Upgrade - 428: (2)

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

What's in a name? Myke and Jason wrestle with what to call a rumored new Apple display and whether "laptop" is better than "notebook." Also, Matter is almost here to save us from our smart homes, the USB-C iPhone approaches, and Jason tries to keep mini magic alive.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 428 today's show is brought to you by fitbaud hover and clean my mac x my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason snell hi mike hurley it's good to be here i have a hashtag Snell Talk question for you, if you could imagine such things. That's how we do it here. That is how we start them all. This one comes from Mark, and Mark wants to know, Jason, when you read a hardcover book, or used to, I guess, says Mark. Mark added that in there.

You can suggest if Mark is right or wrong about that. Anyway, do you remove the slipcover? All right. So the answer is yes. I remember the last hardcover book that I bought for myself and took on a trip, which was, I think, the last hardcover book I bought for myself. I guess there are a couple exceptions where I bought an autographed copy from an author I like, that sort of thing. It was Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

It was a very, very, very large, heavy Neal Stephenson thousand page novel. And I got a Kindle and was like, I'm never doing this again. So I very rarely read a hardcover book. But if I do, like Joe Posnanski's Baseball 100 or whatever, I leave the slipcover on. And in fact, I have been known to tuck one of the flaps of the slipcover into the book as a bookmark if I don't have another bookmark.

So that's a little bonus for you there. But basically, every book I read now is on a Kobo, actually, but, you know, an e-reader. I don't do paper books anymore. actually, but an e-reader. I don't do paper books anymore. And I have very little nostalgia for it, and I have very little tolerance for other people's nostalgia for it. Like, read what you like.

It's the think pieces that are like, oh, is something lost when you can't smell the paper? My answer is no. Yeah, I mean, I could also have a reel-to-reel projector if I wanted to rather than a television. Cassette tapes are cool again.

Cassette tapes. Sure. Cassette tapes are cool again. They auto-reverse. Theoretically, they could play forever, right? They just play one side, flip over, go the other way, flip over, go back the other way. You could just listen to one thing for all time on a cassette tape. It's the only way to do it.

I have a secondary question for you. This comes from me. And me says... Oh, hi are kobos like are they like the hipster kindle do you think i mean are are our macbooks like the hipster laptop yes okay because in the sense that there's a there's a dominant market leader and then there's the one that sort of people in the know think is better. I think it's probably yes. Although I'll also say it's no because Kobo has a deal with like Walmart. Where Walmart's e-book store is also, you can log in with your Walmart ID to a Kobo and buy books that way.

So that's very unhip. So actually, Kobo is the hipster e-reader that sold out. Yeah, sure. That sold out to Walmart. Sure. I just, Scott McNulty,

a friend of the show, wrote a piece about how he finally gave Kobo a try and he did not like it, which is because he's, you know, he's been taken over by Big Kindle.

Isn't that just Amazon? Like, isn't that Big Kindle? No, Amazon's so big that Big Kindle is just a small subsidiary of Amazon, unfortunately. Anyway, Scott made a point that I actually linked to from Six Colors, which is the software gap between Kindle and Kobo used to be much larger than it is now. There was a Kindle software update last year that actually really improved the Kindle software. It's way better than it used to be. It's still, I would say, not as good as the Kobo software. And there's lots of reasons to prefer Kobo, but there are fewer of them than there were last time. And I still think the best, if you're like me and you think that physical page turn buttons on your e-reader are a thing that is a priority. The best e-reader

with physical page turn buttons is the Kobo Libra 2 because it's like more than a hundred bucks less than the cheapest Kindle with physical page turn buttons because that's the Oasis and it's not cheap at all. So there are lots of reasons that you might want to get Kobo. And I felt, I was like, let's not go all in on the Amazon ebook monopoly. And I've been fine with it. I've enjoyed it. I have a Kindle Oasis. I could use it. It is nicer hardware, but the software is still nicer enough on the Kobo that I keep using the Kobo instead. Kobo Libra 2. the Kobo that I keep using the Kobo instead. Kobo Libra 2. Libra 2. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll see. I mean, Amazon could make this moot if it came up out with a new round of Kindles, but I feel like Amazon thinks that buttons to turn the page are a premium feature that should only be on the most high end of products. Right. And as long as that's the case, I'm going to prefer the Kobo because the Kobo doesn't seem to think that. I mean, they do have a cheaper one that doesn't have buttons, but you can get for $100 to $120 less to get what is essentially the same e-reader and slightly not as nice hardware.

That's a pretty big gap the uh kindle scribe is a very interesting looking product to me it is so this is somebody asked me they're like oh jason you review uh e-readers are you going to review the kindle scribe and the problem i have with it is there is this weird like e-readers are a weird subcategory to begin with but there is a weird sub subcategory of e-readers which is the e-readers are a weird subcategory to begin with, but there is a weird sub subcategory of e-readers, which is the e-reader note takers, where you've got a bigger screen and support for a pen basically, so that you can read documents, usually PDFs, although it can be other books and things, and use your pen to mark them up or take notes.

And there are a bunch of those that are like, there's some Android things where they put e-paper on an Android tablet. There is, I think Kobo has one in Kindle now, the Amazon Kindle. Remarkable is like the one that occupies the brain space. The one that you see on the Instagram ads. Constantly, yeah. Forever. and yes the one that you see on the instagram ads constantly yeah forever yeah along with that little uh device that lets you type without being on a computer whatever that thing is called those are my every instagram ad i get is those things oh there's it's like a it's got like a little e-paper um or e-ink screen and it's a it's like a typewriter oh basically interesting i've never seen that one that that one's a you one right they're not gonna give that one to me i don't write anything yeah i

guess i guess that's that's true but but for other people like so i'm i am utterly uninterested in the e-ink note taking it's not part of my life it's not a thing i do i also don't particularly like you know handwriting anything but it is an interesting so i'm not going to write about it because i i do not care about it but it is interesting that that amazon is now going in that direction too especially since they they had the kindle dx back in the day which sort of was trying to do this and was kind of a flop and they they killed it after a while the dx was like a magazine thing though yeah it, right? Yeah, it was big. But it was also for notes, theoretically note-taking and all that.

But I guess the tech has gotten a lot better where they think this is basically like a virtual notepad. There are no buttons on it, though. No page turn buttons, even though it starts at $339. I mean, I can see for a product that's got a lot of pen input that the buttons

don't even need to be there, as opposed to a dedicated reader. This one is interesting to me, I'll say that. Just because for what the product is, it's a little bit different, and it's more of a note-taking-y device, which is something that I would care more about. I think this is super interesting, and I feel bad

for Remarkable. I don't think because you know i mean the thing about the remarkable tablet for me i think me and ray will talk about this in cortex because we spoke about the remarkable uh a little while ago but the thing about the remarkable was like it would be great if i could write on my kindle books but you can't well do you know what can the kindle one and i think they're doing a thing that this isn't interesting to me but i think it will be interesting to people they're working with microsoft so you can there'll be a button in word and you can send your like word documents to your

kindle scribe now like i don't care about that but right that seems like a really good feature yeah you know what i mean if you're an attorney or like any business type person microsoft business type uh to that that's the i mean that's a use case here right it's somebody who wants to mark documents up on paper but have them be accessible electronically this is how you do something like that it's part of that whole you know it's it's another stab at the whole paperless office concept to use an e-ink reader and a pencil you know pen stylus thingy instead by the way it's the free write traveler is the other one that i get endlessly recommended to me on instagram uh which is like a keyboard that's got a little flip up uh thing yeah genuinely i'm surprised you haven't bought this this feels like

this feels like a jason snell product through and through of like here's this little thing but that's but that's the thing is it it's sort of a fun little thing but there are like so many like i would just use an ipad right yeah like i i feel like if this if this had more tinkerability it doesn't look very tinkerable this thing thing. No, because I just think the experience is probably not very good. And I've got so many options for very, very small, very light writing environments now, right?

That this is not, no, I don't think so. But it is, I mean, I'm fascinated by it. I love the idea, but I wouldn't buy it because I wouldn't use it. If you would like to send in a Snell Talk question of your own to help us start off the show that maybe I'll ask a supplementary question

to if I want to, you can send them in with the hashtag Snell Talk or use question mark Snell Talk in the RelayFM members Discord. I have some items of follow-up, Jason Snell. Okay. So we've been talking a bit recently about potential sales figures of the new iPhones,

you know, like wondering, like, what are they going to do? Well, Foxconn, Apple's primary supplier, I think maybe only supplier, like manufacturer, I meant to say, of iPhones, has set new monthly revenue records. They haven't said... They've said they've had storming demand, right? Like it's been like they're 40% year over year up. Foxconn don't explicitly name Apple as the reason for this 40% year overover-year increase in their earnings, but it's considered by analysts that the only new product launch that could drive the increase they

are seeing is the iPhone. Okay. I mean, maybe we'll get a better hint at the end of the month with the financials, but this suggests that whatever, either that or they had a bad year last year or something. But this is an interesting positive sign for iPhone sales. And I think this is maybe my favorite thing I've ever written in the document. So I write these little headings and then I put links and notes in for individual things. This is rollercoaster car crashes. Yep.

The Wall Street Journal. This is yourcoaster car crashes. Yep. This is your super karate monkey death car moment. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple's new car crash detection features are being triggered by rollercoasters. Joanna Stern wrote the article and spoke with a theme park in Cincinnati

that has already received six accidentally triggered emergency responses. I just find this to be quite funny and what you're going to do. You know what I mean? Like, what are you going to do? There's nothing you can do about it. I guess Apple might be interested in looking at that data to see if there's a way for them to do a software update

where they lock out certain sorts of signals as roller coaster signals. That would be interesting, right? To say, is there a way for Apple to improve the algorithm so that this stuff gets locked out? And also, I think in the meantime, what's going to happen is the dispatchers are going to be like, that's a rollercoaster thing, right? Like they're going to realize that,

of what's going on and work around it. But that's a very funny thing that obviously apple's algorithm didn't test at least some roller coaster profiles that set it off i don't know if someone would naturally draw that link before it happens i don't know i mean it is somebody's job to think about what other ways could we trigger a false positive here. And maybe they did, but there's a certain aspect of, for example, the theme park in Cincinnati that their coaster sets it off. Right. Yeah, the other thought I had was you could also set it up where literally you know where the roller coasters are.

And if it goes off on the roller coaster, the Apple Watch knows or the phone knows, oh, not here, right? Because it knows where you are. That's part of the whole process is identifying the location. So maybe this is what they need to do. Did you see there was a... It won't save the person

who gets in a high-speed car crash underneath the roller coaster yeah but that's probably not going to happen right did you see that there was a an actual fatal car accident that did you see about this there was i think it was in it was in nebraska it there was it's very sad there was six young people in the car they all died but it was the first time that this feature had been reported on as actually doing the job. So the emergency services only knew about this because an iPhone triggered it. Wow. So it's horrible. Absolutely horrible thing to have happened but this is it

in action like this is what this feature is supposed to do this was an incredibly unfortunate incident but you can like at least someone was taken to hospital because of it like they they one of the like it was a young woman she died in hospital but she probably never would have made it to the hospital i would assume without this feature so you know in in theory it will do its thing uh but they have to deal with the car the roller coaster problem first and this isn't going to be the only thing there's going to be lots of things like this i'm sure that over time will they'll have to weed out. I mean, this is part of it, right? But this is that thing

of, if you work at Apple, when you deploy a feature, you're deploying it to millions of people at once, and then you have to work out very fast how to tweak it. I can't even imagine what that is like, what that kind of scale

is like. It's really a that kind of scale is like. It's really a wild kind of thing to think about. And it's got multiple inputs, right? So it's trying to make a really good judgment. I found a story about that Nebraska thing. And it is, again, tragic. And the fact that nobody survived is awful. But it is interesting that there's like what happened with or without the iPhone.

And the fact is they called 911 when somebody heard it and went out and saw that there was a car crash. And then they went back inside and they called 911. And the 911 operator said, basically, we already know because they got the call from the iPhone 14. Now, at some point, They got the call from the iPhone 14. Now, at some point, that's going to save somebody's life. But in this case, it didn't. Although also there's cases where there's like even in a fatal accident in a remote location where people don't hear it, right? To get that warning, whether you can save them or not, to send somebody out there and find the car and all that is also a thing but it's not the purpose of it is not not um retrieval right it's it's it's rescue yeah but it's interesting technology it feels like one of those things that like i

understand it might cause issues with roller coasters and the dispatchers at roller coasters but when you weigh these two things against each other that's a minor inconvenience compared to the fact that this could save someone's life and will if it hasn't already it probably hasn't because there would have been an article about it like there was about this one uh but it it's only a matter of time right so yep kind of fascinating stuff this episode is brought to you by FitBard. Between balancing work and family and everything else you have going on in your life, it can sometimes be hard to make fitness a priority for you. What you need is a program that will work with you and not against you.

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And, you know, because I get bored of that or you can become more injury prone that way. What I like is that FitBud will analyze what I'm doing no matter how much I work out and craft an exercise plan that fits me and also fits my muscle recovery with a real balance of exercises. And you think to yourself, oh, new exercises all the time. Isn't that daunting? No, because FitBud has these really awesome video tutorials. They're shot from multiple angles.

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finally, many people have asked at the time that we were doing Rumor Roundup to have some chapter artwork. And I wasn't sure what to do. And then over time, I was like, oh, I want to do something. And as we did it more and more, I kept thinking about Woody's Roundup. Like, that's where

a lot of this comes from, from Toy Story 2. And what I like about Woody's Roundup, and that's where a lot of this comes from, from Toy Story 2. And what I like about Woody's Roundup and I've always liked is that it says Woody's Roundup in like a lasso, like it's written out. And so I thought in my mind, what would it be like to have Rumor Roundup written out like this?

Then I popped into my head, I've commissioned an artist that I've been lucky to work with a bunch of times. His name's Siege Roland. He's done a bunch of poster work for me in the past and some other projects. He's an incredibly talented illustrator. So I spoke to Siege

and I told him the kind of thing that I was thinking about and he created the brand new Rumor Roundup artwork and I adore it. Yeah, it's pretty great. We're like cowboys. We're cowboys and we're on the planes.

You're scouting the distance and I'm looking at a map. Yep. You're finding the way. You're looking at Map World magazine, I think. It is Map World. There's a 16-camera iPhone room around the back. And there's a cactus in the background. So I don't know if we're on the planes.

We may be out in the desert. Oh, yeah. That makes more sense. We're in the desert, I guess. And our horse is looking at us like, I can't believe I have to work with these guys. These chuckleheads. They don't even know where they're going.

Also, we made a Rumor Roundup t-shirt. So if you want to get the Rumor Roundup just written out. I was looking at this. It was too much to make that a full t-shirt that would cost about $1,000 a shirt with the colors needed. But the beautiful Room Around Up text is also available on our permanent merch store

where there are a selection of wonderful upgrade t-shirts available at all time printed by our friends over at Cotton Bureau. So you can go and get that too. If you want a Room Around Up t-shirt of your own, i can't wait to get one because i love this so much and so yeah thank you to siege uh for doing such fantastic work on this um i'll put a link to their kind of um portfolio in the in the chat to in the in the uh show notes too if you want to check out their work but i do actually have some rumors for the roundup. Oh, good. Thank goodness

it's not just devolved into just custom art. We're just talking about the artwork. That's it. Yeah, that's every week. That's what we do. We just review our own artwork. No. According to display analyst Ross Young, Apple is expecting to release their 27-inch

mini LED display now in Q1 of 2023. As a reminder, this display would feature ProMotion support. The expectation is it does not replace the current Pro Display XDR, but would make for a nicer and less expensive upgrade for people who want something more than the current studio display. So they would have... This is the whole thing.

I want to set it off to the question, right so you've got pro display xdr which is the full-on big thing with the stand that costs the money it costs and it's all like reference grade right then you've got the studio display which is the 27 is it 27 inches studio display? I think so, right? 27 inch display that, you know, it's just a nice display. But then you've got this third display, which is 27 inches, so the same size, but it's mini LED, so very high performance on the HDR level. And it's pro display, which the, so it's good,

you know, like the 100 can go up to 120 Hertz. Pro motion, you mean? That's what I meant to say, pro motion display, which the pro it's good you know like the 100 can go up to 120 hertz promotion you mean that's what i meant to say promotion display which the pro display cannot do it does not have that feature so what i want to ask jason is what on earth do they call this product all right i have two suggestions okay that i'm going to put down one of them is to call it the ProMotion display. So there's the Pro Display, Studio Display, ProMotion Display, and Pro Display XDR. Or ProMotion Display XDR if you really wanted to do it, but like ProMotion Display. And the other suggestion I have is the 27-inch Pro Display XDR.

I see where you're going with that. You can understand why that's weird though, right? Because it's like, it doesn't have the same feature set. However, it does not have the same feature set. I see where you're going. And it's much newer. And there's a question, will the Pro Display XDR continue to be sold or updated or discontinued down the road? I don't know.

So those are my two options is one, you could literally put ProMotion in the name, right? Because because you've got a studio display that's the lower cost one so you could call it the promotion display um you give it a new name but like i i think promotion display or um or just call it pro display you know 27 inch pro display xdr or 27 inch pro display you do that you don't have to come up with a brand new name for it. Yep. I do. So to throw a spanner in the works, this display type exists, right?

So mini LED and ProMotion on both the iPad Pro and the MacBook Pro. And Apple calls them both Liquid Retina XDR. Yes. Could you imagine, do you imagine they could call it the Liquid Retina XDR display? Yeah, I mean, they don't. I don't like that as a name, to be honest. That is a display technology, and they generally, that's also an argument against promotion, because that's just a feature.

So they could, They could do that. It is also true, and Zach in our member Discord pointed this out, that the iPad Pro 11 and 12.9 are called the same thing. And 12.9 has ProMotion, Liquid Retina, blah, blah, blah. And the 11 doesn't, and they're still just differentiated by their size, right? So you could get away with it, I think, saying 27-inch Pro Display XDR, and it's got different features. But yeah, they could invent a third title. I don't know.

Those are my guesses. If you need to differentiate in some way, ProMotion is a great way to do it because it's the only external display with ProMotion. Or I would say just roll it into the Pro Display XDR line. Those are my two suggestions. The 11-inch, it isn't called Liquid Retina Display XDR on the 11-inch. I know, but the 11-inch iPad Pro is the 11-inch iPad Pro, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is just the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. And the displays are very different, but all they differentiate by is size. Yeah, but they are a different product. They're not just the 12.9 inch iPad Pro and the displays are very different but all they differentiate by is size. Yeah, but they are a different

product. They're not just the display. I get the argument. But the 30 inch Pro Display XDR and the 27 inch Pro Display XDR having different display technologies is not necessarily a deal breaker. I have two more name suggestions from the Discord.

Studio Display XDR and Studio Display Ultra. Okay. Pro Max. Studio Display Ultra Pro Max. Studio Display XDR is interesting, but I feel like it puts it too close to the Studio Display, right? Like, it's much more impressive than that. I guess it depends where it sits price-wise, right? Also, the dynamic range

isn't the only differentiator the problem with xdr as a title is that it is a dynamic range differentiator not a uh a uh screen refresh differentiator right it's not and so you if you just put xdr in the name it is matching up with the existing product. But like, if you tag XDR onto the end of the studio display, I don't know, you are missing promotion if you don't mention promotion, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yes, but they don't call it promotion. Promotion's not in the name for the laptops either.

It's just Liquid Retina XDR display. Yeah, I get it. It's an interesting marketing challenge for them um i would i would if i'm the marketing person i want to place this in the category of the pro display xcr it's a pro display i don't want to place it in the studio display category because we already have a studio display it's the same size let's let's not let's differentiate in the name that this is the more expensive higher quality display what about studio display pro xdr i'm only slightly joking uh i mean sure they could do that sure because i think it's complicated then you've got a studio pro

and a studio and a pro i don't know uh yeah i don't know it's just very complicated because they've already used xdr when when they maybe shouldn't have the mac studio mac pro yeah studio display pro display i think that's i that's the answer, which is why it's probably Pro Display XDR or Pro Motion Display or Pro Motion Display XDR, something like that. It's very frustrating that they use Pro Display as a name already. I wonder about the Pro Display XDR, right? Like, it doesn't, it's not going to be as good as this monitor, right? Like, because we've seen from the, it's big and it's good, right? But like, it's using older tech to do its dynamic range.

It's got the like illumination zones that are basically like a monitor behind the monitor to do illumination. And the mini LED is a much finer level of illumination. And so you got that, and then you've got ProMotion, and the Pro Display XDR doesn't do that. So other than its size... 6K is 6K, as well as the physical size difference, it is a higher resolution. Yeah.

I mean, that's... Yeah, they go hand-in-hand, I think. But it's in a weird position where, like, okay, Apple made this unnecessary high-end monitor. That was a choice. But now they've made the studio display and they're apparently making this display. So why does that high-end monitor exist anymore

other than to be aspirational? And that I think is the key question is like, is that monitor long for this world? And if it is, I kind of think like they're going to need to update it at some point. Right. Because it is, you already hear talk in nerd circles about how like the features that it lacks and it's a ridiculously expensive in context display.

Again, not if you're trying to sort of do a cheap reference monitor for, for a professional work, but like if you're thinking of it as just a computer display. So like, where does it go? At some point it's irrelevant. And do they intend for it to remain relevant or do they intend to pull it out of the product line because this new monitor is going to be great? And I think that's one of the questions

that probably factors into the naming too, is like, in the long run is the pro display xdr going away and if so you know what does that mean are you free to just call this the new 27 inch pro display xdr knowing that eventually it will be the the standard bearer i don't know because what i was just looking there is like i couldn't remember i could what i couldn't remember is like are the mac does the mac MacBook Pro have a similar, like... Because, obviously, one of the big things about the original Pro Display XDR is the fact that it's a reference monitor, right?

And you can do that. And they've referenced in the MacBook Pro about color grading and reference modes and all that kind of stuff. So, like, because what I was wondering is, like, will this new display also be, like, could it be considered a reference monitor? And if it could, if it could, then I actually think you might be right that they just call it the 27-inch Pro Display XDR with the idea that eventually they will have a 30-inch Pro Display XDR or whatever, right? Well, they'll either update the one that's there or they'll remove it. Those are the choices, I think.

Intriguing. I am intrigued about that. This is why they pay those marketing people the big money, right? This is not an easy decision. Ross Young is also reporting that the next iPhone SE will feature a 6.1-inch display with a notch, even though there is still suggestion that there would not actually be any Face ID technology in that notch.

The iPhone SE would continue with Touch ID. So a 6.1-inch display would significantly change the physical dimensions of the iPhone SE product. So a 6.1-inch display with a notch is what the iPhone XR had. So I want to give some breakdowns here. You'll have to excuse the fact that I mix up the units, but I think it's actually easier to understand.

So the screen would be going from the iPhone SE, which has a 4.7-inch screen, to a 6.1-inch screen. And then I took a look at iPhone SE versus iPhone XR in dimensions as they are currently. The height, it would go from 138 to 150 millimeters, and the width from 67 millimeters to 75 millimeters. Now, of course, there could be some differences in physical size between iphone se4 in this dimension and the iphone 10r but i expect it will be close enough now the thing

that you must remember now is when i give you these numbers is that the iphone 10r is physically larger than the iPhone 14. Yeah. So this would be, if this is true, the age of the small iPhone is definitely over at that point. Yeah, I mean, arguable, but yeah, I think that's the idea. I'll get to the arguable in a minute. But the part that makes me do a double take is still touch id is it like all right well so you're gonna put a notch up there but there's not gonna be most of the stuff in there it's gonna be mostly empty dynamic island that's that's well and they're not gonna do that right so so like why why is that notch there i mean i get it that that you still need to have a place for the camera and the

proximity sensor and all that. It's just, are you saving enough money and is it necessary enough to differentiate that you are going to, or have you gotten the feedback that some people really, really, really, really want Touch ID and are opposed to Face ID. Because, you know, so you take Face ID out and you put Touch ID on the button on the side, I'm assuming, because there's not going to be any room on the home screen for a button if it's the XR design. So that's weird. That's weird. They could do it. They totally could do it. I just am a little surprised that they wouldn't just say, like the XR, that they're essentially upgrading the XR and that it's got Face ID and all that. So if they pull Face ID out and say, no, no, no Face ID, it's far too

expensive a feature for you, little SE phone, big SE phone. You get a touch ID sensor on the button. That's just how you have to do it now. That's, I don't know. That part is disappointing, but you're right. This is also the ultimate uncoupling of the concept of an SE phone as a smaller iPhone versus cheaper iPhone. I think it was always intended to be a cheaper iPhone, but it was also the smaller iPhone. And this is the end of that if this happens. I have my own theory about why they would put the notch there. end of that if this happens i have my own theory about why they would put the notch there like irrespective of what's inside is that then the iphone se won't look like an old phone anymore oh absolutely true it just is it's so frustrating that they would have a notched phone and not put

the face id sensors in it it's like a fake no yeah they actually it's all software it's i mean i had that thought too which is like there's actually just a little cutout for the one thing, but they draw the whole notch. Maybe, though, you know, maybe. Maybe. You know what? Like it says it's a notch. Maybe it is a really small notch.

Maybe it is just for the camera. Maybe. They haven't said what the dimensions of a notch would be. It could just be just for a camera. Like it would be much more. It could be. Well, I think that they'll also have the, they'll have the proximity sensor up there and they'll have, there's other sensors, but not yet theory, which is there is nothing stopping Apple from releasing an iPhone mini every so often, maybe even just in the spring, right? Like they

could, and I know it sounds weird, but like there are lots of iPhones out there. If Apple thinks that there is a small but existing audience for the iPhone mini, and they're getting ready to clear, let's say, the iPhone 14 mini off the price list in a year or two, would Apple consider doing what they do with the SE with the iPhone every, you know, two or three years, just do a spring release where there's a new mini phone. Like if it's extra money and they've got an existing design, because we've seen repeatedly like this, we're talking about the XR again now, right? That Apple likes reusing designs. So I would hold out at least a little bit of hope still. I wouldn't have the hope dashed completely. There is nothing stopping Apple from occasionally releasing an iPhone mini. I think what's stopping Apple from doing it every year is that it doesn't make sense to do it every year.

But that doesn't mean they stop doing it altogether because Apple really likes recycling old phone designs. And if they can slap a new chip in that mini design in the spring when the volumes are low, they might yet do that someday. That's my little thread of hope I'll put out there for many fans. I think the kind of canary in the coal mine for this would be what did he do with the iPad mini? Because I love my iPad mini. It's the iPad I use the most.

It's my main computer at home. I use it more than my iPhone when I'm at home. And I often think to myself, please let them make more than just one of these. And like, please let them do something to it at least every two years you know like and then i'll be happy i think this is i think this is where apple is right now is and that's why i i mentioned the mini phone as a possibility is apple is optimizing right like

this is a tim cook's apple it's huge now by the way. And so while you've got your flagship phones that you want to sell lots of, they got a lot of money. They got a lot of audience. Even some sub audiences are pretty decent sizes. And they clearly have shown that while they have products that they're not going to update every year or even every 18 months, that they are worth keeping them around to fulfill certain audience needs. And the iPad mini is a good example of that. And I would say, I think the iPhone mini might be too. And it's the same kind of idea, which is, look, we can't make a new one of these every year.

Like it's, it doesn't make any sense, but maybe every two or three years we'll do it. And, and, uh, you know, I think that that's obviously if it's your favorite product you want it to be there every year yeah obviously but not everybody you know not everybody has that luxury lots of people do most people do because that's what makes it be your annual product release is that it's very popular yeah if most people didn't apple were doing a very bad job right like if most people's favorite products was a low priority refresh that would be a really serious you've got to call the judgment into question of that executive if they just are on some sort of vendetta like i hate that it sells so well i hate it so much. They did do that with the Mac for a while, I think,

but we don't think about those times. Yeah, well, I mean, they tried to do it with the MacBook Air, right? They're like, oh, this MacBook Air, it's really unappealing. Nobody will buy it. And they're like, sir, they're still buying it. It's like, oh, okay, I guess we have to update it. Right? So we'll see.

We'll see about it. But I think they are in the same, not the same boat, in a similar kind of circumstance where they are edge products. And how the SE is, the mini is at this point, I would say, and the iPhone and the iPad, like these are all. OK, let's throw in like maybe even ultimately the Mac mini. Right. These are maybe even the Mac Studio, who knows? Kind of not necessarily the flagships, but we'll get an update every so often because there's enough reason to do so. And they already put in the work, right? Like they already designed these things. So just kind of keep revising them enough to be modern. And so you can keep selling. And now that the EU has approved its new directive to legally require device

manufacturers to adopt USB-C, Mark Gurman is reporting that as well as changes to the iPhone line before 2024, which is when it comes into effect, Apple will also transition AirPods and Mac accessories away from Lightning to USB-C.

Mark says that Apple has previously been preparing for these changes as they expected that this would be passed the iphone 15 due in 2023 will adopt usbc across the line the base ipad will change to usbc this year and mark expects the magic mouse and magic keyboard to switch over from lightning to usbc when apple announces its new mac model for sale next year uh like for its new it's next sorry it's next mac model which will be on sale next year sometime whether that be an imac or a mac pro and then all three airpods products as i mentioned would go to usbc as well but mark goes on to say that he expects the USB-C connector will be short-lived. Quote,

Apple's future is wireless and that some version of the cancelled AirPower dream from 2017 will still eventually come to fruition well before a decade from now. At some point in the next few years, Apple will probably begin transitioning entirely to inductive charging on the iPhone and iPad matching the Apple Watch. I really hope they don't do that part, but that's just me. I mean, the difficulty here again is what is Mark Gurman's take and what is Mark Gurman's reporting and how current is he with his take versus his reporting? I feel like the reporting part is that first part, right? Like these products will change, you know?

Yeah. Even then though, I think he's, I'm not sure he knows for a fact that the magic mouse and the keyboard will switch over. He just sort of expects that it'll happen and that the iMac is a good time. And he's not wrong. Like the iMac comes with them and that would be right like his laptops don't come with them the Mac mini doesn't come with them iMac comes with them so that would be the logical time to update the magic mouse and keyboard is as part of an iMac announcement

makes sense yeah not sure that that's his his uh sources versus his intuition and I'll also point out this is going to happen. Like, let's all be emotionally prepared for this. Next year, the iPhone's going to switch to USB-C. And we're going to know that the lightning lasted about as long as the docked connector lasted on the iPhone. And that this has been a good,

or lasted in general, and that this has been a good run and that switching to USB-C is good because everybody's already got USB-C. But I am telling you, get ready for all of the hot takes about how dare Apple change their connector again. And I say this because Mark Gurman's newsletter this week

was headlined, Apple to change charger again, which by the way, charger, it's not really the charger, it's the plug, right? It's not the same, but just, and it's just like, that's such a lazy Apple to change charger again. That's the story here again, because they did it 11 years ago. Again, it's happening. Stupid Apple. Anyway, of all the things to complain about, this is, but people will do it. So be ready is what I'm saying. Be ready. About the wireless

stuff. This is like one level down from the, we, Apple will release a car that has no steering wheel kind of statement, which is like, I appreciate that there's somebody with a vision who's like, everything will be wireless. And, and on an infinite timescale, again, that's probably true, but as Apple scales up its sensors and stuff so that it ends up with these 8K, 120 frames a second HDR video cameras on iPhones and stuff in the future, the data is huge. wireless going to be the way you need to do it and is wireless going to be fast enough to outpace the increased voraciousness of our devices for data i am skeptical um also his statement that 5g baby his statement that that um apple will be transitioning entirely to inductive charging on the iPhone and the iPad. Okay. Entirely is fascinating, right?

Because there are lots of ergonomic situations where, you know, bringing it. Yeah, you can bring a charging puck like you do with the Apple Watch. I mean, I can see it, but it seems like, like at least today that seems like they're really pushing it and i think about the ipad and i remember that question we had about how would they do magsafe on the ipad and i think like the ipad thing kind of only works if if you do magsafe um and i'm not sure based on the eu regulations if that's allowed if you don't have a usbc port honestly very weird because i i think about my ipad and like do i have to snap on a little magnetic puck somewhere to charge my ipad like i don't know it seems really weird i don't think

that the eu regulations would allow them to do this i don't i don't think so because the regulation that i've seen it seems very clear of like smartphones get usbc connectors and the only devices that don't right that like won't are devices where it's too small it's like smart watches they're not going to require it on but right so if it's like well now what we have is we have a proprietary charging puck that you charge your phone with and instead of instead of usbc uh and then everybody has to buy separately and only works with ours or whatever or or doesn't it works with other chi charges but still i think it does cut against the exact premise of the eu regulation right but i'm also just i'm skeptical on a high level like this feels to me very much

like the you know like the car without a steering wheel or the iPod shuffle without any buttons, where there is an ideal here, which is picture no ports. transfer and how people use these things and the fact that that everything gets more complicated if you can't connect to a device if it if it gets in distress right like it's the idea that you can't reset you can't do a DFU currently on an iPhone without plugging it into a computer it's like well I know that they could they could address that but it's way more complicated and are there magnetic pins that actually do transfer data, but it's not a port? There's a lot going on here. And I'm expressing some skepticism because this feels to me more like a pie in the sky Apple dream than something that's real. And the reason I say that is because I think if Apple did this on its products, maybe not today, but in the next couple of years, it feels like a regression, right?

It makes their products worse. And Apple's not above doing that. Removing the headphone jack is arguably a regression. They did it. It turned out to not be that big a deal, although it still was somewhat of a regression. I'm just skeptical that the entirely inductive charged universe for all apple products is something that's realistic yeah i'm like scanning over these documents it's obviously too hard for me to try and get an idea of right now but it's i would be super surprised if like, even if they could get away with Qi charging as the common connector that's required.

Yeah. I don't think that's possible. I don't know. I mean, I love, look, having a vision like this is great. And knowing where the technology is going in the future, in terms of wireless and in terms of inductive, and having a vision like that's all that's all great i like it you should do that if you're apple you should be thinking

many moves ahead however i don't and i don't know all the insidery stuff that they probably know. But I look at this and I think this seems unrealistic and more like an ideal than something that everybody is asking for. And the flip side of the, oh, people just want a faster horse and we gave them a car kind of argument is when you give people something they don't want or you ask them to take a hit in terms of usability

for a benefit they don't see. or you ask them to take a hit in terms of usability for a benefit they don't see. And Apple has done that in the last decade a few times. I mean, honestly, see the headphone jack, right? Like people are still upset about that, you know, but I think it ended up turning out mostly okay because AirPods are so good. Sure. But that's the, I mean, the challenge is that charging infrastructure and the ergonomics of it are a harder problem to solve. Not insoluble, but a harder problem to solve

than something like, like we made AirPods, so this problem is solved. And they did that with the Butterfly keyboard and with USB-C and in that whole era, that was very much an era of we're taking you to the future because we have a vision. And everybody else was like, but I was fine. And this is really a regression and I don't like it. And that is, again, we sort of are there now with all of that, but they jumped in way too early and users suffered.

So when I look at this, that's the kind of like alarm signal that goes off in my head is this feels like a mission statement. And the danger with the mission statement is it's allowed to become real without a reality check happening. So we'll watch it. Like, I don't doubt Mark's thought that Apple really doesn't like ports and thinks that they're not necessary. But I think it's far more likely that magnetic connection, induction,

all of those sorts of things become preferred. But that's not the same as eventually there'll just be no ports. Right? That's not the same thing. No. This episode is brought to you by Hover. Have you ever thought about starting your own business, creating a brand, or sharing your wealth of knowledge with the world? What about using your years of experience to create something for yourself online? Hover wants to help you take the first step in getting your ideas off the ground. If you have a brand that you've always dreamt of building or a business that you want to take

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Hello laptops. Oh, hello laptops. We love to talk about namings and branding on this show. I mean, witness earlier yeah most of this episode actually nine to five mac discovered over the weekend uh or late last week it was that apple appears to be removing reference to the word notebook across their product lines and pages and marketing information, support documents, and replacing it with the word laptop. So I want to ask you, Jason,

kind of roughly how long have Apple been calling their products notebooks? I've forever, right? Because the PowerBook, it had it embedded in the... I mean, Macintosh Portable was a portable computer, right? It was not a laptop. It's more like you drag it to another desk, right? It was not to go in your lap. But the PowerBook in 1991 was a notebook, hence PowerBook. That was the whole metaphor being used there.

The idea that this was a computer in the shape of a paper notebook, right? That it was the size roughly of a notebook in the early days. It was a very thick notebook. But when you open it up, oh, look, it's a computer and you can do all sorts of things with it. But when you open it up, oh, look, it's a computer and you can do all sorts of things with it. And what came into prevalence, of course, is this idea of a laptop, that it's a computer that's so small you can set it in your lap. And that metaphor seems to have won the day almost everywhere. We used to have arguments about this and use them pretty interchangeably, I think, at Macworld back in the day but clearly when you think about it for more than a minute

and you say the words out loud to yourself notebook it's like why is that what is it right it's just like no it's wrong like it's not notebook a a notebook computer that actually you know mike that thing we talked about earlier the the kindle whatever with a pen on it that's a notebook i mean an ipad is closer to be especially right because they if you think of the ipad pro or the ipad air now they're like part built for this pencil to go on the side of the thing it's all flat and it's got a charging thing that's a notebook computer yeah not laptops yeah so so and i think i mean it actually it's funny that they're doing this because this is one of those worlds that words that really has i know and i know it doesn't come from his era but like it gives me like steve jobs vibes right like that that was because he

would do that right he he would occasionally like embrace certain terms and you'd be like that that was because he would do that right he would occasionally like embrace certain terms and you'd be like well that's a that's a weird way to put it steve but that's how steve does it so we're all gonna call them apps now and that's just how it's gonna be and and this feels a little like that too and i wonder who it was who finally inside apple was like everybody we have to stop calling these things notebooks. Nobody does. And it probably, you know what probably won the day? Probably it was like a search engine optimization expert who said, people don't search for notebook. And they're like, they search for laptop. We're losing sales. We're losing search hits because we're using the wrong term and finally somebody at apple said all right okay

it's fine you know that that's that's my that's my guess laptop is just a i mean a better way even then it's like laptop you know what i mean Laptop... Do you think people use their laptops mostly on their laps anymore? No, I mean... No, I mean, the name is dumb. And I should say, MacBook is still the name, right? So, notebook, MacBook,

it's still book there. Although you could argue the MacBook notebook is dumb, right? It's a MacBook laptop. We have a... It's better, yep. We're not doubling up on the metaphor. Laptop,

I mean, it's... For a very long time now, most Macs have been laptops. So, there is a larger issue here, which is I refer sometimes

to desktop computers, right? Desktop computers. And sometimes they're, you know, under your desktop or on your floor or whatever. But the desktop laptop parallel is sort of what we're getting at here, that there are two kinds of computers, the kinds that are portable and the kinds that are not portable. You know, but the truth is the majority of Macs, the definitive Mac for the last decade has been the MacBook Air, I would say. It's probably the most best-selling laptop and best-selling computer that they've sold over the last decade. So isn't it just a computer? But we need some other word to at least sometimes to signify the difference between a computer that comes with its own display and a battery and is small enough that you can fold it up and take it somewhere. And the ones like the, you know, like my Mac studio, which you can't.

I mean, it doesn't you can't fold it up. You could take it somewhere else. It doesn't have a screen, though. It doesn't have any of those other things. It doesn't have its own keyboard. It doesn't have a battery. So we're left with desktop laptop that's just sort of where we are is that over there's a desktop over here's the laptop but yeah in terms of meaning all it really means is it's

you could put it on your lap if you want to use it if you wanted to and people do but that's not the only place they use them but you could also with Also, with macOS Ventura, this is from a 95Mac article, a newly set up MacBook Air or MacBook Pro will now be called blank laptop by default. It used to be blank MacBook Air or blank MacBook Pro. Now that's weirder. Right. Right. So you get a brand new MacBook Air and set it up and it's going to

be called mike's laptop rather than mike's macbook air which is mike's macbook air what's next are they going to change the mail signature to be sent from my smartphone but like that i would have that is like if you would have said to me they're going to change the default thing in mac os ventura that is the least likely one that i would have picked i would naturally have assumed they would just call it mike's macbook like they're all just called macbooks right right instead of laptop it's like why would you do that that is a very strange decision to make like it i feel like it doesn't match up with these other things in a way i I find that very odd.

I do too. It's weird. It's weird. Now I want to know, what happens if you set up an iMac? Is it like Mike's computer? Like what is that called? Mike's personal computation device? Possibly.

So here's my guess. I'm just going to throw out a guess here. Not knowing the real answer, but why not? It's a podcast. I wonder if there was a complaint from somebody who administers a lot of devices about the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro thing, especially since when you migrate, it keeps the name. name so you you migrate from a macbook air to a macbook pro and it keeps the name macbook air even though it's not a macbook air anymore this is like how my iphone uh 13 mini um when i migrated to the iphone 14 pro it said you know 13 mini like that's not your name but it doesn't know that by the way that would be smart if they were smart enough to rename why don't you use a product name yeah to rename it and they don't do that so i set up my new airpods pro and it just said mike's airpods pro parentheses two parentheses well not just actually two which is what it is why why could why could you not work that out you know like i do find that annoying or like you set as you say set up a new iphone and now it's called mike's iphone 13 pro max two two you know, like I do find that annoying. Or like you said, as you say, set up a new iPhone and now it's called Mike's iPhone 13 Pro Max 2.

2. You know what you are. Like nobody wants to keep the name, right? If I've not changed the name, you should change it for me, right? Especially if you can use, you know, some of your fancy on-device intelligence to recognize that this is literally the name

of the product that I was on before. And therefore, when I come come to a new product i should change it to the name of the new product this isn't hard considering that you do change it right like you do change it by adding the number at the end so you are you do feel like it needs to be changed right so you're changing it if you feel like it needs to be changed and are therefore changing it, why not actually make it correct? That's a very strange one. But yeah, so there you go. The laptops now, no more notebooks. No more notebooks, except the MacBook itself.

Maybe it's going to be called MacTop. MacTop. MacLap. MacTop Pro Max. LapMac Pro Max. LapBook Pro Max. Yeah, the LapBook Air. lap mac pro max lap book pro max yeah the lap book air oh they call it laptop pro max and it's macs at the end it's laptop pro max oh i like it so they're all max so it would be like laptop air max macs max 95 well i i feel like somebody at apple was listening a recruiter at apple was listening to this episode for some reason and we're like saying these two gents really know what they're

doing we should hire them to work on our product naming team and they just got to that last one minute and they're like stop and throw away trash we were These guys are dummies. We were so close. We were almost in, but we are back out. So close, but yet so far. I have some more good news. Okay. The MATA 1.0 standard has finally been finalized. So it's really taken its time. It takes a lot of effort to get these tech giants to agree

on home automation standards i guess sure i mean but we did it yeah i don't think everybody and also this is one of those things where very complicated and you only get a first shot first impression so make it right i wanted to give everyone a bit of a refresh because I did some reading today about Matter. About kind of what it's going to be doing and what we can expect. Because it was one of those things where I was personally kind of waiting until this point to really spend a lot of time reading about it.

Because it felt like it could change or just never happen. I was wondering, is Matter ever actually going to happen? Well, it is. So, it is officially launching on November 3rd and there's going to be this event of some description i don't think anything particularly exciting will be there but it's like people the matter organization is inviting people of the media to go to an event um and new devices they can actually be sold as of now so you don't have to wait like it's has been shared with the people in the body, even though it officially launches

to the world in November. Existing devices can also now be upgraded to support Matter, and many will actually just be upgraded, because this is just a software thing. If something can be upgraded to support matter in theory it will be ios 16.1 is where matter support will happen in the home app including the now do you remember jason apple said uh that the home app will have underlying changes to support matter yes this is because of what is called a matter controller. That's something out of Star Trek.

Yes. These are effectively hubs, bridges, that kind of thing. You know how you need a hub to be able to get some things to talk to each other or whatever? Yeah. Some devices can become matter controllers. Google, Amazon, some of their smart speakers will be updated to be controllers. The HomePod Mini can be a Matter controller. A HomeKit Hub is the best analog here.

Kind of. Because this is the separate part. Apps can be Matter controllers. It doesn't have to be tied to a physical piece of hardware that stays in your home. Right.

Because the Matter Controller is designed to create the links between the devices and also set any automations. So when Apple were talking about the underlying changes to the Home app, what they're talking about is making the Home app a Matter controller. So you actually don't necessarily need to buy any hardware that stays in your home specifically for this. The dream here is you connect everything on Matter and you set up an automation that says when device a fires device b does

something else yep and device a and device b can see each other and talk to each other yep so you don't need to have another device watching device a and then telling device b what to do yeah device a says to device b directly i did this and. And device B says, oh, well, then I do this. Right? Yep. This is a great summary of that, which I enjoyed from The Verge. With Matter, instead of using two or three separate apps

and connecting their cloud service backends to get your smart plug to turn on your lamp when you unlock your front door, that plug and lock can now talk directly to each other and you can set up automation using one MatterController app. So you set up the links, but then the devices talk to each other. And it's actually, all of this is done

without the requirement of the internet at all. Matter all works locally by design. It does not require a connection to the internet. It is possible for devices to be internet controllable if desired by the user but it is not a necessary part of the specification right so like apple is undoubtedly adding this whole home app layer with other apple devices where you can continue to do what you can do now which is control them outside of your home but you don't have to do that no you don't have to do that and this is really it is kind of like networking based so if you have thread devices you will need

a matter thread hub to get it all to work because thread is all just like direct control but it's networking but not internet if that makes sense? So like it's using networking like equipment where Thread is just this local radio system. Now Thread devices don't work naturally with... The HomePod mini has a Thread radio, right? Yes. So I would imagine that the HomePod mini would be an example of a device that could do that, that could talk to Thread devices

and act as the matter controller. I will say in theory. In theory. I think Apple need to say that it will do that first. Right? But yes, you may, you know, it may be that a device like a HomePod mini or some kind of Google device will work.

And or, you know, the company that you use to, that are all thread related might make a hub and then that will work. Or the company will just be able to update the software on it and they can make it work if it has some other kind of radio in it. But Thread is maybe one of the ones which is a little bit left out here of the idea of not needing new hardware. You may need something to get those things to connect,

which is a shame because up until this point, Thread was considered the easiest way to do all this stuff because it was so low level. But you may need it level but you know you may need it but you may not depending on the other devices that you have in your home that could work as a controller like in theory that that might be where you want something like a homepod mini or or uh one of the google nest hub things where it's like that is a physical thing which is acting as that bridge right so

when your phone isn't there it might still work that's conjecture on my part i don't know the answer to that but this launch spec only will cover a limited set of device types in metal 1.0 these are light bulbs and light switches uh hvac controls, smart shades, thermostats, smart sensors. I assume that's like present sensors and stuff. Locks and media devices, including TVs. Support for devices like vacuums and cameras is being developed for later versions of the specification. My understanding, but I don't know this for sure,

is that updates to the spec are not going to be like a huge deal, right? But it's going to be a thing that they just over time will add more and more stuff. So that's kind of where we are with Matter right now. I'm pretty excited about it. A lot of companies are talking about the devices that are with Matter right now. I'm pretty excited about it. A lot of companies are talking about the devices that are going to be updated. Some devices that you already own will

be able to be updated to Matter. Some you may need to get a newer model. Like for example, I think Nest are adding Matter support to their thermostats, but I think only on the newest model. But what that would mean though, if you have that model, is in theory, you would be able to ask your HomePod to change your temperature and it will change the temperature

of your Nest thermostat, which is exactly what people want. That is why this exists. I run HomeBridge mostly so I can do this one thing, which is connect Nest to the home app yeah so that may be enough actually for me to buy another nest now there are other thermostats out there i like the nest i really do i prefer it uh to the ecobee mostly because i like i like how it

looks honestly and that might be enough to do it. But like, that's the dream, right? Is that all these things that have been like, well, you can't do Amazon things and Google things and Apple things in the home. And guess what? I have all three of those things in my home. And theoretically, this will allow you to do that. Or you have a device manufacturer that's gone all in on one thing. Well, now they can talk

to each other so like you know uh i use eve products in in the studio here and they are like basically all in on home kit but now eve are going to be integrating matter so i would be able to get my eve radiator like uh controller devices to maybe talk to some kind of sensor i buy from another company rather than it necessarily needing to all be home kit and one of the things that's worth noting is what the matter spec will allow is for some kind of communication automation stuff between these devices it does not remove entirely the need for apps right so like there might be some features of a nest thermostat that you still need to use the nest app to configure right but once it's configured or updated or whatever the day-to-day control can be more automated and you can use whatever you

want to control it but it doesn't completely remove the requirement to use this app use that my um ancient philips hue bridge will apparently get a software update to support matter yep philips are all in uh and that and this is the benefit where some if you do have a product which uses bridges like and philips have always had bridges it's in fact the only way that hue devices work is with a bridge they are able to just update the bridge and then all the light bulbs will be able to because they will just talk to the bridge and so that's great but not all bridge-based products will support this but phillips are all in on this which i'm very happy about and i actually think it's not a surprise to phillips because they've they've always been pretty good with this kind of stuff.

So yeah, Joe in the Discord is asking and this is kind of what I was talking about. Has anyone seen if Matter has something for how it handles firmware updates for devices? That's the kind of thing you will need third-party apps for. You will still need the app for those devices to do things like updates. To my knowledge,

Matter has no support for any of that. It's not an OS. It's not like this replaces Google Nest or whatever. By and large, you as the user will never see Matter other than knowing when you buy a product, you want to see the Matter logo on it. I don't even think there's like a Matter app.

Like it's just a technology, but it's not about replacing anything specifically it's more about just providing this open source framework that all of these devices can talk to each other for i'm super excited about the future of home automation because of this like this is exactly what we need this is the idea this the market has one out here which is a bananas thing because this never happens the reason this has happened is that all of these companies came to like basically at the same time right like google and amazon phillips you know like apple they all came at the same time with this idea and no one could decide on one of them

because really none of them are any better than any other. And so it's forced all of these companies to work together to make it better for the consumer. And that's awesome. And it sounds like Apple donated its HomeKit code to make this happen, which is also kind of cool. Yeah. But Apple said, we wrote this

and it sounds like everybody else was like, it's pretty good. We could use this as the base. And it's this detente that we've been talking about for a long time. This idea that it is the, the single biggest thing, keeping smart home, holding smart home technology back is that everybody, it was a gold rush. Everybody wanted to win. They threw up walls everywhere so that things were incompatible. It was bad for the manufacturers. It increased their expense to make products because they had to either make different SKUs for different tech, or they had to write the same support three times in order for it to work on Google and Amazon and Apple. And it meant that some products would just

never come to certain platforms. And they finally realized that the land rush era was over and that they were just defeating themselves by doing this. And that was what, two plus years ago with Chip, whatever it was, that they finally announced they were doing this. But November 3rd, right? So less than a month from now, we enter the Matter Era. I'm sure there are going to be complaints um i'm sure there are going to be

complaints i'm sure there's going to be things that work weirdly uh people are going to be frustrated by stuff that doesn't get upgraded to it i'm also kind of curious about whether the those homebridge type products of the world uh shift gears to be like more just trying to get non-matter compatible stuff into matter or if there'll be a new, I know nothing about what they're planning, but like I can still see a place for something like home bridge or home control, but in a different context of like really our goal now is to just get anything that's old to show up in matter.

I mean, in my mind, like I feel like they have to do something because over time the need for something like a bridge will decrease like right because yeah because it matter right so in theory every device that you should be buying and maybe in the end what it really is is it's a software matter controller right something like that i don't know i don't know what they're planning but i i do think that there's still going to be a place for some of that stuff just to be a bridge to from old tech to new tech yeah i agree with that but that feels like not a great over i

mean not that homebridge is a business but it's not really like a long-term product at that point right like because then within a matter of years people would upgrade or a matter of time maybe maybe a decade people would change their devices and hopefully they'll be matter supported because this is one of those things now where i feel like if you're buying smart home technology you really want to make sure that that company will be updating the thing that you're buying to support matter like really i would say that you shouldn't buy something unless it's going to have the support because it harms you not all and it future proofs you i think so i think this is the clear way to go when it comes to to home automation technology

this episode is brought to you by clean my mac x You want to make sure that you can trust and rely on your Macintosh. It is a crucial tool for work, education, and life. Whether it's a laptop, or a desktop, or whatever, or a notebook, whatever you want to call it. You want to make sure that it's working the way that you want it to. MacPore are on a mission to help machines help you. That's why they developed CleanMyMac X, an ideal decluttering app for the Mac that can keep it in tip-top shape. So what does the CleanMyMac X do exactly?

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which I like to think is the Heathrow Terminal 3, like Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 just wants to know, Jason, how did you spend your birthday? It was Jason's birthday this past week. Happy birthday, Jason. It was. Thank you. Pretty normal day, honestly, because Lauren was working all day.

And it's the busy season for us. And there were no baseball games on, which is sad, because I always like to do that. So I wrote some of my mac os ventura review i got yelled at by you and steven who said i should be curling or something instead just doing anything else other than right yeah you were angry too you were just having like a bad time with it a little preview of my mac os ventura review some of the features aren't very good uh you can guess which ones that was more of it for me i don't you know if you want to work on your birthday work on your birthday but work on Some of the features aren't very good. You can guess which ones. That was more of it for me.

If you want to work on your birthday, work on your birthday. But work on something fun, at least. Yeah, well, I mean, I did get it out. Honestly, clearing things out of the to-do list is a little bit fun when it's so overwhelming like it is in October and September. But we had a nice dinner and went to a couple of concerts last week too so that was kind of fun so we had some we did some nice stuff but it was not entirely concentrated on my birthday and that's okay David wants to know seems like a long time since Eddie Q presented at an Apple event he used to be a regular when do you think we'll see Eddie again I wanted to pick this question out because

we spent so much time talking about Eddie Q last week uh-huh what do you think about the lack of eddie q it's not he's not great at it at the presenting on you know on stage or in an event and it's not there are other people who like for apple tv stuff there should be other people to present it um like i don't know it's just he's not necessary for that sort of thing he and it is not here's what i i will say you don't want to be at a company where people insist on screen time in order to prove how important they are i think google has this problem google i mean i don't know about the last couple of years i i haven't watched a full google thing live in a while io is where you see this issue the most i think but definitely you see it where it's like every vice president has to have their five minutes

even if they don't have anything to announce just to exert their power and like like Eddie, you know, Eddie's living his best life and services are a very important part of Apple's business. His presence in the photo on the May Day parade at the top of the Kremlin is not, you know, is not required for him to be still there and powerful. And I think it's interesting that he was in all those photos or many of those photos last week from the big European trip.

Shows you he's still a mover and a shaker and a schmoozer. And he doesn't have to be, you know, doing his dad dance out there like he did that one time. He doesn't have to do that. He doesn't have to be present for that sort of thing. he doesn't have to be present for that sort of thing so my kind of readiness is somewhat similar which is like i think there was a time when apple presentations every kind of like head of each division would be the person to deliver the presentation about that portion of whatever was spoken about right so they would have you know you want a software right well we well now we're going to get forced all up we're going to talk about hardware well now she was have, you know, you want a software, right? Well, now we're going to get forced all up.

We're going to talk about hardware. Well, now Sheila's going to... It was like a kind of a person who had the fiefdom, and they would bring out each person to talk about each area. That started to then change over time, where they ended up just relying on the best presenters. So like Craig Federighi had an increased role. And then I think they've done an even better thing,

where now they bring in people from the teams that aren't the same people every time. And I think in doing this, they're able to showcase the diversity of employee that they actually have at the company. And it's not all just middle-aged white men, which is the majority of the leadership team, right? They're able to mix it up more. Ironically, Eddie Q is Cuban. But yes, the but yes the point is i'm not talking about eddie specifically here yeah they changed their way of presenting and who presents to be a very different sort of thing where you're not going to have the same five people out there every time my my point here is not to talk about eddie specifically as much as a change in the process, to which I will say Eddie has been lost in the shuffle of the new process,

which is to have people in each division come out and talk about it, but it's not necessarily the person in charge of each division. I will say Greg Joswiak seems like a really nice guy. I don't think he is necessarily the best person to be talking about the iphone pro anymore but you know you can well he's differing i mean he's at the top level right i mean he's at the top level like jeff williams or something where it's sort of like then introduces all the people beneath that's the he's in the part that steve would have been in just does the whole thing about the pro do the whole thing yes well And I don't think that he's the best person for that.

Like, Karen Drance is, like, a way better presenter, I think. Karen does the iPhone, right? Is that right? Is that? Yeah, I think so. And she does it much better. Not Karen. Thank you.

I was... Y and an R, I got them mixed up. Karen Drance does a better job, right, of that, I think. Anyway,, I, I, Y and an R got them mixed up. Kyan Jones does a better job, right, of that, I think. Anyway. It's an I.

Oh my God. Jason, you're killing me here, all right? Well, you know, I want to get the name right. Yeah.

Well, you Googled it, right? To confirm? Yeah, I want, I'm just speaking here. I want,

I Googled it because I knew it wasn't Karen, but it's, it's Kyan with an I, K-A-I-N. I was mixing up the R from Jones. That's what I'm going to say, all right? I'm just speaking here. I googled it because I knew it wasn't Karen, but it's K-A-N with an I, K-A-I-N. I was mixing up the R from Drance. That's what I'm going to say, all right? I'm trying. We know her husband. We know her husband.

Oh, my God. I didn't know that. It's Matt's. Matt's, yeah. I didn't know that. Okay. Anyway, all of this to say, I think Eddie has been lost in the shuffle for this

because in Eddie's division, he's just not the right person anymore, because the majority of Eddie's division now is probably TV Plus, and if you're going to have someone come out now to talk about that, you want the content people, not the deals guy.

Because no one wants to hear about the deals that are made. You want to hear about the content that's made. He's a mover and a shaker and a schmoozer, and he's living his best life, and he's at oktoberfest and he doesn't need to be more than that i have a question from david who asks okay do you think apple will ever allow third-party watch faces is this underscore david smith no this is actually david dooley our artwork designer oh okay all right but then i put in a link to a David Smith tweet of David Smith making new watch faces.

It's a conspiracy of David's. It's the David's conspiracy. Do I think Apple will ever allow third-party watch faces? I'm going to say yes. Ever. Because Apple does a lot of things that we say they'll never, ever do eventually as a platform matures and they're looking for other ways for it to be interesting.

And I think that they will, there will come a point where they will allow a certain level. Obviously it's going to be like face kit or something, and there's going to be limitations on what you can do and you have to use Apple's pieces and there's going to be, you know, you can't use anybody else's intellectual property and they'll have to be apps in the app store that'll be approved. And like, there'll be lots of restrictions on it, but I do think it will happen at some point because it will be an, a way for Apple to extol the virtues of the watch in a new way. And at some point you get in the life cycle of a product where you're like, okay, we have the ability to do it and it'll make us look good.

And it'll bring in all these other faces and we'll have approval over everything. And developers will be happy. And like, why not do it at this point? Because we've reached, you know, year 10 or whatever, the Apple watch, we might as well go ahead with it. I think it's inevitable at some point. And most of the arguments against it that I hear from people are that the intellectual property arguments and the app store approval process kind of clears that up, right? Like, first off, as a developer, you have to say, no, this is,

this is not somebody doesn't violate anybody's intellectual property. And if somebody raises their hand and says, actually, it does, it violates our patent or whatever on our trade dress of our watch or whatever, then Apple says, show us some proof and they pull the face down. And I know, you know, that can lead to some controversies and all that, but like, this is the process for this stuff. it's not really any different from any other app store submission thing i'm not convinced you know that they'll do it ever i mean within a reasonable time frame right because like ever is like whatever the question yeah i know but like i'm honestly i don't know in the next two years i'd say i don't know but i could say in the next 10 years I don't know. In the next two years, I'd say I don't know. But I could say in the next 10 years, I don't think so.

Yeah. Oh, all right. Because it's essentially, would they allow anybody else to redesign the UI of the iPhone home screen? Like, you can have your own home screen layout that's completely designed by a third-party developer? You mean like widgets and custom icons? No, I mean like not that

because that's complications, right? A new watch face design is like, oh, we're going to allow a third party to design how icons are arranged on the screen and where the clock goes on the lock screen and where the battery indicator goes. Like it feels way more because we already have that, right?

Like widgets already already exists they're complications and you can put them in a bunch of different formats and you can have them already on there like i think it's too much i don't agree because i think that the that in fact the existence of the complications is the thing that makes it still be kind of under apple's control that you got to design a watch face that we approve and that these are the complication slots. And you do that and you're exerting a level of control over it that sort of limits what a watch face can be. And that's sort of how I'm picturing it is not, oh, people will just write an app that's the carrot weather watch face and all the data on

it is from carrot weather and they're using it and it's literally just an app that runs all the data on it is from carrot weather and you know, they're, they're using it. And it's literally just an app that runs all the time. Well, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, well, no carrot weather. If you want to display, if you want to write a watch face app, I guess you can, but the only way you're going to be displaying data is through our complications API. That's how you do it. Um, and all, all you're really doing as a custom watch face is adding the design of all the stuff that goes around the complications and choosing which complications you use. That's sort of how I'm envisioning it, right? It's not freedom.

It's very limited. And if they ever do it, it'll be like, oh, yay, custom watch faces. And then everybody will look at the rules and they're like, oh, oh, it only lets you do this. And that sounds very much like something Apple will do eventually. And Nougat Machine asks, next year we expect a periscope lens system to debut on the iPhone. Should we expect it to follow a similar pattern to the initial rollout of wide and telephoto lenses, where it's initially impressive to have all of it on an expensive phone, but with future versions

quickly making the first iteration of that seem crude. So I'm thinking of, say, something like a 2x lens or maybe a portrait mode or something like that. Like, do we expect that it will start one way and probably be on the most expensive phone

and then move forward in a way that makes the initial one seem kind of basic. I mean, that's always the way it is, right? It's going to start out amazing and then future versions will leave it in the dust. That's just how it is. But I feel like my question about how periscope lenses work

and how they work on the other smartphones now and how Apple will choose to implement it is are you is there one thing with a periscope i was kind of assuming that there was one periscope path and that all the sensors are on the other side of it if that makes sense that you could actually simplify it um because you're using so much space for the periscope that wouldn't you have like, but I guess you gotta have, I guess the optics have to be different. I'm, I'm curious about how this is constructed, right? I assume that the periscope lens is going to be the main camera, but I don't, I don't know.

And I don't know enough about optics, but that's what I'm curious about is like, how do you redefine what an iPhone camera is? If you've got actually more focal length essentially how does that how does that look and how does that work will it be the main camera i don't know because the idea is zoom well the idea of the periscope is zooming like that's it's like function is to allow for a stronger optical zoom so it's the normal boring aha 48 megapixel camera that we have today but the 3x becomes a super periscope mega zoom like on the samsung phones like 100x or whatever they are it could be part of the reason that the 2x

came back because then it's going to be like a 5x so it'd be like 1, 2, 5, 10x and then it goes up to 10 maybe but like it would start and be much more I expect that this will be a I mean or Jason it's a 4th camera I don't know like maybe

like genuinely like maybe right like it's already a square and you've got 3 in there put a 4th there you know maybe i don't know why not i think that the samsung ultra is four cameras or like what looks like four cameras uh at the moment my i'm my expectation is this will probably just be the biggest phone that gets this to start with just because it will be easier yeah there there's that rumor that um or or the report that mark german has talked about that that's the pro pro ultra right or the ultra phone ultra just straight up ultra yeah and that might be exactly where it goes somebody in the chat room just pointed out to the huawei a little cutaway that

they did where it's sort of like camera, camera, and then lens to periscope that turns at 90 degrees and then the sensors on the inside. So there you go. That's the idea. So there'll be one that's got the super mega powerful, awesome periscoping, which the value in the periscope, again, is just the more focal length, more optical, like just the more focal length more optical like having a very very very thin camera eliminates a lot of possibilities you need to have more length for the light to travel so it's an interesting idea but i to answer a nougat machine's question yeah i think of course, it's going to seem crude five years afterward, right? But I have hope that these periscope lenses lead to optics that we haven't seen before in smartphones, you know, until the advent of periscope lenses. And that if Apple does this, that they're going to do it right and they're going to have a good story to tell and great image samples.

And that'll make it worth it. Because keep in mind, they're going to have to pay on the inside of the phone by leaving space for this. This is going to be even more space devoted to the camera. It's got to be good if they're going to take up that space, right? Space that could be given to a bunch of different types of things. I mean, I think we said it, but this might be part of the reason why they removed the SIM card.

Sure. I mean, every little bit helps and why they might introduce it in something like an ultra phone that's the biggest one. I like to think that in the future, every smartphone will be almost entirely just bouncing around light inside for camera purposes and just a little tiny bit. The batteries are in zigzag shapes so they can pass the light between the middle. Yeah. They're the walls of the little filter bouncing light thingy that is going on there. But I can't wait to see it. I know our excitement about the 48 megapixel camera in the iPhone 14 Pro

was very much like, let's see what Apple does with this because Apple cares about photography and has its takes on what it should be. And for something like this, again, what's that story going to be? And what design decisions did they make that finally led to them saying, now is the time we're going to do this with this camera. That's going to be really interesting. If that happens next year, that'll be fun to watch. Yeah.

Follow up on camera, by the way. Like I went out this weekend, I took some pictures and I used halide to take some raw did some editing with them and i get like just to confirm what kind of what we were talking about before like i'd say again that under the right circumstances this camera is unbelievable yep unbelievably good but it's got to be under the right circumstances and the fact that that is the case i do understand why they make it somewhat tricky to get the full 48 megapixel because you know it it needs certain things but really you can get some fantastic shots out of it it's absolutely true if you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of upgrade just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade or use question mark AskUpgrade in the RelayFM

members Discord. You can get access to that if you sign up for Upgrade Plus. Go to GetUpgradePlus.com and you can sign up and you'll get longer ad-free versions of the show along with access to tons of benefits of being a RelayFM member. Thank you to Hover, FitBard, and CleanMyMacX for their support of this week's episode, and thank you for listening. If you want to find us in the meantime,

you can find Jason over at SixColors.com, and he is at Jsnell on Twitter. I am at iMike, I am YKE. Jason and I both host many shows here at RelayFM, and Jason also hosts a bunch of shows over at The Incomparable as well, if you want more of us in your life in between your weekly doses

of the upgrade program. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.