Upgrade - 381: Get Used to Disappointment

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Apple's done releasing products for the year, but that hasn't stopped the company from revising a child-protection feature, trying to avoid letting developers add links to their apps, launching a new ...service targeted at small businesses, and welcoming a new Netflix game catalog to the App Store. If you like that sort of thing.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 from relay fm this is upgrade episode 381 today's show is brought to you by bombus capital one and set up my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike good morning slash evening i have a question for you it's a snail talk question of course and it comes from ryan and it's continuing i think the trend at the last two to three weeks worth of snail talk questions oh boy ryan wants to know what book or books are you reading right now what books plural is a interesting one right do i some people have like multiple books going at once i don't generally do that i just finished uh i've been on quite a little tear in november i've read a bunch of books so nano readmo no i uh i am reading the Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein, which is a fantasy question mark, science fiction question mark series.
Starting point is 00:01:12 Originally published in the, I think, starting in the late 80s. I've been reading those and enjoying them. I read A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, which is the first book in a series, and I really enjoyed that. I read A Darker Shade of Magic, which is the first in a series, and I enjoyed that. And last month, I read City of Stairs and City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett, which are part of a trilogy. Got the third one ready to go. And I really enjoyed that. So those are some books that I've enjoyed lately. And I'm basically at the point where I'm cycling through those series. So I'm going to read the next book in this series and the next book in
Starting point is 00:01:54 that series and do that for a little while, I think. Okay. Because I was just going to ask, why would you not go from book to book to book in a series? I like giving it some space, honestly. I generally like giving it some space, honestly. I generally like giving it some space rather than binging a whole series. If I've got a bunch of different series that I'm reading, that is the level at which I want to... I don't want to have a bunch of books that I'm reading at once, but I do kind of like that idea that I found this first book and I really liked it and it's a trilogy. It's like, well, I'm going to read the next two, but I can also be patient. And I've got some other books going on, and it stretches out that experience a little bit so it isn't quite as intense.
Starting point is 00:02:32 And I kind of like that. Sometimes you can't help it. You're just like, I'm just going to go to the next book in the series. But sometimes you can put it off a little bit and know that that next book is out there. In the case of one of these books, I also put it on my queue at the library using the Libby app for an ebook checkout from my local library. It was available, the next book in one of these series. And it said, we'll get that to you in 17 weeks, which may not be entirely accurate. But what I like about that is that one, it'll just come to me for free. And also I'll just get that push notification that says, hey, that book be like oh yeah i like the first book in that series and then i'll read the second book and that that's a good way to do it too so um so that's that's it i so what
Starting point is 00:03:13 am i gonna read i finished uh i finished a book yesterday so what am i gonna read next i don't know i honestly don't know unclear ryan if you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag SnowTalker, use question marks SnowTalker in the RelayFM members Discord, like Ryan did. Thank you, Ryan. iOS 15.2 is currently in beta. I think we're up to beta 2 or 3 of 15.2 now. And there are a couple of things going on here that i wanted to talk about one of them is communication safety has returned this was one of the two features that apple added which calls lesser known of the features yeah this was added alongside the c-sam scanning so the child sexual
Starting point is 00:04:01 abuse material scanning um i know you know i was just saying about that i was thinking as we approach the end of the year you know like we have the upgrade is more information that soon and on connected we do like the year review thing and this is just going to be one whole month right like the month of whatever it was i don't remember that was when apples made us all talk about child sexual abuse material for three weeks. But now they have brought back... It's when we learned the term CSAM. CSAM. Yay!
Starting point is 00:04:28 Thank you. So they're bringing their one part of it back. This is the system that looks for nudity in messages to children, warning them of what it could include. And they've made some tweaks to the system now. So a child of any age will now have the option to message someone that they trust for help
Starting point is 00:04:51 if they receive this imagery before viewing it, rather than it automatically just alerting parents. So you get the option to send a message to someone before doing anything else with it, which is really good because the concern is who sent that message in the first place and can they be trusted or can you trust your automatic people in your family as the child so i think that's a good addition right it's clearly apple having received some feedback about this the less controversial of the two of the uh two or three
Starting point is 00:05:25 i guess sets of of new features and making some adjustments based on the feedback which again easier on this score than some of the other criticisms that they received but it's interesting to see that they one are still committed to doing this and two have made some adaptations based on the feedback yeah like i saw a bunch of headlines that were along the lines of i just googled i just touched on google news now like apple to beta test imis's feature that warns kids about nude imagery latest ios beta blurs nude images for children like this is the type of headline that should have occurred in the first instance because they should have released these two things separately yeah right the problem was we spoke about it at the time but now it's like i see that and i'm like oh yeah great you know like it's an easier thing to just accept uh rather than the whole like oh and also apple's going to
Starting point is 00:06:15 scan every single image on your phone right like it just messed it muddied the waters way too much they couldn't get the message out properly and i think that they're now doing the right thing by by bringing this part back um i think it was and i'm. And I think that they're now doing the right thing by bringing this part back. And I'm happy with the tweaks that they are making to this system to make it more kind of thought through for everybody in the process, including the child, who I would argue is the person who should be considered most and what they need in this situation. So I think this is cool. And I'm pleased that they're bringing this part back
Starting point is 00:06:46 first. I think it was the best part of everything with the least issues and would really, I think, help some people out. So I'm pleased it's finding its way back into iOS. And you can look at, I mean, you can listen back to our podcast where we talked about why this was such a PR disaster and why it was their own fault for conflating all this stuff together. In the intervening months, the best I've come up with is that Apple's tendency to group things together in order to tell a story, in order to form a narrative, which is a thing that they do a lot, that works for them a lot. The short version is, I think that's what got them here, is that they decided that this
Starting point is 00:07:25 could all be wrapped together in a very simple narrative of keeping kids safe. And it turned out to be way more complicated than that. And they weren't able to sort of just slide it by with their narrative. The power of their narrative building wasn't able to do the job. So here they are. I think I'm encouraged by the fact that they rolled this out in a beta without the other features being involved. Like, yes, that's probably the best thing to do. concerned or if you somebody has a concern about having an air tag placed on them that the find my app can now like you can ask it to actively look for these types of devices that could be hidden on your person which is a good feature and then they've added this functionality to another part of the app as well that you can use this to scan for something if you're looking for something or if say say for example i went to jason's house and i had a night with an air tag on a like a bag i'm like jason i think i
Starting point is 00:08:32 left my bag in your home and he can't see it but i was like i have an air tag on it jason can say help me find something and then the phone starts actively searching for an air tag in that vicinity so i like that they've added this functionality and it does two different things. And I think that that's really cool. So these are two things that are coming to the Find My app. I think they developed this little part of the app to deal with concerns around privacy,
Starting point is 00:08:56 but then they're also turning it into a general user feature as well. So I think that's a good part of it to have of like you contact someone and say, I lost this here, and then they can go into Find My and like put the app into finding mode, like an active finding mode.
Starting point is 00:09:11 So it has to be a lost device. It's a device that like an AirTag that you said, this is lost. You know, you can go in and do that. Like I've lost this. And then the Find My app will look for those tagged devices as such. I have noticed since I've been using this MacBook Pro, the new MacBook Pro, and I don't think this is entirely new, but I think I maybe have it turned
Starting point is 00:09:32 off for other devices. But one of the things that's amused me about it is that it's basically acting like an AirTag. When I leave it, I get an emergency note on my phone that says, you've left your laptop behind, which is actually very helpful. But in the context of me leaving it at home, when I go away from my home, is a little bit kind of humorously needy of MacBook Pro. So you can go into the Find My app and into the device, and you can add ring fence locations
Starting point is 00:10:01 that it won't alert you about. But I do like that feature in general i think it's a great feature and it's just not one that i had experienced firsthand until i set up this macbook pro and now i'm seeing it and it is it's using the same infrastructure as find my it's using the same app it's using the same notification settings as find my and uh and it is a good feature to be able to warn you that you left your laptop behind right right? Like that is, in general, you don't want to do that. Well, we're talking about things we've spoken about previously. Sometimes it's the appendix section.
Starting point is 00:10:33 Well, I mean, that is follow-up, right? It is literally the definition of what we're doing now. Okay. Play date has been delayed, unfortunately. Not too surprisingly delayed. There comes a moment in every product's life when it's announced to ship by the end of a year and it is mid-november and there has been no communication about that product status when you start to think i suspect it's it's years now
Starting point is 00:10:58 doing a podcast about space that has taught me to lurk look for all the signs of delays because space stuff is all about delays. Everybody in space says we're going to do it in 2014. And then in 2020, they're like, look at us. We did it. And you're like, it's a little late, but good job. So this is a little like that where Playdate, they were quiet about it. And it turns out that, yeah, the first batches that were supposed to ship by the end of the year will be early next year instead. And then the rest of their stuff has also been pushed back.
Starting point is 00:11:32 Not a shock. It's sort of sad. I found pictures of people playing with the Playdate test hardware at WWDC in 2019 the other day. And I thought, oh, wow, Playdate. And then now here it is, delayed even further. It's a tough story because they had them in their warehouse in California
Starting point is 00:11:58 ready to ship. And they did tests on them and found out that the batteries on lots of them were super defective, basically. Which, Panic doesn't say anything about this, but I get a real sense that what happens a lot in industries is the best customers get the first crack at the hardware. And the little customers don't. And that you might have like, let's say a battery that you're relying on and you're panic making play dates. And so you get a sample and you're like, this battery is great. And then it turns out that they make a
Starting point is 00:12:39 million of them at the factory, but the first 800,000 go to their best client and you're at the end of the line. Well, guess what? You may get the ones that are rejected by the client. You may get the ones that are not as good. And I'm not saying that that happened here, but it feels kind of like something like that happened here where they were sold a good battery and what they got were bad batteries. So they had to get a new battery supplier. They had to send the playdates that were in the US back to Malaysia to be re-disassembled and reassembled with a new battery in it.
Starting point is 00:13:07 So that's bad. And then to make matters worse, the processor that they chose, and keep in mind, they chose this processor, what, four years ago, five years ago, a long time ago. They chose the processor that runs in this thing, and they designed the circuit board around it. And this is their first hardware product. I said this to Dan moran last week on the six colors podcast this is why it's called hardware mike otherwise it'd be called easyware
Starting point is 00:13:31 yeah but it's hard hardware so it's it's hard anyway the um the processor they're like great we need to ship more playdates in 2022 can we have more processors and the processor supplier said yes you can have them in 2024 and it was like wait what now so it turns out there's a different ARM processor that is basically identical but it's slightly different that they can get faster and they can get it for next year so they can ship playdates next year but it requires them to do a revision to their motherboard of the playdate in order to use the different chip, which means that, yes, after the first couple batches of playdates, it sounds like the ones that come thereafter will be using a modified motherboard, a different motherboard. It's like another revision because they have to change what processor they're using.
Starting point is 00:14:17 All the software will be the same and, you know, it'll all look the same. But behind the scenes, they basically had to change their design because of chip availability, which means, Mike, that it's the legacy nodes. It's the legacy nodes. It's the fault of the legacy nodes. This is what it is like to make things in 2021. This is just what it is like. If you make products,
Starting point is 00:14:38 this is what it is like. You are scrambling. Tough time to do your first hardware product, right? It's like, oh no, the supply chain in Asia, hardware product, right? It's like, oh no, the supply chain in Asia, it'll be fine. It's like, no, it turns out it's worse
Starting point is 00:14:53 than fine. It's much worse than fine. So I feel bad for them. I feel bad for all the people who want a playdate and wanted it by the end of the year. It's not going to happen. It sounds like they've got it all together. But again, who knows?
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Starting point is 00:16:10 menu bar items and also clean shot x which is from in my opinion if you take screenshots on your mac you should be using clean shot x it is absolutely superb i love it and it was also available as part of setup and what I also really love about these is that they are the full featured pro versions of these apps. So updates are free, and you don't need to worry about like, oh, what kind of version am I getting of the app? Is it watered down? No, you get the full featured pro version. Setapp is super convenient and great value because instead of paying for hundreds or even thousands of dollars for separate licenses and having to manage all of the separate licenses, you get them all with just one flat
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Starting point is 00:17:11 Our thanks to Setapp for their support of this show and RelayFM. So we knew this was going to come back and the story has come back and we're going to talk a little bit more about Apple, Epic, and external linking.
Starting point is 00:17:24 So this was the thing that came out. Linking, linking, linking. We love talking about linking on this show. We do. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers rejected Apple's appeal to delay her ruling that they must allow for external payment options for apps on iOS. So the ruling that Judge Gonzalez-Rogers stated was that there must be additional options for apps to be able to provide links to external payment options inside of their applications by December 9th. Obviously,
Starting point is 00:17:58 this is not something Apple allows at the moment. Apple asked for what's known as a stay on this ruling so that they could appeal it further and also have more time to make necessary changes. They wanted a delay on it, basically. This is a quote from Apple attorney Mark Perry. This will be the first time Apple has ever allowed live links in an app for digital content. It's going to take months to figure out the engineering, economic, business, and other issues. There's still no clear guidelines really about what will or will not be accepted by the court. So can you put one link in your app? Can you put more than one link? Can anybody define what a metadata button is? That's what it just
Starting point is 00:18:39 continues to say. We'll talk about this in a second, but I just want to read this quote from Judge Gonzalez-Rogers as well. So this was her decision to Apple. credible reason for the court to believe that the injunction would cause the professed devastation links can be tested by app review users can open browsers and retype links to the same effect it is merely inconvenient which then only works to the advantage of apple i really like this uh i think that's fantastic because i agree right like you know i understand if apple's trying to build like a whole system here which which they may be, right? Like that thing that Google was doing that we spoke about last week. But the judge isn't asking for that. The judge is saying, at least in the interim, basically from December 9th, allow people to tap a link to go to a web browser to pay for a subscription or whatever
Starting point is 00:19:46 well it's very much apple saying um okay if we're going to do this we need to over engineer all of this we need to change all our guidelines and we need to build a system that scans for links and we need to figure out what the rules need to be around what happens at the other end of those links and like they're, so what they're saying is we're, we're really going to do this up. We're not going to just put a, let people do links. We're going to, it needs to be much more complicated. I think that's their argument, right? Is it needs to be much more complicated and it'll take time. And the judge is basically saying it doesn't need to be more complicated. I told you to do this,
Starting point is 00:20:24 it doesn't need to be more complicated. I told you to do this, so you need to do it. And that is interesting, right? Because I have no doubt, and I think we've talked about this before, the idea that Apple might want to have a more holistic system for whatever changes are made. They want to change it in app review, and maybe there an API and like whatever it is. Like I get it. But I also get the judge saying, no, I told you to just let them put links in. This is the bare minimum. And if you want to build support around it, you can. But the bare minimum is just let them put a link in their app to go to their website.
Starting point is 00:21:01 That is what I ordered you to do. to go to their website. That is what I ordered you to do. And yes, the argument is also that it's very self-serving for Apple to say, this will take a while because they're stalling, because they're appealing and they don't want to do it. And so by saying, please give me a stay, they're basically playing for time so that they can hopefully avoid doing it altogether. So that's the game that they're playing. And I do admire her saying, you're making this more complicated than it has to be. I told you to put a link, so do it. I kind of also like this, I get this sense of,
Starting point is 00:21:35 I'm not an idiot. I know what you're trying to do here. Like, I know that you're just saying all of this so you don't have to do the thing you don't want to do. Yeah, and she says yeah you may need to revise your rules right to say like well here's what we'll allow and we're not but apple seems to be saying like we're gonna take it's gonna take us months oh it's so hard we haven't understood the economic devastation that could occur like yeah and and she's saying
Starting point is 00:22:00 it looks fairly simple to me and I'm not buying your line of argument that this is going to take months of intense study to figure out how to do this. And also, I think you could interpret it as being, it will take us months to figure out how to undercut your order as much as possible so that while we follow the letter of the law, the letter of your ruling, we avoid all the consequences of it. And she's saying, no, just put the links in, please. That's what I told you to do. So do it. The truth is that Apple is still playing for time and they are appealing. And it feels to me entirely likely that they will take this to the ninth circuit court of appeals
Starting point is 00:22:47 i think they basically said they would jason yes and that the ninth circuit will then issue a preliminary stay so apple doesn't have to do anything while they consider the case right and apple's plea will be this changes our whole business model for something that we're appealing so don't make you know don't make us do this thing while the appeal is going on because it will threaten us and cause harm to us for something that you may think we don't actually have to do. So don't make us do it. But my argument, if I was this judge here,
Starting point is 00:23:19 is you've already said you're going to for the Japanese Fair Trade Commission, but you haven't announced any more information about what that's going to look like. So they are already preparing for this, but they're not saying what they're doing. So it is going back to the idea of like, you're only not doing it now when you've been told to, because it is the most convenient option for you. Like they must have already worked out before they made the deal with the JTFC what the impact of this would be on their business. Yeah, and that's, but I do think it's the most likely scenario is the Ninth Circuit just stays the order and says, we'll work this out next year. And don't worry about it in the meantime.
Starting point is 00:24:00 But if you're Apple, you have to have the contingency in place, right? To say, hey, we've changed the rules. But if you're Apple, you have to have the contingency in place, right? To say, hey, we've changed the rules. Good news, everybody. You can put a link in. We took it upon ourselves. Yeah. So, you know, you got to be able to be, the judge has told you, you need to do this. So you need to be prepared to do it while hoping that another judge or panel of judges will say, hold off for now. They're playing for time. I wouldn't put any money on this going into effect. I think it's more likely because I am skeptical of Apple's arguments here, but if you're a judge in the Ninth Circuit and
Starting point is 00:24:43 you look at this and you say, well, this potentially could change their whole business model, either in whole or in part, and we're asking them to change it in advance of our ruling if we decide that this is worth considering an appeal on, then let's not make them, right? Don't make them do the thing that they say is going to be a big deal if we're not sure that they, in the long run, are going to need to do it. I can see the argument that they'd be like, all right, let's just let it go while we ponder. We're not going to make you do this thing because we're considering it. It's also possible, though, that they'll be like, no, this is a real stretch here. I don't know. Judges do what they want. I don't know much about what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is.
Starting point is 00:25:30 I just know the phrase. But, you know, like tech companies, especially Apple, not particularly popular right now from a political standpoint. It's true across the aisle. Yes. And so on something like the Ninth Circuit Court, which is famous, it's one of the more liberal courts, although it is more conservative than it used to be. It's a panel of judges. I think they, I don't actually know a lot of detail about the process. I have two.
Starting point is 00:26:01 I have a state Supreme Court judge and a federal judge in my family, in my extended family. But I have to say, I have to sort of sadly nod and say, I don't know what the process is at the Ninth Circuit. I don't think we're going to be blamed for a panel. I imagine that they either have a judge who has to act on the initial appeal or they have they convene a small you know panel of judges to look at this so i don't know the details of it but it's going to go to the ninth circuit and i have read people who know more about the law than i do say that it'll probably just get um stayed while they look at it i mean i know personally i want them to say no you have to do it because i want the drama i I'm a big drama llama when it comes to this.
Starting point is 00:26:46 Sure. Oh, yeah, I know. And plus, do I want the drama in December? Yeah, I do. Because December is usually a quiet month. I'd love a bit of app review drama. That'd be fun. So we'll see.
Starting point is 00:26:57 Sure. I think it's going to be messy. This is going to continue to be messy. Whenever they do eventually get to adding, like saying like, oh yeah, you can put these links in, it's going to be a mess, I feel like. And I'm intrigued to see what they end up doing with this. Yeah, I mean, this is the...
Starting point is 00:27:15 Apple's fighting, but Apple's also making changes because they're knowing when they need to fight and when they need to not fight or when they can't fight. And change is happening kind of regardless, but it's not always a change that everybody envisions, right? It's a disappointing minor change instead of something that's huge and earth shattering. And as we discussed last week, even something like separate payment systems, which everybody said, finally, I won't need to give Apple 15% or 30%.
Starting point is 00:27:44 It looks like even if that comes to pass, I won't need to give Apple 15% or 30%. It looks like even if that comes to pass, you'll still need to give Apple 15 or 30%, right? Like that's what Google is saying is no, no, no. I mean, regardless of who's processing the credit card, you still got to give us our cut. And it doesn't seem like that may be a stronger legal leg to stand on. So I think, in the words of the Princess Bride, get used to disappointment. Apple have launched something called Business Essentials. It's true.
Starting point is 00:28:18 What is this, Jason? It's a service, Mike. Ah, there we go. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. How do you make the bar graph go up? Okay. Add more services. So Apple has added a service that's for smaller businesses,
Starting point is 00:28:32 between 50 and 500 employees. And there are lots of companies out there that do this, some of whom have probably sponsored this podcast in the past. Maybe. There are a lot of work in this space. But, of course, here's the first party. Here's the platform owner coming into the space. Could be dangerous, could be nothing. I mean, honestly, the history of this sort of thing. Sometimes the platform owner rolls in and you're like,
Starting point is 00:28:55 the jig is up and everybody has to adjust to work around them. And we see that a lot when Apple comes in in any market and says, we have a new app that does this. Everybody else is like, OK, well, we can't just do the bare bones. We have to do all the edge cases because Apple's going to hit them the middle of this market and we're going to be around the edges. We've also seen it, though, where a first party has come in. The platform owner rolls in and says, ha ha, we're here now. We've solved it. And they fall flat on their face because they don't actually understand that market at all. And thought that just because they're the platform owner, they can rake in the money from the customers. And they can't because they don't really understand the details.
Starting point is 00:29:32 Or, and I think this is relevant in this story too, sometimes organizations that are the platform owner have to make certain decisions because it's their platform that third parties don't need to make. And it comes down to things like, how well do we support things that aren't from Apple, for example? Or is there something political inside Apple where like a certain kind of thing that you really should offer? And they're like, well, we can't offer that because that's some other department. And all the competitors do. I don't know enough about this space to be able to drill down in detail here, but this is just always what happens when stuff like this goes on. So in this particular case, what they're doing is they're combining a bunch of stuff together.
Starting point is 00:30:12 They're building a web-based device management system that uses existing device management APIs that are in, I mean, they're in iOS 15 and macOS Monterey now, and other developers also use them. So it's not, they're not doing secret sauce, at least not yet, where they are building something and it's only for Apple. They're literally building an Apple version of the stuff on top of their public API for device management, is my understanding. So that's part of it, which is like, and they've part of it, which is like, and they've got a philosophy, which is you tie it to a person and you generate an Apple ID for that person
Starting point is 00:30:50 for your business and they log in and it's a separate cryptographic key from their personal Apple ID. So their stuff belongs to them, even if it's their iPhone, their stuff belongs to them, your stuff belongs to you. This is a system that Apple's been working
Starting point is 00:31:04 on its platforms for a long time and use the website to, you know, to roll out a new laptop or roll out a new iPad to them or whatever else. Lots of companies do this. But Apple is now going to offer that as part of this service. They are including iCloud storage as a part of it. The base seems really vanilla, like the base plan here seems pretty basic. And it's just a part of it. The base seems really vanilla. The base plan here seems pretty basic. And it's just a matter of, it's security policies and apps can be rolled in. And they've got an app that basically is a collection of the apps that the company owns and wants to deploy on the systems. And it's all pretty basic stuff. I think the part that is interesting is that, and it's in beta now until next spring for free, so people can try it out. And then they're going to start to charge for it. So there will be a starting at $3 per
Starting point is 00:31:55 user per month, and then going up based on how many devices a user has and how much iCloud storage they've got. But the really interesting thing to me is that they're also going to upsell people to a tier that has AppleCare Plus, another service. We don't think of AppleCare as a service, but it is one of Apple's more profitable services. It's a big part of the services revenue. We think about like Apple Music and Apple TV Plus, but AppleCare is a big part of Apple services revenue. We think about like Apple Music and Apple TV+, but AppleCare is a big part of Apple services revenue.
Starting point is 00:32:29 And there is an enterprise AppleCare+. This is going to be a business essentials AppleCare+, plan. But the idea here, to hear Apple tell it, the idea here is one, there'll be phone support. So if you're a smallish company and somebody's having a problem getting something on their iPhone to work, instead of having to have your smallish company's
Starting point is 00:32:50 smallish or non-existent help desk answer that question, they can just call Apple Care Support and ask that question. That seems like a very attractive part of this, right? Right, and they're going to, and again, it's first party, it's Apple support people. And then the second part of it right right and they're going to and again it's first party it's apple support people and then the second part of it is is a repair and it's not just they said it's not just in an apple store repair but it's also on-premises repair so if you think about that if you're a
Starting point is 00:33:16 distributed company and you've got a problem with a laptop in somebody's house somewhere um in in this scenario if you're paying for this service, they will send a tech to their house to look at that laptop within hours, right? Not like in a week, but like within hours. And that's not going to be cheap, right? But it also, I can see why it would have appeal. And most importantly, it takes advantage of the infrastructure of AppleCare. And that's one of the reasons that it's kind of interesting is that they're using their existing very large AppleCare infrastructure,
Starting point is 00:33:52 including their enterprise version and then baking another version of it in that uses this service for smaller business. So it's an interesting idea. And my guess is that it's neither going, my guess is it's not going to eradicate all the other companies that are out there doing this sort of thing, but it may make them have to adjust their strategy because Apple is going to come in with something basic. And it's a little bit like Apple making iPhone cases,
Starting point is 00:34:22 right? It's like, there is something to be said for the one-stop shop where you buy a bunch of devices from your business rep for your 40-person company or, sorry, 50-person company, 100-person company. And they immediately are like, we've also got a whole device management system that could be part of our deal with you. And like, there's some appeal to that. Doesn't mean that they're going to eradicate the competition here. In fact, I think it's more likely that this is found wanting and that they have to decide whether they want to fix it or abandon it. But it is an interesting new wrinkle in Apple's chasing of services revenue.
Starting point is 00:35:01 Yeah, I think that it's for me, like obviously all the stuff that they can do is fine. Right. And like when you were talking earlier about other companies, one of them is Jamf. And I saw a story where the Jamf CEO was welcomed to Apple to, you know, you know, we welcome you to this business. And it's like, cause you said like sometimes then people can realize, oh, we need, oh, this, this does Apple's thing doesn't do this thing. It does anything else? Yeah, it is always going to be. Sometimes it's famous last words, but it's always a validation of your business, right?
Starting point is 00:35:31 When Apple says, you know what, supporting these businesses is important, and you as a company have struggled to explain, which sometimes happens, why businesses need your product, it's incredibly validating to have Apple to point to and say, see, Apple's doing it. Of course it's valid. Apple's doing it. And what we provide is more than what Apple is doing.
Starting point is 00:35:56 And that's the trick, right? That's always the trick when the platform vendor enters some category is that you've got to be nimble because they won't be probably. And you've got to be able to deal with the edge cases because they won't probably. And you build a business around all of that. And my guess is that there's a lot of business to be had that is not going to get taken away by Apple's thing. But it is interesting that Apple is going there and targeting this.
Starting point is 00:36:27 Also, yes, if you look at other, and we're getting some of this in our Discord members' chat right now, which is a lot of Apple's competition does versions of this. I mean, Dell is a great example because Dell sells into a lot of businesses. And they've got that kind of support level, too. And they've got that kind of support level too. And it's a good... I would imagine that this isn't something coming from the services group saying, you got to give us... Hey, business people, you got to give us services revenue.
Starting point is 00:36:55 My guess is that this maybe comes from the business people saying, we need to compete with the devils of the world better. And it's not about we're worried that Jamf exists or we're worried that Kanji exists. It's more that we're going into organizations and they're saying, why can't you give us what Dell gives us? And I don't know a lot about that world again, but if it's anything like it was when i knew more about it it's cutthroat and you know and it's not let's roll over this small company that's doing device management it's more like how do i sell 5 000 devices into this company and when i'm competing with other
Starting point is 00:37:38 companies that want to put you know dell laptops or whatever on the desks but i do think that that like the on-site tech support and the over-the-phone tech support, that's like a real tick in the box for Apple. If you're a company, you're trying to decide which one of these do you want. And that's the beauty of this strategy is that you're leveraging AppleCare.
Starting point is 00:38:00 Like AppleCare exists and everybody has good and bad experiences with AppleCare, but AppleCare exists and it exists for consumers and it exists for enterprise. And they're basically saying we are packaging in AppleCare, a special tier of AppleCare that is just for people who are in the business essentials program. and the in-person support. And it's from authorized because it's literally Apple. So it's authorized by Apple. And we can roll that together in a plan. And I think their story would be
Starting point is 00:38:31 that way you poor little 100 person company who cannot afford that level of support. If you can pay per user or per device, or it is both because it's you pay per user, but the amount you pay is based on how many devices they have um and how much support they get but you can basically you write apple a check and then apple will support its own stuff directly on the phone in person whatever it needs to do and that that's a good that's a good sales pitch this episode of upgrade is brought to you by capital
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Starting point is 00:40:27 to create the future of banking at CapitalOne.com slash ML. That's CapitalOne.com slash ML. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Our thanks to Capital One for their support of this show and RelayFM. Let's talk about Netflix. I see what you did there great british bake off it's going on they're down to the semi-finals very exciting it's a great season i haven't watched it week by week yet uh-huh uh before because they they uh i i was watching them like
Starting point is 00:40:58 season by season but then we've watched it all now and so this season came on and i've been enjoying watching it uh i know it kills netflix to release it weekly but i love it oh is that how they do it that's cool that's yeah yeah it's every friday every friday i think it just shows up on netflix and so i i'm current to the latest episode now we're not actually going to spoil the great british bake off here by the way just just so you know we're talking about something completely different which is netflix games on the app store that's right there should be a gbbo game though there totally should be well it does then great british bake-off does not belong to netflix so yeah well it does it does everywhere but in the uk right so it doesn't belong to make it the great the great british baking show ap yeah but
Starting point is 00:41:38 they license it anyway yes okay fine anywho they should still do it i don't care i don't know what that game would even be is it baking game yeah what does that mean anyway games i think i think a great british bake-off game could be fun anyway maybe a vr game sure you know so you have to be in the tent and you're like trying to make a meringue that would actually be excellent someone needs to someone needs to work on that it's like job simulator except it's a tent simulator yeah exactly a job simulator version of the great british bake-off and it's like soggy but anyway did you see oh that's what you lose if you get the soggy bottom did you know so in the u.s it has to be called the great british baking show yeah because of a trademark because pillsbury owns the trademark of bake-off uh did you know that they shoot a totally separate intro for the US now? The only reason I found this out is because I was talking about it on Analog with Casey
Starting point is 00:42:31 and somebody wrote in to tell us that they record two. So when they say, welcome to, and then they do both of them. Yeah, because they didn't used to. When it was not a hit on Netflix in America, they used to just, uh, cut, cut away or not show it. Um, and they now record their, a second version where they say it the American way so that, that we in America can get the,
Starting point is 00:42:54 in fact, it used to be at the end, they used to put up the name and there would be this weird freeze at the end, right before the credits where they had to like freeze the video so that they didn't violate the trademark. But now they, now they produce two versions. I really love Matt and Noel together, by the way.
Starting point is 00:43:09 I think they're a fantastic pair. Yeah, I had no idea that they would work out so well. Yeah, they really, really are. Anyway. It's my Taskmaster friend and my Doctor Who friend, and now they're my baking friends. We are not talking about the Great British Bake Off. Well, I think we are, Mike. I great british bake-off so as previously we are
Starting point is 00:43:25 mike i think it happened we're not continuing for christmas last year i got i had lauren get me a paul hollywood cookbook yes okay let's talk about games on netflix it's fine so previously reported that netflix were going to start working on games it was a rumor and then they spoke about it on their earnings call these games have now started to roll out uh on both the play store and the app Store. There are no ads, there are no fees, and there are no in-app purchases in these apps, but you have to be a Netflix subscriber to play any of the games. So all of these games have been launched as individual titles. They're not inside of the Netflix app, and there isn't like a Netflix games app. There's just
Starting point is 00:44:02 a selection of games. So this is something that you may remember that Microsoft did not want to do with launching Game Pass on iOS, which is why that's now only available on a browser on iOS. Now, one interesting wrinkle that has been discovered about this is if you go to one of these games
Starting point is 00:44:22 on the App Store, and I'll put a link in the show notes to a couple of articles, one at Six Colors, one at 95Mac, which links out to some of these games. If you go to them and you're not a Netflix subscriber when you open them, you can subscribe to Netflix through Apple's in-app purchase system inside of these games, which is something you cannot do in the Netflix app app right now and i find that fascinating because that is netflix for some reason thinking that these games are important enough that they will play by apple's rules yeah yeah i think the games initiative is important enough to netflix that that they will play by apple's rules yeah i think that's exactly what it is i don't
Starting point is 00:45:05 think netflix believes this is a real um major source of acquisition of subscribers for them and so are they willing to to do it if they need to yeah right like i i just i don't think this is a big business model change for them i think this is them saying um if that's what we need to do to get games in the app store let's do it because it's not like it's going to be i mean it's only going to really be people in the games and the people getting the games are going to be netflix subscribers it's it's really not going to be a big deal unless they have a hit but we'll talk about that in a minute well i played one of these games i wanted to see what the experience was all about okay i tried to okay cool i was poking around with one and i played a game called
Starting point is 00:45:45 shooting hoops yes i saw that one it's one of the games that i played um one thing that i found interesting is i didn't need to do anything to sign in i was logged in automatically knew it was me and i know that there's a way that apps can do this because i've had google apps does that yeah exactly they know you're signed in somewhere and they're able to pull that out i don't know how this works but it is a thing that can happen and the game was like not very good it just was like so i want to try and explain this it's a basketball like shooting hoops kind of game right so like you're shooting hoops of a basketball but the shooting comes from the fact that in the game each basketball has like a nerf gun attached to it and when you tap on the screen it shoots like a nerf bullet out of the gun so the the the ball
Starting point is 00:46:31 moves in the opposite direction to where the gun is pointed and you're supposed to like basically keep shooting in the right direction until you get the ball in the hoop it was really hard and shooting not very fun like it was not good uh it was like basically i could tell someone had a good idea for a game from the name and i don't think it was very well executed um this isn't to say that like you know they can keep making games like this like i think of flappy bird right like flappy bird is really hard and really annoying and not really like a technically advanced game but it caught on that could happen do you think netflix have the what games did you play out of interest i didn't i tried but i'm on a beta and i couldn't buy them i tried to get them you know
Starting point is 00:47:19 and i would put in my password and it would say that's great and then nothing would happen and then if i found them in the app store and I tried to download them, they would just spin. And I think it's, I'm going to give it to the beta that it's probably an iOS 15.1 beta problem. But I did get to the, the thing that I liked about it is that there's a strip in the Netflix interface that is, we also have games and here are our games and you can tap and it will open a window that tells you what the game is.
Starting point is 00:47:48 And then if you tap in there, it will open that app store, um, basically floating window that lets you do the download. That's an, I've seen this now. That's interesting. See,
Starting point is 00:48:00 so that's, I think that's the whole idea here is that you're a Netflix subscriber and they want to be, I don't want to say they want to be like Quibi because nobody wants to be like Quibi because Quibi is dead in a ditch. But I would say entertainment services are well aware that there are lots of times when you're watching a 30 minute long TV show is not a thing that you're going to do. Yeah. that there are lots of times when you're watching a 30 minute long TV show is not a thing that you're going to do. And so they want to be the, the ego involved here is Netflix wants to be the place you always think of when you want to be entertained in any way, which I would argue is silly. And, uh, generally, oh, they should get over themselves and realize they're really good at one thing. And it doesn't mean that realize they're really good at one thing. And it doesn't mean that they need to be good at everything.
Starting point is 00:48:52 But because, but, and that was Quibi's idea was like, we'll make videos that you'll watch in the supermarket line. Like, okay, didn't work. But, but what Netflix wants to do is like, well, you're bored and you're on your phone and Netflix is there, but you're not going to watch Netflix. But if you learn that Netflix has games, then you, and they're included your phone and Netflix is there, but you're not going to watch Netflix. But if you learn that Netflix has games, and they're included with your subscription, then maybe you'll play Netflix games and it will just add to the value
Starting point is 00:49:12 that you connect to having Netflix. And then Netflix is no longer just a movie service. It is an entertainment service on your phone that is for videos and it is also for games. That is the premise, right? And I don't think it's a bad premise. I think that having the games exposed in the app having them tied to intellectual property of netflix is fine but it doesn't have to be that way they're basically building an apple arcade
Starting point is 00:49:35 except you know a cheap version of it or cheap you know in terms of the apps not being that great so far uh but they're building apple arcade where it's like look you netflix comes with games now too so one less reason to cancel netflix because you'll also lose all these great games that we provide for you uh interesting idea and doesn't it's not too bad right like if you can jump straight from the netflix app to find the games and download them and then they're just in your app library on your phone um or your ipad uh that's not a bad experience like it was bad for me because i was unable to get them but again i'm going to chalk that one up to the beta i i like the idea that right from within the netflix app you can tap
Starting point is 00:50:15 read tap get and open and you know you're four layers deep at that point but still you can get to the you can get to the game i'm surprised that they do that though like that this must be a we did everything apple wanted us to do and they let us do this part thing no that that is no different than i'll mention microsoft office again but it's like it's no different from any other company that has other apps in the store okay that can link to their other apps in the store and that's to their other apps in the store. And that's what they're doing. Right. Because I guess because what I was thinking of, which is this isn't that, is the idea of you can't have an alternate app store, but if it's your own application, surely that's okay to link to. Yeah. Well, and it's not an alternate app store. It's the app store. It's your apps in the app store. Right. Yeah, of course.
Starting point is 00:51:04 You're not downloading them from the Netflix app, are you? In the end, you are in a panel that is an app store panel. Yeah. With an app store, you know, buy or in this case, get because they're free with in-app purchase and the in-app purchase is Netflix. And you can just get them. And so it's exactly how Apple wants companies like this to do it.
Starting point is 00:51:26 And this is, you're completely right. This is what Apple wanted Microsoft to do. And I think Microsoft's whole point was, well, this is ridiculous. They aren't apps. They're just streaming. And Apple said, yeah, but you could just put them in the app store and have an in-app purchase thing for your service and people will search for your app and they'll find it you're the game they want to play and
Starting point is 00:51:50 they'll find out that it's through microsoft game pass and then they'll like you could do it it's just a lot of work but it keeps the sanctity from apple's perspective of the app store and uh i will admit there's lots of complexity that's not in this Netflix implementation. But as an implementation, it's fine, right? It's literally you're scrolling down through Netflix stuff and it says, hey, games. And you tap on a game and you can get it and you can play it. Like that's a perfectly reasonable way to do it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's working fine for Netflix.
Starting point is 00:52:20 I still stand by Microsoft saying, no, we're not going to do it. and Netflix, I still stand by Microsoft saying, no, we're not going to do it. Because my feeling is like, well, they don't need it. They don't need it in the app store because they do it on the web. I don't think Apple... I don't, and I've said this before,
Starting point is 00:52:35 I think I have a general frustration at the moment with Apple kind of believing that they can tell every other business how to run their business? In this case, I think, I mean, with Microsoft, Microsoft could do it or not. And they chose not to. And it's like, fine, you don't have to. From Apple's perspective, having an app and being in the app store is helping your product. And so you probably want to be in the app store. And
Starting point is 00:53:02 Microsoft basically said, we're fine, thanks. We don't need that. And they found a way to do it. And like, what I took away from the Netflix thing is that Microsoft totally could do this if it wanted to, but it really doesn't want to. And that's fine. Like, I think it would be weird and maybe not very good. And I think that might be enough reason for Microsoft to say, we're not going to litter the App Store with our shell apps that just open a window to a virtual game somewhere, instance somewhere, so you can play it. Fair enough. But Netflix has shown that they can go down this path and follow Apple's rules. I do wonder, though, at what part and for what reason are they allowing the sign up with Apple's in-app purchase system part? Why is that happening?
Starting point is 00:53:47 Because Netflix don't want to do this. So why are they doing it? The rule is that certain kinds of apps that have to offer functionality or if they're subscription only, they have to offer a sign up. So it's the same thing as I believe it's the same thing as that. offer a sign up. So it's the same thing as I believe it's the same thing as that. If you open a Microsoft office app, you can buy, you can buy office 365 in an app purchase, or you can enter in your Microsoft. And this might be the second, maybe potentially bigger issue with the Xbox thing. Sure. Right. Like if every time you get that, that amazing premium game, that's on Xbox game pass,
Starting point is 00:54:24 you have to offer a game Pass subscription where Apple takes a cut and that they don't want to do that. Also, I think that's a different scenario because Netflix has, if Microsoft bought Game Pass, like there's no Game Pass user base on iOS to speak of. And so everybody doing it is going to be prompted with that sign-in. Whereas Netflix is, I would wager 99.99% of people who find these games are going to find them through Netflix and they're going to be Netflix subscribers. So the risk of losing a lot of revenue by having somebody find the game from the other side, and you're right, they could have a breakout hit that somebody might sign. And then they would
Starting point is 00:55:08 open it and be like, oh, Netflix. Well, I don't want to sign up for Netflix. For people to find a game everybody's talking about and literally sign up for Netflix to play the game. Now, whoever's in charge of games at Netflix, that's their dream. That is the moment where they're like, we did it, everybody. We made it.
Starting point is 00:55:25 But probably not going to happen. And it's not that big a deal because what they want in the end is just to drive people from out of the Netflix app into the App Store to get these games. And then once the games are on your home screen, then you win. Netflix has got you there and they're done. Yeah. Then the whole netflix this whole netflix game thing seems pretty misguided to me like this doesn't really feel like a winning thing i mean i likened it to quibi okay so like i'm with you there i i think i i
Starting point is 00:55:57 don't i mean look capitalism i get it but yeah companies that dominate in an industry don't have to imagine what if we dominated in all the other industries too and that's what i get a whiff of from netflix here is like just because people like watching your movies and tv shows doesn't mean that you need to capture their attention when they're waiting at the dentist right like you don't have to own that space just because but someone at netflix is like no all entertainment of all kinds ever must only be netflix like okay but it seems like you it seems like a waste of time because it's like you could say well what about apple arcade and like i say i would say i hear you but it's different like apple have the entire app store
Starting point is 00:56:51 right and so like having their own curated games section that you pay a subscription for just makes a little bit more sense than right the the video streaming service so So my generous take for Netflix would be they have no worlds to conquer. Their enemies are, I mean, again, there are lots of streaming services out there, but they're the big dog right now. So it's like, okay, we got all the streaming service stuff.
Starting point is 00:57:18 What's our competition? And they talked about this. It's like our competition is people playing games. It's people not watching Netflix, right? It's literally all other forms of life on the planet that are watching Netflix. We are competition for Netflix. Anything that takes anybody's time is competition for Netflix. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:57:34 So from that perspective, I can see it. I can also see it that they are running out of ways to make a Netflix subscription more valuable. And they want to keep increasing the price. And they have to find reasons to do that. Exactly. they are running out of ways to make a Netflix subscription more valuable. And they want to keep increasing the price and they got to find reasons to do exactly. And there's Julia and I talked about this on our podcast downstream two weeks ago, not the one that we're recording in two days, but the one we recorded 12 days ago,
Starting point is 00:57:57 fortnightly. How does it work? Um, and the, that's, that was one of our reader questions was how long can they, like, will there be a $40 Netflix account at some point, right? How long can they raise it? And you end up in a really weird position where there's two things.
Starting point is 00:58:12 They could do more of what they're doing now, which is sort of like premium, which is like higher quality. And you could do a Disney-esque thing where there's like premieres that you get sooner. It's unclear if they want to do that. But, you know, the game thing gives them some options, right? The game thing allows them to maybe raise the price of a Netflix subscription, but then offer a lower cost subscription that doesn't include games. And then the game suddenly becomes an inducement to pay more. Oh, you pay more and you get more.
Starting point is 00:58:40 Or maybe they break it out at some point and say, well, this is an additional revenue source. We bundle these two things together. But if you just like games and you are in that in-app purchase screen and you don't want to sign up for Netflix, well, guess what? We've got enough games now that we're going to let you pay us $5 a month and play all of our games, even though you don't get to watch the rest of Netflix. Or maybe you only get like a little bit of Netflix. Plus you get all of our games. Like it gives them, the counter argument is it gives them more flexibility
Starting point is 00:59:06 and it allows them to raise their price. And I get all of that, but there is also this scent of just the hubris of like, we must find your eyeballs wherever they stray from Netflix and then bring them back to Netflix. And that's why I'm skeptical
Starting point is 00:59:23 unless they spend more money and get better games, that this is actually a strategy that's going to work for them. But I understand maybe why they're doing it. This episode is brought to you by Bombas. Bombas's mission is simple. Make the most comfortable clothes ever, and match every single item sold with an equal item donated.
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Starting point is 01:01:30 First one comes from Doug. Do you do any home automation with sensors of any kind, like door sensors or motion sensors? For example, turning on and off lights when you enter a room. Basically, when it comes to your home, how smart is too smart? Well, I will point people,
Starting point is 01:01:48 if you are a Six Colors member, and if you're not, why aren't you, to Dan Warren's piece from last week about his sensors in his new house. Because Dan has done this. I'll also point you to ATP a couple weeks ago where Marco talked about smart sensors in his garage. I don't have any smart sensors.
Starting point is 01:02:08 There is like an occupancy sensor in my thermostat. But basically, I'm not doing any animations based on sensors, mostly because I work at home. So I feel like there's a lot of automation that makes more sense if you leave and then you come home, uh, than if you never leave home, which is me. So I don't find a lot of value. I've never had a use case where I'm like, Oh, wait a second. I know how I can solve. This is with a sensor. Um, however, I have a smart lock and the smart lock has, you can automate based on the state of the smart lock. And one thing that I did set up at some point is an automation that if the smart lock unlocks after, it's late. It's like after 11 p.m. or something.
Starting point is 01:03:01 It turns on the front of the house light outside and in. And the idea there, especially true when I had a senior in high school, well, I do again now, but he doesn't have a car. When my daughter was a senior in high school, and then when she was back with us, she would be out late, or sometimes we would be out late, sometimes we would be out late and we would be coming back from somewhere and it's dark. And ideally your phone auto-unlocks the front door, which is great. So I set up an automation where when the door unlocks late at night, the lights come on so you can see, which is very convenient. Is that indoor or outdoor lights? Both.
Starting point is 01:03:43 Both. Both. It's the lights in the living room, which are the lights that I have on a smart, it's a Casita switch. And it's the front lights outside in the house. And so ideally, if you pull up in your car
Starting point is 01:03:55 and the smart lock sees that you're back and it unlocks the door, but even if you have to put in the code on the door, it will, when it unlocks, the automation fires off and the lights come on and that's that's i wouldn't say it's a must-have but it's always been a kind of nice little convenience that it knows that somebody's there and that it's dark out and that it's late so late that the lights are all out and so i'm going to turn those lights on as a uh as a help to that person who is stumbling in at midnight or whenever
Starting point is 01:04:26 the majority of my smart home stuff is hit the studio in our home home we just have hue lights that's it um but at the studio i have a bunch of things you know i have hue lights and i have uh eve radiator control things and i have uh ring security stuff and all that now i can't currently get all of this to talk together right i'm looking forward to matter because hopefully i can get my ring gear to talk to home kit in some way you know like maybe if you opened the door because i have sensors on the door it would turn on the lights you know that would be nice right so uh maybe in the future but right now all i'm doing is just the the geo location stuff that is built into home kit so as i'm walking as i basically every time i get to the studio my hue lights are always on and which is happening automatically
Starting point is 01:05:22 and because it knows that you're close it knows i'm close and and that's nice i also have one which is a if mike forgets thing which is turns off the radiators and the lights after like sundown if i've left the radius so yeah and i like that they're good and just in general i really like home kit stuff i like that. They're good. Just in general, I really like HomeKit stuff. I like that I can turn on like my radiators to heat up the studio when I'm on my way to the studio. Like stuff like that. It's just like, I really like all of that stuff. And I genuinely like, I cannot wait for this matter thing. So there is a more possibility of me being able to feel
Starting point is 01:06:02 like I can freely add more to the studio without increasing my level of complication and having to download a bunch of really weird applications to get it all to work. I genuinely think that once they get this stuff working together properly, all of this is just going to become so much more powerful and more simple. Oh, yeah. And I agree. I have thought about doing occupancy sensors and the problem with occupancy and motion sensors is you end up in that i mean a lot of listeners have probably been in this with regular non-smart versions of this but you end up doing your job and the lights go out and then you have to like flail around with your arms to make the lights come back on
Starting point is 01:06:43 because you were sitting too still and so that it decided that you weren't there. We have an occupancy sensor in our kids' bathroom. And when they would be younger and they're like taking baths and stuff and the lights would go out. And we'd be like, we'd be waving our arms to get the lights to come back on. And that's just always been my experience with occupancy sensors is that uh you end up i've never moving enough i've always loved the idea of them i've never had a good experience with them no no definitely not it's better for something where it's like you roll up to the front door and the light comes on right i totally get that um so yeah
Starting point is 01:07:20 but i i'm optimistic about home kit stuff i i think it's getting better, but I am also a believer, a real believer in the fact that you need to move past the, again, they talked about this on ATP a couple of weeks ago, but you need to move past the, it's so complicated that you have to be an expert or use a special device in order to use it kind of phase and and you have to have it be that you can have it's not just the bulb but like the switch uh that knows and that's why i like the lutron casita stuff is that i it's a switch which means that if you don't know anything about home kit you just press the button and the lights come on. And that is super important because the early home stuff was not for regular people. And like people get confused about my lock, which even before it was a smart lock because it's a deadbolt
Starting point is 01:08:16 and people don't understand you have to unlock the door in order to leave. There's no lock on the latch. It's a separate deadbolt. And like, that's not even that complicated and people don't understand it and we have to tell them how to do it. So it can get really complicated more than people want really fast. So it's got to be more solid and more normal and really behave like a normal thing, but also be smart. That's where we need to get. And we're
Starting point is 01:08:44 not quite there yet. Yeah, when, you know, like we're hoping to move maybe next year, like we're going to start the process of it. And I think stuff like this, I want to integrate as well as the hue bulbs. Like I really love hue bulbs. I like the lamps because we have the color ones and we like to change color and stuff like that.
Starting point is 01:08:59 Like it's just a thing that we enjoy. And most of the time at home, we just use the lamps that have hue bulbs in them because it gives us more than enough light. But if we had a bigger place or if we were maybe doing it over, I would maybe also look at, all right, let's just change the switches.
Starting point is 01:09:14 But it's just too late in the game for us now in our apartment. But I think I would want to do some of this stuff as well as all of the other stuff. Like home automation is really interesting to me but even though it's been around for so long it really does feel like it's just kind of getting started in a strange way but we'll see uh neil asks did you guys buy the 14 or 16 inch macbook pro I'm having a hard time deciding.
Starting point is 01:09:46 I didn't buy one. I know. But so the thing was, I know you didn't buy one. I know you have the 14 and I have the 14 and we said it, but I wanted to make a point here, which is why I wanted to have this question, which is my same point for iPads,
Starting point is 01:09:59 like the 11 inch or the 12.9. If you do not know which one you want, you want the small one. Because the 16-inch MacBook Pro and the 12.9-inch iPad are massive for their product classes and they are unwieldy in their product classes. And I feel like you only want the biggest something
Starting point is 01:10:23 if you already know what you need it for. I feel like unless you have a specific use case that requires the 16-inch MacBook Pro or the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, unless you know what that is, that's not the one you want. I'll take it a little further with the 16-inch. inch having not held one only i can only imagine it compared to the 14 inch i feel like if you want um if you want to use it as a mostly as a desktop and you want to use that big screen but you're not planning on traveling around that much with it then i i think it's fine um if you're a little more reluctant of a laptop traveler but if you you are more going to travel with it, I think generally just go with the smaller one. I appreciate that it's a bigger screen,
Starting point is 01:11:12 but I've always been skeptical of those enormous laptops. You really need, like you said, you really need to have a use case for it. What are they? The old 17, I think, used to be called a lunch tray. Is that right? I think that's what we used to be called a lunch tray is that right i think cafeteria tray absolutely tray there's the one and chris asks are you using the new safari start page features if so which i'm loving reading list and using it in place of bookmarks instead
Starting point is 01:11:39 am i really using any i i've got shared with you on there because every now and then there's somebody sends me a link and i'm like oh yeah that link and it's insured with you but otherwise pretty much no i like that i can customize what's there um i'm having a weird thing of my ipad mini that it is not showing me like uh frequently visited even though i've turned it on like it won't show me which i find really strange all my other devices have no problem with it. I also like that I can reorganize like where they show up in the list. Yes, agreed. I'm not using my own background image and I'm not using any of the like extensions that you can use for this stuff now. You know, like it's actually possible for somebody to give you an extension that customizes that. I'm doing any of that either but i like that i can customize it because i can
Starting point is 01:12:28 get rid of reading lists because i never use it i don't need bookmarks because i don't have them right like i i have the things that i want i can have shared with you but i can deprioritize it a little bit like and you know put because i like icloud tabs more right like you've got something open on another device even though i'm using that less now because I'm a big tab group boy. Love my tab groups. But yeah, I like that they've added more there, and I would be keen, actually, if any Upgradians
Starting point is 01:12:54 are using and really enjoying some of these third-party start page things, you can send them to me. I want to see what they're all about, so you can just tweet them at me if you want to. If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade or use question mark AskUpgrade in the RelayFM members discord, which you can get access to if you sign up for Upgrade Plus. Go to GetUpgradePlus.com and you'll
Starting point is 01:13:18 get longer ad free episodes of Upgrade every single week. If you want to find Jason online, you can go to sixcolors.com and theincomparable.com. Jason also hosts a bunch of shows here at RelayFM, as do I. You can go to relay.fm slash shows and maybe find something new to pick out. Jason is at jsnall on Twitter. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E.
Starting point is 01:13:39 Thank you to Bombas, Capital One, and Setapp for their support of this show. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.

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