Upgrade - 446: The iPhone Abides

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Jason has released the 2022 Apple Report Card, and now it's time for him and Myke to once again share their grades for Apple for the year gone by. Also, Tim and Eddy go to the Super Bowl, and Apple gets a new Chief People Officer.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 446 today's show is brought to you by ladder express vpn and fitbard my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason snell i'm mike hurley how are you i'm very In lieu of small talk, as we do every week, we'll begin today's episode of a Snell Talk question. John wants to know, Jason, what was your favorite game on the original Macintosh? I have a lot of favorites from the original Macintosh. I played a lot of games on the...

Well, original Macintosh is not quite right. I had a Mac SE, but I know what John means here. Like back in the day, right when I first got a Mac, what were my favorite games? And when I was thinking about this, I thought about like their Shufflepuck Cafe, which where you use the mouse as a paddle to play air hockey against an AI opponent.

It was pretty great. And also a good use of the, the, the mechanism of having a mouse to basically replicate the, the movement of the, of the puck or of the, of the, of the little, not the puck of the,

the little thing that you use a little plastic thing that you use to hit the puck. Cause the mouse was that. And so it was, there was sort of a one-to-one relationship. I love, love that. sim city played a lot of sim city and sim city 2000 a lot of that um it was also kind of soothing i get the same vibe from uh mini motorways and um mini metro

okay they're very very similar in that they what, even though there's a little more, I mean, there's gameplay in both, but it's also just sort of like soothing and chill and you can actually just put it in endless mode if you want to. But the answer here, the single game I may have spent the most time playing in my lifetime is still probably Tetris. So that's my answer.

Tetris. Oh, okay. Spectrum Holobite. Official license from the Soviet Union. There was no intellectual property. Alexei Pajitnov, who wrote Tetris, didn't see money from Tetris for like a decade when it was the most popular game in the world. But it's totally Tetris. I love Tetris. To this day, I love it. i have a tetris on my uh playdate in fact uh but but for

me as a mac tetris person in fact the that that um that 512 mac that i have the uh the floppy emu on that has the so i can boot it and play stuff from the old days uh it boots to a a disc that has tetris on it um you know j jk what was it jkl i for the movement and the space bar to drop is just it's burned in my brain it's in there tetris there was my uncle had a a mac of some description like i was a young young kid uh like single digit age i remember this i i don't know what mac it was but i know that it was green on black right so i assume it was just a mac right like an original mac of some description and he had a golf game i don't know what game this was right but like that is like a big early memory for me like it was just the game was just like green on black some kind of golf game i used to play

this a lot when i visit his house so that that's all i know i have tried many times to try and find this one like but i don't know what it was like it's complicated you you ask John Syracuse no he might know he might know I don't remember I do I remember um and back then you know without the

internet and stuff you ended up with so I discovered the Mac at college and so people with Macs at college first off lots of people didn't have

Macs at college right but there were people with Macs at college and when you would find the person with a Mac at college you would find like what games or what discs they had right what games they had and and you would discover you'd be like I have never even heard of this and there would be so I

wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in my brain there's lodged a golf game that I saw and I was like oh golf on a computer okay whatever but I don't that was never one that i copied or whatever i mean by which i mean but i don't mean but copy the idea and then went to a store and bought it is what you mean yeah that's totally what i meant i mean when i say pirate i mean more of a privateer really um anyway yes uh those are the games uh and then uh in my college uh newspaper office we were we actually were networked and so we played there was a game called net trek also not licensed by uh from star trek but they used some of the art uh and sound effects but it was a network uh space battle game basically and uh and then specter which was a network tank game that came a little bit later but but net trek was

something we played because it was the idea that everybody got on. I mean, it was really just an amazing moment. Most of us, that was the first networked gaming experience where we're in different rooms in the office, flying our little spaceship around, trying to destroy the other people's spaceships. And that was just a revelation. Whenever you did that for the first time in that era, you remembered like, oh, this is going to be a thing. This is a big deal to be able to be on your different computers

and play against your friends. It was pretty great. I think Apple's making like a Tetris movie. Yes, I think that's true. I still, I don't really know much about it other than it's happening i think i want to leave it that way for now you know and just like i want to see what that ends up being when when when it comes yeah yeah yeah i think i think it's about like a lexi pijitnov making tetris. I don't know, man.

I'm going to assume that it's like an animated movie. Wasn't there already like a Tetris movie that was like big blocks are coming from the sky or something? I don't know. Was that Battleship? There was a Battleship movie, yes. If you would like to send in a question to help us open an episode of Upgrade in the future, just send in a Snell Talk question

by going to upgradefeedback.com. Thank you to everybody that has. I have some follow-up, which is that I am now on Mastodon, Jason. I have joined the Don. I'm hanging out with everybody else now on Mastodon. So you can come follow me I've set up my own instance

as it seems to be the cool thing all my friends are doing at mike.social join us imike or mike.social so you can come follow me there there's a couple of reasons like in a nutshell like I won't belabor the point I wanted to have somewhere where I could talk about all the various things that I'm doing about bringing

these things to all of my various shows so it gives me a place to talk about what I'm up to and also like everyone's there right now and it seems like a lot of fun and it has that vibe it Mastodon right now has the early Twitter vibe there are all these apps and like loads of stuff's happening and I kind of feel like I'm missing out on something cool that's happening in our corner of the world. I, to help myself, I've set a bunch of like,

what I'm calling guardrails about like how many people I'm following and how much time I'm spending on the service every day. I have a 15 minute app limit in Ivory at the moment. And it's going great for me so far. And I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to understand a Fediverse for everything that it's going great for me so far and I'm trying to understand the Fediverse

for everything that it's got to offer but I would appreciate it if you're so interested that you can come find me on mike.social Upgrade's also on Mastodon too, Jason set up a bot so if you have followed us previously we are

upgrade on mastodon.social if you wanted to find out when the show is posted and stuff like that you we we're also there so you can go and go and do that yeah yeah yeah i i wired all that up so the upgrade twitter account and the upgrade mastodon account my upgrade twitter account used to be hand posted it's not now it's auto posted based on the show notes and and the mastodon account has that as well so if you want to follow that just as a source of is there a new episode or are we live which i'm still working on the live thing but we'll get there i'll get that all together yeah we'll get there but yeah we're

trying it out and uh it is fun and it's cool and it's interesting and i'm trying to keep it a little bit looser than i did on twitter towards the end as well um so yeah you can come follow us and jason how zeppelin.flights everything going well over there yeah zeppelin.flights is going it's going good i got you know there's there's several people on there it's not just me because it's other people from incomparable but what i found is with meso.host is what i'm using too which is great i'm using their planet level or something and it it's, you know, I think I'm probably pushing it a little bit. Actually, day to day, it works fine. The challenge is that

if you have a decent number of followers, so like when I migrated, when Dan Morin migrated, and when I recently migrated six colors over there, which has a few thousand followers, the moment you press the migration button, the whole thing just slows to a crawl for a few hours maybe. and then it's fine again.

Because what happens is every other server that contains a person who's following that account hits Mastodon.social where it was, gets the forward request, and immediately hits the new server at Zeppelin.flights. And that all happens at once and that server gets real slow. And then it works fine. Like once the transition is over, again, it works good and I haven't had a problem with it. So that's, yeah, it's going okay.

How was your Super Bowl experience? I mean, I watched the Super Bowl at home. We didn't have anybody over or anything. We didn't go anywhere. We just watched the Super Bowl. We had a busy morning. We came home, we're very tired and we watched the Super Bowl at home. We didn't have anybody over or anything. We didn't go anywhere. We just watched the Super Bowl. We had a busy morning. We came home. We're very tired, and we watched the Super Bowl.

So the story, though, is, of course, what I really – how should I phrase this? Well, what I really was there for, Mike, is the Apple Music Halftime Show. That's not true, but I watch the Super Bowl every year. But it was the inaugural Apple Music Halftime show. That's not true, but I watch the Super Bowl every year. But it was the inaugural Apple Music halftime show. Inaugural. I don't think we spoke about this when it was announced, but this is such a smart move for Apple, right? The halftime show is one of the biggest musical events of the year.

And it was Pepsi for a long time, right? For Apple to get kind of like the branding right on this i don't know if they have any kind of input or like help or whatever like i don't know but i don't think it matters right it's just like this is great i don't you know i don't know whether so what happened is it used to be outsiders who produced the halftime show. Yeah. And then what happened is the wardrobe malfunction, which people might remember. Yeah.

That's the Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake thing. And that was, I think, did MTV produce that? Anyway, and the NFL was was like no no no we're gonna produce it i don't know i'm gonna have to look i don't know whether this was a uh an apple music production or a co-production with the nfl but i'm sure that apple had input uh on what it was and i think i mean look okay so it was rihanna i think that apple's goal is to have the musical guests at the guest or guests at the super bowl be relevant right like apple apple's goal is not nostalgia trip i think and so i think well sometimes the the super bowl halftime show is a is a classic artist a great last years which was

awesome right the dray show was fantastic especially if you're my age i think it was like perfect right so i guess this is the question is you want you don't want it to be like so new that nobody knows who they are because it's the super bowl it is a broad entertainment event it's the most watched television program in the united states and it's one of the biggest tv events in the world but it's certainly number one in the u.s by a mile and you want so you want want somebody who is going to be known, but also that I would say you want it to be relevant. And if you're Apple,

you especially don't want to be known as like a brand that's attached to some old star that like Paul McCartney was at the Super Bowl. Paul McCartney did not perform at the Super Bowl, right? Like that's the dividing line. Rihanna performed at the Super Bowl. So I think it'll be interesting to see how these guest selections go going forward.

Does Apple have influence with artists that maybe the NFL or Pepsi struggled with that Apple will be able to be involved with? I think it's also interesting that Rihanna performed without any special guests. That was another thing that's happened in recent, and we can't call it a trend because this is the first one but in recent years there has been a lot of like stuffing in of extra stuff so it'll be like hey uh you know this person

will be there but they and then there's like and then these three other famous people appear to do one song and then this other famous person appears and this was rihanna that's it and dancers that's it period weekend a few years ago was the same right yes but like yes which i enjoyed that was one of my one of my favorites because it felt like he was i thought not only did i enjoy that but it was just him and it was a good show and it was somebody i i would say who is big uh but probably i mean he was verging on is, is the weekend big enough, but like for the Superbowl or is it a little too soon? But I thought it was worth that.

That I think, I wonder if that might've been the model. If Apple music was like, like that weekend show, we want that to be the show. And it was amazing. Like they had, they were on floating platforms because this is a dome is a dome, basically, with a cutout.

But they were on floating platforms. And you could see that they're tethered, like Rihanna was tethered behind. So she's not going to fall off. Still, man. But still, they are performing. Those things were moving. And dancing on platforms that are like floating high above the stadium. And then they brought her down and they were dancing more.

And so the, Lauren was enjoying the dancers on the platforms. Cause they're sort of like move your extremities slightly, but not too much. Yeah. But anyway, I thought it was a, I thought it was a good show.

My, my, my daughter was very excited and, and loved it. I thought it was really good. And I love the, I love the fact that she just held it down. There's no need for extra leavening of guest artists like no need her her catalog is so large right like you you kind of see it in these moments it tends to be a lot of medleys but

usually i feel like even in these medley full performances you'll get someone do like most of a song i don't think she had the time to do any one song in full to fill half an hour but it was like greatest hit one after another just coming over and over again and showing my deep rihanna knowledge i feel like she ended with the songs that i had heard it was like oh i know now. We're into the ones that I know. Umbrella? I know that one. Like a diamond? Yeah, I got it. Anyway, the key news, though, the key news here, Mike, is it's time for Where in the World are Tim and Eddie?

Tim Cook and Eddie Q. And the answer is in a luxury box in Phoenix, Arizona, watching the Super Bowl. And we know this because we got to see pictures that went across the social media, including Tim Cook sitting next to Billie Eilish, which had very strong. My dad made me come to this football game energy. Yes, it does. And Eddie Q sitting next to Adele, which led to our friend john syracusa posting on mastodon everyone else in the world hey it's adele me and the people i know eddie you know when i saw these images i'm like this is another key reason for apple to want this

losing there were parties beforehand they get to they had something afterward yeah to the stars that they want to make sure right like adele billy eilish like you know you're in the family but hey come down we feel loved look after you you know like all that kind of stuff and it's a genuine big reason for all of this corporate stuff right it's why a lot of companies put their names on the side of arenas because then it becomes like a thing that they can offer to clients or whatever. This is about as big a ticket as you can score. And Apple, I'm sure, will get multiple boxes or whatever as part of this. Well, obviously, there's this big luxury suite, and the stars are all in there, and they're doing parties beforehand. And it's a whole thing, right?

And it's just one piece of Apple's larger strategy, but I think this is an interesting Apple music kind of thing. And they're committed, right? Isn't the deal for 10 years? I mean, they're committed to this. We'll see where it goes from here. But we're guaranteed that Tim Cook's going to take in at least one non-Auburn football game a year now.

It'll be the Super Bowl. By the way, before we continue, speaking of Auburn, I just want to throw this out there if you don't know, Tim Cook's a big fan of Auburn college football. I believe Auburn plays at Cal this year. So what I'm saying is, Tim, I have an extra ticket. Give me a call. Take off that red shirt. One rumor roundup this week ross young is suggesting that a 15.5 inch macbook air could be coming in april quote 15.5 inch macbook air started panel production this month we would expect an early april launch right remember ross young is a display analyst

and therefore when he says started panel, like this is one of those supply chain things, which is he knows they're making the displays now for this thing. And they know the size and they know what it, you know, everything, all the specs of the panel. And that leads to this result. But like, bring it on. I'm very excited about this because as we've talked about here several times um you shouldn't need to spend uh more than two thousand dollars uh if all you really want is a bigger screen in your lap apple laptop right like i feel like this screen for ross young is real easy to guess right just because like a screen of that size in the quality of display panel it's only really one place it can go.

It's not the spec of the MacBook Pro. It's probably the same spec as the smaller MacBook Air panel. So there you go. Yeah. Love it. And Apple has announced a new person coming to the executive board

at the C-suite level. A chief people officer which is going to be a role fulfilled by Carol Surface which I like the Surface joke. I've been thinking is there a joke around Surface

that I can get here? But I couldn't think of one. Carol Surface is joining Apple. From now on, going to be referred to as Carol iPad. Sorry, everybody. There you go. There you go. Oh, boy.

Carol Surface is joining Apple to fill the position after spending a decade as vice president of HR, a medical device company called Medtronic. Deirdre O'Brien, who was fulfilling these roles and then also took over the

retail role back in 2017 from Angela Ahrens, Deirdre was running two roles, is now relinquishing HR duties to focus fully on retail. So Deirdre was people, moved to people and retail, now is letting go of people so i had to ask you two uh thoughts on this one that this is a c-level role just intriguing and what do you think about bringing in someone from outside of apple to fill the role in charge kind of a like corporate culture yeah i i don't think this role is really in charge of corporate culture i mean i i it's a it's a it's an hr role um and in fact the reason deirdre o'brien got the retail job is because most of apple's people are retail people right like that's the truth of it is the bulk of apple's employees because i always see these stories you know sorry for the tangent here but like i see these stories

about hiring in silicon valley and people talk about the size that apple is and they're like oh and apple has all these employees. And it's like, yeah, but most of them are retail. And I'm not saying that retail employees aren't like real employees. I'm saying, I'm saying I see people use the employee number as a proxy for how much R and D

Apple is doing and stuff. And it's like, Hmm, there's a, there is a group of people who are in, in Cupertino and in other places who are building product, and then there's retail. And running this retail chain is an enormous task, and it has a huge number of people employed. And there are different needs for people who are working in retail than

the people who are working, you know, writing software or designing a processor. So I don't know. Bringing in an outsider is always weird. They have so many different things about the culture, including Apple University, that I feel like... I'm sure they were concerned about it, but what they really want is a good head of HR so that Deidre O'Brien doesn't have to keep doing it. That seems to be the task here, is so that Deidre O'Brien doesn't have to keep being directly responsible for HR. So they bring her in, Carol's surface. They bring her in at a CPO level, chief people officer level,

probably because that's how they could get her and they wanted her. We'll see how it goes, right? I mean, there is definitely, this feels like it might be fine, but there is a track record of people coming in from the outside to Apple and just not fitting. And I'm sure that concerns them, but there is a track record of people coming in from the outside to Apple and just not fitting. And I'm sure that concerns them, but just because it concerns them, they may still have done this. And,

and, and there may even be a, well, we'll see. In fact, if I were Carol surface, I would say, um,

I'm that's, I'm going to keep thinking about that name. Uh, you got in my head now. Uh, if I was Carol surface, I would like definitely want a, what if this doesn't work out? How much are you going to pay me to leave?

I would have that consideration because anybody coming in from the outside at a high level to Apple, there is a non-zero chance that you're not going to make it, right? History has not worked kindly on that. You might be Browett

level where you're just a bad cultural fit and kicked out almost immediately. You might be an Angela Arons level where it's sort of like, yeah, but not really. And let's just agree to part. And so anyway, if you're coming in at the level that Carol surfaces, I would definitely want to have those scenarios plotted out. But I'm sure everybody wants it to work. And it's not, I mean, I'd say what's critical about this, I was going to say it was not a critical part of Apple's business. It is, but in a different way than a lot of these other executive jobs, right?

Like what are the most relevant things that Carol's Surface is going to have to deal with? I think it's going to be retention of their existing employees, especially the ones who are highly valued and have a lot of stock options and maybe want to do something else and have a new challenge. And then the big one, I think, is retail and all of the issues, especially about unionization in retail. Obviously a big area where a lot of news has happened in the last year about unionizing or potentially unionizing at various retail stores. And that's something that she's going to have to, I'm sure, you know, from the perspective of Apple, she's going to have to handle it.

Like, make sure that doesn't happen is probably what her charge is going to be. But yeah, we'll see. Interesting to bring anybody in from the outside. I guess this means that Deidre O'Brien has gone well as head of retail, right? because otherwise, I mean, right?

Like she's going to keep doing that job and that's just going to be her job. I mean, it seems like the stores have kind of restabilized, I guess. Cause there was a period of upheaval some good some bad like I think that was what they asked Angela Ahrens to do but then Apple's business changed

underneath her right and they had to start shifting iPhones stores were not set up for shifting iPhones and so I think that they've changed that around again but yeah I mean it's going to be interesting because like the unionization thing is also something for deirdre o'brien to deal with right like i feel like this isn't and well reports have been suggesting deirdre

has been dealing with yeah yeah no i think i think these all go i mean these all go together and i i yeah the obviously they're going to be working together on a lot of this stuff because it is people and it is retail and they go together. So that's the case here. I do wonder, I mean, first off, there's a whole HR infrastructure, right? And somebody has to do that part. And that'll be, Carol Surface will be in charge of that. But like, I do wonder about at what level the retail head is involved in the details of retail. Since there are so many retail employees and they're so different from the other employees at Apple, you know, are the retail employees still kind of the province of Deidre O'Brien?

You know, does she have extra? Like, I don't know how that works. The dynamic is. Is Carol Surface going to be more like you really need to focus on the people who aren't retail Deidre is still going to focus on retail and then and then obviously we'll still use the HR infrastructure which reports to you how much that is or

how much it is that Deidre O'Brien like has other things she needs to deal with and doesn't need to spend all this time talking about the retail employees and unionization and all of that I don't know she's got stores of in a store to build. Yeah. Well, good luck to Carol iPad.

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card season Jason Snell a couple of weeks ago we had the report card well I had it sent to me along with how many people do you send the report card to now to complete? Oh, it's a large list. I'm not going to disclose how large

it is, although I don't actually know. Not everybody fills it out. So 55 filled it out this year. Okay. And so we get it. It has a bunch of questions on it. You know, like, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? Everyone goes through, fills out their scores, send it back to you with comments.

You collate those comments and create a score of kind of people in the community who are observers of Apple, right? I filled it out. You do not fill it out. But today I will be asking you for your scores. I want to go through each category. We'll take a look at where it was scored,

how it compares to years prior. You can give your scores, I'll give mine. And I've also look at where it was scored, how it compares to years prior. You can give your scores, I'll give mine. And I've also pulled out some I think really interesting quotes from some of the people that sent this stuff in. So we'll go in the order that the Six Colors Report card is ordered in.

We'll start with the Mac, which received an A- grade of 4.2 out of 5, which is a year-over-year decline. So it was 4.6 last year, 4.7 the year before. Jason, what would you rate the Mac in 2022? I'm going to say 4. Okay. What makes you say 4? And I think what's going on in the survey is similar to what makes me say 4. It's a decline from the debut of the M1 Macs in 2020. Still a very good score. And I think what's going on in the survey is similar to what makes me say for, it's a decline from the debut of the M one max in 2020, still a very good score.

And I think four out of five is a very good score. The reason it's not five out of five. I mean, they have, they have had some problems shipping max. I think, I think that is an issue. And so the MacBook pro and the Mac mini didn't ship until 2023 right and this is for 2022 so I

would mark them down for struggling with that for not fulfilling their promise to close the Apple silicon transition the Mac Pro is still floating out there as well but I'm generally positive on that side I would also mark them down for things like system settings and um i'm not going to really not mark them down on the mac for stage manager i think it's okay it's not for me um but the system settings thing is a good example of an own goal on a thing that like was not great but has not been has been redone and is also not great um and we've detailed that in the past so i could have given them five out of five but i feel like you know you know me mike i don't give five out of five for almost anything because

uh you know nothing is so perfect that it can't be complained about that's what they do say that about you that is a thing people said people say that specific learn about you quite a lot uh i for me it's easy five out of five like let me tell you why right the macbook air the m2 macbook air is my favorite mac of all time it is perfect in my opinion the max studio came out in 2022 that is a whole new mac that didn't exist and i love it and the studio display which wasn't perfect but i really wanted it and i love it i feel like it's arguments for five out of five yeah i feel like if these products would not have come out at the start of the year,

but came out later in the year, the score would be higher than 4.2. That's what I think. Yeah, I think that might be the case. I mean, it's an interesting dynamic. That was, there's definitely a, what have you done for me lately? What's happened recently kind of vibe that happens

in these votes in general. And what was last left with them was that period where no Macs were announced when everybody thought we'd be getting new MacBook Pros. Alex Cox wrote, It still feels like a Mac renaissance with the redesigned MacBook Air. There feels like a default to what most consumers want when they get an app or any laptop.

The lack of a Mac Pro update is disappointing, but the M series of Macs we've gotten so far are any indication it will be worth the wait. John Siracusa said, I'm not dinging Apple for failing to quote completely transition to Apple Silicon 2022, but the continued lack of a larger than 24 inch iMac combined with the inability to transition all the existing plain old M1 max to m2 means the mac line lacks the luster of last year's m1 powered super group i think a lot of people might echo what john said there about like wanting the m1s to turn over i know that you've been talking about

you've been kind of disappointed in the imac has kind of just stayed where it was and shirley brisbane said in a year where some were doubtless disappointed that a favorite product wasn't refreshed, the new Mac Studio and improved MacBook Air are worthy additions to the lineup, advancing the silicon transition. Yeah, a lot of positivity there, right? But is it perfect?

I don't know. I mean, I think giving it a five is perfectly reasonable. Giving it a four is, I think, pretty reasonable too. I think so too. I think the Mac is in a very, very good place. I think it would be really, really hard to beat the 2020 score of 4.7. Like, I can't imagine them being able to surprise us to the level that they did with the first round of M1 Macs. Like, just how powerful they were and how

efficient they were yeah now you that's the the big moment where you do a processor transition is that's always going to be the best because after that it's incremental again yep uh my you always do these great charts what are the what are these kind of charts called where it's like the lines with the with the circles is there like a particular name for this kind of chart i don't know i don't know we'll call it the circle line chart uh my favorite circle line chart in the six colors report card is the iphone because it's just incredibly consistent right like the variance year to year is never more than like 0.5 right like it's it's incredibly consistent the iphone scored a b plus a 3.9 average where would you put the iphone for 2022 um you know it's it's good but boring i i think i would

probably give it a four i thought about giving it a three um i don't love the low-end iphone being kind of like separated i understand it but i don't have to like it. I don't like the mini being dropped. I don't like the old processor on the lower end models. I don't, you know, it is also year three of this design, which I don't love. I think that the pro design is not, I mean, again, everybody can have their own personal style opinions, but like, I don't like the iPhone pro design. I don't like how heavy it is. I don't like the stainless steel. I don't like the look of it. I think the look of the lower end phones is better.

And then this year they stuck a better processor and a much better camera in the higher end phone, making it so much better on a spec basis, but still not a phone that I particularly like to look at or carry because of the weight and the, and the choices they made and the color choices that they made. All of that is, you know, not my favorite. I do love the features that they brought though this year. The dynamic island is great. The always on screen is pretty cool.

That camera is amazing. So there's a lot of positivity there too. i kind of throw it in at four because the and it's what you said right it's the iphone is the iphone abides right the iphone is there and it and apple focuses on it and make sure that it's good and it is good but i have enough quibbles with it that it gives me pause to give it a four out of five jessica dennis wrote i wish i hadn't traded in my iphone 13 mini for the iphone 14 pro it was small and pink and my new phone is not better enough that i don't miss that just made me think you know you're saying about like it is a big jump to go to the pro because not only is it bigger it is heavier like i would like to see them move away from stainless steel i've really enjoyed it for the years that I've had it.

Like it being nice and shiny with the gold is great, but I wouldn't mind a weight reduction on the iPhone. I think the whole iPhone 12, 13, 14 Pro design, I think it's a misfire. I think that it's not only leaving aside the lack of color and the need for a color czar to come in there um the matte back whereas the the base model has the shiny back um i think the matte back is not is boring and doesn't look as good as the shiny back and the stainless is too heavy and

weighs the whole thing down and the benefit of having the stainless ring so i've been using the 14 pro um because i want to use the dynamic island which there hasn't been as much dynamic island stuff as i would like although i'm looking forward to it when baseball season comes around especially i want to check that out but i've been using that and my my mini is on my desk here and i keep looking at it and i feel what jessica dennis feels which is um i'm not sure other than the dynamic island the benefit that i'm getting out of here, uh, like I, let me put it this way. If I didn't write about iPhone stuff as part of my job and therefore want to see the latest and greatest with especially the dynamic island,

I would just go back to the mini that's sitting on my desk. Like I would, because it, you know, I don't think that the trade-off is worth it. And part of that is just my objections in general to some of the decisions they made on the pro side. And, you know, if you like your iPhone pro, that's great.

I just, there are decisions they made that they, we have now lived with for three years that I, I disagree with that. I think are not, uh, we're not the right ones. So I hope they try to make that phone lighter and I hope they try to make it like not only weight lighter, but like literally lighter and brighter. Because why should that phone be so boring and dead serious? It's ridiculous. So I gave it a 4 as well.

This wasn't a mind-blowing year, but they did the things that I wanted them to do, the always-on display. They brought the 48-megapixel camera, but I don't think they really took full advantage of that. And you can as a user, but it's complicated. But the Dynamic Island kind of saved it for me as this delightful little thing that I wasn't expecting them to do the way that they did it, right?

Like none of us did. And it's been great. Like you, I wish that there were more live activities using the dynamic island than there are but the ones that do i always really enjoy it steven hackett wrote the iphone 14 pro's dynamic island is the biggest ui change to come to ios since the iphone 10 ditched the home button back in 2017 it is a big change and i do hope that this is me now saying this is a big change I do hope that developers continue to embrace it. There's been some that seem like

obvious ones to me that yet still haven't and it could just be one of those things that like it's big companies and they take a long time and Apple dropped it in September and it's still not the time for people. I don't know. I want to read this one last quote from Christina Warren who said the iPhone lineup this year

like every year is good. I'm no longer wowed by the iPhone the way I once was. But that also doesn't matter because the iPhone remains the best phone available, which I just think is like a really nice way of putting it, to be honest. but like apple apple's very diligent in making sure that the iphone kind of motors along even even though we can criticize it it's not it's not a product that we're like what are they doing right like it's not it's not quite like that no the ipad got a c grade three average that is the lowest grade the ipad has received in all of the years that you have been doing the report card. It is. Which is... It is. I mean, if you think back from now all the way to 2015, I don't know if this is necessarily the worst year.

However, I think it's the kind of chain of disappointment that has led to this, right? Yes. What is your grade? I was tempted to give it a two, but I'm going to give it a three, but it's one of those three pointing down kind of threes. And here's, I don't know.

I see what you're saying. Well, you know, it's like, you know, there's nothing more boring than hearing people explain why that they would give things a half rating if the scale had half ratings. I hate it. And I was the one who chose no half ratings because I don't want to hear about your half ratings.

Choose. And I've chosen a three, but just to be clear, I was not choosing between a three and a four. I was choosing between a three and a two here. Look, the great, and I think that the panelists really captured it. The great conundrum about the iPad right now

is that the iPad, individual iPads are great. Like iPadOS is incredibly capable. Individual iPads are great. They have great features. There are little quirks here and there, but like they have great features. You could buy an iPad Air or a 10th generation iPad

and be very happy with those products. They're very good. You could buy an iPad Pro and be happy with it. very happy with those products. They're very good. You can buy an iPad Pro and be happy with it. However, as a whole, looking at every product that's available, looking at what the features are, looking at what the prices are, just pondering where the iPad is going, where it's been, what it's trying to be, doesn't make a lick of sense. It doesn't make any sense. And while I'm willing to have some sympathy for Apple because of the supply chain issues and some other stuff that they've run into,

the bottom line is they have had a long time to get the iPad to make sense and they have failed. And maybe they will someday make the iPad make sense again, the iPad as a whole. But right now they've got new features that are presumably going to be in all iPads that have debuted in the low-end iPad. They've got a high-end iPad called iPad Pro that still lacks, for example, their Pro software on it, even though it's got the M2 chip now. They have got

the features on the 10th generation iPad aren't on the iPad Pro because the iPad Pro is unchanged since 2018. I think actually a bunch of people I've seen anecdotally decide to upgrade their iPad pros to the M2 model from the 2018 model feeling like, you know, it was time to upgrade and like, yeah, I guess it is, except it it's, it's largely unchanged. The 2018 iPad was so powerful as it was that it is your iPad really from 2018 still being taxed your iPad pro uh compared to the current model other than like external display support or stage manager like they're they're the the the hardware situation is super confused and while I again I'm skeptic or I'm sent I'm sympathetic to Apple with supply chain issues and all that stuff

being in a bit of a jam here. But at the end of the day, if I'm looking at the iPad line, it doesn't make sense and that's on Apple. And the fact that they were willing, I think the most damning thing to me about the iPad this year is not stage manager, which I think Federico hates it. I think it's okay. I don is not stage manager, which I think, you know,

Federico hates it. I think it's okay. I don't think it's great. I think it's okay. I think I understand what they're trying to do there. I've got some frustrations about it, but I don't use my iPad as aggressively as Federico tries to. So I understand that it doesn't meet his standards and it isn't what he's looking for there. But for me, the most damning thing is that they decided to push out that M2 iPad pro with essentially nothing new about it rather than I think what they should have done, which is just wait, wait six months,

wait nine months, wait a year and, and actually do a proper new iPad pro because of all the products for them to just decide to let sit there. The iPad Pro, I mean, it has really led for me to a, that combined with that touchscreen rumor that we heard about touchscreen Macs led me to a real crisis of almost like an existential crisis about the iPad. Because I'm now starting to think the iPad is a brilliant product line and the iPad Pro is a mistake because they don't know what to do with it.

They can't put, you know, they can't equip it properly. They can't even update it properly. And then you look at the iPad Air and you're like, the iPad Air is right there and it's pretty good, right? Think how positive the iPad lineup would be if they weren't trying so hard with Stage Manager and the Magic Keyboard and all of that stuff at the high end. And instead we're like, oh, look at this great iPad Air and the 10th generation iPad. And it's a really nice solid tablet

within some lower constraints rather than pushing it to the high end but before you say well it's those high-end power users who are trying to make the ipad distort the ipad into something it's not i will just say since 2015 i think 2014 apple has been selling a product called ipad pro so apple brought this on itself and here we are. So, you know, the reason I don't give it a two is because I do think the individual iPads are still great. And I use my iPad probably more than any other Apple device. And I love it. My frustration is I think I feel like it is in a bad place that that the product line as a whole is kind of coasting. And while there are good things that are happening in parts of the iPad line, it lacks any kind of cohesive vision,

at least that we can see. And my hope for the iPad in the future is that we finally see what Apple is trying to do here. But we talk about this a lot, about how more than half of Apple's revenue is the iPhone and the iPhone has to be the priority and it does have to be a priority. And then we had that moment where Apple's like, no, no, we're committed to the Mac and we've seen the Apple Silicon stuff on the Mac.

And then you look at the iPad and I know that there's some progress happening there, but it's very hard to look at the current state of the iPad line as a whole and not think this is in part because Apple just hasn't thought it was important enough. Because it's embarrassing. Like rolling out some of those features on the low-end iPad and then just pushing the iPad Pro M2 update out with nothing.

Again, it's just, it's a bad look. And the fact that they thought that they could just push it out there and make everybody wait for 18 months for another iPad Pro generation. I don't know. I feel like it says a lot about not that Apple doesn't care, but that Apple is not, you know, they haven't executed. I guess that's what I'd say. I gave it a two. This is the product line I'm the most disappointed with. As I wrote, I said that Apple had one job to do with the iPad Pro this year

and couldn't get it done. And they didn't do it? They just didn't do it, which was do something. And for me, what I'm referencing is the 11-inch, right? And the iPad Pros from 2022 are fine, right? Like this is the 11-inch, right? And the iPad Pros from 2022 are fine, right? This is the conundrum, right? They're fine, but they're also the same. And I think that says so much to me about how Apple seems to be content to just let it ride. And those of us who are observing the iPad as a platform say, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't let it ride. And those of us who are observing the iPad as a platform

say, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't let it ride. Don't do that. And they did it. Let's see what Federico has to say. I think it's great that I can now use my iPad Pro with an external display and have a separate set of app windows on it. The problem is everything else.

In practical terms, aside from more concurrent windows on screen, iPadOS 16 doesn't let me get more things done on a daily basis compared to iPadOS 15. I want to continue loving the iPad, but I also need to get my work done, and I'm tired of having to rely on supplementing my

iPad Pro over Mac Mini to do all the things I need to do. This reminds me of what David Sparks said, I think last year, which set like a fire in my brain, which is just like, I'm just going to use the iPad for what it's meant for. And I'm not going to try, I'm going to stop trying to make it do something it's not. And I feel like Federico's kind of coming to that now as well. Uh, Stephen Aquino wrote, I feel it feels like groundhog's

day with iPadOS os every year standing at odds with the top-notch hardware the ipad which is a beautiful way of putting that thing that we say all the time right of like software's just gonna catch up with the hardware like any day now i suppose and aline sim says the ipad product line is more robust than it's ever been but none of the models fit my needs well it's kind of a mess i as down as i am on the ipad in 2022 i think they can get it together i mean like the changes they made on the 10th generation ipad are good changes right like moving the facetime camera is a good change but then they they like they said the ipad pro wait wait a year and a half we're just going to give you the same old thing now that that i think that's the root of it that

and people who are very angry about stage manager i mean for me i think that's the root of it is uh by all accounts and again you know apple didn't announce anything but by all accounts there was a next gen ipad pro that they were working on that they basically didn't ship. And it feels very much like they had to punt on that. And as a result, you've got these new features in the product line that are not in your high-end product. And that's not a great place to be in. I'm sure the people at Apple know that's not a great place to be in. I'm sure they're frustrated that they couldn't get there. But in the end, it's not my job to pat them on the back and say, you'll get them next time.

It is my job to call it out and say, you blew it. I'm sure there are reasons. I'm sure it was hard. I'm sure the supply chain didn't help. I get it. But bottom line is, you punted on the iPad Pro. And if the answer is, well, what should we have done? The answer is not ship the M2 iPad Pro and try to ship the next generation ipad ipad pro sooner than a year and a half from

now um and maybe the answer would be well production line and this is the only chance we get it and then we have to wait 18 months it's like wouldn't you rather have the m2 than the m1 and and honestly no no i don't want reheated m1 with m2 chips in there and everything else is exactly the same i think that um i i think that was a bad choice on their part that that shows maybe that they don't care so much about the people who buy ipad pros and like frankly we are this hard on them we all are because of what they do in the other categories right like we see they have the ability but it feels like time and time again they miss with the ipad and it's like time and time again, they miss with the iPad.

And it's like, but you've done so much on the Mac and the iPhone remains so consistent. What is it about the iPad specifically where we seem to be having these issues? And that's why we keep coming back time and time again. And it's why the iPad score is slipping. It went back up in 2017 and it's just been on a steady decline ever since. So moving to wearables and Apple Watch, which got an A grade of a 4.4 average.

You kind of couple this with Apple Watch only as its own category. That received an A minus of a 4.2 average. Yeah, I used to only ask about Apple Watch and only since 2019 have I changed it to be wearables because it was clear that that was the category and as a result

I didn't want to kind of lose the trend of Apple Watch. At some point I'll drop that, but for now the complexity remains. If people ask me why I don't tweak these categories year to year, this is why. I think there's value in showing here's how it's changed since 2015. And if I tweak anything like this category,

I have to footnote it forever, essentially, until I drop the data that was historical. So what is your overall wearable score and your Apple Watch score? You know, I'll give it a four. Apple Watch Ultra, good to see the Apple Watch platform moving forward. The main Apple Watch platform hasn't really moved forward in quite a while now, but the Ultra was a move forward. It's not as big a move forward. Like the software doesn't

seem to have really embraced the Ultra. It seems like it's just a big Apple Watch, but the hardware is very impressive. That action button is an interesting idea that I like, I would like to see brought back perhaps to the regular old Apple Watch at some point. AirPods Pro 2 came out. A lot of people called those out watch at some point. AirPods Pro 2 came out. A lot of people called those out. I love them. AirPods Pro 2. I mean, I wouldn't have believed that I would have loved the original AirPods as much as I did. I was very, very skeptical. AirPods Pro 2. I mean, then I started using AirPods Pro, which were great. AirPods Pro 2 are amazing. I love them. The noise cancellation is incredible. The sound is good. It's pretty much everything I want from a set of headphones that I would take around, like not at my desk, but that I go around and walk in the dog or whatever, like all that stuff is happening. So yeah, I'm pretty positive about it.

pretty positive about it um uh for i don't know i mean the the airpods max still exists and hasn't been updated and it's not it's very weird and awkward and uh like i said about apple watch being kind of like the main apple watch just seems like it's kind of static right now and uh that's enough for me not to give it five out of five so you give a four for both okay for me i give a four for the apple watch and a five for the overall category so with the apple watch i think the apple watch ultra is awesome right like it looks cool they're doing a bunch of really interesting things in it it's something new and exciting but the series 8 i still want a redesign of the regular Apple Watch, and it's still not happening, and I can't fathom it at this point. But AirPods 2, rule. AirPods 2 might be the best thing Apple did last year.

Maybe the AirPods Pro 2, I should say. It's in contention with me with the MacBook Air. Like, I had my AirPods Pro in yesterday. I wasn't listening to anything at the time. I could pause something or whatever. And I whistled and I noticed my AirPods bring the volume down. And I was like, just every now and then it gets me. And I'm like, that adaptive transparency, like the noise cancellation is just unbelievable on something so small. But the adaptive transparency is so good. And I love the volume control. That takes a little bit to get used to,

but once you get used to it, it's an excellent addition. Quinn Nelson said, AirPods Pro 2 are one of the greatest products Apple has ever created. Marco Armit says, The second generation AirPods Pro improved on an already excellent product. Apple Watch Ultra was a bold risk to expand the watch lineup, and it worked out very well. And Alex Cox said, I used to joke that Apple is the only company I trusted watch ultra was a bold risk to expand the watch lineup and it worked out very well and alex cox

said i used to joke that apple is the only company i trusted i mentioned with my menschelwerk physical but the u.s supreme court made that monkey's paw uh into a harsh reality but this was the great thing about the series a is the temperature thing that got added it was very uh singular in focus but compared to the was it six when they added the blood oxygen, they actually had something you could use it for, rather than just like, hey, we do this now. So they had an accurate story around the product,

although I think overall the Series 8 didn't really move forward in a meaningful way. Apple TV got a B grade with an average of 3.6 what did you give it? I'm going to say

4 going to be on the high side with this one I use Apple TV every day this year they updated the product and they made a cheaper version of the product, um, which we've been asking them to do. I feel like the Apple TV now makes sense because Apple has put all of its stuff, um, on every box and TV that they can, that, um, what they, the pressures off the Apple TV in that way, right? Like it doesn't need to be the

thing like, well, if you want Apple stuff, you got to buy an Apple TV box and they're expensive. And now it's more like, I don't know, this year I feel more comfortable with the Apple TV as being just a premium product that you pay more. And do you get more? I think there are arguments. I, I try to keep up on those other boxes i have a roku tv in my house i have a uh i have a fire tv i buy a new fire tv stick or box every so often just to keep up on the on the um on the state of the art what i would say is uh if people are bothered by the amount of sort of apple tv marketing that apple does in uh on the apple tv they should see what is happening on the roku and on the amazon products because it's it's way worse plus there's

that argument about like those companies want your data for various reasons um and although you can turn that stuff off like amazon's products especially their marketing products the amazon products are sold to you uh at a loss or a discount because they are trying to make it up on selling you stuff. Like, that's just how it works. That's why I abandoned my Echo show. So having Apple TV out there as a, I would say, nicer but more expensive equivalent, I feel more comfortable with that. Now, Apple TV is a mess in terms of the software. There are a lot of issues with it.

I've had remotes that become ghosts that flicker on the screen and I have to wipe them and repair them and stuff. Some of the software is good. Some of the apps, some of the software is bad. But I will say I don't, I, I have, I use it every day and I still give it a good score. So that's what I would say is it's not perfect, but I think it's pretty good. And having used some of the alternatives, I appreciate how good the Apple TV stuff is. Plus being in Apple's ecosystem,

having the fitness app there and all that, like that stuff is good too. I'm not happy with everything they've done in addition to their usual quirks. They changed the behavior of the up next view in the latest software update to make it feel more like you're forced to watch an animated ad while you're browsing what you want to watch next. It used to be when you browsed up next, there was like a big picture of the thing you were currently selecting that was reinforcing what you were currently selecting. And now that is a separate space for Apple to promote stuff. And I will say it also feels like Apple has,

I feel like Apple TV used to be a little more like Apple was trying to curate the whole entertainment universe that was available on Apple TV used to be a little more like Apple was trying to curate the whole entertainment universe that was available on Apple TV and that they also had the Apple TV tab where you could get Apple TV plus tab where you could get their own content. I don't feel that way anymore. I feel like Apple is only now paying lip service to the existence of other services. And almost everything that I see is a promo for a program on Apple TV+. And while I understand it, I don't like it.

I preferred the approach that like in the TV Plus tab, it's all about TV Plus, but out in the main tab of the TV app on Apple TV, it should be a little more like many services are available on your Apple TV.

Here are some things you could watch. In fact, the system should know which ones are there and linked and logged in and all of that linked to the TV app. They should know that. And so it should be able to say, Oh, you have paramount plus,

did you know about this thing and all that? And the truth is nine times out of 10, it feels like it's some, some often old Apple TV plus stuff that they're like trying to push my way and i don't i don't love that about it because that makes them seem a little more uh amazon-y but again not to the extent of amazon and roku so anyway that's my that's my uh apple tv state of the uh state of state of the year how about you i gave it a three i mean and i'm giving it a three based on everything you said like i'm frustrated with them

but like in a way that i expect them to do some of this stuff right like it seemed like a natural thing that over time they would trend more towards promoting their own stuff yeah um but really for me i just feel like apple is doing purely what is needed and nothing more, and there is more they could do. They could do more for tvOS. They could do more to make the TV app what it should be, as you say, like an actual destination. Netflix could be in there if Apple was willing to give Netflix what they wanted, which I still think they should do.

And they could also be doing more on hardware. They could have even more cheaper options. Like Benjamin Mayo made a good point and said the most important thing for the Apple TV box was to make it cheaper. And they did that. And I think that's great. But it could still be cheaper. Especially because they offer software versions of the TV app, right? I feel like it's a more reasonable argument now that Apple is making that Apple product, right? That more expensive than the competition,

but you know, but it's also nicer. Cause I do think that that's, that's true. And then when you compare it to not the rock bottom one, but the one that sort of meets it in terms of specs, again, the Apple one is more expensive,

but you can make that argument. You're in the ecosystem, you get some extra things and all of that. It's at least arguable in a way that I think maybe before it was not at all. And I understand Apple not wanting to go down there. And I also understand that part of the appeal is that Apple is not going to be using your data like Amazon and Roku are. But a lot of us want Apple to be more competitive with those companies and basically say, you don't need to sell your data to Amazon. We have a product that you can buy instead. And the problem is that I don't think they're ever, not only is Apple not going to go down there, but they're also never going to beat companies that

are designed to undercut their price in order to get more people so that they can get more data. Yeah. It's great that they don't sell my my data but they also should be giving me a good experience of good recommendations right i agree i mean yes yes we've talked about this before like the the i mean well also the truth is roku you can turn it off right like i mean you you can turn it off but uh i get it i get people wanting to uh to buy into the apple tv thing i think it can be overstated about the, the, the differences between them, but I don't know. I, I, like I said, I think the bottom line three would be perfectly reasonable too. Uh, I gave it four, but like, I see where you're coming from. Um, I just think it's one of those things that over the last few years, I have gone from

being like, I've got an Apple TV out here and then then I've got a Roku over here, and I've got an Amazon thing over here on the various TVs in my house. And my daughter has an Apple TV, my mom has an Apple TV, and we have multiple Apple TVs in our house now. Because it's reached the point where I'm like, you know what, I don't think that the experience on those other devices is good enough, and I'd rather spend for this and use it. And Casey List wrote, the remotes are great i appreciate that the new one charges via usbc the software isn't perfect but honestly it's consistent and mostly stays out of the way which is as you said good point it's a reason to do it right like the software might not be great but it's not in your face either and it works yeah this episode is brought to you in part by our friends over ExpressVPN.

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Services got a B plus grade at a 3.8 average which is an increase over last year but still not hitting the highs of the four in 2020 where would you put it i'll give it a four okay i think that i remember when apple was bad at services i think apple's actually pretty good at services i'm an apple one bundle person yeah uh it saved me money and uh yeah i know they've raised their prices and all that but like i feel like i get a lot of value after the out of the apple one bundle especially you know i clouded music and tv plus but the rest of it too and it's uh yeah i i i think they're doing a pretty good job i i think my questions about services are more about the company as a whole relying on services than I am about the actual services where I think they actually do a pretty good job. This is an easy five for me.

So many of my favorite TV shows of last year came from TV Plus, right? So like Severance, For All Mankind, loads uh loads severance my favorite show of last year and it's an apple tv plus show that's pretty good and i will say this doesn't count but i will add it in uh if you're not watching shrinking oh it's so good oh my god i love it somebody sent this to me on my phone it's true like it's it's like Ted Lasso good like in the way it makes me feel like it is

hilarious it's got similarities it definitely does I would I wanted to mention also actually my favorite movie of last year um

was uh Tragedy of Macbeth that's a Washington that's a that's a TV Plus movie so that got the upgrade

didn't it they got the yeah they got the they got the uh they got the two for last year pretty good content on that that TV Plus movie. That got the upgrade, didn't it? They got the, yeah, they got the, they got the two for last year. Pretty good content on that, that TV Plus. So, yeah.

By the way, just to save the follow up, I know that, we know that Shrinking is Ted Lasso made, basically, right? Yes.

Like, you don't need to tell us Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence are the ones behind Shrinking. That's why it's got a little bit of that vibe. Harrison Ford is in it and Harrison Ford,

hilarious, right? I laugh out loud. Se good i laugh out loud at every episode of shrinking yeah and you know what there are not that many comedies that make me laugh out loud yeah uh yeah it's it's i really enjoy it so good but that's not what we're talking about here today uh stephen hackett said after years and years of begging users of icloud photos have finally had their cries answered in the form of family sharing. It's true. That's a big win. That's definitely in the favor of Apple services that iCloud photos, which is already pretty solid

now added that family sharing feature at long last. Again, do we reward them for doing a feature that they should have done six years ago? Probably, I guess, a little bit, but, you know, yeah. Now that it's here, it's good. Casey Liss, he's back again, says, I don't like that. I feel like they're just nickeling and diming all their customers to death. It seems like everything you must have a services component or it never sees the light of day.

Well, this is the, this is the other part of it, right? Which is, do you judge Apple services based on the services they offer or based on what they're doing to the company's approach to products. And Casey took the other approach. One of the beauties of the report card is it is in the eye of the beholder. It really is. What do you think of this open-ended question? I personally didn't heavily consider that in this category because I don't think that that's like, I don't think the fault of the services.

But who else are you going to blame, I guess? Exactly. I do think that there is this real question, which is, I worry about Apple trying to generate services revenue by creating products that are not useful or that are useful and should have been part of the product but were withheld and made part of the service. And they haven't done that so much, but I'm concerned that as they go down this path, we're going to get more of that stuff where you're no longer buying a whole product

when you buy an Apple product. You're buying an expensive, nice Apple product that you also need to pay a lot of money in add-on services for it to do what you want. And I think that down that path could potentially be really bad for the company long-term. But on the flip side, Federico Vatici says, I'm very happy with Apple's expansion as a services company in the past few years. In fact, I hope Apple does even more and continues to grow in this field. Sure. They just need to do it right and not do it bad.

Because the stuff that they've done this good is so good, right? Yeah. No, the only one that gave me pause at all was some of the privacy stuff that they said, you've got to be an iCloud Plus user to get on the iPhone're some of their ip hiding mail privacy like there's some stuff where like you've got to pay them to get an os feature it doesn't really seem that that stuff works very well yeah that's that's the stuff that gives me the heebie-jeebies though right like that's the stuff where i feel like we are now sort of saying would you like your phone to work better um pay us and i don't know like privacy features are private like i i can get it when they're like well yeah but we have to set up a whole network of services and it costs us servers and it costs us money and like yes i totally

understand it and yet it gives me just like it's like wait a second i feel like we're we're if we haven't crossed the line we're like right on the line now of you selling incomplete products that must be completed through services. And that's the danger. Not what Federico says, which is do more services that are great. Like if Apple can make more services that are great, like Apple TV+, let's like bring it on. Let's do it. If those exist, whatever those would be. Or fitness.

Need like service, but they don't charge for them, right? Notes, messages, reminders. Just because there is a cost doesn't mean they have to charge you, right? But sometimes they choose to. It's true. HomeKit and Home got a D+, so 2.7 out of 5, which is exactly level with where it was in 2021, what would you rate the home efforts? I'm going to give it a 2.

Okay. And these are my two data points that I'm going to throw out there. One is I got a home key lock this year. And home key is great. And I'm so happy that Apple built that. And I'm so happy that products are rolling out that have home key support in it because it means that instead of the weird bluetooth stuff that we used to do i can walk up to my front door and touch my apple watch to the face of the lock and it unlocks and lauren can do that too and julian can do that with his phone when he's home and jamie can do that with her phone when she's home because i don't have apple watches um that's so great and the And the old smart lock just wasn't reliable because it was Bluetooth and I have to see you go and then you come back

and then you wait and maybe it unlocks or maybe you have to put the code in or whatever. Home key, great little feature, part of HomeKit, really nice. I like it. Then my second point is everything else. But if I had to boil if I had to boil it down, it would be this, which is Apple and all of the people on the panel said this. Apple is in essentially in stasis because they're waiting for matter. Matter got delayed. Matter is now out, but it's not really. Apple's support of matter isn't out. Of course, famously, they tried to do this underlying architecture change late last year. They had to stop rolling it out because something bad happened and they were like breaking people's houses again. So that's the problem here is I actually have a lot of hope in the smart home category for Apple because I do think Matter is made to address a lot of the issues we have with HomeKit.

The problem is it's just not here. we have with HomeKit. The problem is it's just not here. Like it has been so slow, not only for the products to come out, but for Apple's support for it to come out. So maybe 2023 will be the year that Apple gets it together because Matter, it becomes a thing

and it solves a lot of these problems. But right now, this was a whole year where we waited around for Matter and it never showed up. Yeah, as Shirley Brisbane said, the matter transition continues to be rough and will hopefully work itself out in 2023. Yeah, like this, I gave mine a two as well, because it's like, really, there was two things that they did. Like, they did a redesign of the Home app, which was, like, fine. Like, it's fine.

And the Matter rollout, which i don't even know it is unclear exactly what went wrong but it went wrong enough that they had to redo it um and i just think in general the product offering is uninspiring like the actual hardware the home hardware that apple make and sell is just not really great and they, and they make, and they make so little of it. And this is the, this is the other point too, right? Which is what's Apple doing in this category? They,

they, they, we now have a second big HomePod and we have the existing HomePod, uh, HomePod mini. Um, so they've got those, but like they're,

they miss the boat in a bunch of categories. Are they going to come back? Are they not? Uh, does matter give them the opportunity to say, Oh no, everything works with our stuff now and it's all great? It's been the mystery. We have talked about it for several years now. It is this mystery of Apple's home strategy. What is it and does it exist? It seems to exist in some way because they've got the HomePod and the Apple TV and HomeKit, and yet there's very little tangible evidence of it.

And Matter was the biggest thing to come along, and it's still not here. Hardware reliability got an A at 4.5, which has maintained this score for the last three years, probably because of the keyboards, I'm assuming. What do you think on that? Yeah, I think that's about it. Yeah, like hardware reliability, sure. I'll say five, sure. This is a place, Apple's doing great here. I have not personally had any hardware problems.

The hardware problems have been, or the hardware has been solid. Everybody's happy with Apple Silicon and happy that there are no butterfly keyboards anymore and i'd go along with that i feel i feel like this is apple's strength right now is that their hardware is just churning along yeah i was a five two it's like i don't really have anything to say everything's great no issues here right um i like what ste Stephen said which like users can also get their own parts now through the self-service repair program like not only is there no issues

you now have even more ways to fix these things even if maybe you wouldn't realistically but it's a good showing at least from them that they're continuing to put more effort into this area software quality got a B- at 3.4. That is the same score as last year.

Where would you rate Apple's software quality out of 5? This one has so much bundled into it. It's a complicated one i think to score yeah i'm gonna say three because my the the quality of the software i'm running is pretty good in the in the ways of like do it doesn't let me do my job does it crash does it get weird and the answer is not so much right and like the mac especially i feel like the the update was not a an update that introduced about a bunch of problems in terms of stability however the reason it's only a three is there's the rest of it right there's that there's the uh especially that system

preferences app on the mac which again just was a mistake. I think there is this lingering concern about the Mac and like, is it stagnating? And what's going on with SwiftUI? And what's the future of software on the Mac? And is it web apps or is it iOS apps or is it Mac apps? Or do we know? But I think that there are some lingering concerns and there's some stupid moves that they've done.

And yet, day to day, my Mac and my iPad and my iPhone actually work pretty well. I gave it a three. Stage Manager could have been so great, right? Like just in general. I use it and like it on my Mac. I want to love it on my Mac, and I want to want to use it on my iPad. I feel like one of those things where this happens every couple of years, during the keynote, the WWDC keynote, they show off a thing,

and it's like, oh my God, they've done it. And then you get it, and you're like, oh, no, they didn done it. And then you get it and you're like, oh no, they didn't, right? Like once you've actually spent some time with it and I feel like this is it. However, you know, I am a person who happily uses Stage Manager on macOS all day, every day. And I work with it and around it and it works for me. Devendra Hardwar agrees. It's very nice to see Apple change up its multitasking philosophy with Stage Manager. David Sparks says, it's becoming increasingly clear that Apple is turning up the dial on their productivity software. Notes, then reminders, and now mail are increasingly feeling more powerful and useful. This year, we got another entry with Freeform. And John Gruber says,

I still have the same concerns about the direction of Apple software design that I did last year, especially on the Mac. But I think the software reliability has been excellent. I think that's a good point, right? You look at something like, like macOS was great overall, right? But then you've got system settings, which is rough. It's every time I open it, I'm like, I don't know where anything is. I always have searched but there were a bunch of things where I didn't you know like what I had something I had to do uh last week Jason I had a um I was having an issue with my wire connection in the studio but there is like a kind of private semi-private public wi-fi that I would connect to if I was waiting for something to be fixed on my Ethernet switch.

And so I had to reorder the priority of Ethernet and Wi-Fi. It's like buried under like three menus. Why is it so hard? You know, like I know where that used to be. I would go to network. But like I've opened it now and like, it's like, okay, network. And then it's under a there is a

a button which is three dots and an arrow pointing down right what is what kind of button is that the button is three dots it's a mystery button and then you hit that button and then you can get the set service order but what is a button that is just three dots i guess it means more but why not say more right like this what what is a three dot button you know stuff like that it's weird yeah yeah i uh i called out the um the the wi-fi is a good example of that where there's like these things like they've got an advanced button it's like why is this it's like we want to hide this stuff from you but some of it we'll put there but some of it we won't there's so many inconsistencies in

so many different places um but yeah the in the networking, that three dot button is bananas, right? But that's the, they put back the locations and the set service order. But why does that one not say advanced? In the wifi, it says advanced down there. And that one, it just says dot, dot, dot with a dropdown. And like, well, I mean, look,

I wrote about this for several thousand words this summer and the short version of it is Apple's a big company. They've got a bunch of people who they employ to do things like style guides and software architecture. And it feels like this is a project that didn't even get supervision in terms of like organizational structure and style guides. Like somebody should be saying, here's what these buttons, here's the rules for when you use this and when you use that. And that app does not show any evidence that that happened.

And if there was somebody who was trying to do that, nobody listened to them. Because this is an app that needs a style guide. It needs information architecture. It needs organizational structure. I could go on and I did all summer.

So I'm going to leave it there. It's a mess. Developer relations got a C-, which is a 2.8 score, which is the same as last year. Yeah. And I was thinking at first, I was like,

oh, I thought it would have been lower than last year, but then I remembered the year prior was when there was all that stuff with like, hey, right? Yeah. And there were a lot of issues around just like app store approval and then there was like they had to do a dog and pony show on that one change a bunch of rules uh where would you uh write developer relations for 2022

torn between a two and a three i think i'm gonna give it a two okay i appreciate that apple has done some things to improve their relationship with developers, like the Developer Center and everything else that they did for WWDC. And having developers come to WWDC. And I think that that is a great event. And the sessions they put out are great. There's so many positive things about that. And I like that we continue. many positive things about that. And I like that we continue, you know, a lot of people we know are small developers who fall under their small business thing and means that Apple is only taking

15% and not 30% from them. And that continues to be good. And yet I have to say, everything else is so bad that it's gotten to the point where, like, okay. And we have friends who worked on this, but like, let's talk about that developer center, which is a beautiful building located across the street from Apple Park. And we were in it, or sorry, I was in it for an episode about Chrome. Why?

You were not. Why would you do this? You were there virtually. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. I know, I know, I know. And I've been inside it, and a bunch of us were inside it. Some healthy people are inside.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. Let me just... I'm trying to make a serious point here, so let me make it. I appreciate all the work that went into it and all the effort that went into it, and I don't doubt that those people really want to have people work in developer relations really want to have great it's their job they want to have great relationships with developers and yet with all that other stuff that's going on it's very hard for me to not look at that

and ultimately just say it's a pr ploy like i i, it's gotten to that point now where when I look at Apple doing nice things for developers, I can't look at it as being anything. And it was always a little bit of that, but like now as anything other than kind of greenwashing, right. Kind of saying, Oh no,

no, no, look, look, don't regulate us. We actually do care we are doing the look at all look at what we do voluntarily um while they're getting squeezed by regulators and uh threatened by uh politicians in the u.s and and elsewhere the reason the scores i

think stayed so low this year in the six color survey is this happened not too long after they rolled out that ad unit on App Store app pages that was full of gambling ads and other really gross stuff. And as I said at the time, but I want to repeat it here, the issue isn't just the advertising. The issue is also that that app page is the only place that developers are allowed to have a relationship really with their users in the app store because of all of apple's other rules where apple wants you to think of yourself as an apple customer not the customer of a third-party developer third-party developers can't communicate with those users via email or anything like that or offer things there's all sorts of things or

links to their website or anything like that because because again, it's all controlled by Apple. And so it was really like the most unkind cut of all. It was that, that they were then putting a sleazy ad on that page. And then we can look at everything we've detailed on this podcast in terms of Apple. Every time Apple is doing something to add a tool to the developer's toolbox, it's something that developers have wanted for more than a decade that Apple has steadfastly refused. And when they do offer it, it is either because they realize they're going to be forced to or they are forced to. And those are the options. So it's just a tough situation when I talk to people who I know who are Apple developers. I feel like the hope is gone in a lot of ways. There used to be hope that Apple would

kind of get to this and change its mind and all of that. I think the only hope that remains now is the hope that external forces basically demand that Apple change its ways, because I think everybody has sort of resigned over the last year, Apple statements in various cases. It seems to me Apple has hardened its resolve that the stuff that it does that bothers developers is actually right and what they should be doing and the developers should like it and take it. And I don't know, waiting for the EU or something to sweep in and demand that Apple give developers more rights. That's like, that's what they're left with now. And it just, it seems like a completely dysfunctional relationship that if you want to view it as entirely a transactional relationship, a financial relationship, I mean, that's what it feels like at this point. And it certainly feels like that by the other part of this, which is Apple's claims that they have to have the app store be exclusive because it's a well-monitored area full of, you know, that they're curating and

all of that. Because the truth is that there's all sorts of awful stuff that stays in there seemingly because of the financial transactional relationship between Apple and those developers of sleazy apps. Apple wants the money. And so they stay in the store. And then there's also other scam apps. And it's just like the App Store isn't a clean, well-lighted, carefully curated place. And so that directly contradicts all of their claims. So yeah, I think at this point, Apple no longer receives any benefit of the doubt, not from me and not from developers when it comes to this stuff. I think they've shown their true face. And their true face is, you know, show me the money, do what I say, and we won't change our ways. Even if we think that they're, you know, even if they're

wrong, even if you think they're wrong, we don't. We won't change our ways. You're going to have to make us. And that's a tough partner to have if you're a developer. I want to read a quote from John Syracuse's answer. Apple seems to merely tolerate developers and developers continue to mostly tolerate Apple. But too much has been said and done to damage the relationship. Apple's reflexive

expressions of love for developers now ring hollow. Developers' complaints continue to fall on deaf ears. The only thing that seems to move Apple at all is the threat of government regulation. I always want to give them a 1 in this category, and that's kind of where I

feel, but for me, I gave them a 3 because of WWDC. I think there are people that care, and the care that those people have was shown during the week of WWDC this year. What they did for people that couldn't make it or didn't want to travel, and what they did for the people that did travel. And I think that that was good.

I think that's the shame of it, right? Is that we know people at Apple who care a lot about developers. It's undeniably the case. And yet at a higher level within Apple, you know, they will still do what they're doing. And that's because at a higher level within Apple, they've decided these are the policies. And so what you end up with is a bunch of people at lower levels who are saying, look, we know what the policies are, but we love you. and at least we care about you. And it's just a very difficult dynamic

because I don't doubt those people. Those people are, that's their job is to do that. I just, I feel now my attitude toward it has been that those people essentially are there in order to have the people at the higher levels being able to point at them and say, see, we care about developers. And it's like, well, they care about developers, but the decisions you're making person who's

pointing at them, I'm not so sure about you. Right. So that's where we are, unfortunately. And, and, you know, Mike, I know we, this is stuff, this is basically another year in review and Apple overview episode that we're doing here. We talk about this week to week, but like the, I think maybe our biggest frustration about this is it didn't have to be this way, right? That, that Apple could have, could have come out with a little bit of a different attitude and then they wouldn't be facing the scrutiny. They wouldn't have the anger, but like instead

they chose the path, which was no, we are going to fight every battle. We're never going to relinquish control. We're never going to leave a dollar on the table. And they chose this path. And that's really too bad because for 10 years a bunch of us have been waving our arms saying, don't do this, don't do this. And they have chosen in many ways some of the most extreme choices along the way. So it's too bad. It's not like this is a 2022 problem.

Right. None of this is new. I mean, this started when the App Store started, really, and has gone on. And they've reformed some of those issues. And again, it's not a little thing to go to that small business program is not a little thing to let the smaller developers only give Apple 15%. Like that's not a small thing that's had a huge impact on some of those smaller developers. But all these other issues remain. or other things to public areas, they've decided that their strategy is going to be, we're right and we're going to take it all the way

and you're going to have to make us. And even then, we're only going to follow the letter of the law. It's like, okay, all right. And then finally, social and societal... Oh, I said I gave a three for that one. I don't remember. I fell out of correlations. I gave a three.

Social and societal impact. Because a B minus, an average of 3.4, which is a slight increase over last year, but still down on some of the heady days of the four points that we've gotten here. Out of five, how would you rank Apple's social and societal impact? I don't even know how to answer this one.

I'm fascinated by this category because the whole idea here is uh apple says it wants to make the world a better place how's it doing it's sort of the way that i did this and also remember when i started this in early 2016 asking about 2015 um or maybe it was late 2015 asking about 2015 i um you know there was stuff in the news about apple in china and apple with environmental concerns and like and that stuff like the issues ebb and flow and change over time but there's always this idea that apple is out there saying look we're making the world a better place and uh if you're gonna like a company that didn't do that i don't know if i would ask about

it but like they brought it up so how do we feel about Apple making the world a better place? And in a lot of ways, like environmentally, I think that they actually have made a lot of progress. they use, especially, you know, not just aluminum where they're, you know, most of their stuff is becoming recycled aluminum, but they're trying to do that with the rare earth minerals. And they're really trying to reclaim things from out of their, um, out of their older products, uh, that get turned back in. Although I know that you could make the point that if they really, really cared, they could also boost what they pay for old products to get them back this is my saber rattling on this one like i think apple's trade-in this is i gave them a three and for me i think the social and societal impact one is like a litmus test for the whatever thing is that someone cares about the most maybe more than any of these other ones because it

is so broad for me i just feel like Apple talks such a big game over the environment. But the amount of money that they offer for trade-ins is smaller than other companies that will also buy your devices back. And I feel like considering they have the most to gain over the reclaiming of these products and also the most money in the first place,

that they should offer a higher amount. Like if it goes back to Apple, Apple can either sell it on or recycle the parts which they use to make more iPhones that they sell to you. And if you give a good trade-in credit, you'll buy another iPhone, you won't take that cash and spend it on something else, and then you'll be still back in the ecosystem giving Apple more money on all their services. They should be offering more money for trade-ins than anybody else,

but they offer so much lower money on trade-ins than independent companies that want to buy your devices, and I don't understand it. So it bugs me. Stephen Hackett says, Apple continues to do important work in the areas of environmental conservation and social, but the back and forth over its return to office plans and its willingness to look the other way in China

continue to be troublesome, if not downright hypocritical. Shelley Brisbane says, Apple's accessibility updates this year were pretty good, as was Apple's much appreciated decision to feature accessibility-related announcements in a context of their own. And Lex Friedman says, seeing Tim go on walks with Elon

isn't quite as aggravating as seeing tim bend the knee to donald trump but until and unless apple can decouple itself from china all the recyclable elements in the world won't negate its overall societal weaknesses there's a lot like i said there's a lot going on and everybody brings their own their own thoughts to it um i think it's interesting that apple is now trying to not rely on China quite so much. But again, I think the issue there is more about their survival than their feeling like they don't want to be in business with China, right? Like, it's not the same.

So, yeah, I appreciate this category every year. Because really, what I'm doing is it's a fill in the blank of like, I appreciate this category every year because really, really what I'm doing is it's a fill in the blank of like, what do you think Apple is making the world a better place or no? Explain, right? Like, and you end up getting this kind of vibe. I'll point out that this number has come down. The trend is downward, even though it went up slightly this year. The trend, general trend is downward.

So I think that over the time, it's almost lost a full point of average on the panel. So I would say people's feelings about whether Apple is making the world a better place in 2015 were a lot more positive than they are in 2023. The more you say it, the harder it is to actually do it. Jason, thank you for putting together the scorecard again. I think this is a valuable resource in our community i know it's a lot of work but it is greatly appreciated it's you know i get to generate some charts i got to put some numbers in some spreadsheets and i get to read you know tens of thousands of words from people who submitted tens of thousands of words i want to point out that what i what i tell people is not don't you dare write long responses right which is i think how steven took it which is and by the way it's great there's i need to do a link post today about uh all the people who posted their results because like

the people who wrote a lot i edited it down and thought well you can just post your results on your own website if you want to and i know feder Federico did and Steven did and John Gruber did. That is true. I love that. The reason I say that is because there was one year early on where Christina Warren wrote like full blog posts essentially for every one of the categories. And I was like, Christina, I can't use this. So now what it's doing is

it's not because I listened to Connected last week and Steven's like, oh, I made Jason mad by sending him a lot of words. It's like, you know, I don't mind reading them. I just edit them down. It does cause me a little bit of work, but that's not the issue. The reason I say what I say when I send that out is that it eliminates my guilt when I cut their responses, right? That's the look. I told you I didn't need you to write a lot and that if you wrote a lot, I would cut them. So that's how that ends up.

But it's great to read them. And then I cut a lot of them. And it's a fun idea. It wasn't mine. Koi Vin, the designer, suggested this to me in 2015 and he said somebody should do this maybe it's you and I said sure let's do it and it's it's a good thing I like again

what does it tell us I think is the overarching question and I think the answer is I'm just trying to get the sense of the vibe in the room I really is that which is like what's the mood of people who pay attention to Apple right now what's their mood about people who pay attention to Apple right now? What's their mood about Apple's business in various categories? Is it better? Is it worse? What are they concerned

about? And I think that's the value of it is just sort of getting that sense of how's everybody feeling? What are the hotspots? What are the spots where Apple's doing great? And I think that's the value of it and it's worth doing. Now, why is that important? Why do you want something that's just for you? Well, personal fitness shouldn't be about competing with other people. You want something that is for you because that's when it's going to work for you. It's when it will stick and you'll see the results that you're looking for. So Fitboard does this. They have an algorithm that learns about you and your goals and your training ability to create a custom dynamic program based on your experience and access to equipment,

all in an app that makes it incredibly easy for you to learn and perform every exercise. They have over 1,400 HD video tutorials shot from multiple angles to make sure that learning every exercise is a breeze. And because everybody's fitness path is different, FitBod will use data to make sure they customize things to suit you exactly.

Their powerful technology understands your strength training ability, studies your past workouts, and adapts to the equipment that you have. Your training plan will maximize fitness gains by intelligently varying intensity and volume between sessions. I love FitBod. There's a few things that I love about it. I love the videos because it makes it really easy for me to learn every exercise. So if I'm doing something new, I can see how they look and from the different angles to make sure that I'm positioning my body right for the strength training stuff. And also I love how it integrates with my Apple Watch. So I can move through, I can adjust reps and sets there if I want to, if I want to do more or less or something. And also if there's exercises

that I know, like I can see what the exercise is and if I know what it is, I can just do it. But then if I need the video, then I'll go look at my phone and get the video. So I don't have to have my phone in front of me the whole time while I'm working out. Personalized training of this quality can be expensive, but FitBod is just $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year. But you can get a massive 25% off your membership by signing up at fitbod.me upgrade. That is quite a chunk of an annual plan. Go now and get your customized fitness plan at fitbod.me upgrade and you will get 25% off your membership. That is fitbod.me upgrade to get that 25% discount. Our thanks to Fitbod for their support of this show and RelayFM. Let's finish up today

with some Ask Upgrade questions. First comes from Austin who asks, How do you listen to podcast live streams? Are there any certain apps or services that you use for this? Broadcast by Steve Troughton-Smith.

Works on the Mac, works on the iPad, works on the iPhone, works on the iPad. Works on the iPhone. Works on the Apple Watch. I actually listen to Connected live on Wednesdays while walking my dog. Amazing. And I'm only listening on the cellular Apple Watch because I don't bring my phone with me using AirPods. It's great. Yeah, that is the way to do it.

The experience is great. Connected, you know, it comes and is the way the experience is great connected you know it comes and goes but the experience i can't believe it i can't believe it you know can you imagine that you would say this directly to my ears you never you never hear such a thing uh you can listen in a bunch of ways websites like we have the way the way that broadcast works is that there are like there are urls available right So you can listen with the URL to the relay live stream, like what we're doing now, the ATP live stream and others.

That's the URL that pipes into our Discord, but that can be a semi-reliable experience in the Discord. We recommend people check out broadcasts because Steve Transmit's awesome. The app is great. It's really nice and is a great way to listen to this stuff roy wrote in and says your conversation about maggie rogers last month had me re-listening to surrender and i wondered do either of you have

a do you have like first listen headphones the convenience of airpods means they're with me 100% of the time and i found myself listening to albums for the first time through them. I wonder if you consider song fidelity when listening to something for the first time on AirPods, especially from an artist that you like a lot. So Jason, do you have like a rule of thumb for listening to an album for the first time? Is it headphones, speakers? Do you have specific hardware

that you like to listen to it on? Sorry to disappoint everybody. No don't you don't i mean but i think that's an interesting question in of itself right like roy wants to know like do you do you consider it and so no the only thing i consider when i'm listening to a new album is am i going to be able to pay attention to it or not. Cause like most of my music listening that happens is at my desk and I have the Sonos one speakers and I play music while I work because I play music that's familiar enough that unless I'm, unless I'm writing, in which case I might go to some specific playlists in general, I just got the music on and it's fine. And so if I'm working on something

deeply, a new album from an artist that I love coming out and me playing it, I'm not going to be able to work on anything deeply because I'm going to need to pay attention. So either I'm going to press play and listen and essentially not work, or I'm going to go, you know, I'll listen to it later in a different setting. And that might be AirPods or it might be in my living room. Who knows what on the, on the speakers, the 5.1 system I have in my living room.

I mean, maybe, uh, or, but I've also had it happen where it's been like in the car because I'm driving somewhere and the new album came out and I'm listening to it in the car and you're like, Oh,

but the fidelity is like, yes, but the complete attention put on the album is the contrast there, right? Like it, would I rather listen on amazing headphones, but not pay attention or listen on car speakers and pay attention? And the answer is the latter, right? I think the attention is part of it, partially because I owe it to that album to listen to it and pay attention, but also because I know if it's something that's unfamiliar there's no way i'm going to be able to

pay attention to something else and have it playing in the background because that's not how my brain works i need it to be somewhat familiar for me to be able to kind of like not pay attention to every word that's going on i am pretty similar to you like if it's the first time that i'm listening to an album i will want to listen to it in a way that i can give more attention to it so i can listen to the lyrics and stuff like and try and kind of get a sense of it a little bit more than to just put it on in the background but then once i know it i'm happy to just have it on more i've also found that sometimes I appreciate an album much more on second, third,

fourth listen. And that, that in some ways it's better for me to process it a little bit first and then listen to it sitting in my living room with the volume up high sometimes, but I don't have a ritual for it and I don't have special headphones for it or anything like that. I do.

I always do like to check if an album's in a special audio, like the Dol or anything like that. I do. I always do like to check if an album's in special audio like the Dolby Atmos because I do. I am a person who really enjoys that experience. So if that's the case, then I will also want to make sure that I'm listening on my AirPods Pro for that, which tend to be how I listen to music when I'm not at home anyway. Liam asks, do you have any hidden home screen pages do you hide home screen pages no i have lots of them for various focus modes so i have like travel home screens i have weekend home screens uh what else i have uh yeah travel and weekend and like vacation home screens. Like there's specific apps and widgets

that turn on and off depending on focus modes. So I actually use that feature quite a lot and I'm happy that they added it because then I get to have a bunch of very specific home screens for very specific times. So yes, I have loads of them. Nice. If you would like to send in a question of your own,

the best place to go is upgradefeedback.com and you can send an Ask Upgrade question. Very soon, there's going to be the ability for you to tag a submission. It's just like follow-up or Ask Upgrade or Snow Talk. It's coming very, very soon. Maybe even the next couple of weeks. So that's super awesome. But you can just send them in however you like

and they will go into a bucket and I read it all and we'll put things in for follow-up and questions and stuff like that. It's not a real bucket. It's like just a list in the CMS. It's not an actual bucket. It all goes into a bucket, believe it or not. I print them all out, cut them up, put them in a bucket, and that's how I choose the questions.

How big is the bucket? Is it like a big five-gallon bucket? Huge. I have to keep getting a new bucket because there's so many questions. You should empty it. You should take those and recycle them. Oh, there's just that many, Jason. I'm questioning your commitment to the environment now, by the way.

It's 100% recycled paper that's recycled again. All right. You can check out Jason's writing at sixcolors.com and hear his podcast at theincomparable.com and here on RelayFM. You can listen to me here on RelayFM. Check out my work at cortexbrandcomparable.com and here on RelayFM. You can listen to me here on RelayFM. Check out my work at CortexBrand.com. You can send your feedback and questions to us at UpgradeFeedback.com.

Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. Today, we're going to play a game of Marvel Snap during Upgrade Plus, and we're going to make a video of it and put it in the show notes for Upgrade Plus. Go to GetUpgradePlus.com and sign up if that is of interest to you i want to thank our sponsors for this week's episode fitbod express vpn and ladder but most of all thank you for listening i'll be back next week until then say goodbye jason snell goodbye everybody take care of the podcast while i'm

gone see you in a few weeks bye