46 ◼   ► but the screen is actually bigger on the series twelve than my ultra two,

01:21:52 ◼   ► which is incredible and also I benefit from not having all of the stuff

01:21:57 ◼   ► around the screen that the Ultra has, right?

01:22:00 ◼   ► Like there's just a lot more going on.

01:22:03 ◼   ► Um do you have anything more to say about the App Watch series twelve

01:22:08 ◼   ► or shall I start talking about my feelings about it?

01:22:10 ◼   ► 'Cause I have a uh I don't not yet.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Okay.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Not yet.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Tell tell me 'cause so you went to the ceramic white twelve from the

01:22:17 ◼   ► Ultra Two.

01:22:18 ◼   ► So it's a big change for you, I'd like to hear about it.

01:22:20 ◼   ► So the ceramic white, I love it.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Like I I was excited about it.

01:22:26 ◼   ► I I was hoping for it.

01:22:27 ◼   ► And I love it.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Um it looks wonderful, feels wonderful.

01:22:33 ◼   ► The sand sport band that I got with it, I feel is a good

01:22:36 ◼   ► pairing.

01:22:36 ◼   ► It comes with the ceramic pin, which I'm really pleased about.

01:22:40 ◼   ► This watch is going to be harder to pair with other bands than some

01:22:44 ◼   ► of my other watches.

01:22:46 ◼   ► Um, like a white watch.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Not every band is gonna work with that.

01:22:51 ◼   ► I have a I have a reasonable collection of bands that I've been accruing

01:22:56 ◼   ► over the last decade or whatever.

01:22:58 ◼   ► Um some I have a few of the Pride sport bands which are all

01:23:02 ◼   ► white with something, the ones that I have.

01:23:04 ◼   ► So they look good.

01:23:05 ◼   ► I have the Nike one that has the holes in it.

01:23:07 ◼   ► I like that.

01:23:08 ◼   ► I have the one that's the confetti kind of looking one that also looks

01:23:11 ◼   ► good.

01:23:12 ◼   ► Um I wanna watch band that's a little more refined.

01:23:16 ◼   ► Um I I really like the magnetic link band.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Uh I have the blue leather one.

01:23:23 ◼   ► I actually bought a new one before they stopped selling that.

01:23:26 ◼   ► Um and and that looks okay, but it's quite dark.

01:23:29 ◼   ► They also they have a new it's called wildflower blue and camel colours of

01:23:34 ◼   ► the magnetic link that on the website I think both look good with the

01:23:39 ◼   ► ceramic.

01:23:40 ◼   ► I I have a uh I have an Apple store update, which is that

01:23:44 ◼   ► I um I did an Apple Watch briefing last week.

01:23:48 ◼   ► They give you a briefing before they send you the review units.

01:23:51 ◼   ► And in the briefing they showed at the end, they're, oh, and of course

01:23:55 ◼   ► we've got

01:23:57 ◼   ► Accessories and new band colors.

01:23:59 ◼   ► And I saw that wildflower blue.

01:24:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:02 ◼   ► And I was like, I want that.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:04 ◼   ► So I've got one of those coming today.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I need to go to the store.

01:24:12 ◼   ► By the way, I I went the Battersea store this time 'cause it was

01:24:14 ◼   ► the only place that had the ceramic available to me.

01:24:16 ◼   ► And the store was 'cause it's fancy for fancy people.

01:24:19 ◼   ► It was empty.

01:24:21 ◼   ► There was no there was like four people in line ahead of me at

01:24:23 ◼   ► ten o'clock in the morning.

01:24:24 ◼   ► I don't know what to say about that.

01:24:26 ◼   ► I get the impression that that store is always pretty quiet.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:24:30 ◼   ► They didn't have the bands out.

01:24:32 ◼   ► So my plan is to go back to a store at some point, try

01:24:35 ◼   ► like take a look at them next to mine.

01:24:36 ◼   ► I think maybe the camel would probably look the best, but I think my

01:24:39 ◼   ► favorite colour is the wildflower blue.

01:24:41 ◼   ► But anyway, um I like that band style a lot, the magnetic link.

01:24:46 ◼   ► I don't like that it's fine woven.

01:24:48 ◼   ► I just prefer leather.

01:24:50 ◼   ► Uh it feels nicer to me to use, but the colours look really good.

01:24:53 ◼   ► So so I I'll probably end up with one of those as like a

01:24:57 ◼   ► kind of a more dressy, um dressy version.

01:25:00 ◼   ► I do have a gold millinese somewhere um that I need to see what

01:25:04 ◼   ► that would look like, but I don't think it would look very good.

01:25:06 ◼   ► So the series 12, compared to the Ultra 2 as well, man, this wash

01:25:11 ◼   ► is thin.

01:25:12 ◼   ► Like it feels great to wear.

01:25:17 ◼   ► Way less noticeable on the wrist.

01:25:19 ◼   ► I like the low profile feeling.

01:25:21 ◼   ► It keeps catching my eye in a pleasing way.

01:25:23 ◼   ► I'm like, oh look at you.

01:25:24 ◼   ► You're you're so low.

01:25:26 ◼   ► And today it's like we're getting back towards like uh sweatshirt weather here in

01:25:31 ◼   ► London.

01:25:32 ◼   ► It feels so much nicer to wear a thin watch under the cuff of

01:25:36 ◼   ► a sweatshirt than the Ultra Two, which I just didn't I had to either

01:25:40 ◼   ► have it out or like push the cuff all the way down so it

01:25:43 ◼   ► goes to the other side 'cause it was just not wearable.

01:25:46 ◼   ► But today it's it fits nicely underneath the cuff of my sweatshirt.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Um the screen looks massive because it's bigger, which is incredible really.

01:25:55 ◼   ► Like that the case is smaller, but the screen is bigger.

01:25:58 ◼   ► Um the d kind of domed look of the series 12 screen is also

01:26:03 ◼   ► like pleasing to me.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Um, I am still a devout user of the Photos watch face.

01:26:09 ◼   ► I think, you know, in general, and this is why Apple showed them this

01:26:13 ◼   ► way, if you have one of the more standard watch faces, it does look

01:26:16 ◼   ► better in the overall case design because they tend to all be black, right?

01:26:20 ◼   ► That it looks like the the screen bezel on the screen just will just

01:26:24 ◼   ► become one, you know?

01:26:25 ◼   ► Like so it I expect I know is a better look.

01:26:28 ◼   ► It is a nicer look.

01:26:29 ◼   ► But I think one of the true joys of Apple Watch ownership is the

01:26:33 ◼   ► photos watch face.

01:26:34 ◼   ► Um I think they did such a great job with that a few years

01:26:37 ◼   ► ago.

01:26:38 ◼   ► I have it set to pick out photos of uh my wife and my

01:26:42 ◼   ► daughter and I get beautiful, fun, adorable photos all day.

01:26:47 ◼   ► And it makes me happy every time I look at my watch.

01:26:50 ◼   ► And I believe that two complications is more than enough for most people.

01:26:55 ◼   ► Like realistically, um how much information you need available to you at one time

01:26:59 ◼   ► on your wrist is maybe not that much.

01:27:02 ◼   ► I have the weather and I have the date, which is fantastic, out, and

01:27:05 ◼   ► I can go to my calendars at any point.

01:27:07 ◼   ► And I can get to whatever I need from the smart stack.

01:27:10 ◼   ► Like the combination of the smart stack with those little widgety glances that you

01:27:15 ◼   ► get inside of apps and the photos, watch face, I think is the perfect

01:27:19 ◼   ► combination for an Apple Watch.

01:27:21 ◼   ► I'm big fan of the smart stack.

01:27:22 ◼   ► I think that system works really well and I think that they do a

01:27:25 ◼   ► good job of giving me the information that I need.

01:27:27 ◼   ► So super good.

01:27:29 ◼   ► The the comparison comparably tiny digital crown is taking some getting used to.

01:27:37 ◼   ► Um the crown on the the ultra is is is a statement.

01:27:42 ◼   ► It's huge.

01:27:43 ◼   ► And it has the big crown guard, you know, like the the bit that

01:27:46 ◼   ► sticks out the side.

01:27:47 ◼   ► I'm not missing the crown guard.

01:27:48 ◼   ► I'm happy that's gone.

01:27:49 ◼   ► And the digital crown being small is also nice.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Like it doesn't dig into my wrist anymore.

01:27:54 ◼   ► Um I I'm but it's it's taking some getting used to.

01:27:57 ◼   ► Like you Using it to scroll, it takes a bit more effort.

01:28:02 ◼   ► Like the the understandably, the ultras digital crown is meant to be easy to

01:28:07 ◼   ► use, right?

01:28:08 ◼   ► Because you're meant to be able to use it in in more challenging scenarios.

01:28:12 ◼   ► Um Uh so I'm getting used to that.

01:28:15 ◼   ► Um the one thing I was really concerned about was battery life, right?

01:28:19 ◼   ► Like the Apple Watch Ultra, it's battery life.

01:28:21 ◼   ► That's its whole thing.

01:28:23 ◼   ► Turns out it's bad if your Apple Watch Ultra is three years old, which

01:28:27 ◼   ► mine was.

01:28:28 ◼   ► So I will need to see how this fares over time, of course, but

01:28:33 ◼   ► I've had no issues in the past few days.

01:28:35 ◼   ► Like the I I'm actually keep being surprised at how much battery I have.

01:28:39 ◼   ► So it's uh half past six in the evening as I'm recording this right

01:28:43 ◼   ► now.

01:28:44 ◼   ► I took my watch off its charger at eight AM this morning.

01:28:47 ◼   ► I have sixty four percent battery life.

01:28:50 ◼   ► More than enough for me.

01:28:51 ◼   ► I do a daily top up of my Apple Watch, too actually.

01:28:54 ◼   ► I put it on when I shower and I also put my watch on

01:28:57 ◼   ► for a top up before I went before I go to sleep.

01:29:00 ◼   ► So I when I get in bed, I put it on.

01:29:03 ◼   ► I'll finish reading or watching a video, whatever I'm before I go to sleep,

01:29:06 ◼   ► and then I'll grab it because I like sleep tracking.

01:29:09 ◼   ► That for me is more than enough.

01:29:11 ◼   ► Um on occasion with my ultra I get the thing I hey you're at

01:29:14 ◼   ► ten percent and I just give it a top up charge at my desk

01:29:16 ◼   ► or whatever, because I have Apple Watch charges on my on my desk.

01:29:19 ◼   ► Uh but I think it's not going to be a problem for me because

01:29:23 ◼   ► I just don't think it's gonna be a problem, but we'll see.

01:29:26 ◼   ► Um, I said I wanted to follow up on Siri AI performance because I

01:29:30 ◼   ► was feeling like the that there was a it was very slow, right?

01:29:33 ◼   ► And I was wondering like hey, will the series twelve chip make that a

01:29:39 ◼   ► better experience?

01:29:40 ◼   ► And it is more responsive, but I was hoping for more out of it.

01:29:45 ◼   ► So

01:29:46 ◼   ► the thing that I've noticed is the things that I'm asking for, like setting

01:29:52 ◼   ► a timer, it sets that timer quicker.

01:29:55 ◼   ► Like a thing that is happening, I see the timer in the smart stack

01:29:59 ◼   ► appear when I ask, and then the Siri UI pops up to show me

01:30:04 ◼   ► what it's understood.

01:30:05 ◼   ► That was not something that I saw on my Ultra.

01:30:08 ◼   ► So I'm thinking that this that this chip is processing the requests quicker, but

01:30:14 ◼   ► the UI is the problem.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Like it just takes too long to load the Siri UI.

01:30:22 ◼   ► So I think maybe they need to refine that a little bit.

01:30:26 ◼   ► But it's something that I've like set a timer and I can see the

01:30:29 ◼   ► timer appear then the Siri UI pops up, which is very strange.

01:30:33 ◼   ► Uh but like the I think but still in general, the Siri AI experience

01:30:39 ◼   ► on the Apple Watch, like it needs to get better.

01:30:42 ◼   ► Like I I think.

01:30:43 ◼   ► I ranted about this last time, but it it does need to get better.

01:30:47 ◼   ► And I don't know they made a decision to put Siri AI on the

01:30:52 ◼   ► Apple Watch.

01:30:53 ◼   ► And that's fine.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Yep.

01:30:54 ◼   ► But it's gotta go to the phone.

01:30:57 ◼   ► And that slows everything down.

01:30:58 ◼   ► And whatever it's doing on these devices, it is not doing it well enough

01:31:03 ◼   ► to grab

01:31:05 ◼   ► some simple requests.

01:31:07 ◼   ► And as a result, everything is slower.

01:31:11 ◼   ► And I had somebody ask me, like, I'm on like this series, do you

01:31:15 ◼   ► recommend people update to watch OS twenty seven?

01:31:20 ◼   ► And my response is no, I don't recommend anyone update to watch OS twenty

01:31:25 ◼   ► seven if you rely on lots of Siri things for like timers and stuff

01:31:29 ◼   ► on your Apple Watch 'cause it's worse.

01:31:31 ◼   ► It and just bottom line, they they they this is the place where they

01:31:34 ◼   ► failed.

01:31:34 ◼   ► Yep.

01:31:35 ◼   ► And we gotta call 'em out.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Like this isn't good enough.

01:31:37 ◼   ► Whoever's Whoever is working on Siri for Watch OS, it needs to be better

01:31:42 ◼   ► at simple requests because you're so far behind.

01:31:45 ◼   ► And they they're cheating with the timers now, where it takes so long to

01:31:49 ◼   ► process the timer, but they're logging when you made the request and then they

01:31:52 ◼   ► back time the timer.

01:31:53 ◼   ► So when the timer shows you say set a timer for three minutes, and

01:31:57 ◼   ► the timer finally appears ten seconds later at two fifty.