Upgrade - 393: Nothing Is So Perfect™

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

It's time for our annual dive into the Six Colors Apple Report Card, as Jason and Myke interpret the scores and comments of several dozen Apple-watchers and add their own views on where the company is succeeding--and where it's not. Also discussed: future M2 Macs and the intricacies of Dutch dating.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 393 today's show is brought to you by bombas squarespace fitbod and memberful my name is mike hurley i'm joined by jason snell hi jason snell hi mike hurley jason has a sore throat today i do so we're just going to get that out of the way uh up front jason is not going to sound his usual wonderful self yeah is it allergies is it something else uh i the one thing i could take a test for came back negative so whatever it is this is what you're getting i have lots of tea perfect my apologies for my voice jason loves getting the sore throat because it means he can have even of tea. Perfect. My apologies for my voice. Jason loves getting a sore throat because it means he can have even more tea than usual

and nobody can tell him otherwise. I have a whole pot of tea here with me right now. I have a cup, I have a mug, and then I have a thermos full of the rest of the pot. Well, I have a snow talk question. It's going to make you feel better because you get to talk about- Sorry, Mike, I got to go to the bathroom now.

E-readers. And Ryan wants to know, I know you prefer e-readers that have physical buttons for page turning. Which side of the e-reader do you prefer the buttons to be on and which button out of the top or bottom buttons is set for next page

and previous page? Okay, Ryan, let me blow your mind. Uh-oh. E-readers, modern e-readers, if you turn it upside down, the whole thing flips over so it's on whichever side you want them to be yeah but which side do you want like so when you know you don't just i'm sure you're a man of opinions you don't just have it randomly all over the place surely well i but but the truth is if i'm reading somewhere so i

think the right side is I'm more comfortable. But after a while, you know, you kind of want to mix it up. And then you go to the left side and I just flip it over. Like if I get a little tired, a little uncomfortable over here with my right arm, I'll just go over to the left. If you hold it with the left hand, does it feel like somebody else is reading to you? It does not. Okay. It's just the same.

It's just like a paperback book. You might adjust your grip and in this case, you flip it over so that the buttons go on your thumb. And I have the bottom button set for next page

because the way I hold it, the grip that I use, I'm gripping the bottom of the e-reader with my thumb on the bottom button. And since the bottom button is what I'm primarily using, because I seldom read books backward, sometimes you need to turn the page back. But I seldom do that.

So what I want is holding my right hand primarily, thumb on button, and then I click the button. Without moving my thumb, I just squeeze a little and click the button. the button without moving my thumb. I just squeeze a little and click the button. And I will point out that all these modern e-readers, Kobo and Kindle, let you set which button does which, let you lock orientation if you want to. All of those things are options, but that's how I prefer it is more right than left and bottom button is forward. If you'd like to help us open an episode of Upgrade, just send in a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk or use question mark SnellTalk in the Real AFM members Discord.

What do you want to know? Let us know. Do you like that? That was intriguing. I just threw that in there. I don't really know where it came from. I have a couple of Mark Gurman rumor roundup things for you. Oh, good.

There's some stuff published at Bloomberg, some stuff in his newsletter. It's all about kind of future product releases. Mark is reporting that Apple is currently targeting March the 8th for their next event. This event obviously will be a virtual event and they're going to be bringing people back together for this one. The current plans indicate that the event will focus on an iPhone SE 3

and an updated iPad Air. This is what Mark knows about. If this is all it was, this is not worth it. And press releases would 100% do the job, right? I kind of agree, but I wonder if our standards are too high in this era where apple does video events you know i feel like they've always even like so the one i can think of with this is when they had like i think it was they did the purple iphone and an ipad maybe an apple watch but like that

was enough i feel like an iphone se3 and a new base sorry and a new ipad air i feel like an iPhone SE 3 and a new iPad Air, I feel like it needs like one extra thing. One more thing. I wasn't going to say one more. I agree. One extra thing. And this is why, additionally, Mark has suggested that a new Mac could be announced at this event as well. But there seems to be some chopping and changing about the timing of that from Apple's side. I think the possibility is there for the Mac.

Our hope is that it's the iMac Pro. Yes. My guess is that if it's not that, it's what we talked about, which is upgrade the Mac Mini with the M1 Pro and Max chips. Potentially even do that for the iMac, the smaller iMac.

But they could do that. They could do a little chip bump because they've got those faster M1s now, the Pro and the Max. But that we would really, really, really, really like it. Please, if you could, Apple, do a new iMac now. I think there has to be one. Like, it can't just be for me.

I just feel like those two things, it's like not enough. A new iPhone, a new iPad Air, or a new iPhone, a new iPad, and a new Mac. Are you getting it yet? It's three products. But I think that would work, even if those three products didn't change really that much,

but they've all just got some important changes to them. Plus they could talk about, I don't know, some software stuff or whatever. You know, like that would do it. It's still not, I mean, it's still not a lot, but I think that was my point was you, the bar is lower if you're not inviting people definitely you could do an hour video it's not a major major announcement but it's better than a press release i think it would be the judgment of apple like it's enough to get people's attention for an hour to roll out these

products they do risk making their products their product events less essential if they do one that's minor. That's, I think, one of the untold lessons of Steve Jobs when he came back. I think Steve Jobs, first thing he did was basically say, we're not going to call people down for an event if it isn't worth it. Because the old Apple, right before Jobs got there, famously for me, at least as somebody who was covering Apple, they invited us down all the time for things that were secret, super secret.

And you get there and it's nothing. It's just nothing interesting. And I think that they need to walk that line, right? The bar is lower than it used to be, but don't take it down too low where it's kind of a nothing and everybody shrugs at it. Because the last thing you want to do is get people shrugging at apple announcing that they're doing

a live event right because that's it isn't it it's not about bringing people in it's that they want people to come and watch and and if if you risk you risk their attention you've got their attention now and and if you start making these events not interesting you risk losing some of that attention and it's a real asset of apple that you don't want to give away because they'll be doing another one three months later right wwdc and so exactly you don't want people to say like oh watch that last one which is why i look at this and i think maybe if it's just an ipad air because the ipad air already has the ipad pro styling so it really is going to be like an M1 iPad Air. And the iPhone SE, I mean, yeah, they can be like, oh, 5G, and here's a guy from T-Mobile, and yay, right? They can do that.

That's fine, but again, not super exciting. What's the third thing? What's the thing that wraps up the event? And iMac Pro would do it, but I don't know. Mark Gurman seems to not know. What's fascinating about Mark Gurman's reporting on this, since we pour over his Sunday morning emails like we do, is he doesn't seem to have a lot of vision into what's going on with the iMac,

and I think that's fascinating. Mark did report that Apple is planning on releasing four M2 Macs later on this year. The expectation is a MacBook Air, an2 Macs later on this year. The expectation is a MacBook Air, an updated MacBook Air with a new design. So like the first kind of Apple Silicon MacBook Air, as it were. As in like, you know, imagined for. Right, because the M1 MacBook Air looks like the classic MacBook Air going back to 2010. This will, rumored, is going to be the, you know, designed externally and internally for Apple Silicon.

A new base level Mac Mini to replace the one that currently has an M1 chip. An iMac to put new chips in the current iMacs. Right, so M2 24-inch iMac, which is logical, but I don't think I'd seen that one actually reported before, but it makes sense. And a new 13-inch MacBook Pro, so new kind of entry-level MacBook Pro. Mark expects that Apple will remove the touch bar from the MacBook Pro, but it will not feature a

ProMotion or HDR display. I wonder if... I wonder about the design of that product, honestly. Like, and what that's going to be. I'm a little bit intrigued about that one. Yeah, I wonder about the design of that product, honestly, and what that's going to be. I'm a little bit intrigued about that one. Yeah, I wonder if it really is just do the minimum to keep the price down to have the base model. I think you're right.

And just keep it, right? Just so it's cheaper and it will look like the one. Basically, my thinking is it will look just like the current one, right? The one that had the M1 chip in it. Right. It has the M1 chip in it. But they removed the touch bar, so they're kind of bringing back the escape version. And keep in mind that the MacBook Air being redesigned will probably push the MacBook Air away from the MacBook Pro a little bit more.

Because one of the problems with that 13-inch MacBook Pro is differentiation with the MacBook Air. And they're not very differentiated now but they may become more differentiated um in design because the the air is inheriting or is not inheriting your design when they redesign the macbook air they're going to keep the old one aren't they i would not be surprised i think they will they'll keep the old one even even for a little bit because you know it's going to be, well not know, but I would expect the new one might be a little bit more expensive. Make that air an 899 M1

and then have the new one be a 1049 or 1099 M2. Yeah, I'm surprised honestly. Am I? About the iMac, I'm trying to think, like what do I think about that? so that would be what maybe 18 months yeah yeah a year and a half ish i'm not sure how i feel about

max mac processors being updated so frequently again i kind of have good and bad feelings about it well what's weird is the M2 is based on the A15 so we're going to get in a position here where M2 Macs are going to be shipping and the A16 is going to be shipping and maybe that's just how it's going to go from now on but there's a question of like the cadence and do the Mac chips pick up the new cores

from the iPhone chips every year or not but because Apple makes these chips or designs these chips and has Taiwan Semiconductor make them it does allow Apple to do, this may be what happens, is Apple updates Macs all the time with whatever their new chip is, and then does the bigger spec changes from time to time. If you made the M1 and now you have the M2 in volume, why would you not cut the iMac over to, And now you have the M2 in volume.

Why would you not cut the iMac over to, or all of those computers over to the M2 as soon as you can? Because it's better. And it's probably not a huge change to the internals of that because remember you're designing the whole thing now, including the chip. Yeah, I just, my concern,

and it's not really something for me to spend to worry about specifically is like if this is just gonna happen this is just gonna be the churn right that there will be they'll just keep doing it over and over and over again maybe that's not a problem i don't know but it's just there's something about it where it's like is it gonna realistically be every calendar year at some point it will get the new one because if they put the m1 in it then the m2 in it they're going to put the m3 and then the m4 because if you skip it then what you know what i mean and it's like is that going to be the plan now like that there will be a new processor which is incrementally better than the previous one every calendar year for every mac

or every 18 months i think maybe i think maybe now that apple controls the processor thing and i think the challenge is going to be how we look at this because when apple was updating things less often um it took on more weight and it may be now that i mean think about the ipad right like ipad pro has gotten three updates in its current look and feel and some of them the processor updates it was like from the x to the z and then to the m1 and like there have been some other things the the port changed the screen on the big model changed but you could look at that and say, not a lot changed, except they updated the chip on the inside. So, you know, I think that could happen. I think that we could get in a situation where every year or year and a half, there are new Mac models with new chips in them.

Yeah. Separate from every, and maybe minor updates, kind of like an iPhone or iPad schedule, right? Where it's like, they're not that different. This year's iMac is different from last year's iMac, but only a little bit because basically it's the same. And then every so often there's a big change. I think that's probably what Apple's goal is, is to be able to swap in the new tech fairly easily like they do with the iPhone and iPad, and then just every few years do a more

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That is memberful.com upgrade. Go there now. Check it out. It could be the start of something exciting. Our thanks to Memberful for their support of this show and RelayFM. I did not want to have to talk about this again. I don't want to talk about it either, but I think we have to at least. Oh, we have to. But this is, we're going back, me and you, Jason, we're going back to the Netherlands. Back to the Netherlands. And I want to just send a message out there to explain what goes on when a citizen of the Netherlands is interested in a different citizen of the Netherlands. They might use some sort of an app to connect.

And like, do we share interests? And are you somebody that I might want to meet? Is this like the birds and the bees or something? By the Prinsengrocht in Amsterdam one evening and we could go for a bike ride because there are lots of bikes in Amsterdam. And anyway, so when two Dutch people love each other very much,

they probably used a Dutch dating app. Uh-huh. All right. That's all I got. I'm out. Apple has published. All the fun stuff's over. Now we get into the...

Yeah, sorry. That was your entertainment part. Jason did a good job for you all. Now I'm here to... I'm like the Krampus. The Krampus of Dutch dating. That's you. That's me.

You're the Grinch of romance in the Netherlands, that's you Mike Hurley I think Apple's that I'm just telling the story I'm like the representative here so Apple has published more details for the dating apps in the Netherlands so they've actually now

gone through the financial part of it, which is the last piece that we're waiting to find out so I'm going to give you a couple of key parts. We're going to do them in an order of amount of stuff. We're going to have to talk about them, I think. So they're only going to allow one link for external payment options. So remember, you could do two things. You can either link people out to the web to pay, or you can throw up a in-app like purchase thing you know in-app purchasing screen it's not in-app purchase please excuse me like so say here are the other payment methods that you can make you know and you have to apply for an entitlement for each

apple's only allowing you to have one link that goes out and that link is like specified in the application itself right so you can't change it. It's like a whole thing. It's coded into the app. So that's one part. Ridiculous, but that's whatever. Kind of what we expected. For both this though and the I want to pay in-app using a third-party provider,

you have to show to users an in-app modal sheet. This means like something you can only get rid of by pressing one of either like the yes or no buttons, basically. This has to be shown before sending people for payment or giving them their options. There's a bunch of wording on there. I want to read a couple of parts of it. So I'm going to truncate this a little bit,

but some of the wording that you have to include, this is just a thing that comes up, says, this app does not support the app store's private and secure payment system. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Only purchases through the App Store are secured by Apple. Now, a lot of people, I think, are very rightly reading into this that basically Apple is trying to paint the picture that you can only trust them. They're the only secure ones, right? It's like the implication of what they're saying is that the App Store has a private and secure payment system. So if you don't use this one, maybe it's not private and secure,

which is a terrible thing to say, really. And it does, I've seen a bunch of people, I think I saw Matt Burch just said this on Twitter. Well, what about the third-party payment systems that already exist in apps like Uber and Amazon? They don't have to show users this stuff. Why is that? You know what I mean? It's like, if you want proof that Apple wants to make this a bad experience out of spite, I think, this is part of that proof what is your take on this whole like showing the modal thing i i said a while ago when we first saw apple's results in korea and japan

that it feels like apple's strategy is to make everything as unpleasant as possible right it's it's follow the letter of the law but but show your resistance in every possible way and this dialogue box is part of that it actually it reminds me i mean apple does this reflexively. I think this is part of a strategy, but Apple does this a lot where you see Apple's kind of, I think they view it as being concerned for the user, but it's weaponized a lot. And sometimes pointlessly, like I'm reminded of how on M1 Macs, when you install Audio Hijack,

the excellent sound utility from Rogue Amoeba, they have to use an Apple-approved method of capturing system audio. And Apple makes you reboot twice and go to a system setting and say, lower security settings. And it has text there that basically says, you are endangering yourself by doing this and then you have to agree and reboot and now you can use audio hijack and it struck me as funny because audio hijacks using apple approved methods it's not a kernel extension it's just an it's a it's a system extension that apple has approved the methodology of it, and yet they put up the scare text. And I think that it's just part of the good side of it. It is their culture of to scare the user and so you know all of this stuff is like that all of this stuff is apple's argument all along is that uh boo spooky other

people processing your credit cards are bad and they may be fraudsters and only apple is trustworthy and so why would they not uh create a scary dialogue box because they're trying to create so many barriers that nobody uses this and more to the point that that developers don't even bother because they're like i'm i'm not gonna put like i'm not gonna get why would i do this work if nobody's ever going to agree to the thing where you tap and a ghost appears and says no this is haunted so uh i don't uh, I don't know. I mean, it's, are we surprised? But I think the counter argument would be, um, and this is the, I dare you portion of Apple strategy, which is the counter argument is, are you going to tell us how to write our

dialogue boxes? Are you going to tell us when and we, when, and if we can warn our users about legitimate security threats? And I think they believe that they probably won't be, that the regulators and the lawmakers are not going to say it must be a nice dialogue box that is fair and has text that is approved by a regulator. That's their gamble that they're taking here is that they're going to be able to get away with this but it is weaponizing their their stated uh concern for the user and turning it into a concern we're very concerned that you might use someone else's systems and it could be dangerous are you are you sure you want to do that there you know it's mom saying you can drive the car but are you are you sure you want to go to that party and the worst part of it is the part that we all expected would happen but honestly

when you see it written down it's just so much worse than when you imagined it i think is that apple will be charging developers that use third-party payment systems 27 a 27 fee on every transaction isn't that funny too that choice i mean it's generally thought that three percent is the credit card transaction and so they're literally like okay so uh we'll subtract that from the 30 we take and we want the rest and they didn't they didn't try to like say oh well 25 it's just a natural number 25 i don't know what you're talking about or 20 you know whatever they're like no it's exactly we. I don't know what you're talking about. Or 20. Yeah, no, whatever. They're like, no, it's exactly, we have imagined how much you're going to be spending on the external, and that's what we spend

too, so we'll let you have that part, and then we want the rest because we want our money, and we want our money no matter what transactions you use. It's just, yeah, it's clear. They're so lucky that google went to this before them in terms of the strategy yeah of of we want our money whether or not we are skimming it off of our transaction or not um but uh but still it's it's very much and maybe this is a negotiation maybe this is they're gonna start come on hard and then eventually they'll back down a little bit. But it's them saying,

we want all our money and it doesn't matter what transaction processing system you use. You can use that if you want to, but it's not going to save you any money. So why bother? Just for reference, for Google,

I think it's by and large, most transactions are somewhere between 11% and 15%. So like, I agree with you and they they were i guess waiting to see what google did but i think google has picked a number for whatever reason they've picked their number apple's picked its number by being like no we deserve every penny and also they don't want to and fundamentally apple doesn't want to create an incentive for

developers to build this app so they've got the scary dialog box. It has to be a separate binary in the app store, separate from their existing app. Yep. And so you do all of this, and then you're not going to even make any money out of it. You know, you just know that your app review time is going to be worse for this. Probably, because they're going to have to check this against all the things. And you're going to have to get special approval. And that's all to make it so unpleasant that nobody wants to do it.

And then you know what happens. The next step is people agitate for laws to be changed or for Apple to be held to account. And Apple says, hey, we did it. And nobody's taking us up on it. Like nobody wants this. Why are you regulating us to provide alternate payment methods when the truth is in the real world, in Dutch dating apps, nobody uses the feature? We're innocent here. You're making us build things.

And nobody is using it because they just don't want it. And the truth is that that's part of the game they're playing is they want to make it as unpalatable as possible so that they can have proof to say nobody is using it. So that's all what's happening here. Talk about unpalatable. All right, bear with me a minute. It's stuff to read. I want to read from Apple's pages.

So in regards to the 27%, this is a reduced rate that excludes the value related to payment processing and related activities. Developers using these entitlements will be required to provide a report to Apple recording each sale of digital goods and content that has been facilitated through the App Store. The report will then need to be provided monthly within 15 calendar days following the end of Apple's fiscal month.

Qualifying developers will receive an invoice based on their reporting and will be required to remit payment to Apple for the amount invoiced within 45 days following the end of Apple's fiscal month. In the future, if Apple develops technical solutions to facilitate reporting, developers will be required to adopt such technologies. Please note that Apple has audit rights pursuant to the entitlement's terms and conditions. This will allow Apple to review the accuracy of a developer's record of digital transactions as a result of the entitlement, ensuring the appropriate commission has been paid to Apple. Failure to pay Apple's commission could

result in the offset of proceeds owed to you in other markets, removal of your app from the App Store, or removal from the Apple Developer Program. This is disgusting to me. Like, so there's a few things here that I find so terrible about this, like, and it's not even the money. Actually, like, the first thing I was annoyed about was the 27%, but then when I read this, I was so much more annoyed because the implication that they are making here is that they cannot trust developers to accurately tell them what the charges will be. Not only do they want a detailed report, they threaten you with audits and punishments if you don't give them the correct number because they need every single cent and they are so upset if they don't get it

like oh man like they have engineered this in such a way that it's probably also going to cost developers more money to go with this route than to stick with apple like yeah where is the partnership there's just they do not care about partnerships, right? It's like, you are lucky to be here with us. We have ordained to give you real estate on our incredible product and in our app store. Like, and we deserve every single cent of it because just we do. It makes me sick, man.

I'm so annoyed about this. So a couple of things, right? Like it's hard to ask somebody to forego money. I get it. And, and Apple's culture comes from that time, that near death experience where, you know, I think Steve jobs really set them on the path of, um, everybody get every, get your, get your take every time from everywhere. In fact, it reminds me of our, our joke about, um, IDG back in the day, the way IDG business units were budgeted. I was told it's like the mob.

Like they don't really care what you do as long as you give them their money at the end of the year. And it's a little like that. It's like, we just want the money. Like we just, we just want the money. That's our culture is you give us the money for everything you do on our platforms, you give us the money. And I, although there are arguments that are strong here like look apple does spend money on on building app store systems and building uh xcode and building external apis for third-party developers like there is actual money that apple spends the the funny thing is i don't know of any develop no developer i know let's put it that way, I have ever seen say that they don't believe that Apple doesn't deserve a portion. Right?

Oh, I 100% believe that they deserve a portion. Yeah. So there's an extreme argument that people can make, which is like, oh, I just want to set up my own thing and box Apple out. And that's sort of the Epic Games argument and all that. But what is interesting here is that you're putting everyone in a position where Apple wants it the way they want it, and they want to tell everybody what to do. And the extreme side is we want to bypass Apple. I mean, the challenge there is, could you bypass Apple? I, even if you were to pass laws or set up regulations where Apple couldn't take a higher than a certain percentage from transactions, or you set up alternate app stores or whatever else it would be, there's other layers to this, right?

I saw a developer on Twitter and I can't remember who it was, whether it was Steve Trouton Smith or somebody else. Somebody speculated that, you know, where this is going to end up going is an Xcode enterprise access fee based on your total sales on Apple platforms. And you pay a percentage of it to Apple and it needs to be audited. And it becomes like, basically, okay, we'll back out of the whole thing, but you're still going to pay us our money. That is their strategy here. The tragedy to me, and again, maybe some of this is because it's negotiation ploy and this is how they've decided to do it and they've decided to be really hard

about it. The tragedy to me is I feel like there's a strategy. There's a, an approach that they could take that would make most of this stuff go away. And it would make the remaining arguments so blunted that they would never gain any headway. But Apple hasn't done that. Apple hasn't said, okay, you know, we're going to, we're going to change and we're going to make this instead. They're like, we will do the minimum possible. That is their, that is their strategy. So, so this is where we are and this is why it has eroded the, the relationship between developers and Apple. Oh, the other thing that I know I've mentioned before, but I failed to mention just then is it also, there's this implication that since Apple built the platform and built Xcode and built all the APIs and all of that, that Apple deserves a portion of the revenue of the apps that are generated.

Because Apple laid the foundations. Apple benefits. Developers benefit. Apple benefits. Of course, the truth is that Apple benefits so much from the sale of devices that run all those apps and that if the apps didn't exist, Apple's products would not be as popular. And you only need to go back to the Mac versus Windows to see that if you have one platform that's got all the software and the other one doesn't, guess what happens? The one platform that's got all the software and the other one doesn't guess what happens the one platform kind of struggles and so it's disingenuous to say that apple needs to share with or developers need to share with apple because apple laid the groundwork of the platform because i would argue that at that point you should say what percentage of iphone sales are

you going to give to developers and they're not going to do that, right? 0% is the answer there. That's the answer. So it's 27% over here and 0% over there. We made this. How dare you, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, we're 100.

And that's why, and again, forgive me, but having worked with people who dealt with Steve Jobs for business regarding the Macworld brand, there is, and it comes straight from Steve, there is still inside Apple, this idea that everything positive is due to Apple. And so the iPhone is 100% successful due to Apple's greatness. All of those sales are 100% due to Apple. The App Store is probably 100% due to Apple's greatness, but we can't take 100% from you. So we'll take 30% from you. And that's just their attitude. And I think that is still underpinning a lot of this strategy. And I don't know what the answer is. It does sort of

feel like, unless this is a rope-a-dope kind of thing where Apple's like, oh no, we're going to be mean. And then they're like, okay, all right we changed they're they're really just saying regulate us make us see this is the thing no one outside of the netherlands should be paying attention to this story in theory right but you're making us all see it so like if this is your plan, right, what you've pointed out of like, oh, we're going to go hard and then pull back. Like in doing that, it makes everyone feel bad. Everyone feels bad. And is that good? I don't think that's a good tactic. And like, I don't think that's the tactic. I just think that they are asking for what they think they deserve. I mean, if you have a person you have a relationship with, let's not say it's a friend, but it's

a colleague or it's a business that you do business with and they do good work and it helps your business that you work with them and they provide you with some of your revenue for your business and it's all fine. But over time, what happens is everything that they do, they keep. And they keep maximizing how much of what you do they want to charge you for. Like it's this business. It becomes this thing where you feel like you're being taken advantage of. And while you're still making money and building your business, you feel like the other group is not your friend and they're not really even your colleague. They're kind of lording it over you and are giving you enough

to survive, but they even view it almost as if they're giving it to you and as if it's largesse. Now, you don't have to be a Sherlock to realize what I'm describing is the Apple developer relationship. But if you abstract it just a little bit, that's what's going on here. And it doesn't mean that the developers are not going to keep developing software for Apple's platforms. But what has happened is, if you think about that abstracted argument, you no longer give the benefit of the doubt to your business partner.

You begin to protect yourself from that business partner. You begin to view that business partner as untrustworthy, as an adversary. And here's the kicker. When the bad times come and that business partner adversary needs something of you or needs to call in a favor, you won't because they never showed that to you. Apple is behaving like a company that will never have the bad times come and never needs a favor and that every bad thing that happens on Apple's platforms can be papered over with money. That's their approach.

And you know what? So far since the launch of the App Store in 2008, that's been true. It has been true. And it will probably be true for a while that no matter what the relationship is with app developers and Apple, that there's too much money to be made for it to make enough of a difference for the people who are developing apps to abandon Apple and abandon that money. a difference for the people who are developing apps to abandon apple and abandon that money but they are they are corroding the relationship and it's a dangerous game because you are basically betting on the fact that even when your relationship is bad you're going to give them

enough money that it's not going to matter and that's great as long as you've got the money to give them tell you one place where i can see matter. And that's great as long as you've got the money to give them. Tell you one place where I can see this as like a potential thing, because I really love what that analogy you've just made, right? And what it seems like is on the horizon, like there's nothing, right? When is Apple ever going to need to ask these people for anything? One thing I can think of is like new platforms, stuff like the Mixed Reality headset.

Apple needs apps for it. But I could imagine a lot of people either, A, don't want to get into the business at all because it seems too stressful, or B, they're in it, but they don't want to do anymore because it's just more aggravation. And Apple needs these apps. They're asking people to take a leap, right? Yep. Take a leap with us and invest a lot of money in this new platform that is not going to be successful for a little while. And what Apple's saying is this is a straight up investment.

You invest in our platform now. We'll make you money later. That's all you need to care about. And that's one way to go. But I would argue that if somebody is more predisposed toward Apple and be like, oh, I love Apple stuff and this is really fun and we're going to take an adventure. We're going to break new ground. And maybe we'll make money at the end of it too. Great. Like you're going to get more and more enthusiastic investment in your new platform than if it's just also who's investing, right? They're the people out there. And we know a lot of them who are developers who, although they make a living from being a developer, they also

take great pride in what they do. They are often very small companies or individuals. They've got limited amounts of time to spend. And then Apple comes in and says, well, we've got this thing. It's going to be a big investment. You're going to have to buy hardware. You're going to have to do all this stuff, learn totally new ways. But in the end, it's going to be this. Well, what's going to happen is a lot of those people are going to be like, I can't. I can't. I've got to, the people you bring in will be kind of bad and jerky, and they're all in it to get rich quick. And I know it's capitalism, everybody wants to make money. But what I'm saying is, sometimes what happens on Apple's platforms is there's the stuff Apple's proud of, and the stuff Apple's not proud of. And I would argue that most of the stuff Apple's proud of is coming from kind of good developers who care.

And yes, they want to make money too, but they care. And the stuff Apple's not proud of is the people who are super mercenary and the businesses that are mercenary. And they just are in it for the money. Apple's big. We're going to spend a few million bucks on this AR thing. Hopefully it'll pay off later. And again, you could do that. Like it's a perfectly reasonable solution to do that. But what, if you're Apple, what you're risking is that you're scaring away all the people who do the work you're actually proud of on your platform. And you're going to be left with the kind of crappy stuff that's in the app store that you

make money from, but don't really talk about, or don't really promote heavily because it's kind of crappy stuff that's in the app store that you make money from, but don't really talk about or don't really promote heavily because it's kind of soulless and bad. And I, what, so what I'm not arguing here is that the sainted indie developers are where Apple makes its money. It's not, but I think there is an intangible aspect to it, which is that that's the kind of stuff when there's love and commerce going on, you get a better product and it's a product that Apple's prouder of and they do app store features about and all of that. And I think that that does matter to Apple.

And I think it's a very proud company that is proud of stuff that it enables on the app store. And I'm just saying there's lots of fallout from making your core developer community hardened and mercenary. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Bombus. Bombus' mission is simple, to make the most comfortable clothes ever and match every item sold of an equal item donated.

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between a sock and a slipper and they're really comfortable and I love them. I need to get more pairs of them. I've been wearing those a lot over the last few weeks. They're really great. So that's bombas.com upgrade for 20% off. One last time, bombus.com slash upgrade. Our thanks to Bombus for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right, Jason, it is time for the Six Colors report card for Apple's 2021. Can you explain to listeners, maybe new listeners, what the Six Colors report card is? Sure. Every year since 2015, when I started Six Colors, I have tried to get a panel of people, a few dozen people, people who I know or I read their stuff on Twitter, people who seem to focus on Apple with a lot of their attention. I ask them to fill out a survey about 12 different Apple-related categories.

And I ask them to score Apple one to five, five being best, one being worst for each of the categories. And then they also can fill out a little text field and tell me more about how they're feeling. And I compile those results. So for people who like numbers, there are numbers. me more about how they're feeling. And I compile those results. So for the people who like numbers, there are numbers. And for people who like words, there are lots of words because I, although I trim it down, there are a lot of words from people whose names you know, and some that you don't. And so because I've been doing it since 2015, it also means that I can track the sentiment over time and see how people's opinions have changed the panel changes every year but it's it's got a lot of continuity i try to add people and i also invite people and

then not all of them opt to take the survey so that varies from year to year um i need to be better at inviting more people in the future i'm actually going to try to build a a better system to keep track of my it's a little scattershot but i'm going to try to build a better system to keep track of my, it's a little scattershot, but I'm going to try to be better for next time. But yeah, so it's a measure of sentiment about Apple and a bunch of different categories. And really, my goal is not to prove anything scientifically. That's not the point here. My goal is really to get a sense of the temperature, get the sense of the vibe among people who pay attention to Apple. How do they think it's going? And I think in aggregate, you end up with some interesting insights into how people feel Apple is doing from year to year, how the trends are. It's a point to

begin conversation, I think, more than anything else else but i think it's a fun idea and it's been fun to do so i uh i'm doing it so we're gonna run through the grades um we'll maybe pick out some some of the points that were made and we can look at why things have maybe gone up or down i am going to give my grades and i'm going to ask you to give yours because you do not vote in the report card but so i would like to have that so we could and in fact i am not i have not prepared any grades so okay we will figure it out together well i mean really this is kind of just how i fell out the report card i just as i'm going through i just fill it out about like how i'm feeling when i get to the question so we're going to do the same with you today you don't do like a sentiment analysis

of all the words that you've said during the year and try to gauge the... No, of course not. Well, I mean, of course, this is incredibly important to me. So yes, I am doing that. Of course, of course, of course. We'll start with the Mac, which is an A plus with a 4.6 score, which is down a little from 4.7. This was something I was very surprised about, but you tried to tell me why that was okay, right? Yeah. Well, a lot of people were like, how did the max score go down? And the answer is because it went up by 1.1 on average, a huge leap last year as Apple Silicon came in. And that is hard. When five is the most you can give anything and you've got a group of 53 people and the score is 4.7, it actually doesn't have

a lot of room to go up. It's almost up at the top. So it slid a little to 4.6. Looking at the sentiment of the comments, I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that there are still some Apple Silicon Macs that have not made their debut. And also I'd say a general kind of uneasiness about the state of the software side of the Mac. And this is not a Mac hardware question, it's a Mac question. And people can interpret that as they like. And so I think that there are a few people who ratcheted down the score a little bit. Stephen Hackett, I think may have been one of them. Stephen says, I can't shake the feeling that once again, Apple's software is letting its its hardware down mac os monterey has been the smoothest running version of operating system in several years but parts of mac os continue to feel outdated if not right outright

forgotten by teams who have moved on to other projects so yeah you can there's some of that that part there um i graded it a five um And my quote was one of the quotes of one that you did publish in the report card, which I always enjoy when I see those, is that in the 10 years that I've been covering Apple, this is the most excited I've ever been for the Mac. And it's true. I think, I mean, to me, like just for,

obviously I'm biased, but I just can't believe that anyone wouldn't rate this year a five. Like to me, that's wild because the Macs that we have seen this year are absolutely unbelievable and i mean maybe people are kind of like oh i'll put it at four now because i'm waiting for more later but i'm just kind of like just just live your life just you know give it all fives we'll

just do five five five you don't have to like grade down because of what the future might bring just be happy you know five five five all over the place. So what's your score? Four. Ah, you're one of these people. Yeah. Come on. I think Stephen's exactly right, which is I want to, and I had several people, I tend to take out the things where people explain their rating system to me

because that's the thing I hate the most about like Goodreads or something like that. It's like, I would have given this three and a half, but since you don't allow half ratings, I guess I'll give it a three. But there were several people who said, if this was just the hardware it would be a five and i agree if this was hardware i would give it a five out of five but the fact is mac os monterey like it's great that shortcuts is there now i'm so happy about that it was it was a mess when it shipped and it's still kind of weird but it's getting better and i agree with steven exactly

there are so many and this is true across the board but it's still kind of weird, but it's getting better. And I agree with Steven exactly. There are so many, and this is true across the board, but it's especially true on the Mac. There is so much Apple software that feels abandoned. And, um, and it's, it's embarrassing. Like there's stuff on, on Apple's platform that is, is core to Apple's platform that doesn't feel like it's changed much in a decade. And things have changed in a decade, right? And yet there are apps that are way behind and apps that don't support shortcuts. And we give them a lot of praise when they do a makeover of one of their apps,

which is great. But I think it's interesting that they can only really ever manage it for one or two apps a year. And a third-party app can't afford to go five years between major changes right like they can't do it but apple thinks that they can and maybe they can get away with it talking about our previous conversation but i think it's bad and i think it hurts the platform so i'm i am withholding that point for the fact that the software between macOS and their apps on macOS,

and also the indistinct weird situation they're in where it's unclear about what is Catalyst and what is UIKit and where is this all going, and the feeling among developers that it's not moving along as fast as they really want it to. There's just a lot there. So again, I was trained back in the day to not give five mice unless something was perfect. And, um, and the Mac is close. It's real close. It would be four and a half mice, but I'm going to withhold that last point because, um, the software side does, this is the truth is Apple could not be doing a better job on Mac hardware. Could not be.

It is amazing. And maybe the fact that people have caveats about the Mac should suggest to Apple where they need to put their attention. Like Apple is rapidly becoming a company that is not the synthesis of hardware and software, but great hardware let down by software. And that's not a really great brand to be. So what you're saying is nothing is so perfect that it can't be complained about. Nothing is so perfect that it gets five out of five, is what I would say. Speaking of, John Syracuse says every new Mac Apple introduced in 2021 was a hit. Alex Cox says for the first time in years, I found myself reaching for my MacBook Pro instead of my iPad or my iPhone, even to do small tasks.

And Federico Vittici says, the greatest compliment I can pay to Apple's renewed approach to the Mac is that for the first time in a decade, they've got an iPad user like myself interested in the Mac again. So let's do the iPhone. Got an A-

4.0 down from 4.3. I gave it a 4. Yeah. I think I probably gave it a 5 last year. I would expect that I did. And that was why I graded it a 4. I really love

ProMotion. I'm fine with the design being unchanged, but the other part for me, as I mentioned, I think I mentioned on the show, I definitely mentioned Upgrade Plus, I have some issues with the scratchability of the screen

because my screen is all scratched up and Lex Friedman says, I think Apple's glass is getting a little less awesome over time. My 13 Pro shows more scratches and nicks than the other recent iPhones did, though no worse treatment, through no worse treatment. I think this is that ceramic shield. Ceramic shield seems to, as I've been told this by somebody at Apple, protects against breakages, but actually opens it up to getting scratched more.

I'm not sure what is the right trade-off there. So I went for four. Would you rate the iphone at this and i just point out that the iphone scores track they go up when it's like sales right they go up when there's a new model with i think that makes sense right because that's they're the big ones that's when the biggest features is when it should be the most exciting you know i i would have rated it higher last year because i love the design and so like i'm happy to keep it at a four because I love the design. I'm fine with it being unchanged. But aside from ProMotion, the iPhone 13 is kind of just like, you know.

I'm not going to score Apple down because it can't do a new design of the iPhone every year. I get that there's an enthusiasm gap there. I'm going to give it a four because I think nothing is so perfect, but also there's issues. Shortcuts again didn't work, right? There's some OS issues. I do think iPhone software is in a better place

than Mac software is. I could see giving this a five. I'm also a little concerned about the future of the iPhone mini. How can you ever give a five, Jason, with this, with what you've set out? If nothing can be perfect, how can you ever score a five?

It's just gotta be a magical moment. You really have to feel it, Mike. When one Dutch person loves another Dutch person very much. That's a five. Five out of five. Five out of five. Christina Warren says,

software quality does continue to get worse, particularly with things like autocorrect and the continued embarrassment that is Siri. iOS 14 was one of the worst iOS rollouts in history, and iOS 15 is definitely better than that. From a hardware perspective, as good as the iPhone 13 is, it also feels like the weakest upgrade

from the previous version that I can maybe ever remember. John Gruber says the iPhone 13 are very nice year over year upgrades. The cameras are better than ever. Performance improved by typical margins while at the same time, battery life improved too.

Battery life is one of those things that I think, you know, I had to keep in mind as like, okay, this is another reason to keep the score good because that battery life improvement was significant across all the devices. And I was really happy about that at the time. But it's easy to forget about over time because you just get used to your phone being better. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a big fan if I look at the big picture here of the fact that I had to choose between my small-sized phone and the third camera and the ProMotion display. And I did choose. And I understand why those differentiators are there, but I don't have to like it.

And I will like it even less next year when I can't buy a little phone. Next year they'll make you choose because it just won't exist. Wait for my score next year. It's going to be a mini score for a little mini phone. it's gonna be a mini school for no mini phone uh ipad b grade 3.7 out of 5 both years in a row i was generous and gave it a 4 purely because of how much i adore the ipad mini yeah i would have probably without the ipad mini i'd probably be at a two out of five this year. But the iPad mini is so perfect for me. I went with a four.

And there's actually, I'll get to your score in a moment, because there's a couple of people who agree with me. Stephen Aquino being one of them. I'm very excited by the new iPad mini. After years of experimenting with using an iPad as a laptop replacement, the redesigned mini feels like just what I'm looking for out of a tablet these days. Federico said that I'm glad they revived this product in 2021, but I just hope we won't have to wait three years

for another update, which is the problem. What is your score for the iPad in 2021? I'm similarly conflicted because I think the hardware updates were good. Although, which hardware update do you highlight? Do you highlight the existence of the iPad mini, which really is a remarkable piece of hardware? It's so good. Or do you highlight the M1 iPad Pro that sort of is just like the old one, even though it's got an M1 in it now?

It's really just... Well, if you don't mind me interrupting... The display is great. Depending on which hardware you highlight tells a very different story because the iPad Mini is this great hardware that runs iPadOS. How amazing is that?

Like this tiny hardware and it can run with the full power of iPadOS. Or you say, look at the iPad Pro. It has an M1 chip in it and it only runs what we have in iPadOS. You know, It's like two very different outcomes for running through the same track.

So I'm going to give it a 3. I think that's perfectly fair. I love the iPad Mini I think it is great. I bought an M1 iPad Pro 12.9 and I love it and the screen is great. Apple loses a lot of my enthusiasm for the iPad with

the fact that iPadOS is coming along so slowly. They haven't shipped pro apps for it. They haven't come up with an external display solution. It's just, what is the iPad going to be? You've had an iPad pro now for a very long time. And yet is the iPad, one of my commenters said, it seems to be settling in. Was it David Sparks, I think, who said, you know, I've come to a new understanding with the iPad.

And essentially what he means there is it's an in-between product between the Mac and the iPhone and not like another product that can do everything that the Mac can do. And, you know, I think that I am disappointed by

that because I think the iPad should do more than it does and be an alternative, as Federico would say better than anyone. It's another kind of computing device that has a lot of benefits, including touch and including portability. And the app story on them is quite good. It has a lot going for it. And it frustrating if its creator uh sees all that it has going for it and says yes but it's still sort of lesser yeah i i'm definitely on that david sparks train like it's like a almost zen way of thinking but david said i no longer judge it by what i want it to be but instead what it actually is and that's kind of of how I feel about the iPad in general now. This is what hit me in the feels was

I realized Apple looks at the iPad as something between the iPhone and the Mac and no more. So now I'm only using the iPad for things the iPad is good at and no longer trying to move mountains with a shovel. And on one level, it's like, yes, that's probably the right thing to do.

On the other level, it's like, why is it that way? Why has Apple decided either through its action or inaction that that's what it needs to do with the ipad it's sort of just sort of let it be in the middle it shouldn't be that way but i have definitely decided to stop fighting it and i'm happier this way um but I understand why people want, I mean, That's the secret. People like Federico, right?

Just give up and they'll be happier that way. This episode is brought to you by FitBud. It's really normal for people to start considering their health and fitness around this time of year. But between balancing work, family, and everything else you have going on, it can sometimes be hard to make fitness a priority. What you need is a program that works with you, not against you. That's why you need FitBud. FitBud's algorithms learn about you, your goals, and training ability, and will help craft

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and you'll get 25% off your membership. That is fitbod.me slash upgrade and you'll get 25% off your membership. That is fitbod.me slash upgrade for 25% off. Our thanks to Fitbod for their support of this show and RelayFM. So we move now into wearables. So this is, there's kind of two categories in one, right? Wearables and Apple Watch. I think initially they were together

and you split them out. Is that correct? Yeah, I launched the survey when the Apple Watch existed. And then what Apple did is they broke out wearables as its own category and included things like AirPods. And I realized I probably wanted a wearables category and not an Apple Watch category. But I also didn't want to give up the historical value of the Apple Watch question. So now I ask two questions uh how do you feel about wearables including apple watch and how do you feel about apple watch and i chart them both and

so you know you get a you get a sense this time i mean the wearable score has always been higher than the apple watch score and i think that's because um apple watch has figured into the wearable score but then they also throw in like airpods and people like airpods so i mean for me i judge it as airpods in wearables and then apple watch on its own that's how i always think of this category well you're not reading the instructions which say wearables includes apple watch but that's fine at some point it doesn't make any sense to me like what like for me personally why would i score the apple watch inside of a category and then also score on its own like to me at some, because of people like you,

I will just drop asking the Apple Watch question and only ask wearables. Maybe the problem is people like you asking a weird question. Anyway, A-. It's always the questioners who are at fault, not the answerers. Category 4.0. Again, year over year, no change. I went with a 3.

For me, this is status quo. Honestly, it's just kind of like, yep, okay, fine. Everything's the same. What would you give for wearables? Obviously, including the Apple Watch because that's the way it makes sense. Yeah, I think your three for status quo is probably about right.

I think Apple, I bought a new Apple Watch this year and I like it. I like the bigger screen and the brighter always on and all of that. Like I actually think that I'm enthusiastic about the latest um series seven are we up to now i don't know we're on seven now yeah yeah i like i like it i think it i think it uh i think it's good um and just because apple's being

incremental i think it was actually a pretty nice update and uh airpods you know they did the new airpods that are uh depending on how they fit your ears, you're either enthusiastic about or not enthusiastic about. But yeah, not a lot of change in this category. And so I can go back and forth on it because I think, how's Apple doing in wearables? I think it's doing really well. How is the year and was there new stuff this year and all that? Well, there wasn't. So what do I grade it on? If I'm grading it on, was there new stuff? Yeah, it's kind of a middle of the road. If I'm grading on how well I think they're doing

with the wearables business, I would probably give it a four. The Apple Watch is a B at 3.6 down from 3.8. I went with a three. I like the Apple Watch Series 7 a lot. I actually like the bigger screen. I think it looks really nice. I like the keyboard the bigger screen. I think it looks really nice. I like the keyboard that they added.

I think that's really smart. But I wanted more from the design. It says at the time, I'm over the rounded edge design. And I was really hoping this was the year that they were going to change that, but they didn't. So for me, it's kind of balanced out

as a three out of five. I'm going to say four here just because I do like the Series 7 a lot. I don't mind that it's the same recognizable shape. The fact that I can use Apple Watch as a platform, right? Like I've got a cellular model. I can see it really clearly in the daylight. I love the always on display.

And I go for runs with this. I go for runs where I'm running an app that's doing running intervals. runs with this. Like I go for runs where I'm running an app that's doing running intervals and Overcast is stream or broadcast actually is streaming audio to my AirPods as I run while intervals is telling me when to run and when to walk and when to run. And like, that's amazing. And it really, and honestly, we talk about software quality and we're going to talk more about it in a bit. That's all been solid for me the last year. I've actually not had frustrations like I used to have where, I mean, other than the fact that when my watch sees my Wi-Fi network, it seems to say, oh, I'll stop playing your audio now when I get home,

which I find very weird. I'm playing the audio. You can keep playing it even though we're home. I haven't taken my headphones out yet. But in general, it's just I'm kind of amazed that I have the ability to do that. And people send me messages. And I was listening to Connected Live while running just out in the middle of Mill Valley. And I sent a text message to Steven to correct something you said. It still doesn't make any sense to me. Well, it's because I wanted it during the show and not after the show when your Do Not Disturb turns off. It's pretty easy. You see, this is my method, Mike, is I want it during the show and not after the show when your Do Not Disturb turns off. It's pretty easy.

You see, this is my method, Mike, is I want to affect the show. I want to be in the show. A lot of people like to try and affect connected. This is a trend of the show. It's a triple J plot. It's basically what it is. Anyway, so I'll give it a four because I did buy a new one and I really like it and I'm very impressed. And I actually think the state of the Apple Watch platform is okay.

I'm getting what I want out of the apps. I wish there were custom watch faces and stuff. Look, it's not a five. Nothing is perfect, but I'll give it a four. John Maltz really likes the third generation AirPods and a strong improvement over the previous model. Alison Sheridan says the Apple Watch Series 7 was panned as not having breakthrough features, but the increase in screen size was a huge increase in usability. Agreed.

And I like what Christina Warren said about the Apple Watch is the Apple Watch update this year was boring, but the Apple Watch is still wearable to beat. And that's just a fact. Yeah. Apple TV. Oh, baby.

C grade. 3.1 up from 2.1. Year over year, the biggest jump in the scorecard this year. I've seen some people say, oh my God, why did people like the Apple TV so much? And I'll just point out the Apple TV was a very, very low grade. And it's come up to a C grade.

So not, it went up a whole point. Huge, the biggest mover in the whole survey. But it's not like it went from good to great it went from bad to okay and i gotta say what is the value of a new remote control friends the value is one point in the apple report card it's so good that remote like i've internalized it now it's just the remote and it's excellent i love it i gave it a three four because of the remote uh otherwise it would have been maybe a one uh because just like they're not really doing anything like federico said this it's so true if you would if you would ask me

to recall what's new in tv os 15 off the top of my head i don't think i'd be able to answer that he's not doing anything anymore really yeah again we come back we come back to what whether it's about the year or how they're doing and how you everybody's gonna like i could have voted this a two a three or a four quite honestly because this was the year that i went all in on apple tv that remote prompted me to cut the cord uh get a new receiver for my speakers, and everything we watch in the house is now on the Apple TV, everything. We are all Apple TV with one remote.

It's the Apple, it's the new Apple TV remote. So on that level, I actually am pretty happy with Apple TV. I think it does what I, for what I do, I think it does a good job. However, we just posted, and it's a member post, but I actually unlocked it for everybody. Joe Steele wrote a piece for Six Colors last week about universal search on Apple TV, which is amazing and true, which is there are pieces of it where it's just like, it's bad. And the question is like does apple care uh that it's bad

it feels like apple tv doesn't have the resources to fix a lot of its software problems if you if you stay in some very tight constraints which i try to do because i've been taught basically not to go outside them i think it does a pretty good job but um but they're all the reason i'm going to give it three and be generous and giving it three is there are lots of software issues and app interactions. Like, I love these apps that have built their own multi-view. It's really great. Like, watch two things at once, four things at once. Great for sports, especially.

ESPN has it. Fubo has it. TVOS 15, I believe, introduced a new picture-in-picture system, or maybe it was 14. But apps don't support it, and the 14, but apps don't support it. And the multi-view apps don't support it. And it just, it frustrates me that if I've got the Olympics on Peacock and a soccer match on Paramount plus,

I really want to do a like two by two of the video from them. And I don't think either of those apps support picture in picture so like i've got some frustration with uh new features in the os being supported obviously the player they introduced a new player ui that uh everybody's building like their own player uis some of them are good some of them are terrible um there's a lot of work to be done here and And yes, in terms of the competition, like my understanding, I haven't seen it in a while,

but the Google TV stuff is actually getting pretty good. I have a Roku and a Fire TV stick. And I gotta say, I think the Roku stuff is okay. I think the Amazon stuff is real bad. Like you can do everything, but the interface to it is like you're on amazon.com.

I hate it so much. I think Apple interface wise is really pleasant. And I think that their solution to a lot of the, you know, app development issues and things like that, I think it's pretty good, but it's too expensive. And so even though I like it and I'm actually very happy with my Apple TV, development issues and things like that i think it's pretty good um but it's too expensive and so

even though i like it and i'm actually very happy with my apple tv i think that their apple is not paying enough attention and it's not being aggressive enough and getting people into the box especially now that you can watch apple stuff on other platforms yep yeah guillermo rambo says the new apple tv 4k especially the new remote is a huge improvement over the previous model however i'd like a more powerful chip in the Apple TV since the software seems to struggle quite a bit. This was an interesting take for me because

I'm clearly just not using the software that QMA is using. I'm assuming this is more powerful stuff, maybe games or something like that, but I could imagine it's starting to get a little bit long in the tooth. If that's the stuff that you're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a funny one. Like again, as my, my monologue just said,

I actually think that there are aspects of Apple TV that are really good. My problem with it is mostly, I think momentum. Like I think they built a pretty good product and that Apple, and by fixing the remote, Apple has gotten to a pretty good place, especially with software support from developers. But

it really feels like not enough attention is being given to it and that it could be a lot better. And some of that, I think, is a victim of Apple's inattention and some of it, I think think is a victim of apple's inattention and some of it i think is a victim of apple having some grand designs like i i think netflix not being part of the data sharing system really kneecaps apple and and netflix is sharing data on some other platforms but not on

apple tv this is all apple and its partnerships, right? They should be going to Netflix and saying, Netflix, what will it take? Yeah, what do we need to do? Because I'll tell you, the TV app, we joke about the TV app

and it was bad for a long time. I love the TV app. I use the TV app all the time. I use the Up Next in the TV app to see my next episodes. All the time I do this. It shows me when live sports is on. Like there's a lot of good stuff

in that TV app, except you know what? No Netflix. It's not even just Netflix. There's like a bunch of stuff that isn't there but for us most of the services that we watch do integrate with it netflix doesn't and it's like yeah i know what is it going to take like do what it's going to take like just do it right like i'm already using netflix like your don't protect me. You don't need to protect me. Your big business machinations are directly impacting this product. And I, as a user

of the product, I don't care. You are adults. You two giant corporations. Figure it out. Find a way to compromise so that the users of this platform actually can have the Netflix content in that app because it's going to make Apple's platform better. And I know Netflix doesn't want to share information with Apple and all that.

It's like, work it out. Work it out. Find a way to work where Apple doesn't get everything at once. Netflix doesn't get everything at once. But the Netflix experience is better on Apple TV. And they should both be motivated because I'll tell you, as somebody who uses Apple TV as my primary, I have stopped using Netflix. Well, not stopped entirely, but my Netflix use is dramatically decreased because when I'm shopping for shows in the TV app, guess what's not there? Yeah, I agree with you. And so I don't think about it. I have to think to go and open Netflix. Oh, let's open Netflix and see what is there. And if Netflix's grand strategy is,

well, we just want to be number one. It's like, well, guess what, guys? You're not number one. You're part of a larger world. And on Apple TV, the rest of the world is in the TV app and you're not. And from Apple's perspective, your product is worse because Netflix is bad on it.

Like, work it out, people. So I hope they do. Services, B grade at 3.6 down from four. I don't really understand why for this one. Maybe you can help me. Like, I don't really know why services could go down. So I gave it a four because I was really surprised this year that when we did the upgrade,

most of my favorite TV shows were on Apple TV plus and I would not have expected that from them this soon so yeah I services is what you make of it is what I would say so if you if you view it as hey how's Apple doing with services and you use some of

Apple services and you're like I like them they're good and I think that's like I use Apple music I use Apple TV plus. Um, but if you want, I even use iCloud more than I used to, but if you want to be a negative Nelly, you could do that too. Right. Cause you're like news plus is kind of a, a nothing. Uh, I caught storage tears. Like they're too small for the price and the free tier is still embarrassing um but on the but then i i go for me i'm on the positive side of this because not only do i think apple services are more good than bad that it used to be that apple doing services was a joke and now it's very

very serious and they do a good job with most of them not all of them. Fitness Plus is good. Apple Arcade really figured it out this year. Yes. With the classics and the App Store greats and bringing that stuff back while also still commissioning some other stuff. Is Apple Arcade the greatest service ever? No, but I'm playing Apple Arcade games all the time now. I think they found a better mix now

of these big, broad commission stuff plus a bunch of just like good iphone games apple tv plus is better than i expected it would be honestly it's a lot better so i think there's a lot going for it um i also understand people who might vote this lower because there's some uneasiness about apple focusing on services yep um and i get all that, but I would say I think that they, I mean, I also use the Apple Card and I use Apple Pay and I use Apple Pay Cash

and like I'm in the US, so I'm at the core for all of that. But like I feel like they're doing a pretty good job, not perfect, but better than I expected. And, you know, we remember when iCloud and Apple Cloud Strategy was a joke and they're actually pretty good.

Oh, Apple lossless in Apple Music, multi-channel audio in Apple Music this year. There is so much stuff, custom domains for iCloud email, which I'm not going to use, but they're doing stuff. In fact, I think you could argue that Apple's paying way more attention to services than they are to software right now, which is not great for software. But I think they've done a pretty good job. So, yeah, even though it's not perfect, I think it's pretty good. Well, I think what you just said about they're paying more attention to services than software might be one of the reasons that some people grade it down a little bit. Sure, absolutely. And again, people can do it again.

They're right to do that if they want to it really is how do you feel it is a measure of sentiment so if you don't like services because you feel like apple is sort of misguidedly focusing on them grade them down it gets in there it gets in the scores casey list says for the most part i'm pleased with apple services i don't love that they're becoming an ever larger priority for Apple. And I feel like I'm continually being nickel and dimed about everything. That's true, right? Like they won't stop telling me about all the things that they want me to get the money for. And then on a different side, James Thompson says,

iCloud has been very unreliable from a developer perspective since the autumn OS updates. This is something I wasn't really aware of. And James was telling me about it the other day, that there's been serious syncing problems of icloud yeah i actually so i first um heard about this through um becky hansmeyer i want to say yeah um who's a developer and a great twitter follow by the way uh because it's uh animals and yarn and app development commentary. It's great. It's awesome.

I'll put Becky's Twitter account in the show notes. But she was complaining about how she's got apps that rely on iCloud. It's like, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And then that started a bunch of Twitter type people uh started tweeting about it and it sounds like maybe they actually um bumped the jukebox and got apple to be like what huh oh uh so that may be since this survey was taken i think maybe apple is aware of the issue and has made a statement about it anyway maybe this is in process but, it was apparently iCloud was unreliable. And any app that was syncing its data store with iCloud was getting errors.

And it was very frustrating for developers. And I think that's, it's funny because it used to be, you'd just be, of course. But I think this actually illustrates that iCloud is much more of a solid product than it used to be. And it's actually, people are relying on it now. So when something goes wrong, they get really upset. It used to be when something went wrong with iCloud,

you're like, look, it's iCloud. What do you expect? But I think they expect more now. And that's good, but not great if it fails. This episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform

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the continued support of upgrade and all of relay fm so we move into the doldrums of the home kit category. Oh, boo, boo, boo. D plus 2.7. Down from 3.1. I gave it a 1. This is my lowest score. I don't understand what they're doing over there. I mean, honestly, it feels like they're doing nothing is what they're doing.

And I genuinely hope that the reason is that they're working on something. That can be my only real hope with this. Yeah, I'm going to give it a two. But I agree with you. I use HomeKit stuff and it works, but I also use HomeBridge to bridge it. I've had some HomeKit weird HomeKit errors that I can't decide whether it's my network or HomeKit. But that's part of the problem is that it doesn't really tell you.

I do rely on HomeKit for some stuff and it does work for that stuff. Yeah. I also like the fact that Apple is moving toward this system where they're going to have thread radios and everything and then the Matter spec is coming out, but it's not out yet and it wasn't out in 2021. So I think they're poised to maybe do more here.

And that's good because there's not a lot here. Like they built that set, but to what end? And several people pointed out, I think it's Federico said, they have this HomePod mini, but it's not a mini of anything because the old HomePod is gone and the old HomePods are dying

and there's nothing to replace them. So people who invested in the HomePod architecture and system are like, well, what do I do now? Again, for a couple of years, it's felt like Apple was about to turn the corner on the home stuff and it hasn't happened yet. Also a lot of hate for the Home app in there. And I feel that the Home app is also not that great. So, you know, I think this is really an interesting area where Apple needs to decide, are they really in this, or are they just going to abandon it and let third parties integrate with Matter and deal with that? But it's ugly. It's an ugly category. And I should also say, there was optimism in this category for a long time. It went up most years between 2015 and 2020 to a high of 3.1.

Everybody's kind of come off their optimism in 2021, and it's back down. Allison Sheridan says, the Home app really and truly needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Speaking of Apple apps that aren't very good and that need attention. Alex Cox says HomeKit could position itself as the home OS for people who care about their privacy, but Apple needs a smart hub that's more robust and reliable than the HomePod mini.

They need one with a screen. That's what they need. I think Apple needs to make some products in this category and they also need to make their home interface better. And who knows? Maybe there's a screen-bearing HomePod out there, and that part of that product is a redesign of the Home app, and it's all going to come together. The problem is, I think looking at the survey, like the panelists, I'm kind of over-waiting for it. I hope they do it, but we've been waiting for some movement in that category for a long time.

Hardware reliability got an A, 4.5 out of 5 again. I gave it a 4 because I have my particular bug there about scratches on my iPhone screen. But overall, I feel like all of the hardware that I'm using is I have no big problems with it what would you grade this category as? This is tough because some people are doing their personal experience with it and some of it is their observations of all of that. I do think that this year

it really can only be to knock it down to be personal experiences because there hasn't been a thing this year, you know, like no gates. No gates. David Sparks pointed that out.

No gates in 2021. Yeah, I'll give it a four, because nothing is so perfect. I actually, I can't decide whether this gives it, well, I thought about a five. So the question, a lot of people mentioned the AirPod Pro replacement program.

That's not a 2021 thing. That's like a 2020 thing. No, but it's ongoing. Mine were replaced in 2021. But I think what I would say is when you've got a problem with a product and you go into the Apple store and they just give you the new product, it's pretty good. Like, I know it's not just you're rolling in some customer service in there. In fact, one of the quotes that I thought was most interesting is Gabe Weatherhead said, AppleCare is part of the hardware reliability.

The hardware rarely fails, but when it does, I can be pretty confident that it's not the end of life because I have AppleCare and the new keyboards are nice. Everybody's still basking in the glow of killing all the butterfly keyboards, and that's all fine. But I do think there's something to be said. AppleCare is not always great, but it helps. And I repaired two old butterfly keyboard era laptops this year too through Apple and was fairly happy with that process.

So I think that the AirPods replacement program really is like, should raise the score, not lower it. Because when you do that, you get a little bit of actual life out of your AirPod too it because well when you do that you get a little bit of actual life out of your airpod too because a bit more battery you know yeah i think i think you could judge it either way you could say it is a failure or you could say it's a success because they fix their failure and you get new ones and that's i had someone tell me once recently, I don't remember what it was in relation to, that apparently there was a revision to the AirPods Pro to stop this from happening at some point.

Yeah, we were speculating about that, and somebody said that they seem to have made some sort of a change midstream to try and prevent this from continuing. Because I think it was when we were talking about AirPods Pro 2, and I think that was one of the things I mentioned, that maybe they would do something to stop the inevitable failure basically of every AirPods Pro, that it will

at a certain point, that one of the ears, usually the right one, but not always, will start to rattle, make like a rattling noise. Yep. Software quality, B minus 3.4 down from 3.5. I gave this a four because I think that really, and Christina Warren put it so greatly earlier, compared to last year, this has been fine.

What's funny is that the software quality score last year wasn't bad um and it came down slightly from that after a big sort of like seesaw back and forth um but you're right it was it was uh it you know it was not other than the safari you know summer of saf Safari that happened. But I don't have a problem with that because it didn't come out. Exactly. That is a mark in its favor, I feel like, because Apple were listening to the feedback and they adjusted course quite a lot. Shortcuts, quality issues were not great yeah rosemary rosemary pointed that out a couple of people did but rosemary said that shortcuts clearly needs extra support which i agree with

um a bunch of people pointed out uh rosetta 2 uh which basically just doing it and not like to go through a chip transition and essentially not worry about it it's that's that's an invisible but very impressive bit of software engineering it's like we remember the intel transition and when you were downloading software you would be very careful to check like is this a universal binary am i get i do not ever think about this with the apple silicon transition i don't care like i'm assuming that at some point i'm going to get the Apple Silicon version. But if I have an Intel version, it does not matter.

I can't tell, you know? It's great. Yeah. I'm going to give it a three. Okay. And I'm being generous. Oh, wow. The stuff that I said before goes. There is too much Apple software that is covered in dust.

And some of it is infested with bugs. And there are bugs. There are little bugs everywhere. I run into bugs all the time on my iPad. I run into them all the time on my iPhone. I run them all the time on my back. I can do my job. I'm not, you know,

my systems aren't crashing and stuff usually, but there's a lot of weird stuff going on. Plus, yeah, introducing shortcuts. That was a mistake to not label it a beta. And I appreciate that they fixed a lot of those issues, but there was a lot going on there. I want to pat them on the back for their OS update being not cataclysmic, but geez, that is not a high bar. Good job you shipped an OS that people aren't avoiding, which if you talk to a lot of administrators, Big Sur, they kind of

avoided it. A lot of people avoided it. And then they're embracing Monterey. Oh, you know why it wasn't so bad last year? Because 13 was even worse. iOS 13 was even worse than iOS 14. Yeah. So I can't give them a higher score than this because of all

the stuff around the edges. If this was OS quality, I might give it a little bit higher. But like even then the OS or, or OS update experience or something like that. But like Apple has, Apple has a software problem. I think Apple has a software problem at its core. It, it is not able to maintain the software that it thinks it needs to have on its platforms at an acceptable level. And it's really only got two decisions to make there. It either needs, well, I guess, and then the non-decision, it either needs to abandon things and say, we're not going to do this anymore, or it needs to pay people to do the work.

Imagine, like, I know that Apple software is not indie software, like not even close, but like, I can't imagine that Apple couldn't afford to hire and build some small teams that stay on a product, show it. And I know they do this for some products, right? Stay on a product, show it love are always thinking about the next thing and have a trajectory to it. Like shortcuts actually does. And like, sometimes I see that from notes and reminders, um, in some areas, not in others, but like every Apple product, if you're going to have it, somebody should care about it and be pushing it forward all the time.

And I get the sense that if there is somebody assigned to some of these products, they're not allowed to put time into it. They have to do some other stuff instead, or they're understaffed. They don't have the people required to do it. So the other option is the inaction option,

which is where they are, which is stuff just lays there. And the problem is that when Apple has products in their operating system, especially, it dissuades anyone else from building a product like it because Apple already built it. Even if it's no good or old or updated, there's always the threat that Apple's going to come in strong and blow you out of the water. So I think it's been like this for a decade now, and it's not gotten any better. And I think it's one of the areas that Apple really needs to improve on is, are you in or are you out? And if you're in, fund it. Fund people to do it. And I don't care where they are. They don't need to be in Cupertino for some small app that's on a couple of platforms. Put them in Pittsburgh.

Put them in Cleveland. I don't care. Put them in Ottawa. Put them in Mexico City. Put them in Tokyo. Put them in Copenhagen. Like, I literally don't care. Just put them somewhere and say, you know what?

The only app you care about is this app. And make it better every year. And I just don't feel... If that is is their current strategy something is wrong with it because it's not showing developer relations c minus 2.8 down from 3.1 i'd like to refer you to our previous conversation yeah i wish episode i mean i gave it a two uh i would have given it a one right like if this news would have come out before that we were talking about earlier. But my comments is the same.

Basically, like, I just feel like at this point, Apple would prefer to fight in court every single developer rather than give up their 30%. And I don't understand why they want to go to this trouble. Realistically, I feel like as you, you know, you so rightly put, and you put it today, I think I can understand why

Apple specifically are this way, but at the same time can't understand why anyone in their position would do this. I understand you would do this if you were a company that really needed the money, but they just don't. And I don't understand what the point is anymore. Well, and it's not just a matter of like, do they need the money but they just don't and i don't understand what the the point is anymore well and it's not just a matter of like do they need the money well of course they're a

corporation the issue is that they're taking huge risks and alienating people for money that probably isn't worth it at least from the outside looking at it's like why is this the thing that you're doing to make everybody they don't need the money they do not need the money because there's a bunch of stuff that goes into the iphone that costs them money that they don't charge people for, right? But this is one thing where they feel like they have to and I don't understand why. I'm going to give this a two. And I was actually vacillating between a three and a two and here's why. Everything we've said before

is about Apple saying essentially, we want to suck as much money out of developers as possible. They owe us for building this wonderful platform. And as I've said before, Apple owes them for building the iPhone and iPad to being what they are. And yet it doesn't give a percentage of its revenue back to them. and yet it doesn't give a percentage of its revenue back to them. So maybe lighten up a little bit. And arguing in court things that make developers look and feel bad is also unpleasant. The reason I'm giving it two is, and this is something that James Thompson mentioned,

actually, the group inside Apple that's not involved in legal issues and is working on virtual WWDCs, the new tech talk system, ways of integrating without having people in person, ways of communicating between people at Apple and the developers. they've done a lot of really good work there. Like so good that it actually helps me think that WWDC will never be what it was before. And if they do anything ever again, it'll be like a media event. And we talked about that before. It'll be like the keynote will become a media event in Cupertino, but they're never going to get the developers together again because they've been building some stuff that everything I hear is good about it. Now that said, there are also all of the, as I think Casey Liss mentioned at one point, there are all of the documentation problems. There are lots of other issues going on here that draw it down. The fact that the store is, we need the money because we need to patrol

the store. And yet there's lots of scammy apps in stores while developers get in trouble and get their apps rejected. And then these scammy subscription apps just slide on in and knock off apps like Apple not doing its job that it's supposedly getting the money for. All of that is bad. The reason I'm giving it a two instead of a one is mostly that little glimmer, which is there's part of Apple that's actually, I think, doing right by developers and is building something that will be good

on an ongoing basis and shows that there's some hope on that part. On all the other parts, it's bad. That's why I think it's a 2.8 because that point A is people like James, people like Rich Siegel who said a similar thing. It's like, yeah, the people I work with at Apple about this stuff are doing a good job. And so it helps raise the score. Because for me, as somebody who does not deal with anyone at Apple in this part of the organization at all,

I only see what they choose to put out in the world and the face that they paint to the world is their ugliest face when it comes to this stuff, I think. Yeah, as Paul Kafasa said, Apple can afford to be magnanimous yet they're being tight-fisted. Yuck. Yep.

Social and societal impact is the final category in the scorecard. I know this seems like a weird category, but over the years, Apple always talks about holding itself to a higher standard and believing in lots of things and wanting to make the world a better place. There are always controversies about Apple, whether it's about their factories or how they treat their workers around the world or their work from home policies. around the world or their work from home policies or the there's so much that goes in here and that's why i keep a real light touch on it and just say social and societal impact because i feel like apple apple brought this up apple talks about it wants to make the world a better place etc etc so let's see how they're doing and this is a score that has gone down almost every year

it went up a little bit last year it's back down this year it's trended down um the entire time i've been running the survey and this is the one that you very rightly call the raw shark test right yeah you see you see in it what people put um i gave them a four and then after i read the comments i wished i would have scored it down a bit more i think i was too generous i think i would have preferred to go with a three um basically the corporate culture stuff around working from home i hadn't really considered in this category as you say rather people put in this what they want and i feel like i would have wanted that that I would have, I want to see change there. We spoke about it on the show in the past. And so I would have maybe put this at a three

if I would have considered that in this too. Because, you know, I grade them, you know, for their environmental stance and they've been doing more charitable stuff this year. There's a lot of work to be done in a lot of areas still. So this is one where I feel like I always want to try and grade them harshly on, but I had completely forgotten something

that was important to me for this one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how I would grade this. I guess I'll give it a three, but I think really that three represents the great dichotomy here, which is Apple has made some great commitments to green energy. They've invested in lots of important social issues.

They're like they are. Even if you look at the Chinese manufacturing stuff like you could look at that and say Apple relies on low paid mistreated Chinese workers. Say Apple relies on low paid, mistreated Chinese workers, potentially some of their subcontractors are using potentially even slave labor. It's very controversial, but it's possible. You know, big question mark there. in its factories and in its contractors' factories in China has actually changed the standards and that they are changing the culture and standards of those factories because they don't want that kind of abuse of workers at the factories that are supplying Apple. So it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Is it good that they are changing things? Is it bad that things are bad? It's complicated. And yeah, I agree with you. We've talked about it here a lot. I think they don't treat their people as well as they should. And it doesn't mean that I agree with everything that's come out in leaks and all of that about it. But I think that their commitment to their work from home policy and forcing people back in the office and having a bunch of people live and work in Cupertino,

even for jobs that don't require it, that really don't require it. Some of them do, a lot of them don't. I'm disappointed that they aren't showing more flexibility, but if there's anything we know about Apple, it's got a very strong, powerful corporate culture that gets reinforced. And this is not in their culture. They have come a long way from Steve Jobs demanding that James Thompson move to California or lose his job. They do have people who work remote in all sorts of places, either by themselves or in teams in different cities. That said, this seems to have been a bridge too far for Apple's corporate culture, and that's too bad. I like what you said about the China thing. John Siracusa was saying Apple's reliance on China for its manufacturing continues to limit how much good Apple is able to do in the world,

which is, I think people bring to that what they want to bring to that. Alex Cox says, I hope management is having a wake-up call when it comes to their corporate culture. If it wants to retain talent, they need to be more cognizant of their employees' growing concerns over their own working conditions. Yeah. So I think that's the scorecard. That's it.

We've issued our report card grades. They're in. They range from bad to good. Good to see the trends. Good to see what people are feeling. Again, I think people who read and listen to podcasts about Apple will not be surprised by these results because, in fact, I think they are reflecting

the general tenor of the conversation for the last year. But that's kind of what I'm trying to do is, like, let's get that down and say this is the general tenor of the conversation for the last year. But that's kind of what I'm trying to do is like let's get that down and say this is the general tenor of the conversation for the last year. Late breaking news before we finish the show.

The Dutch regulation authority that's part of this whole, it's called the ACM, they've fined Apple again for not fully implementing the system and have said that they are disappointed in Apple's

behavior and actions. They said in a statement, but could not comment beyond its public statements on whether a 27% commission would be consistent with its order, but then followed up by saying they are disappointed. They're not angry, Apple. They're just disappointed. Just disappointed. I don't think they're going to date you.

I don't think so. There's no Dutch love there. No, none. Zero. We didn't do Ask Upgrade this week. Ask Upgrade will be back next week because we would have been here forever, I think. And I'm worried that Jason's voice

has got mere seconds left on it. Better than ever now. I don't know. We could go another five hours. All right, you ready to go? No. If you would like to send in a question for us next week, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade

or use question mark AskUpgrade in the RelayFM members Discord. If you would like to get longer, ad-free episodes of Upgrade every single week, go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up $5 a month, $50 a year, and you'll help support the show, getupgradeplus.com. Thank you so much to our sponsors of this week's episode. That is Memberful, Squarespace, Fitbod, and Bombus. If you want to find Jason online, if you want to read the there's so much more to the the scorecard i recommend people go and read it uh go and skim over so many of the

great comments we didn't even i had way more that i wanted to pull in today's episode that we just wouldn't have time to pull in so you should go read them for yourself i go to sixcolors.com and you can find that along with lots of work from jason and dan and many more uh you can find that along with lots of work from Jason and Dan and many more. You can find Jason online. He is at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade and we'll be back next week.

Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Bye, everybody.