Upgrade - 407: Inexplicable Billboards

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Is Apple ready to embrace USB-C across its entire product line? Jason loves his Playdate, but is frustrated by Apple Music playing songs he dislikes. And the music may go on, but the iPod won't be coming along for the ride.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 407 today's show is brought to you by things source graph and squarespace my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike we're on the road to wwc we are, and we're getting closer. It's not quite in the road signs are saying WWDC, but it's a large number of miles away still. But it's getting closer. Regular episode next week. Then we're drafting.

And then a draft, and then it happens. I'm getting pretty hyped about it, personally. I'm going to be looking forward to it. I'm not prepared. I'm not emotionally prepared yet. I'm not ready yet, Mike. prepared yet I'm not ready yet Mike I'm not I'm not my head's not in it yet

maybe next week I never said I was prepared I just said I'm excited alright I'm not ready I'm just looking forward to it alright you know

alright this is the this is the big capper of my my son graduating from high school the same week as WWDC so there's gonna be a lot going on that week is what I'm saying

there's gonna be a lot going on so I'm what I'm saying. There's going to be a lot going on. So I'm not prepared for any of it, but I better get prepared. So yeah, it's getting close. I have a hashtag snow talk question for you. It comes from Jared who wants to know, Jason, what is your preference in fonts? Are they different for reading and writing?

How picky do you get? A bunch of people just pressed the chapter for word button right there the word fonts came up they're like nope nope nope nope i'm good i i'm not that picky um let me do this uh quickly i like to write in monospace fonts um uh georgia is my preferred uh ebook reader font because i think it looks the smoothest and most like print on the Kobo and the Kindle actually, even if you can get it on the Kindle. Sometimes you can see it. Sometimes you can sideload it.

Beyond that, I don't get picky at all. So I have some preferences of like, well, this one looks nice. And then, yeah, for writing, I prefer monospace fonts. I forget even what my default mono is right now. I have different default mon is right now i have different default mono space fonts in a few different places um in so really it's like if there's an option for a mono space font in a text editor you'll take it you don't really care too much which one it is yeah i'm using jetbrains mono and bb edit right now i think i'm using jetbrains mono in a bunch

of places but there are some other mono space fonts that I've got that I also like that I think I'm using a different one on iOS. Maybe. I don't know. It's yeah. Anyway, I am a monospace. I prefer to write with monospace. And then that's it. I mean, really, then I'm using default fonts, I think, in like Safari and stuff like that.

We're using not to give anything away away but we're using default fonts in our show document for example so like because we just don't we're not that picky it's yeah we use ariel yeah i know right never even really considered it like to me this just is what google docs is the google docs font yeah yeah well like google have better fonts that they make which is it's funny that they use it but like like i think roboto is their font and and i actually think it's quite a nice looking uh font i think it's like the one they made for android it's like their version of san francisco i wouldn't mind having our show document set in san francisco but i don't even know if that's possible in google to add fonts that would be fun though oh jason's changing all the fonts of our show document to monospace,

which I hate. I hate this. I hate this. It doesn't have to be mono. That's just one option. We got a lot of options here. I don't like what you've done, though. It looks really upsetting to me.

If you would like to send in a question for us to open an episode of Upgrade, every part of our show document is currently getting changed to a different font now. I can't handle this. You can just send in a tweet with the hashtag snell talk or you can use question mark snell talk in the relay fm members discord and send in a question of your own jason do you remember a number of weeks ago we spoke about tap to pay which is something that apple's going to be rolling out which will allow for payments to be taken via the NFC chip in an iPhone. And they were kind of inviting third parties to sign up and kind of get involved.

Do you remember that? They were opening it up? Yep. Well, 9to5Mac is reporting that Apple's new tap-to-pay feature for the iPhone is now in use at the Apple Park Visitor Center. So there's a video embedded in the article that they've put together from a tweet. And so it appears that this is a test of this upcoming feature.

So you can see somebody paying via Apple Pay on their iPhone by tapping it on the iPhone of someone at the store, one of the retail representatives at the store. So they're clearly using this as like a test for the functionality, which is kind of funny because it is presumed that this will be an iOS 16 feature. So it's intriguing, right?

That these phones or these devices have got this function running. Must be some kind of special build going on there. I guess it is just over the road, right? You know, it's being made. So I'm sure they can make that work pretty nicely it's interesting like i i read in this article i didn't know this but it makes a lot of sense to me that things like this uh are tested at the at the uh apple park store quite frequently which makes a lot of sense right that you would do that it's right there yeah i think so it's a

right there they're using their own terminals in order to test whether they can because what the benefit for apple is going to be that they're going to have um they're going to be able to take apple pay using just stock iphone hardware in stores using this feature and we'll talk about this later on in the episode but i think previously uh these the card readers were ipod touches they would use ipod touches with this like thing attached to them about this later on in the episode, but I think previously, the card readers were iPod Touches. They would use iPod Touches with this thing attached to them. Well, they don't have those anymore, so it's going to have to be an iPhone.

That makes a lot of sense. This may be something. This feature, the Apple Park Visitor Center that a bunch of developers see in a few weeks that Apple sent out their notice to developers that got approved to go to watch the WWDC thing. We don't have any more details yet still as of recording,

but congratulations to any developer that's going to be going out to AppleBlock. It'll be pretty fun. I would love to know, by the way, any upgradians that are going to be going. I would love to know. You could send us pictures and stuff if you're allowed to do that when you're there.

That'd be fun. Yeah. Should we talk about Playdate a little bit? A little Playdate update? I would love to know. You could send us pictures and stuff if you're allowed to do that when you're there. That'd be fun. Yeah. Should we talk about Playdate a little bit? A little Playdate update? I don't want to, but we can. Oh, I mean, you don't have to. I can just talk. No, we can.

We can talk about it. I'll talk about why in a minute. I just wanted to say, just a little follow-up. I'm, this is a pick-pack pack, pup fan podcast now. That's what it's going to be from now on. Sorry, everybody. We're just going to be talking about that little dog and matching three or more items in a grid.

Just a great game. Love it. I love it more and more the more I play it. It's got so many different dimensions. Very funny. It is funny. It is funny and satirical. It is a satire of an Amazon warehouse inside an arcade game.

And it's just fun to play. It's super kind of casual game of the kind that I like where you can just play it for a little bit. Those are the games that it turns out that I like the most on Playdate are the ones where you can just play for a few minutes and then set it aside again and not be so intense about it where I can say, oh, Playdate. Yeah, let's do that. And then play for 10 minutes and then set it aside again and um and not be so intense about it where i can say oh play date yeah let's do that and then and then play for 10 minutes and then and then set it aside again um so pick pack pup i love yeah i think pick pack pup is the best game to come from the um season one so far uh i've there's been at least one game in in four-week releases that I've had so far that I've really liked. I really liked the game Bloomin'. I think it's called that.

Bloom. Bloom. Which I haven't played. That's my favorite game that I've played so far. And that's a third-party title. And I really loved it. Yeah, I've been playing. So last week for me, got flipper lifter which is

good today i got that today it's good i i have to i've taken some time to learn it but it's actually a very cute mechanic where you use the crank to put an elevator up and down and penguins get in and out of the elevator and you have that was another game floors that doesn't tell you what you're doing yeah i know it just this is my frustration is I just want a little hint screen that says, here's how you do this. And I didn't get it, but I do like that. I have not even cracked echoic memory because it had a lot of dialogue

and I was like, I can't do this right now. I played a little bit today and it's fun. It's also funny. And I like the game mechanic. It's basically like Simon says, kind of. Ah, nice. So I just haven't gotten into that one yet. I'm still playing cranking time

travel adventure i get to a hard one and then i i sort of like leave it and then i keep coming back to it and trying to break that that uh that level and and figure out that cycle and then it's on to the next difficult cycle but i'm still impressed by that i'm still playing wet water wipeout too now that i finally figured out how to how to play it it's actually fun and very quick um which i like so um i'm just saying it's uh i'm pretty happy with it if i had any feedback about it i know we talked about their their strategy of dropping two games every week um i i now think i think they should have started with four games and then two every week and then two every week? And then two every week. I think you're right.

Because I think that the out-of-box experience when you only have the two games and their Whitewater Wipeout and Casual Birder, I think it's not enough. I think you need, to get started, I think you need a little more variety than that. So that's sort of my, on my critics hat. I think maybe that is a way to split the difference between you don't want to give people 24 games up front. I mean, that's not it's too much. You don't want that. It's something that we talked about with the, remember the iPhone transfer frustrations that people would have, where we said your happy day when you get a new iPhone, it should be happy and not frustrating.

And Apple has spent the last few years sort of trying to make it less frustrating. Well, that's sort of how I feel about the playdates. Like you get the playdate and you're really excited. And then there are two games and you don't understand them and like or they or you bounce off of them and then you've got to wait a week before there's a chance that you might find other games that you like and i think it's just a mistake i think you need to go out stronger even if then the games come every you know two a week um so yeah that's my that's my take on that the reason i didn't want to talk about playdate is because i've broken my playdate and I am not broken. I dropped it. I had the case on.

I dropped it. It landed screen down and it broke part of the... It's broken part of the screen inside. There's nothing on the outside. It's on the inside. I put a link in the show notes. You can see on the bottom left.

Put an image in the show notes. In the bottom left of the screen, you can see there's like a little broken area and it's completely of the screen you can see it as like a little broken area and it's completely destroyed the the screen itself i cannot describe jason how upset i am about this i i'm really really sad about it because i love the play date like it's this is the weird thing for me where like it brings me such joy to play it but now it's broken i'm really sad about it um i'm currently playing some of the games via the mirror app on my mac you know because you can

plug it in via usb and you can play them that way which works but it's just not the same and also like when i'm if i'm like playing or looking at the screen the screen is flashing and flickering all over the place, which is really distracting. This happened last Thursday. I sent a support ticket into the Panic Playdate team last Thursday to tell them what I'd done and ask if there's anything that can be done. I haven't heard from them yet.

I really hope that they will say, give us money and we'll send you another one. Because this is the issue with their system right now. I would like to replace it, but I would have to currently get into the back of the queue and wait until 2023. So I don't know. I know that they are replacing broken models.

If they send you a model and it's broken, like it doesn't work they're replacing it um i hope that they would extend a similar thing to me and i'll pay them right like i'm not looking for a free unit but like i would really love to be able to just give them another 180 or whatever it is and get another one and i'll send them back this one because, I mean, it fell from like four feet and it had the cover on it. And so it broke in a way that I'm surprised it broke. I'm not like anything could break at this height,

like a phone could break or whatever. But I would love to be able to replace it. I really want to be able to replace it. And I'm trying to do this the right way. I'm not tweeting about this right like we're talking about it here because like this is a podcast no and no you know it's not gonna no one's gonna hear it uh but like so i've you know i've sent them a ticket and i'm hoping that they will get to that ticket within the next few days and give me some kind of resolution to it if If they don't, then they don't. And, you know, I broke the thing.

I'm not going to be like, I'm not going to flame them. I'll be sad about it. But then I'm going to have to go to the aftermarket, which I really don't want to do. Right. So I hope that they can give me some kind of solution because currently I am heartbroken about my little yellow box being broken. It's interesting that there's the whole thing about, like, we have to ship these products, and that's been a story they've told, the complexity of that.

But there's this whole other complexity, right, which is they need to have an infrastructure to replace broken units, whether they're broken by you or broken in transit or they weren't right. They can't just ship them out there and go, good luck and not offer support. So there's a whole extra level of complexity. Well, I guess we'll follow along. Because I don't know what the right thing to do is, right?

Do you... Because I dropped mine and broke mine, right? Do you replace me or do I go to the back of the line? I don't know which is more more fair i feel like the right thing for them to do is and the fair thing for them to do is is essentially to have a repair program where you send it in and pay a fee and they send you one back whether it's yours or a different one that is the that is the repair and that the repair program is different from waiting in line to buy another one. But I don't know.

I mean, that's their decision too. Because it's like part of the money I paid is for these games. I can't get, I guess I can. The good thing is I can play them. It's just not as fun. But like at least if they tell me no i can at least play these games it's just not as enjoyable for me to play because you have to sit at a computer playing them and it's just it's not the same like yeah so this is this damage is like the screen is unusable now like i can't see

anything on the screen anymore it's completely busted the screen when you say aftermarket you're like well if you can't get one for three years, you're going to investigate, can you buy that screen and then reattach it yourself? That sort of thing? I don't know. This thing doesn't seem very user-replaceable. Yeah, it doesn't seem. Yeah.

It's like I also wouldn't, you know, I don't think it's going to work. Send it to Quinn. Send it to Quinn Nelson. He'll take it apart. He likes to do that. But he won't put it back together to work. Send it to Quinn. Send it to Quinn Nelson. He'll take it apart. He likes to do that. But he won't put it back together. Sorry. Jason, you have a note in show notes here

that you're upset about something about Apple Music and I can't understand what it is. Okay. Yes. This is welcome to Jason Complains About Apple Music. It's a new segment. One time. Maybe more. We'll see. Okay. So I listen to a lot of Apple Music. It's a new segment. One time. One time segment. Maybe more. We'll see.

Okay, so I listen to a lot of Apple Music playlists. That's one I'm working. That's the thing I do. So I open up the Alt Control playlist, which is the alternative curated playlist. So it's an Apple Music playlist.

It's not a playlist I made. It's a playlist made by the curators at apple and for the last few months you know since they redesigned their playlist they have like a lead item on the playlist which is weird where they have like they they have a takeover the art on the playlist is an artist and they have a little blurb at the top that it's like from an interview with the artist or the artist's publicity representatives or whatever. And it's like, oh, here's a little tidbit from this artist whose new song is on the playlist. And, you know,

part of me thinks this, I don't think that Apple is being sleazy by doing this, but it has that music industry promotional vibe that's kind of sleazy, which is like, we're pushing this artist hard. And so we're going to do an interview and he's going to be in our playlist and it's going to be great. And I don't love it, but it's like, it's fine. In the end, I don't need to read the thing or look at the art and the song is in there and I'll like it or I won't like it. However, recently they did something new new which is they've added an additional track to the playlist which is a 37 second long voice interview with the artist that they're promoting in the playlist this week now uh talking to my wife about this she she points out that when we're in the car and we're listening to the radio on like the satellite radio and the DJ comes on between the songs that I complain or I change the

channel because I just don't want to hear them talk. And it's like, it's a choice. Some people like to hear those people talk. That's why they have jobs. I don't particularly like it. I just want to hear more music. So I'll just change the channel. And it is true that when this, if I, if I listen to this playlist, I can just skip the guy talking. And it's okay. But I will point out that this little addition exacerbates a problem with Apple Music. There's no way to tell Apple Music not to play something in one of its playlists. Right?

There is a dislike command you can do to a song now. Right? So you can like a song. You can get a little heart. You can love a song. But you can also say, I don't like this song. However, what does that do? It seems to impact the algorithm for Apple music. So like, what do you like and what do you not like?

What it doesn't seem to do is not play that song when you're in a playlist. And it's driving me, uh, batty because, and this is a bigger issue than just the 37 seconds of the dude talking about his song, which I don't want to hear. And it's very jarring when suddenly it's not music on my music playlist and there's just this guy talking. But the bigger issue is, you know, that playlist is 76 songs. Well, okay, it's 75 songs and then a song of a guy talking about his song. There are a bunch of songs on there that I don't like and I don't want to hear. But I still want to shuffle through the playlist because there are a lot of songs on there that I do like. And that's where I discover new music.

And as far as I can tell, there's no way for me to say, don't play this again. Right? I have no ability. Back in the old iTunes days, you could like uncheck a track right do you remember that and it'd be like don't i think so don't play don't play when you start playing like when i play an album or whatever i can go into like a queue and i can remove things from the queue when it's playing do you get the ability to do that when it's a playlist like this yes yes but then you're doing but this is my point is then you're doing maintenance every cue when it's playing. Do you get the ability to do that when it's a playlist like this? Yes.

But this is my point, is then you're doing maintenance every time you play the playlist. You have to go into Up Next and say, oh, let's see if there's anything... Which is not the point of these playlists, right? They're supposed to give you what you want to listen to. Right. At that point, it would be easier for me to wait for the song I don't like to come on and then press Next. That would be

less intensive work for me to do it that way. But what I really want to do is, hey, I told you I don't like this. Don't play it. Or have an option somewhere that says, don't play things I don't like. Or have an option somewhere, in addition to disliking something that says,

don't play this. I find this weird because it's like, why is this even here? Like this is a music playlist like if i wanted the interviews i would listen to beat the whatever they call it beat one or happy music one or whatever they call it right the radio station but like i'm choosing to listen to a playlist of songs it's like because then it's like why is there only one of them if you're gonna like i get it like this is odd to me this reminds me i could edina this as a spotify user

and a couple of weeks ago, she was listening. She just does what most Spotify users do, right? Which is like, I want to listen to the playlist they've made me. They know my music tastes, that kind of thing. And she tried out a new one.

It was called the Morning Playlist or something. And every couple of songs, it would play a segment from a podcast. What? Just a segment. Like a news kind of thing. And I'd hear her skipping them. I'm like, what is going on a segment it's like like a news kind of thing and i tried here i'm skipping them i'm like what is going on and she's like this she said i tried this new and then she told me i could try to play this thing out i was like that is terrible like then i can't think like what

are you trying they're trying to do there is rebuild the morning radio right so like a few songs and then there's some news and then like like, but that to me is like terrible. Like I don't, this idea of this morning show vibe thing, it doesn't, just because it exists, it doesn't mean we should replicate it. Like, and also that's not even the way to replicate it. Like here's six segments from six different podcasts intermingled with three songs each time or whatever.

So here's the thing i am absolutely accepting of the idea that some people like this right like i don't like it but i'm not gonna say because i don't like it nobody should have it i'm not gonna be that kind of a person i'm gonna say people obviously do like this because otherwise, if nobody liked it, why would you spend money and time and effort doing it? What I'm saying is I don't like it. And I would like something since we are now in a digital streaming world. We have all of the we have an app. We have software.

We have all this intelligence. We have an interface. I just want to be able to say I don't want to hear it. Right. I mean, I'm paying for Apple Music Apple Music is supposed to do what I want I'm not even listening to streaming radio right I'm literally

I can do next track every time I don't understand like this is why you're degrading honestly you're degrading the experience by not letting me shut it off and that's that's all I'm really asking for I actually don't mind if they do all sorts of interviews and stuff in uh i've had to do this by the way with albums that i've bought where there's like the special extended version of the album that's got an extra track on it but it also has a bunch of interviews

and i have to go in and remove the the tracks that are not from my library or change them to a different album name so that they're not when I play the album, they don't play the interviews because I don't want to hear the interviews. I maybe wanted to hear them one time, but I don't ever want to hear them again. And by the way, that's the other thing about this thing

is if I listen to that playlist multiple times and I start from the top and don't and don't shuffle the first thing every time will be the interview with the guy just like the same one it's like what it's not it's a playlist of songs it's not an interview show so zach had mentioned in the discord that this week's playlist the uh interview part is the third track so it's it's now become even unreliable for you because it's going to appear at random points. What I don't know,

and I haven't had a chance to verify this, what I don't know is if they are doing some magic behind the scenes where if you shuffle it, it doesn't play. I don't know that. I would doubt that. I would doubt it. I reckon it will play right but imagine how bad that

is too where it's like you've got a 1 in 76 chance of just some random dude talking about his song coming up it's just like like you heard the song six songs ago and now right now here's the black keys to tell you about their new hit the bottom line here is apple needs to do a better job in the music app of understanding when we don't like something and don't want to hear about it because this is this is what is happening here is they make these great curated playlists which i like a lot and they let us give our opinions about what we like and we don't like and those seem to feed into their algorithms about uh other other kinds of suggestions and music we get or our personal radio stations and all of those things. But it's missing this one thing, which is what are the chances that out of 75 songs,

I'm going to find a handful that I hate? Pretty big, pretty big. Why do I have to skip them every time? This is a a computer it's marked as dislike it shouldn't be that hard and you're like well maybe dislike means something different you don't actually want to skip it's like okay make a preference that says skip disliked songs that would be great let's do that we could do that but um they don't do that. So here we are. Anyway, that's my rant. That's my complaint is they're inserting things that aren't songs and playlists. And if you try to escape it by saying, I don't like it, because I did.

I disliked that guy talking about his song. I marked that down as a dislike, but it doesn't really matter. It's still going to play it because it doesn't care that I dislike it. It's going to make me listen to the start of it and then skip over it. It's like, be better, Apple. That's what I'm saying. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Things, the award-winning to-do app. If you want to achieve a goal, you've got to have a plan. And when it comes to making plans, there's no better tool than the award-winning Things app. The idea behind Things is simple. Create a project for each of your goals, add the steps to reach those goals, then choose which days you want

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help you get there try things today at things app.com you won't regret it our thanks to things for their support of this show and relay fm time for a rumor roundup for you jesus now yeehaw mark german has given a couple more details on what he believes we can expect for WWDC. This comes from Mark's Power On newsletter at Bloomberg.

Quote, While I don't expect Apple to present a full redesign of the software, there should be major changes across the system,

new ways of interacting and some fresh Apple apps. The news about WatchOS 9 will be significant as well so this adds to mark's previous reports of revamp notifications and health upgrades so there's a couple of things i want to mention on this one i guess we're in high season for wwdc info but there as of yet as of recording today hasn't been anything major right no screenshots

no like here's what's going on right this is about as much as we've gotten so far um the thing that is most surprising to me here is watch os 9 will be significant i kind of didn't really think there would be any significant uh watch os upgrades for until i guess they really change what the watch is you know what i mean like if they changed the watch's shape or they changed the watch's screen size significantly like maybe it would be significant but other than that it kind of felt like to me watch os 9 was just going to be getting like small features or features that um go along with iphone features so like the fact that there were new health stuff on the phone

made me figure there'd be new health stuff on the watch well there was there was the fact that there were new health stuff on the phone made me figure there'd be new health stuff on the watch. Well, there was the rumor out there that they were going to revamp all the old watch faces and bring them up to speed. So maybe that watchOS 9 will be significant in a way because they're going to kind of break the seal on a bunch of stuff that they haven't touched since the beginning and reconfigure some things. things and maybe that means that uh there will be some changes in what the complications do or uh access to watch faces or who knows what but like i i it that rumor makes me think that that's what's going on is a kind of a refresh and a letting go of some of the old uh you know original apple watch conceptions in i would like that um new ways of interacting and some fresh apple apps i don't really know what that means um it's pretty big isn't it yeah maybe it will make sense later on but like you know i could imagine you know something we were talking about a lot uh last year you know safari was the only app that got

this like rethink of navigation you know like that as screen sizes have gotten bigger the main amount of of uh navigation stuff was moved to the bottom which the maps had had it previously right like maps had kind of gone that way and then safari had gone that way i would i wouldn't mind seeing some of that provided it's done well Savari I think is in a great place now but wasn't at first on the iPhone so I wouldn't mind that yeah I don't know how to read this it's so vague

great new ways of interacting major changes across the system but but not a full redesign. Some fresh Apple apps. What does that mean? Those new apps or those updated apps? Well, we'll just see. Let's just, we'll wait and see. Yeah, I don't know what that means, really. The WatchOS 9 part was

the part that surprised me the most, mostly why I wanted to include this, because I hadn't really considered that as a thing. Mac Rumors is reporting that purple could be a new color option for iPhones this year. Quote said to be a unique finish that shifts tone based on lighting conditions. So the report, which is coming again from Weibo, is saying that purple will be the color right um my expectation here just from thinking about this and looking at how apple's done this in the past is that the unique finish version will be on the pro phones and the regular phones will get just a kind of flat purple

color that's why i think that's right. The colors are, we'll have to keep an eye on this, but it's fine. They refresh their colors every year. I think that's good. If they've got, somebody saw one that they thought was impressive and so there's a report about it,

that's great. I don't, I still don't entirely understand what Apple's doing with its color palette on the iphone my biggest one though my biggest mystery is why they have the spring extra color thing they've done the last two years yeah because i don't i don't understand that at all not only is it weird that like there's this extra color that appears and And I know we've talked about this before, but I don't know who's going to say,

oh, wait, wait, green? Oh, they finally made a green iPhone? Well, then now I'll buy my iPhone. Now's the time to buy, yeah. And then they do advertising where they advertise the fact that there's a green iPhone. It's like, who cares?

Who cares that there's a green iPhone? I don't understand. Why didn't you come out with an extra color in the fall? Oh, well, we couldn't make that. All right, I guess. But why in the spring do you bring out a green iPhone? I don't.

Or purple the previous year, right? It's like, I just don't, I don't understand what they're doing with that. And that, I'm going to put it on the pile of color related things I don't understand about Apple strategy. I saw the green for the first time this weekend. It was in London and was going by the Apple store and we had to pop in for something.

So I was like, oh, look, there's the green one. And it's a nice green. You know, like if that green would have been available when the iPhone 13 lineup came out, maybe that would have been where I went instead of gold. But like I wasn't a big fan of the whatever color blue it's called. I didn't really like that blue. Pacific blue, right? And then the green is alpine green on the profile.

Something like that, yeah. There is also, you know, Shoreditch in London, right? It's a pretty cool like hip area. I don't know if this is like some rule in Shoreditch or it's like just like a fun thing that people do, but there's an area in Shoreditch where there's a lot of advertising which is murals they're murals, they're painted onto the walls

and there is a really great Apple one which is like the regular Apple like billboard right, it's got like the two green phones and it's like iPhone now in green or whatever it is, they've just painted that on the wall and it looks just like the billboard, it's really's really cool so you know just a couple of things about the green

iphones that i've encountered in my travels in the last couple of weeks i just don't understand it i don't know i don't know why either i mean you've got to assume it must make sense because they've done it more than once now but i find it very odd like it is very odd like why another color why like halfway through the cycle which is the only change that the phones get they get one extra color added to the lineup and i get that it gets them you know it allows them to have something to talk about when they don't have anything new but you could the counter argument is if you train people that if they don't like all the colors they should just wait and and buy it later on like you're deferring sales by doing that or maybe

that's the strategy but i i just it it frustrates me and and what really frustrates me is you end up with these kind of inexplicable billboards that are like a green phone and regular people out in the world, who I know, say, what? Why is that a thing? And my answer is, I don't know why that's a thing. I don't know why. They're heavily advertising that now last year's iPhone also comes in green. I don't get it. So I guess we'll see which colors are represented in the fall

and which one will be the odd man out and have to wait for next spring yeah i mean and i completely would accept that this is like a blind spot that i have through through being so focused on when the iphone comes out right that like people aren't as clued in on it although i don't know how you couldn't be with the iphone especially because it's like front page news when it when there's a new iphone uh especially if it has any interesting features but like so you know maybe they're like people are just like oh green one but again i still can't imagine it's matt that's massive business the oh and it's not like a watch band where you're like oh here's a new watch band color right it's like like oh i'll collect them all i'm gonna get all the colors of iphone and have them in my pocket i uh okay yeah

like and i know that people like and i've said it before and it's like this idea of like in some cultures it's like really beneficial to have the newest thing right like that's one of the reasons you change the design is so it is obvious that you have the new device. But again, like I still can't imagine the green one is enough to drive that either. So I mean, I don't know,

but they do it for a reason, right? And if they keep doing it, there must be a reason. But I can't get my head around why exactly it's that important now to have a new version of both phones in a new color odd yeah ming chi kuo is reporting that apple could be preparing an apple tv refresh for later in 2022 uh quo quotes a uh is quoting improved cost structure as the reason for this.

So in trying to tease that apart a little bit, because this is the thing, Ming-Chi Kuo, I'm so happy that Ming-Chi Kuo is on Twitter, right? So I can actually see what Ming-Chi Kuo says rather than like everybody reporting on what Ming-Chi Kuo says.

And like, so, but the thing is, because the area in which Ming-Chi Kuo works in is very much this kind of area. It's less Mark Gurman, right? Where Mark will get a piece of information and will build a story around it. Where Ming-Chi Kuo is just sharing analyst information,

which is improved cost structure. So if I'm trying to tease that apart, my expectation here is options, right? So I could imagine improved cost structure being, we've got the Apple TV where it is right now at its price, which is, I don't know, a million dollars basically for the value you get from an Apple TV box. Like was like a hundred and something,

something dollars an Apple TV right now? What is it, 199? It's 199 for the big one, 149 for the one with a little less storage, and that's $149 for the old model, the HD, $199 and $179 for the 4K models. Okay. And I assume you only get the new remote

with the two expensive ones. I expect you get the old remote with the cheap one. So really, if you look at this, the Apple TV, I mean, we know this is terrible value right as a product because especially now that the tv app which is the only thing that apple makes that is important for a tv device like this is on televisions it's on roku It's on Roku. It's on everything, right? Yeah. You can just get the TV app

wherever you want to, wherever you're currently watching TV, by and large, if you have some kind of internet-connected thing. Real-time follow-up, Zach says that they put the new remote on all models.

They don't want to make that old remote anymore. Good. But nevertheless, right? I'm standing by what I said, right? $149 when you've got a lot of 4K devices that are under $ so i could imagine

improved cost structure being like a spread of this line so like i think apple need to just get rid of this price point just say goodbye and do a really cheap version which really is just tv apps because that's all that should be on the Apple TV anyway, in my opinion. And then a more expensive version, which like in the future, which incorporates everything that we want. Right. Which is like it's a HomePod and an Apple TV all in one. I feel like since Ming-Chi Kuo is looking at the supply side and the parts that go into these devices, and the parts that go into these devices that when he talks about improved cost structure, he's literally talking about designing something that uses things that don't cost very much so that Apple can sell a cheaper product at the margins that they're used to.

So what is that? I don't know. I think that part of the challenge with the whole Apple TV HD and 4K generations is they were engineered for that future of TV as apps kind of scenario with games and all of that. And so on that level, I think you're right that the way you get something down in under $100 is by having it not particularly perform well at things like games, because who cares?

And you really want it to be able to play video and you know like do apple fitness which is you know basically one of the few things that really does require an apple tv at this point um stuff like that but not have the kind of power that is required to do uh games and stuff like that and you you just try to build something around that price point, which none of these are. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why the Apple TV HD is $149. Part of it is Apple just wants to make money,

but part of it is that it was engineered for a different strategy. And that strategy that it was engineered for has some costs in terms of what's in that product. So if they're really doing a new what he what he says is a new version of apple tv that improves cost structure that sounds to me like they're recasting the product around um what they now think the apple tv's role is and that might be for the whole product line. Maybe it's scalable and it starts lower and it goes higher. Or it may be that there's going to be a new Apple TV

that is the cheap one and the existing 4K just sort of remains at its price point. That's kind of interesting. But as somebody who just bought an Apple TV because I wanted to put a TV in a room for Apple Fitness, and I was like, oh, yeah, you kind of need an Apple TV for that. So I bought an Apple TV and I thought to myself, oh, boy, here I am buying a $150 Apple TV. It's kind of ridiculous when I bought a 4K Roku for $40 or something like that. K Roku for $40 or something like that. But, um, uh, you know, it's not a key part of Apple strategy, but it sure would be nice if Apple could bring its approach to this hardware down to a lower price point so that they, they could at least have an argument against some of these. You know, I, I, I got a lot of feedback when I wrote that article about the Apple TV a year or two ago for people like, Oh, but you know, it's it's uh it's privacy and all the all these things and my biggest answer was was yes but

if you're talking to a consumer and their options are 150 or 30 saying but privacy it's like most most people are going to be like, nah, $30. It's like $30 wins over $150. Maybe if it was $70 or $60 or $80, it's at least a better chance that you're going to grab some of those people and have them use Apple's product. Mason in the Discord asked, what if it's just like an AirPlay receiver

like a Chromecast? I don't like that kind of model. I want something with a remote. This is why Google now makes the Chromecast with Google TV, right? You can buy a Chromecast, which is just like on your phone, you can say watch this, or you can also have that functionality, but also like a menu that you can scroll through with a remote and tap on it so you're using the actual stick itself also all all new tvs and most

boxes do airplay already so what would be the point apple needs to make something that's differentiated in some way that makes you go oh well i'm going to choose the apple one because and i do think that there need to be apps on it, right? All of the video apps and that whole video ecosystem that they've built, I think makes sense. That's what the competitors do. So I don't think they're going to do something that's that simple because they've kind of solved that problem by getting AirPlay compatibility in so many devices. So it really is, you know, they really need to make something like the Apple TV, but, but a lot cheaper than it is now.

They could make something a lot smaller and cheaper with less specs that still does everything they need it to do. And you're right. They could pull out some of the graphics they could pull out. Potentially they could pull out some of the home stuff. I mean, there are lots of things that they could pull out. I'm not sure how many of them they need to pull out.

The real challenge is they just need to make it using parts that will allow them to sell it for a lot cheaper. That's what they need to do. This week's episode is brought to you by Sourcegraph. So you've hired a brilliant developer. That's awesome. But now you have to get them onboarded. If your company is growing, onboarding new developers will become a common occurrence, but it's a big undertaking every time. One of the biggest challenges for new hires is to get up to speed with the project that their new team is working on, that they are getting involved in. This can be tricky if the codebases that your developers are working in are already large. Thankfully, Sourcegraph makes it easy to move fast even in those big codebases. Developers know that knowledge is most useful when it's findable.

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You can also just click the link in the show notes and that will let them know that you found out about them from this show. Our thanks to Sourcegraph for their support of Upgrade and RelayFM. Ming-Chi Kuo reported last week that Apple is planning on replacingayFM. Ming-Chi Kuo reported last week that Apple is planning on replacing the Lightning connector with USB-C for the 2023 iPhone line. Some time ago, Kuo said that this was something that Apple was not looking at because they wanted to keep the MFI program intact, but he is now changing his guidance on this. It is not clear yet as to

whether this would be on only some models or the whole line initially or going into the future. Of course, Apple could possibly be doing this to stay ahead of regulation, especially in the European Union, but USB-C is a connector that Apple uses on many of their devices at this point, including those that run iPadOS. Mark Gurman followed up with a report in Bloomberg saying that as well as working on the switch over to USB-C, Apple is working on an adapter to allow for future iPhones to work with previous lightning-based cables and accessories. Everyone remembers the lightning to 30 pin if you were around.

Mark also notes that this move obviously would lessen Apple's control with the MFI program, referring to Ming-Chi Kuo's previous report that they didn't want to let it go because USB-C is an open standard, right? So people could just make iPhone accessories. Apple owns Lightning, so they have to approve commercial products that use the Lightning port. Yeah. Obviously, people find ways to get around it, but they're not legally allowed to do that. Ming-Chi Kuo then also followed up with another report. There's a real shootout at the rumor end up here. Yeah, he's like, pew, pew, pew.

He would expect AirPods, the keyboard, the mice, and everything else that currently uses lightning to switch away at some point in the future, meaning that USB-C is the current expectation for Apple across everything. Kuo also mentioned this idea of a portless iPhone could still be some way away if ever, quote, current limitations of wireless technologies and the immature MagSafe ecosystem would warrant that unlikely. What do you think about all of this?

It's time. Yes. That's what I think. It's time. Very much so. i'm it's time yes that's that's what i think it's time lightning light look lightning was a an apple invented way to get a better port because usba was bad and they needed to move off the 30 pin the 30 pin to something that would fit on a phone um but the 30 pin was bad and usbc wasn't available yet so they made lightning do you remember when the 30 pinpin was bad. And USB-C wasn't available yet. So they made Lightning. Do you remember when the 30-pin,

you used to have to squeeze the little things on the side so you could safely disconnect it? Yeah. So Apple decided to do this, and then USB-C came out. And it's like a sunk cost kind of thing where Apple's like, well, no, we already did our Lightning thing. We're going to stick with it. And there are things about Lightning that are superior.

Some of the decisions they made, I think, were made for the port to be more resilient. The fact that it's like a little metal thing that you stick into the port, as opposed to USB-C where it's a round thing. And in the port, there has to be a little, it's like the lightning, it's like reversed. The lightning port that you stick in on a USB-C device,

it's got a little post that's sticking out inside of that port. And I can see how that, you know, what I've heard is that lightning is more resilient and it's maybe more water resistant and all these things. However, it's over. Like it's over. And I know that a bunch of people were saying, oh, everybody's going to complain that Apple keeps changing their formats, right? Because for 10 years, 10 years they've been using Lightning and now they're going to change it. Everybody's going to be like, I don't want to buy new stuff. Apple's just doing this.

The difference this time is Apple's not going from a proprietary connector to a proprietary connector. This time Apple's going to go from a proprietary connector to a standard connector. And you know what? USB-C is already everywhere. And that's accelerating. So in those hotels that offer USB-C and lightning, if you get one of the new iPhones from 2023, you'll just plug it into the USB-C one instead because there will be a USB-C one there because USB-C is what everybody uses. Now, there are some arguments about the EU saying everybody's going to use USB-C that I think are strong when you say, we need to be able to innovate. And if a new port,

if you had made this rule in the past, we would have all been stuck on USB-A. So you need to let us innovate. But that said, everything uses USB-C. I can't tell you how delighted I was when my new Kobo had USB-C on it, when the Playdate had USB-C on it, because it was like, that's one less weird cable that I have to bring with me in order to charge something. So it is more, I mean, it's about time. It should probably have happened sooner, but it needs to happen. And it needs to happen everywhere, because I still have those moments where I'm like, oh, I need to charge this magic trackpad oh right lightning on the mac just for this right like just for this um so yeah change it all go to usbc uh make some adapters if you need to but

we'll all get over it yeah like this i understand that people say what you said, right? About the EU of like, oh, but like, what if it's worse? Or what if it's stifling innovation? Fine. But right now, I know that USB-C would be my preferred over lightning because currently I have to take extra cables in my bag for my iPhone, where I already have USB-C

for everything else that I'm working on and like usbc cables really easy to find like because so much stuff has usbc now including like literally every other smartphone you know like it that's right this worked perfectly fine before there was a better connector but like this usbc will be the best connector for this for like the next 10 to 15 years then we'll work out that other part later on but for right now like usbc is the move and like as someone pointed out in the chat i forgot who it was now it's scrolled by uh tony like apple obviously had a hand in the creation of usbc right because like it was the original connector for Thunderbolt.

And they've embraced it everywhere else. It wasn't the original. But yeah, they've embraced it everywhere. And so then the idea is, if there is to be a better port, well, everyone should work together and create that better port, right? Rather than like, oh, now Apple's come up with better ports, and now they can make their accessories for their phones that are benefiting them mainly for the next 10 years like no just just to work together I'm kind of

skeptical that there will be a better port I think maybe there's going to be a very very very long time when people are just iterating on this plug with you know don't don't get me wrong USB-C and Thunderbolt and all that they will still have 80 different confusing flavors of whatever it is they're doing, but they'll all probably be on this port, and that's probably okay. wiring your house for ethernet which casey is going to do and the the rate at which uh wireless technologies will overcome the need for wired internet in your house wired ethernet in your house and i think about that a little bit with usb c as well that i do think that there will be alternatives both wireless and you, magnetic attachment and things that Apple can work on, which is sort of what Ming-Chi Kuo says here is like, you know, the dream is the portless iPhone, but that's not anytime soon. So, you know, keep working on that

stuff. But there are so many reasons to have a physical connection on a device, because sometimes that's the only way to get things on and off or do it quickly or reset it or whatever. And USB-C is the right answer there. So the sooner the better. So we may say goodbye to the lightning connector but for right now we have to say

goodbye to the iPod. I mean, we'll say goodbye to the lightning connector but also we'll be saying hello to a nice Dongletown era, will we not? Back to Dongle Town. There are some more adapters in the future. Maybe they'll make a music dongle. I don't know, but I doubt it.

I hate. So, you know, I listen to enough podcasts that and I've been I've been, you know, working in the backyard and driving around the Bay Area. So I've been listening to a lot of podcasts that I all the ideas I had about things to say about the iPod, I feel like other people have already said. But I'm going to say some of them anyway, which is the iPod Touch was discontinued. The truth is the iPod died when the iPod Classic was discontinued because the iPod Touch isn't an iPod. It's an iOS device. It's an iPhone. It's a weird iOS transitional device.

It's a breakthrough internet communicator with iPod Touch controls. You know what I mean? It's not. That's the iPhone. This is just the version of the iPhone that removed all the cellular stuff from it. I didn't say the phone.

I left the phone part out. Yeah, I know. I just said two of the three. I know, but that was referring to the iPod. Anyway, so yes, RIP to the phone part out. Yeah, I know. I just said two of the three. I know, but that was referring to the iPod. Anyway, so yes, RIP to the name iPod, but really the iPod died when the iPod Classic got removed. That was the moment when the real iPod died. The iPod Touch, people can have feelings about it,

and that's great, but I feel like it's a lot less momentous than when the iPod Classic was shut down. Yeah, but you know i i feel like it's a lot less momentous than when the ipod classic was shut down yeah but at least then it was like the music lives they didn't do it yeah they didn't do a big press release like goodbye you know like now it's like okay it's done right because then there was still always this idea of like oh maybe they'll make a new ipod one day but like it doesn't feel like it now no there's no it doesn't feel like it now. No, it doesn't make sense. It really doesn't make sense. There are better devices to play audio than the iPod,

and so it doesn't really make sense for anybody anymore. Other than the fact that the iPod Touch still had a role to play just as a cheap iOS-ish, iOS device, but even there, I mean, it was good for kids, but there's also like the iPad and the iPad mini. And it's just, I see why they shut it down and it makes sense. And they hadn't updated it in a very long time.

The press release is super weird because Apple can't bear to talk about discontinuing a product their their uh approach of always sort of like happy face at all times is let's celebrate the music and look at all these places that apple still does music because they can't they can't bear to even lead with the idea that like the last ipod is being laid to rest but the body of the press release doesn't even talk about the fact that they're gettingod is being laid to rest. But the body of the press release doesn't even talk about the fact that they're getting rid of the iPod Touch.

Not until the last five words of the press release. It is in the second level heading, but even then they can't bear to say anything other than available while supplies last. They can't say then the reason supplies won't last longer is that we're not making them anymore. They can't bear to do that. This is so wildly popular we might sell out of stock.

I don't understand because I get a company like Apple not wanting to admit defeat about a product that failed. They always turn it around and say, it's not that the butterfly keyboard was bad. It's that we listened to people and we made a new keyboard that is going to be great. That's always what they do, right? When they replace something that was a loser with something that they're going to take another shot at is they don't say, well, that was a loser. They say, we made something even better. And that's how they do it. But that kind of pathology of like never admitting, how they do it. But that kind of pathology of like never admitting, never show weakness, never admit you ever did anything wrong when it's about a product that hasn't been updated in years and is irrelevant and had a good run. Um, like I don't, I don't have a problem with them pointing

out that it's, we've made this irrelevant because we have music everywhere in our lineup and it influences so much of what we do. We have a service, we have the HomePod mini, we have all our devices, they're capable of high quality audio. There's that story to tell and that's fine. And the legacy of the iPod is a great story to tell. I just don't get why they had this pathology. No one admit that we shut down this product. It's okay to say we've stopped making the iPod touch and the final, you know, which is the final iPod supplies while supplies last, et cetera, et cetera. And they can't say it. I just, it's just, it's funny, but also frustrating.

Like what? Just say it. Just be clear. Just be clear about what's happening here. And they can't bear to do it it's so weird do you have any anecdotes or anything you would want to share i know you were at the original ipod announcement right a very young jason snell is in the video people spot me in the video yeah yeah from 2001 so super important product uh basically saved apple um along with the imac um the imac gave them a more reasonable uh mac to appeal to people but the ipod halo effect which was the idea of

the ipod being the first product that apple product that people bought and people had a positive experience with it and it sort of turned them on to the apple brand i was one of those people yeah i got an ipod mini and the Apple brand. I was one of those people. I got an iPod mini and the rest is history. That was by far the most important thing was that you needed to, I know it seems funny now, but the Apple brand was kind of like nowhere. So they need to rehab the Apple brand. And so you put these three things together in that period, which is the release of the iMac, the release of the iPod, and Apple retail. of the iMac, the release of the iPod and Apple retail. And what you get is the Apple retail means they're very positioned to sell iPods, but they're also getting people in stores who are now

predisposed to like Apple because they like their iPod and the Mac is in the Apple store too. And people are like, oh, and there's that iMac. And people who have previously used PCs and they're like, well, I love my iPod. Apple makes a computer too. Maybe I should actually look at that. Would that work better with my iPod? And I don't really love my PC. Like it was the thing that saved Apple, those three things.

But the iPod rehabbing the Apple brand was super important. So it was a very important product. And yet so ephemeral, right? If you look at the iPhone being introduced in 2007, iPod sales went down. It took a little while for the iPhone and smartphones in general to kind of scale up, but it's a very short-lived phenomenon. It's like a decade of iPod. And now it's a step along the way to Apple and the iPhone. And I've said this before about the personal computer industry, that in some ways you look back at the personal computer industry and from our perspective now, it looks like it's just sort of the run-up to the smartphone

in a way, which we didn't know at the time, obviously, but now it seems kind of logical. The iPod is a little like that, where we weren't at the final form yet, but it was the one that got us closer than we'd ever been before. And there's a joke in the first episode of the reboot of Doctor Who in 2005, where a character from three billion years in the future refers to a jukebox and says, according to these notes, this was from the 21st century and was called an iPod. And I think it's really funny because that joke hits way different now because now it's sort of like, you know, obsolete music things, whatever. Whereas at the time, the iPod was huge and it was funny that somebody would confuse it

with a jukebox. But now, I think it's showing how knowing that reference really was. That with a jukebox. But now I think showing how knowing that reference really was. That's a really good joke. I think it's even better now because now it's just jukeboxes, iPods, these are all outmoded music things from the past. So the iPod saved Apple, no doubt about it.

It was a huge product for a relatively short period of time and allowed Apple to bring back the Mac and to make the iPhone and to be the company that it is now. But I covered it all. And that was the thing that struck me last week's episode of Connected. You guys did a tier list of iPods. And I can and have quibbled with some of the choices. Also, I don't like how you guys- We've had no feedback. It's been a perfectly accepted- Yeah, I know.

Everybody else liked it. Why am I not on board? Also, you guys super caved on Federico and gave him way more power over that list than you should have. But my point- No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I never caved. I either agreed to Federico or I gave him one when I wanted one in return.

All right, you're just a very savvy politician. Okay. But here's what I wanted to say about it, because I can complain about some of your choices, but it's not really relevant. Everybody's choices are their own. What I wanted to say is it struck me how different you guys view the iPod as people who were young

when the iPod came out and were like super excited and attached to different iPods that were your first Apple product or, you know, Stephen, for example, likes that awful third generation iPod came out and were like super excited and attached to different iPods that were your first Apple product. Or, you know, Stephen, for example, likes that awful third generation iPod. He's just got nostalgia issues. But that was the one he had. And so he loves it because he had it. And that's my point here is that I was covering Apple when the iPod happened. The iPod was announced and I was a 30-year-old magazine writer and editor. And the whole run of the iPod, I was covering them and we were getting them in turn and writing

stories about them and writing reviews of them and comparing them to the previous generation. So I don't have the perspective of somebody who got one and it's like, oh, finally, I've got one and I love it and I keep it for, you know, for years and I put stickers on and all that. That was not my experience. My experience was, well, this third generation iPod is a UI disaster. if you have an emotional attachment to it, that doesn't matter. And so it just struck me as a very different kind of product that I have nostalgia for, but it's of a different kind because I was watching Apple as a business issuing all the different versions and we were writing stories about them and seeing how they were developing and, and honestly seeing how it changed the fortunes of the company that we were

covering too. Cause that was a big deal. Like there were a lot of mac world readers who were unhappy that there was so much ipod coverage because it's like what can you even say about it just plays music write more about the mac and we're like guys people really like the ipod there's more to say they release lots of ipod on the cover every month if you can people like them yeah just just just to state on this idea of giving federico control the the only four s-tier ipods are my four favorite ipods yeah i'm just saying he you guys you guys thought that his choice of the last nano which is a joke of a product that was trying to pretend to be it was like i i iphone

i iphone really iphone and it's like you're not you're not an iPhone you're like the bizarro Superman right you're you're you look kind of like an iPhone if I am not paying attention but then I look and you are not an iPhone friend and and you guys are like saying the right things there's like whoa that's really bad and Federico's like no I think it's good and as the as the the the not a draft the tearing went along it just kept like he got you guys to slide it up one space, and then later on he got you to slide it up another space. No, that one Federico that loves to get moved is the little square one. No, I thought it was, well, the little one that you could wear as a watch, right? Yeah, that got moved up to B.

It was previously in C, and Federico got me what I wanted, which was the original Nano in S. So I said, well, let's move yours up to B. That was pure politicking. I get what you were doing. I just think that he – there's some bad iPods that got higher rankings because you were willing to sacrifice the integrity in order to get yours at the top. Yeah, because I wanted the Puppet Master, the S tier. Well, I guess you did, but I still think he got away with some stuff. Anyway, I think it was a fun I still think he got away with some stuff. Anyway,

I think it was a fun exercise, even though you're all wrong. But the big thing was just that it struck me how your perspective on the iPod, and this is true of everything, right? But especially in this context of the iPod is based on sort of like where you were and how you interacted with it at the beginning. And for me, the iPod will always be, it was a great product and it really transformed how people thought of Apple, but it was not my gateway product to Apple. And so I will always have a very different kind of emotional connection to the iPod than somebody for whom the iPod was the thing that made them kind of like their eyes sparkle and be like,

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our thanks to squarespace for the continued support of upgrade and relay fm jason's now are you ready for some hashtag ask upgrade questions yes first comes from nathan this is relating to what we were just talking about i had to give you an answer and do the lasers. It was very complicated. Yeah, I wondered which one you were going to choose first. So Nathan says, do you think Apple would reuse the iPod brand for something like a portable speaker,

something similar to a Sonos Roam or Move or something like that? You know, I have always been kind of on the fence about Apple reusing the iPod brand. I thought it was possible they have reused a bunch of stuff. I will tell you that with that weird press release last week, it's never coming back.

Oh, you think it's done, though? I think that was them putting, you know, literally, even though they didn't talk about it, that's the funeral for the iPod brand. Also, I would say they already brought back the iPod brand. It's called the HomePod brand, right? Yeah. Like, they have repurposed.

Because, again, products with that I, like, they can't get rid of the iPhone and the iPad because they're just so indelible. But, like, iPod, I don't think that they're going to retire it. I don't think you retire a product and then bring it back with the iName. Like you keep the iName on it if it's still selling and everybody knows what it is, but you don't come up with a new product that is reusing it. Like iBook became iBooks, but now it's just Apple Books because they don't do that anymore they they just don't do that anymore so I don't think it'll come back I think HomePod is Apple's attempt to get uh some of the magic of the iPod name in a different product

and um I'm not sure Apple will make something like a portable speaker that seems a little far afield there are a million of them although you know maybe but even then i just i just have a hard time seeing them um bringing that they would call that the home pod something anyway right like pod room home pod yeah bini or they already have that home pod go yeah that i think uh that's more likely yeah yeah i honestly feel like Apple's kind of embarrassed about the i name, even in all of their products. It is a, I don't know, like nearly 30 year old idea, right? Like, hey, the internet's going to be a thing, right? Because every product that they release now has an Apple logo as part of the name.

That's what they want it to be, right? They want to call it the Apple something, not the i something. Exactly. And so I don't think that's what they want it to be, right? They want to call it the Apple something, not the i something. Exactly. And so I don't think that's something they want to do. Martin asks, where do you think, this is an incredibly complicated question, but I wanted to talk about it.

Where do you think the line is between an electronic device being just that, an electronic device, and one that has to be legally bound to be an open platform? For example, Apple don't have to include an NFC chip in their iPhones, but if they do, it needs to be available to anyone, referring to a recent EU kind of decision or draft decision. But this is like, we've spoken about this before, like this idea for a platform to be open,

for a product to be open. Do you have a line that you think something like this crosses where it goes from being closed to open? I don't know. It has to do with power. And I think the idea here is that you want to let companies innovate and create the products that they need to create and have them not have to bear the additional burden of being right it's different to build a feature than it is to build an api for third parties that maybe you're also using it's a

different thing and apple apple's approach is generally they build the feature. And then maybe later they let the third parties connect to the feature, but they build the feature. The problem is when Apple or any other company has so much power and control in a market that by doing this, they are also just eliminating all the competition. So there's no one line to draw. There's way too many different inputs in order to get to the output. I think it's a difficult question because I think you want to protect consumers, but you also want to protect the companies that are investing in the products and that are doing the innovating. And every single one of them is going to be a judgment call. and every single one of them is going to be a judgment call. If you said Apple, you could say, well, Apple is too powerful, so it can't include its own apps on the iPhone anymore.

All iPhones must just come with an empty shell. That would be terrible. That would be terrible for people buying iPhones because they wouldn't work, and then you would have to go find an app store and like it would be it would be really bad. At the same time, we've had lots of discussions here about ways that Apple has abused its power regarding the app store. So the NFC chip, you know, it's another one of those things. Like, the truth is, the NFC chip is only really relevant because Apple made it so in so many different ways, especially in the US and especially in terms of all the electronic payment stuff

that really didn't take off, especially in the US until Apple Pay came along. So they created it and now maybe they need to open it up a little bit. But I mean, that's my answer, which is basically I refuse to answer. There isn't one line. So I have a bunch of components,

which I think somebody could create a formula out of but it's not me right so i think that there's a set of ingredients here for when something goes from being just like hey it's this thing that we make and we control it to now the we have to give something to control so there is like a size in the amount of units that you sell. I think you get to a certain point where you've sold such an obscene number that they're everywhere. Prominence. So like if you also have like an outsized impact on the market.

If something becomes intrinsic to society in some way. So like really the only computer devices that have done this are the personal computer and the smartphone. I can't think of another one. And then the biggest thing for me when it relates to Apple is if you have gotten to a point where you as the device maker are making money from the device in ways that aren't the sale of the device, so services, from a closed platform that you control. So you control the platform and you're making money from

the services, whilst also making money, obscene amounts of money, from the sale of the device. Right? Like, you're already making so much money from selling the devices that you don't need to make any more money right like you're making all the money but yet now you've also decided you're going to make money from services on that platform while also locking that platform down and giving your services preferential treatment at that point which is a point that apple have passed you have to open it up that's my feeling like for me is that last part which is the biggest one because people will say what about playstation what about xbox and like i don't think the playstation or the xbox meet these criteria and like this this is what i feel is the criteria and i think of

everything out there the iphone is really the only product that hits this. I don't agree that anything should be done based on whether a product that they sell is profitable or not with their profit margins. I just don't agree. I think that that is not advocate for something like that. Because I think the principle stands either way. You know, power and control and removing competition should matter regardless of whether, just saying oh no no we make our game consoles we lose money on every one and that's why we have eliminated all competition it so it's okay that we've eliminated all competition i don't think that's but competition hasn't been eliminated

in the game console market there's more competition in the game console market now than there's ever been between consoles but not i don't have access to sony's uh store or so or to sony's hardware without going through their store and having and paying you know their fee and likewise with microsoft and this is microsoft's argument too right it's like well we believe in open markets except for the xbox but maybe they're later but not yet yeah okay i understand i just i think that i think that's the thing to hide behind because again, try to imagine governments and regulators saying, what's your profit margin? If you're taking more margin above this point with your hardware, then the rules all change for you. But if you don't, if you're giving them away and then making money on the product, because then you're just sort of saying we have different rules for different companies' business models.

And I don't think that's the right way to view this. I think the right way to view this is exerting your power in certain areas to eliminate all competition in other areas. So do you believe then that the PlayStation 5 should be an open platform? I believe that if Apple has to open its platform, so does Sony. That's what I believe. To what? I believe that you either open closed platforms or you don't. But like open them to what? Like what are they being opened to?

I mean, that's the question, right? It's like, well, so let me put it this way if the EU said Apple you have to you have to offer alternative app stores alternative apps app stores have to be in your store where software can be downloaded from other vendors using money that you never see

and you have to do it the game console should be subject to the exact same rules because if that's if that's the rule that exact same rules because i don't disagree with that if that's the rule that's the rule and i don't think it matters that sony would say oh but we don't because you know the response would be all right i guess we're going to sell our game consoles uh at a at a higher profit margin then since we we can't do this and their business model would change but i think you can't say access for some but not for the rest that are

doing more or less the same things in terms of having an entirely closed platform yeah i don't disagree with that like if if if this like if we're just talking about the app stores part like i think that the epic game store should be available on xbox for example because because like then you look at like was it because here's the thing like if that if that happened right so now they're like oh game uh game console makers you have to allow for the epic game store to be on your platform as well as your own then it's a business model thing because like microsoft have already worked it out by offering game pass right so like that's like a new business model and like sony's like just bumbling around

out there trying to work out some kind of subscription plan which is terrible so like then it's like well you've then got to make like the microsoft store a place you want to go to and like microsoft has done that by offering game pass right so then they can let the epic game store in and they've made their smart business move right to go back to what you were saying about like if if you've decided you don't want to make money on your console uh sales you've got to make then that can still be something you want to do but you've got to make, then that can still be something you want to do, but you've got to come up with other ways to make money in the place where you would then be open.

My point more is, I agree with you, my point more is hinged on like this idea of the, of it being, you've got all of this stuff going on, plus your hardware, the product that you make is considered important to society where i

would argue that as much as i love games the xbox is not important to society right so like i just think that it does it doesn't come with this from my perspective the same level of like you are now controlling something which is intrinsic to society and making tons of money on it and that's a power argument right i would say that that's the power argument and not how much money they're making on it. I think the argument is not the iPhone needs to be regulated because Apple is making a lot of money on every iPhone it sells. It's the iPhone and Android need to be regulated because they're the only two choices and everybody basically needs a smartphone. And so the amount of power that's exerted, companies can't not compete in those markets, even if they are kind of rigged for the platform owner.

The platform owner is going to just eat huge amounts of money regardless and you can't get around it. That's the power argument, right? And I think in terms of Martin's original question here about the NFC access, I think a good model for a lot of this is let companies innovate. And when the thing that they're innovating on becomes successful, have them open it up. And if they won't open it up themselves, the regulator comes in and says, well, now that you've established this and it's successful, you need to have competition. And ideally, you would have a way to do that that would not dissuade the innovation. And the truth is a lot of these companies, as platform owners, they're going to have the upper hand, even in an open competition environment,

because they're the platform owners. And that's a huge home field advantage. But what you don't want to do is make it that you can't innovate without immediately giving it to everybody because then what's the motivation to innovate you distort the um the uh the incentives that yeah i think the innovation part come sorry the opening up comes later so like with the nfc chip i do think now is the right time right like apple have gone out and proven for their platform that like having a wallet app which has access to nfc chip i do think now is the right time right like apple have gone out and proven for their platform that like having a wallet app which has access to nfc and you can put your card apps in it and stuff and like that's great but like i do believe that right you've proven it now

you can't just keep benefiting from this completely yourself like you can't just keep reaping the spoils and if somebody can do it better than Apple, they should be allowed to. Then they should be allowed to. But the flip side of that is if you're going to come in with something that's crappy and say, oh no, our customers are going to use this app

that we did instead of what Apple's doing and it's bad, then you're going to be punished because you have a bad experience, right? Both of those things are true. It's funny to use Wallet as an example because I think Wallet's actually a pretty good Apple implementation. And when Apple does a good job, yes, the barrier to competition is going to be higher. I'm okay with that.

The advantage of the competition is that sometimes Apple doesn't do a very good job. Like home. And it will drive, potentially drive Apple to pay more attention and make their product better because there will be alternatives that people will select. I don't really know if we came to an answer on that question, but I think we did.

I think we got there in the end, right? I think we were pretty much on the same page. Like I said, there is no line it's complicated and like I know people don't like this thing but there is that like know it when you see it kind of thing I don't think this is a simple I don't think you can make like a simple formula but that gets to a certain point

where it's like you can't just you know you can't be so prevalent in the world and then just you, you know, you're doing, so you've made this device, everybody has one, but you can't just keep like, all right, we're just going to keep all of this for ourselves

because as well, like it doesn't benefit the customer, right? As you say, right? Like if someone can come along and make a better wallet app, then shouldn't I as a user of this platform have that ability to make that choice? But at the moment, the answer for a lot of this stuff is no. Right.

Last one today, Jonathan asks, with exposure notifications, the Matter Alliance, and now Fido, which is that passwords thing we were talking about last time, we're seeing more collaboration between the top tech companies. Do you think this is a trend we will continue to see? I think we'll see it. I think both trends will continue, right? I think there are places where when the land rush is over,

everybody realizes that now the benefit moving forward is to work together on interoperability. And so the home stuff is a great example where everybody tried to own it. And then in the end, they realized, well, this is how it's going to be. Nobody's going to own this. We really need to interact and interoperate if we're going to push this thing forward. So I think we'll still see some of that. And we'll see places where everybody's going off on their own. I think we saw in the smartphone, beginning of the smartphone era, a pretty unique circumstance where there was just a huge land rush in so many different ways that everybody was just trying to get there first and get that first mover advantage, as they say, and like end up with a big, knowing that the clamps are going to come down at some point. knowing that the clamps are going to come down at some point, they want the biggest piece of pie before that happens so that they can, they can like be defending their 40% of market or 80% of market share or whatever it is.

It's more mature now. So there's going to be less of that, but I'm sure it'll pop up in some other area, but like, yeah, if you're doing your Microsoft and Google and Apple, the only way that password things are going to work is by you all working together.

And I don't know. I think that even with all the competition that's out there, if you look at something like the OS vendors, does it really feel like they're at war with one another? It kind of doesn't. So it makes sense. Yeah, I think that this also actually relates a little bit to the previous question, where I think a lot of tech companies are really keen to work with others now, if it makes things that aren't incredibly important to their core business, to be like, hey, but look, we work on together all the time. We're all in this together, you know? We love to work together. We're all in this together, you know?

We love to work together. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade. You can use question mark AskUpgrade in the Relay FM members Discord, which you'll get access to if you sign up for Upgrade Plus. Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up for $5 a month or $50 a year.

And you will get ad-free episodes with bonus content every single week. So there's always extra topics in Upgrade Plus that you don't get to hear unless you sign up. So go to getupgradeplus.com. Our thanks to Squarespace, Sourcegraph, and Things for the support of this episode. Thanks to you for listening. Thanks to our members who support us every single week.

And thank you to Jason Snell for joining me as always. You can find Jason online. He's at sixcolors.com. What's funny about that? You thought I got lost? Yeah, you thought I got lost. A little bit. Yeah, I was trying out something new, right?

And then I got lost, you know? So Jason is at jsnell on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. We'll be back next week as we are really settling towards WWC. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. It's Jason Snell here and Mike Hurley is over there and we're both saying goodbye now. Oh, I see what you're doing.

Okay, fine.