Upgrade - 502: It's the Way Towards Colour

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 502 for march 4th 2024 today's show is brought to you by fitbod expressvpn and squarespace my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike we are marching forth today. March the 4th be with you, Jason. And also with four. With all four. I have a Snell Talk question. It comes from John, and John wants to know,

Jason, did you ever attend the Apple Expos in Europe when they were a thing? Going to be an easy answer no okay what we did we did uh apple did some events in paris yeah we did send i think we sent phil michaels to one of those um we sent people to them occasionally but basically they were like little european trade shows but that apple was the driver of not idg and uh they did them for a few years and uh then they stopped but they they made some minor announcements there no we didn't i i never went i've never been i have never been to france i have been through france on a train but a couple of times but i've never been to france so i have no no is my answer probably the biggest thing uh announced there was mac os 10 public beta look at the wikipedia page yeah

it's got icloud and isync in 2002 big deal uh-huh big deal if you would like to send in a question for us to open a future episode of upgrade just like john did go to upgradefeedback.com and send in a snow talk of your own i have some follow-up for you jason okay uh so we got a number of people right in with various pieces of follow-up about the sports betting lines and odds in the sports app. Ryan and Peter both wrote in to say that while they never place bets, they're interested in the odds as a tool to help predict an outcome of a game,

which is good to know. Chris says, if a person doesn't have a particular interest in either team, maybe they don't know much about them, but would want to know who the underdog is, which is also a good thing. And Logan wrote in with something I thought was quite funny, saying the data source for the Apple Sports app

is too fast. I'm watching the Warriors game live on YouTube TV and I can find out if a team scores before they even cross half court. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. Streaming is often behind what you'd see on like more traditional TV.

And I found actually that the local feeds are further behind for whatever reason. So yes, and you know eddie q is standing at court side demanding immediacy and then you get do they have to put in a delay for you know can you set your streaming delay so that you aren't spoiled by it i mean probably if you're watching the game you shouldn't need to look down to see the score or i feel like maybe push notifications or you wouldn't want i don't know if i don't know if the sports app does them but uh you maybe wouldn't want that and some of these are it well yeah the tv app does though so you might see like it's a close game and be like uh i actually had that happen during the super bowl where i was where it was very clear that the

um 49ers were going to give up that touchdown to lose the Super Bowl and I got condolences from a friend before oh the final player was run what service did you watch the Super Bowl on um on Fubo on my local TV channel CBS which like I said the local streams are further behind we were talking about uh how we don't like Apple News because of the news sources Jeffer I'm of a top tip for anybody who wants to use Apple News. If you go to Settings, News, and Restrict Stories in Today, you can see just stories from the sources that you choose to follow rather than the stuff that's recommended. So I turned this feature on.

Very good. And it makes Apple News really weird. Okay. And there are still a lot of things where you are seeing weird sources uh-huh but i will say yeah it's it does make it better if you basically say look just don't show me literally anything i haven't said as a source uh-huh that uh it makes it better so i i appreciate it again i i still don't feel like apple's apple news' judgment about what I want to see matches at all what I want to see. So I think it's a product I would like to refrain from using.

But I will say thank you to Jeff because it's a lot less terrible source-wise. So yeah, that's a good feature. We were talking about the television app by Sandwich for Vision OS. The version 1.1 is out now, which has YouTube support. And they also put a couple more TVs in it. So I was just watching a 5.12 video on a Macintosh TV before we started recording today to get that full experience. So you can now watch YouTube in it, which is really good. That's a good addition to the app.

Very fun. And the Mac TV. Yeah, the Macintosh TV. It's in there. Yeah. Yeah. And so on last week's episode, we were also talking about the idea of how a HomePod with a screen could work.

And I was saying that maybe it would be cool if you could have some kind of eye tracking or hand tracking gestures to use the interface. Basically, as soon as we finished recording, I was on threads, and I saw a post from Swift student challenge developer Vedant of Vedant apps. They posted a video of their submission of their app doing exactly this. So it's a I think they're using it on a Mac. No, it's on an iPad. It's on an iPad of Magic Keyboard. They're using hand tracking, which I think is part of the accessibility stuff, to highlight UI.

And it kind of looks similar to tvOS. So I thought that was kind of funny. Like the technology kind of exists. It maybe could work as a way to use a device like this. It would be pretty cool. Yeah, I like it. Thank you to Venant for sending that in. It's just, all things are possible.

iOS 17.4 is due out today or this week, like next couple of days. So it'll be interesting to see how the DMA stuff advances over the coming days, if we're going to get any more about it, any more information. Set app has announced that it plans to offer an alternative app marketplace in april they have said that it will showcase a carefully selected assortment of apps including fan favorites from the set app catalog developers are able to apply to be in their marketplace now

i'm intrigued how that's going to work the way that this is phrased is interesting because as we've said if you are a developer of an app and you are and you want to be in an alternative marketplace you have to opt into the new terms in for europe so it i was thinking about this it can't be a one-to-one for Setapp apps in a Setapp marketplace because some of the apps that are in Setapp are probably not going to want to be in, aren't going to want to opt into the new terms, right? So it's a selected assortment, including some from the Setapp catalog. It'll be interesting to see how they position this whole thing, but that's going to be the challenge, right? Is that Setapp as a collection and as a product with a subscription, well, that's one thing.

But like, as an alternative marketplace, the only apps in there will be apps that choose to be a part of the European alternate terms. And, you know, we'll see how they feel about that. And also for Set setup as well like maybe they're gonna want the apps that they would be willing to play the core tech pay the core technology fee for right like there is an element of any app that a company like this brings on to their marketplace they kind of maybe want it to make sense for them.

There's got to be some element there. I'll be interested to see how it works. We won't see it, but we'll see other people talk about it, I guess. Because we won't be able to see them. Yes, I look forward to hearing from Europeans about how this goes. Yep.

Today, the European Commission has issued a 1.9 billion euro fine to Apple for, quote, abusive app store rules to music streaming providers. There are two... Today! Indeed. This is not the DMA, but it is today. It's very today. I mean, I feel like it

fits in here, right? Like, it's adjacent to the DMA. It is. It's European legislation corner. Very nearby. So there's two press releases I'm going to put in the show notes. One is from the European Commission. One is from Apple. I think I saw the Apple one first. I don't know who published first, but obviously Apple knew this was coming today. I think we spoke about this last week or the week before that there was a fine coming, but it was much less expected than $1.9 billion.

So the European Commission post says things like, the Commission found that Apple applied restrictions on app developers, preventing them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app, quote, anti-steering provisions. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.

And Apple's conduct, which lasted for almost 10 years, may have led many iOS users to pay significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions because of the high commission fee imposed by Apple on developers and passed on to consumers in the form of higher subscription prices for the same service on the Apple App Store. I will just say, I will commend the European Commission for making a very readable press release. When I opened it up, I was like, this is going to be full of legal stuff, but I actually found it to be very readable and clear, which I appreciated. Apple published a post of their own saying things like, quote, the decision was reached despite the Commission's failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm and ignores the realities of a

market that is thriving, competitive and growing fast. Today, Spotify has a 56% share of Europe's music streaming market, more than double their closest competitors, and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognizable. Spotify wants to bend the rules in their favor by embedding subscription prices in their app without using the App Store's in-app purchase system. They want to use Apple's tools and technologies distributed on the App Store and benefit from the trust we built with users and to pay apple nothing for it apple's post is very big long and dripping with feelings scoring apple will appeal to this decision as you would assume i do i need to restate how i feel about this i think it's honestly wild to me

that like apple tries to pretend that the steering stuff doesn't exist yeah i find that so strange like we like we can see it you know i pay you're looking right at it yeah like i pay more money for my youtube subscription because i choose to do it in the app store. Now, how is that, like me as a consumer, my experience, I'm paying more money because of it. So

what then? You know? Like this is exactly what Europe's saying. That people are paying more money for their subscriptions because companies increase the prices so they're not taking a 30% cut because Apple wants a 30% cut on our in some instances I think arguably for not a lot of reason I think Spotify is one of these like Apple did not Apple would like you to believe that Spotify is successful because of them I don't believe that's the case at all but that's what Apple is trying to say.

No, the nice thing about that Apple newsroom press release is it lays out Apple's argument very clearly, which is successful apps that are on the iPhone are successful in part because of all of Apple's good works and that Apple is a partner to you. because of all of Apple's good works and that Apple is a partner to you. And quite frankly, Apple's not thrilled that they let you do that without giving them any money, but they're willing to accept that as long as you accept all their rules. Like you can see the attitude. It's very clear.

This is the attitude that has driven Apple. So they're doing us a favor by making it very clear about their approach here. Now, I do think they score some points. I think Spotify, look, Spotify not wanting to be part of the reader app thing, apparently, is interesting, right? Because that was Apple's like, well, we'll let you put a link in. It was a very dumb thing, right?

It was the smallest of concessions possible. Spotify could have taken them up on it, and that would have lessened the blow and i think that's why they didn't so apple calling them out i kind of get that i think it would have it would have completely undermined their case which i think is fair to make right if they would have taken that then they have no case anymore and but it allows apple to score a point in reverse saying we gave them the ability to do the thing that they're complaining about and they refused um but but again spot yes i can see both sides but i think it allows apple to make that point it's interesting like apple's point is oh but spotify successful anyway it was like well yeah but like they're successful even though you have in a purchase with no you know

no commission to any middleman and they don't and they're still successful that doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't be more successful still if you were not doing these rules and these are the worst rules right these anti-steering rules where it's like no no but don't admit that you have a service outside the the app store don't admit that there's a place you can go to pay for things just pretend just put up a screen that says log in with that account you made somewhere else we don't even know where right like it is they are the most flimsy because it's like oh yes physical purchases no no they're okay it's like what difference does it make like at why does amazon not have to use in that purchase on to buy things from amazon but because music is digital some for some reason,

like it doesn't, it's this is the steering stuff is the worst of the worst. And I would say this is the worst when Apple has a direct competitor, right? Like that's the biggest problem is, and the like Apple music is pre-installed on every iPhone, right? Like Apple has so many advantages here. And this is the same with something like books versus Kindle.

It's the same thing, which is Apple has this home field advantage and they built a product to take advantage of the fact that they're the platform owner. That's the stuff that really irks me. So I appreciate Apple's post because it really gets to the heart of sort of what Apple's philosophy is about all of this, which comes back to, I think, a core part of Apple's corporate personality, which is that anything that succeeds

that involves the iPhone, Apple is one of the reasons it succeeded. And on one level, that's true. But what I very rarely see is the reciprocal from Apple, which is the iPhone has also succeeded because of the apps it succeeded. And on one level, that's true. But what I very rarely see is the reciprocal from Apple, which is the iPhone has also succeeded because of the apps that are on it. Apple really, their attitude is that they created a beautiful marketplace and everybody came to the marketplace and Apple is the landlord and Apple wants its rent. And that's just the way that Apple views it. And it's been clear all along.

But this newsroom post kind of clarifies that further. I mean, there are like, look, I think that there are I have questions about some of the EU rulings because to the point of of bashing a market leader's competitor for not letting the market leader have even more advantage. It's like there's the practical and then there's the real, right? There's a detail of like, well, Apple's a platform owner and they're using their platform powers. It's true. Also, we're protecting the dominant player from one of its competitors. And it's worse because it's the dominant Europe-based competitor over the American company that's not

in first place like there are ways to read this that are very protectionist and also silly in the same way that the out the books ruling against apple was silly in that what it was doing was protecting the dominant force over competition um but that all said like i think in the end we've been talking about this a lot this is this is about apple this is some of the worst of apple's policies right because this is this is literally pretend you know no web links like you can't go out to a web browser you can't tell people that you have things um that's just some of the worst of what they do yeah the protectionist argument i don't really like like i know that people make it but it's just like this is spotify going to their government like would it really like this something like this

will if it hasn't already started happening in america it doesn't actually make a difference like the fact that they're in europe they're just going to the company they're going to the government is going to help them out the most. There was one other thing that I really liked. I can't find the quote now just in skimming through it, but they reference, Apple references in one point about at one point they sent some of their developers to Spotify

to help them with some stuff. We've flown our engineers to Stockholm to help Spotify's teams in person. And they talk about, again, Spotify pays Apple nothing. And that, to me, is to stockholm to help spotify's teams in person and they talk about again and again spotify pays apple nothing and that to me is like kind of proving the point of how but like apple values spotify being on their platform because they know it's important for the selling of their iphones like i feel like this is that in trying to make their point about how helpful apple is i think

it kind of the mask slips a little bit about the other point, which is Apple also needs Spotify to be on their phones. Because if it wasn't, there would be an amount of people who would be less satisfied with their iPhone. See, I think this section also is, I think it's actually dumb. I think this is a case where Apple is way over its skis now. Because what it's describing here is, wow, Apple is really running a terrible business, right? Because if Spotify is truly doing all of this and Apple gives them nothing, is that out of largesse? What it says to me is maybe you should have chosen a different set of rules where a company like Spotify building a huge business on your platform, maybe you and Spotify should have worked out some sort of agreement about it.

But instead, what they're left with is, well, you kind of gave the rules for free and they took advantage. So now we're putting the screws to them because it's the only, you know, these are the rules that let us put the screws to them. And there's no alternative, right? There's no alternative involving competition. Their only alternative is to give apple 30 those are their choices here so i look at this and and it actually makes me chuckle because it's like oh we did all this stuff for free we give and give and give and they still want more and i look at it and go well maybe maybe that's dumb like maybe maybe you should have had a different model but this is the model you chose and patching it with very weird that it doesn't justify the 30 cut right it doesn't

it it's it's it's unconnected from them at spotify plays apple nothing it sure is hard to beat free they say okay and also like this idea that they say all the time, like we treat all developers equally. I mean, clearly not, right? Because you sent developers to Sweden to help them. And the same, like we frequently expedite reviews at Spotify's requests. Frequently?

I don't think most developers get frequent expedited reviews. They get, I think there's a limit to it to it right that you can actually ask for a year for for most apps so there you go yeah it is the it's funny because the the dma is coming this is like the the fine for everything in front of the dma essentially if you want a clear distillation of how Apple views it, I think that the newsroom post is very, very well written and makes Apple's case very clear. And I think that, like I said, I think they score some points in there,

but I think in general, it is trying to make the best of a situation that, you know, that it, look, it built these rules and then felt it was being exploited. So it built more rules inside of it. And then it built more rules inside of that. And those rules turned out to be not, you know, be anti-competitive and rent seeking and all those things. And like, this is why on one level, I kind of feel like what Apple, like Apple's decision to have new business terms in the eu on one level that really does make sense because it is apple saying all right let's change the rules but it only changes the rules in the one

place and you have to opt in it's like okay all right it's it is what it is it's uh uh apple will appeal the decision so oh boy we'll probably talk about it more in the future. Plus, we're entering the DMA era, so we'll see how that changes things. I'm in my DMA era. It's everyone's favorite. This episode is brought to you by FitBod. When you want to change your fitness level, it can be hard to know how to get started. That's why I'm pleased to let you know

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membership by signing up today at fitbod.me slash upgrade. So go now and get your customized fitness plan at fitbod.me slash upgrade for 25% off your membership at fitbod.me slash upgrade. Thanks to Fitbod for the support of this show and RelayFM. So this morning, there was another press release. It followed the Spotify press release introducing the one to the M3 MacBook Air of 13 and 15 inches.

I'd like to thank Apple for finally lining its product announcements with upgrade. We appreciate it. Yes it yes well at least this one we don't know i feel like maybe there's some other stuff coming you don't think so this is it the only one just mike just declare victory clearly this is what it's going to be like from now on forever okay a mission accomplished banner just fell behind me great did it so there's a few things about this one.

I'm going to read a couple of little quotes. So we've got the Midnight colorway now features the breakthrough anodization seal to reduce fingerprints. That was in the space black MacBook Pro. Is that right? That's right. So Midnight, which has become a little bit of a joke, I think in some circles as being the fingerprinty version,

they've now added that, which I think just makes that color even better. It's not that bad. By the way, to be clear, jargon alert, you're the one who said colorway. The word colorway has not yet appeared in an Apple press release. I mean, at this point, though, come on. You don't like it?

No, I just colorway is a stupid word. Color. There's a word for it. It's color. I like color. What way is that color? It's the way towards color, you know? That's what it means. No. It's this way towards color. I have no problem with colorway,

although I am a person who doesn't like jargon, so maybe I should get rid of that one because I've got to kind of live to my own ideals in this world. The M3 MacBook Air features Wi-Fi 6E, which is apparently two timesE, which is apparently two times faster, which is nice. But here's the big thing.

Here's the thing. We've burned a lot of minutes talking about this exact idea. Oh, man. MacBook Air with M3 now supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed.

So it can support one display of up to 6K and then a second up to 5k resolution that's right now this is really interesting because this is the thing we were talking about a lot that the m3 macbook pro didn't do this right like it was you could just have your display open and plug in one display. If you tried to hook up a second display, it wouldn't work. But also you can't just close it and see two displays. It was your internal display and one external display or bust,

whether you're using the internal display or not. What do you think's going on here? What do you think they've done? I don't know. I'm real interested yeah in finding out because this is not a feature in the mac m1 macbook pro or m3 macbook pro low-end model so what happened i don't know like is it is it something integral in the hardware where they've the way they've integrated this display allows it

to do that or is it i i don't know i mean this is one of those things where i look forward to talking to apple and asking them why this is like this now it's great uh the people who complained about this feature will just shift to complaining about how it doesn't do it lit open. But like, for me, this is the, this is the, one of the major drawbacks of the MacBook Air and Apple Silicon that has been rectified. And yes, if you,

if you need to run three monitors simultaneously, the two externals and the internal monitor, buy a MacBook Pro. There's always one more monitor. I feel okay about that. There can always be one more. There will always be one more monitor. I feel okay about that. There can always be one more. There will always be one more monitor. But this does make,

and I remember we were talking about this at the time where we were like, why not, there are two displays, why not always run two displays whether it's open or closed, right? So if you've closed it,

then run two displays. And so it seems like they found a way to do it. I wonder if this is going to... Would you assume this has to be a hardware change? I mean, I know we can maybe try and find this information out, but would you expect that this is an actual change to the M3 chip? No.

You don't think so? The chip has not changed at all. I don't think... No, I think an M3 is an M3 is an M3. I think it has to do with the particular, it's either a firmware thing or it is a particular way that the MacBook Air has been built to allow it to turn off. Because remember, the Mac mini supports two external displays with M1 and M2 because it doesn't have a third display wired

so it may just be the way that the display on the macbook air is connected is different than the way it was just the display was connected on the m2 and it allows the system to shut down that display and use that resource somewhere else. But I don't know, right? Like, I don't know enough about what all the moving parts are. I don't expect that the chip is any different. I don't think that's it.

I think it's how the, how the computer was built or it's a firmware kind of thing that they've updated the firmware to more, you know, to, to shut down that, that internal display and drive it to external displays. And if it's firmware, I mean, maybe they could do an update that would enable that on the MacBook Pro.

That's what I have to ask. But my gut feeling is that they built it into the MacBook Air, and that's why the MacBook Air can do this. Because it would be a shame, I think, if there wasn't a way to bring this capability to the macbook pro like because i've got to wonder if they worked on this capability because of people talking about on the macbook pro and then if like if that's the case like it's a really strange thing to be like yeah but the macbook air does it you know don't worry about the macbook pro the macbook air does

it because you know like we talk about this and lots of people talk about this, like Apple's product lineups are strange to work out sometimes. And this would definitely make it more complicated, right? Because this is a more powerful feature, right? That the MacBook Air would have over the MacBook Pro. Right. For like getting work done.

For the base model, yes. And the MacBook Pro is supposed to be the thing that is the more powerful to let you get the best work done, right? Right, but in the base model, you would pay more, you would get that display, but you wouldn't get the two. Well, I mean, it's not that complicated. If you want to use two external displays, don't get that one, get this one. Yes. Because the chip is the same, so it's really that complicated if you want to use two external displays don't get that one get this one

yes and because the chip is the same so it's really just that but you will what you will lose is that beautiful external or internal display that's on the which is really amazing this also does make me think that like you know one of the things that we were talking about at the time is like we had expected that the macbook air had kind of become the default machine that people get um in a lot of work places and or should be and i feel like this just underscores that like the macbook air 100 should be the computer that your your employer buys you unless you have a very specific need right right and then we've heard those stories before and those will only continue now where somebody gets ends up with a substandard, like just an M3 base MacBook Pro instead of a MacBook Air. And they want to use two external displays and they can't. Right. Like that would that that'll happen.

And they'll be very frustrated that there was another option out there that would have done it and probably given them better specs, right? Because they would have been able to price it up a little bit to get it to a MacBook Pro-based model price, and it would have had more stuff in it. And then it will just not. Their company will be like, well, no, that's a consumer laptop. We need a Pro laptop. Yeah, it's weird. And how about this paragraph for foreshadowing? With the transition to Apple Silicon, every Mac is a great platform for AI.

M3 includes a faster and more efficient neural engine, along with accelerators in the CPU and GPU to boost on-device machine learning, making MacBook Air the world's best consumer laptop for AI. Right, which just means that it's Apple's consumer laptop and it's got the new neural engine in the or you know with more cores in the in the m3 they're talking about ai it's meaningless it is it is uh yeah ai has become a a a checkbox yeah a a bullet point you've got a mention everybody

was like well what about ai i hear a is i is big can this computer do it the ai and apple's like yep yep great we got boy does it it does ai like you wouldn't believe but like i feel like they have they've stayed away from from using this term i feel like by and large and it feels like i guess now they're just embracing it as they should i think they're just embracing it yeah so the So the right. Cause they, they lean on machine learning a lot more. I think it's funny. It's always funny to see what they use as their examples. So for AI, it's like good notes,

six with AI math assistance, pixel mater pro photo enhancement, background noise removal and cap cut. Like it's very specific. auto-enhancement background noise removal in CapCut. It's very specific. We've got some ML-enhanced things in software, and it can run LLMs and diffusion models for image generation locally, which I guess is basically like those apps that you download the open-source model and run it.

So, I mean, it's not untrue. It's just something that, you know, just like how they always mention recyclability, like these, these Macs have, they say first, first Apple product to be made with 50% recycled content, 100% of the aluminum, but also 100% of the rare earth elements and magnets, 100% recycled copper and the main logic board, which is a first for them so and 99 fiber-based packaging right like they always say that well it's a checkbox the environmental thing apple got criticized like 20 years ago by greenpeace and since then it has been calling out its environmental commitments in their pr and that's just part of what they do well the ai drumbeat has gotten so loud that they're like, all right, we'll list our AI.

We'll disclose our AI hardware that we've built, that we've improved. And here it is just because somebody is going to ask. And like, does it address some of the questions about Apple software and AI? No, it does not. But it does. They're pointing at the hardware and they're pointing at the neural engine and they're pointing at the stuff that they can point at and say, yeah, sure, we have an AI story too

and it's the neural engine. The lowest configs start with 8 gigabytes of RAM. I'm mentioning that because there's always a thing, right? Good to make people mad. Yep. The fingerprints, we took the fingerprints away from you. We took Give, you know, the fingerprints.

We took the fingerprints away from you. We took the two external displays away from you. Where can people be mad? There's always got to be something. Oh, FaceRAM. We got to find it. You know, we got to find it. FaceRAM. And that's where it is.

That's where it is. It's great. Let's, yeah. Eight gigs of RAM, 256 gig SSD for 1099. I'll just point out, that's an M3 at 1099. Remember that the M2 MacBook Air started at what, 1299? So like they have managed to get the price down on these things. And one of the ways they do it is those are configurations you're probably going to want to upgrade. So for 1299, you can get the 10 core GPU with 512 SSD. And for 1499, you can get the 10-core GPU with 512 SSD.

And for $1499, you can get that product that that sad person whose company bought them an M3 MacBook Pro instead of the M3 MacBook Air. This is the one that they want, right? Because it's 10-core GPU, 16 gigs of RAM, 512 SSD for $1499, which is a pretty good value. But they got the base models down and then they pushed the... The M2 version is still available at 9.99 so that product has come way down from when it

was introduced a couple years ago all the way to a base model at 9.99 and yeah so say goodbye to the old macbook air design it's gone now we farewell that is the and it is the classic macbook air design the m1 macbook air was sort of the last computer to have the classic macbook air design and all of our talk about maybe they'll just keep it around and keep getting it nope it's gone just gone gone gone gone and instead there's a 999 m2 air 899 in education right so like they're basically saying um that's that's it right like that's that's as low as they need to go they don't need to go with their laptop at least right now any lower than that it was funny i was talking to my wife about this today i didn't use as an m1 macbook air and i was just saying oh they did this and she's like you know saying oh they got

rid of the one that you have and she's like oh no i'm like what she's like i love the way that mine looks that's the one that i want like i want to hang on to it for as long as possible i'm like great you can like damn well macbook air is great you'll have it for a long time and i'm like what do you like about it she's like i like how sleek it is and i'm like you know mine's thinner right she's like yeah but i like the curvy look of it like it is a design style that some people prefer and she does like she doesn't like mine she's like it's too square it's too boxy and she's like i like how light mine is like mine's lighter she's like no but mine feels lighter i'm like what are you talking about but you know different moves on yep it sure does yeah uh there were rumors about this uh coming that there were

going to be products released this week. And I've got a report from Mac Rumors where they had a source about some stuff and they got it right that there would be MacBook Airs and there would be, there are also new iPhone cases and watch bands and stuff like that. But the other big rumor out there is iPads. So I wonder if we're going to see them,

hopefully next Monday, you know, so we can keep the upgrade train going here. Keep it running. Keep it running. Yeah, I think maybe so. That's what we'll assume next Monday. But that's still on the horizon. Do you have anything more to say on these MacBook Airs?

I mean, can't wait to get my hands on them. Interested to see. Oh, yes. I have one other note, which is in the pantheon of short-lived Apple products we must now induct the m2 15 inch macbook air oh yeah which is gone oh they only they don't do a quote-unquote like cheaper model of the 15 it's just no just the 13 so the 15 inch m2 MacBook Air, which arrived last summer, is now dead. Wow. But that's okay.

That did not last a very long time. I can hear it. Because the M3 models are exactly the same. I mean, from all my read on that, and this is the thing, it's like this is an internals update. It's really an M3 update. Everything else about these things other than the anodization seal yeah yeah uh and the way and how they look are the same so they the yeah they don't want to they don't want

to do a discounted 15 um they they just want the current 15 so that that they do that with some stuff right where it's like well no but this is the we're there's only going to be one of these we're not gonna we we hit our that that that old M2 is down there in the price list for price reasons. And the old 15 inch would not be down there, right? It would be competing at a higher price and they don't want that. So the RIP M2 15 inch. Man, I got to say, stuff like this, like that specific thing, it's like, I would love to know how Apple's inventory management works. How could they have predicted the amount that they would need

for this period for a product that hadn't existed before? It's a good question. I'm sure they watched the sales and stopped making them when they felt they had enough, right? And then they have outlets. They'll have any leftovers end up getting in a in a they're they're put on amazon or they're sold to partners or like they can do it with the remnants of it but i think what they starting last remember last summer they're able to monitor 15 inch sales and and they don't remember apple doesn't like having a lot of inventory on hand so they don't on hand. So they want to make as many as they can sell.

So even if they made a bunch up, the only time that Apple gets burned by that is if they make a bunch of something up front and then the sales aren't anything close. Because they have to fill the channel and then they're like, oh no, we made so many, we don't know if we'll ever empty the channel. Like the HomePod was like that, right? Original HomePod, they made a lot of them. And then they realized that they were going to struggle to sell all of them. But with a 15-inch air, my guess is that that's not the case and that they knew very quickly how many they would need to make to get to this point. And again, probably the M3 models are a minor change in terms of manufacturing because they look,

for all intents and purposes, identical to the ones that came before. So it's probably not a huge change. But yeah, that 15-inch model, gone. Gone. I was well into my 20s before I realized that that phrase was not intensive purposes, all intensive purposes. No, it's not. It's intense and purposes.

It's one of those English phrases where you say, where you are repetitive in order to make a point. It's, you know, our language is very special. Very special. But whatever you do, don't say colorway. No, colorway is bad. It's just a dumb, it's just dumb. It's just dumb jargon. Like, how do we dress up a word? Well, let's just a dumb it's just dumb it's just dumb jargon like how do we dress up a

word well let's just add a little it's like saying uh incentivize it's like or you could just say it gives it gives an incentive no no no it incentivizes the the upsell of the you know sorry merlin's got a list of all those terrible phrases monetize and incentiv incentivize. It's like, I like when people say copious. You know, I feel like it's copious. It's like a word that people use so they sound smart. Lots. Just say lots. It's fine.

Yeah. I mean, there are fun words out there that have fun meanings. But yeah, that's colorway. I twigged to colorway at some point because I thought, oh, somebody just came up with a stylish sounding word for it is a color. We offer this. And I mean, the other thing is colorway can mean like a collection of colors. I think in that way, it actually works for me. And you can see in our sandstone colorway, we offer these various sort of like earth tones or whatever.

But when it's like it comes in blue and brown, those are our colorways. It's like, no, those are just your colors, dude. They're just colors. It's fine. The Oxford Dictionary defines colorway as any of a range of combinations of colors in which a style or design is available. Combination of colors. And the word started being used in like the 1920s. Yeah, it's gross.

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raise like a banner into the arena of Upgrade the Upshift podcast artwork which was created a couple of years ago for whenever we would talk about apple's car efforts we get to raise it up into the sky for everybody to look up at because the apple car is a weird metaphor is no more you know like what isn't that what you do in sports you like raise the jerseys like retire retire well you raise a banner if you win a championship you raise the jersey you're retiring and a number i think the way i would put this is we are doing a very special

thing today which is we are retiring upshift as a topic on upgrade it's more than just the art it's the topic right it's beautiful art but like what we're really doing is we are saying goodbye to a beloved question mark uh topic on our podcast because uh with uh as as goes the apple car project so goes the upshift segment yep mark german at bloomberg first reported on tuesday that apple has decided to cancel its plans to build a car, also known as Project Titan. This project shifted a lot throughout the 10 years that it was in development, from full self-driving to partial self-driving and everything in between. Almost 2,000 people were working on the project up until recently. It had been headed most recently by Kevin Lynch, who along with COO Jeff Williams made the call to stop their efforts.

Many of the employees that are in this team, which is known as the Special Projects Group, will now have their efforts turned towards AI work and will join John G. and Andrea's team. What do you think about this? and Andrea's team. What do you think about this? Well, so I wrote a lot of words about this on Friday.

I am not one of those people who's like, I'm glad that they killed this project because I never thought it was a good idea, right? Like, breaking news, your opinions were validated a decade later um i feel pretty strongly like there was a moment like 10 years ago when this apparently all started when if you think back to that like who was even

making electric cars then it was it was tesla and they really only had the one model that they were shipping to consumers which was the model s very expensive one um but then they were talking about self-driving all that there was a moment i think where apple could have said um we we see how the computer technology is going to eat the car industry. And we know computer technology. And we're not worried about the details of like a drivetrain or whatever. Like we'll buy our license or whatever. It's not that big a deal. But like what's more likely?

That the car industry is going to understand hardware and software for computers and sensors and batteries and all those things. Or that we who understand all those things can come into the car market the idea that cars and computers are converging in the 20 late 2020s let's say and that uh apple had just as much of a chance to get there as gm did if not more right that was i think that was the argument um as far as i kind of considered it what was there's a place here where the car makers are asleep and tesla is the only one playing this game and we could play this game and we have more resources than tesla and and we could you know eat the lunch of the auto industry and even maybe get to the point where we have technology that's so advanced that they're going to either come to us begging or they're going to,

you know, or we're going to be able to leverage their expertise in the car part of it, but at our terms. Like, I think that there is a really strong case to be made at the beginning that computer cars essentially are going to be a thing and why not Apple? that computer cars essentially are going to be a thing and and why not apple and if you're a company that has all the money and is worried about where your future revenue growth is going to come from um that is a that is worth placing a bet now keep in mind i also want to say because by all accounts this is like a 10 year old project that that's an era they hadn't even 10 years ago they hadn't even done a bigger iphone yet right they hadn't even done the iphone 6 plus yet so they didn't they they weren't really talking

up their services business yet the apple watch hadn't hadn't come out yet it came out like 10 years ago or nine years ago it was announced a little less than 10 years ago. So it was a long time ago, but like, if you're looking at the future and your growth as a company and knowing that wall street will demand infinite growth, right. Placing a bet with all of your cash that you have on hand and they had a lot back then, it's not a bad idea. So I think that there was something there at that time for a product, but it feels to me like what happened is at some point, and maybe it was there at the inception, that if it was full fully autonomous that it was that they were on the edge perhaps of a breakthrough somebody in the industry like elon musk always talked about that it was right around the corner that has proven to not be true at all and that it's still around the corner um for him and it may always be around the corner but um we ended up doing we did

an episode called what is it hey car stop, car, stop. Yeah, something like that. Which I looked at it and it made me laugh. That was a funny, like using Siri to tell your car to stop. About the moment when Mark Gurman came out much later, he came out with a report that they were still hanging on to this idea, which was they designed a car that wasn't like a car. It was like a little mobile salon that you sat in and it didn't have um a steering wheel and they wanted it and this was apparently johnny ive's vision was they let's just make a car that has no steering wheel wheel it's it's super minimal sounds like johnny ive and to me this is the moment where it got off track because the i i admire the ambition but i would also say the arrogance of thinking,

we're going to be able to make a car that never needs to be driven. We're going to solve it so completely that we can throw out the idea of a car. And then probably, if Apple's going to make a car, it must be the perfect magical car that drives itself everywhere. And I don't know. I mean, you got to really believe in that because for me, it felt obvious that you always are going to need to be able to drive your car, right? Not all scenarios are going to be handled by the magic computer. is this aspirational project about something that will absolutely be self-driving all the time. And we're going to just bet on that. And in their diagram, there's just a big cloud with a question mark there because nobody had done it or has done it. And worth a try, right? Could be revolutionary. But the way that Tesla always approached it was, we're going to make a car. And yeah, we're confident that it'll be self-driving next year. And they keep saying

that. But in the meantime, we made a car that's like a computer car and it's got driver assist features and it's you know it's got all these nice things about it and it's electric and the other guys are are still like a decade behind so they could have done that and then like a vision pro and this is the thing like the vision pro it feels very much like there's a contingent inside Apple that is like, don't ship it until it's perfect. And so for the Vision Pro, it was like, there was that story about how there's a contingent inside of Apple of designers, especially that were like, no, no, no. If you can't make AR glasses, just don't ship it. And Apple's like, you know, Apple executives were like, no, we're going to ship Vision Pro. And then iterate.

You ship it, and then you iterate. It seems like with a car, at some point, the argument to not ship something that is not the magical perfect future was won. And so they changed into this entire project contingent on full self--driving all the time no steering wheel which i mean i just took one look at that report and i was like well that's that's literally never going to happen that was the moment where i went from i'm open-minded about this there's an interesting potential here to what are they doing and many years had passed since then and so when they finally a couple years ago apparently refactored this whole thing and said no why don't we try to ship something that's like a Tesla?

Like the moment had passed. Like there was a moment like 2014, you could have made something by 2019, 2020 that would have been in the market and would have sort of like defined what a modern computery car was and maybe had some whizzy Apple features that people would have been like, oh, Apple really got this. Watch out Tesla. Watch out other new people. Apple really figured it out. But instead they put their money on a breakthrough that never came. And by the time that they decided to refactor back to the other thing, it was too late. And I think that fundamentally that is not how you should design a product.

You should design a product based on practicality and then work toward your breakthrough and that's not what they did and so you know i i i think there was a root of a good idea 10 years ago and by the time that they got to the realization they weren't going to ship their unrealistic idea was too late because like today i don't feel like if apple shipped a tesla like car and i think this is the decision they made that it would make a difference like it's too late the the car makers have all gotten into the computer car thing now uh computer cars they're even non-electric cars are computer cars now and then they're more electric cars too so like the moment has passed so you know that that's that's my thought about it is i do not agree that apple should never have investigated this i also don't believe when

people are like oh think of the kinds of products apple makes this is so different i've i've seen enough of apple shifting gears like apple can do what they want apple retail was something everybody said couldn't happen because can you imagine apple having like a retail store with employees all over the world and a bunch of different like hundreds of stores and like well you know it was important to them and they made it happen like i think if they had if a car had been important to them they would have made it happen and it would not have been unreasonable to make a computer car um that was not made of magic but that was actually realistic and then iterate from there but for whatever reason in2010s, they listened to the people who said, let's put all our chips down on full autonomy, and it's not a thing that they could do. Yeah, something you were saying a minute ago seemed like there's like a – the ideology that Apple has didn't align with reality, which is like they like to try and have their thing, right?

Like we've done, you know, this product market exists, but we've done our thing that makes this, makes our version better. And like, realistically, a car is so big and complicated that if they were going to try and wait for their thing, which was maybe for self-driving, like that was a that was a bad place to start like in hindsight where really what they should have tried to do was make

the best version they could of the current thing that as you say like impresses on like it has this feature and that feature and this feature and it's nice and it looks good and like it has lots of little bits rather than they're like, we've transformed how cars work. Here it is. Because just getting to the point where they had a good enough version of the current thing was a big job. And one of the things that you question in your piece, which, again, I think in hindsight was probably the way to go, is why didn't they just buy a car company? If they would have bought a car company, they would have been able to leapfrog all the way to we have a car now we can put our stuff on top yeah yeah they i think a lot of that is not invented here syndrome right which is just like why would

we buy a car company we're apple we can just do it which in hindsight yeah they they absolutely could have done that there weren't very many car companies like right at the start there was really just tesla um apple could have bought bought tesla but over that 10 year span but over that 10 years yes i think and i think the problem was the timing right by the time that they're doing rivian and lucid and you know all all these other like uh electric car startups, some of them started up by car companies, but some of them were on the outside.

Or even like a Kia. They could have bought a company of that size if they wanted to. I mean, Apple could have done a strategic investment with a traditional big car company, but I think that one of the electric car startups would have been the thing to do. But at that point,

not only did they have the not invented here syndrome, but they were deep in the, you know, they were very high on their own supply of magical self-driving car. And I think that's, look, I'll just come out and say it. I, especially since Trip Mickle, my favorite author, co-bylined the story about this in the New York times and Trip, if you don't remember, wrote that book that Mike liked and that I didn't like, that he had lots of designer sources. And it was like Apple lost the soul of its company when it stopped listening to its designers. And I would argue that not only were the, according to reports, the designers behind the ridiculous argument to not ship the Vision Pro and instead just wait for the future when magic AR glasses would happen.

I think that the way that I read the reports about this story is that it was that same group of people led by Johnny Ive who said, no, no, no, let's not make a regular car. Let's make an impossible car that will only work with perfect technology because we have faith that the perfect technology will come along. And they destroyed the project. At that point, I think the project was never going to work. And I guess the answer is, well, yeah, but what if there was a breakthrough? And I would say it's irresponsible to design a product for a breakthrough that hasn't happened yet. You can't. It's science fiction. You're making sketches for a movie. You're designing props at that point. You have to build a real product. This is a fundamental, dare I say it,

Steve Jobs kind of thing of product. You got to build a real product. What can we build today? Not if we invent a thing that's never been invented before, what would product would we make? And I think that that attitude, whoever it came from, but like I said, my strong sense, at least from some of the reports is that it was a lot of people in the design group, especially who wanted to design a magic, a magic car and it destroyed the product. Cause that's not how you make that product. So I think by the time they could have said, why don't we just buy a lucid or we'll buy Rivian in the, in the early days of that, uh, that company, I think they were too far down the road of like, well, we have, but we hired all our own people and we're working on this project and we're over here doing that. But yeah, in hindsight, they would have been much

better off doing something like that. As it is, I think it's okay. I think that the moment has passed. I honestly don't think Apple has much to contribute to the car industry now. Maybe that new CarPlay, again, it would be nice to see more uptake because that would be a nicer thing. That's what they have to contribute. That is Apple's genuine contribution. Apple does not need to make an actual car. They should try the best they can to make operating systems for cars. That is their best contribution

to people driving in their automobiles. I think that is the best thing. Kind of wrapping this back around to start again a little bit because I kind of threw us off track with the buying part. Me personally, I'm actually like, you know, I'm hearing a lot of people saying like they were stupid to ever try this.

They spent all this money. They spent all this time. From my perspective, it's just like I mean, they have all the money in the world, right? I'm happy that they took the time because I agree that it was a good thing for them to start looking at right at the time that they started looking at it this may this is an interesting thought let's look at this right and they started looking at it the fact that they spent 10 years and billions of dollars like for me

I can kind of like for them so what right like they have the money to spend on something like this they should investigate everything they possibly can this unfortunately was inherently just an expensive one of these things to try and look at yeah but then they decided they made the decision that that didn't matter that they were happy to just cut their losses and i think that that is a positive. I agree. It should have happened a long time ago, but I do appreciate the discipline that finally was applied.

And it sounds like the way it worked is that somebody like Tim Cook said, I need a go or no go on the car. And that's when they refactored as, well, what could we ship instead of what do we dream about shipping? And then they looked at it and I think made the right decision, which is we don't have anything to offer here, which is a huge thing from a corporate ego perspective to say it's not worth it for us to go down this route. But I think that that is where they ended up. So I think they should have killed it sooner. I think that they should not have listened to the people who said, let's design something for technology that doesn't exist. I think they should have killed it sooner. I think that they should not have listened to the people who said, let's design something for technology that doesn't exist. I think that was an enormous mistake early on.

I wanted to mention, because you and I talked about this in the early days, especially, of Upgrade a lot, which is this is the period. So Steve Jobs has died. Tim Cook is new to the job. The perception is, oh, no, he's not Steve Jobs, which he's absolutely not. This is an era where, because Steve is gone and Tim is new, and Johnny Ive is still there, and Johnny Ive is not super, he's burning out,

or if not burned out, he's bored. They're keeping him around, and I remember saying this back in the time like this is the deal is johnny will pay you anything and you could do whatever you want to stay because wall street is really nervous about a huge brain-drained apple and that there's nobody who's designing these products and so they kept johnny around i think way longer than um he was necessary and way longer than he was uh contributing for for necessary from a product design perspective he was necessary for a like an optics perspective but i think it was a sham

anyway so this product really even at the time didn't we hear like johnny really is interested in cars and so when he was told he could kind of like design a future car he perked up like it feels a little bit like that too that part of the original sin here not dissimilar to some of the watch stuff right just like you like watches well that you make he like watches he likes cars he's a rich he's a rich englishman let's give him things that he can appreciate so i think that was probably part of it too in terms of internal politics i don't know but that's just my guess based on the reports is that that was some of it. But also like from what you were saying a minute ago as well,

like Tim was new and it was pressure on him. And so I expect he was just much more like, well, I've got to do something. So like I'll green light this and this and this and this, and we'll see what works. And I think what we've ended up with johnny do what he wants is a watch and a and a vr headset yeah these are the projects that probably these three were all started not within two a different a time period to each other probably within a few years i think that's true

and i i mean to be clear i think we can't afford to lose this person. So let's pay them a lot of money and let them do whatever they want. While not great for your organization as a whole, I totally understand why that decision might make sense in the moment. For that point in time, it might make sense. Exactly. And then you have to unwind it. And it does have the danger of something like that is that it distorts things where your organization makes decisions it would not normally have made because you're trying to appease the person who you're keeping around for other reasons. And I will say the salon car and the solid gold Apple watch are examples, I think, of distortion happening johnny ive was unkillable and they just literally had to keep him around but the solid gold apple watch was part of the apple watch which has been a big success like it took time oh yeah yeah yeah but that that feels that always felt

like a little like why did they do that and i was like well i think that i think johnny wanted to work with those materials and like again i and i don't think it was a complete wasteland, but I think that the reason that, that a project like this exists in part is probably to make somebody like Johnny Ive excited about something when you're trying to keep him. And then it builds up a momentum and you've hired all these people and you think it's always just fundamentally, I keep coming back to the fact if they, if, if, as the report suggests, they designed this without a steering wheel, they are counting on technology to be invented that doesn't, that hasn't been invented yet. And that is super dangerous, which doesn't mean you don't do it for a while, but I would argue that the right way, the Apple-y way to do it would be to build, okay, we're going to do cars and we want to get to full self-driving. Well, where do we start? Well, let's ship a car. And how do we do that? And then you ship a car. And instead, at some point, they're like, no, no, no, we're going to

just design it so that we have to wait for that feature to come available. And that just seems like a mistake. Work on that feature, put a lot of R&D into that feature, but start shipping products because I feel very strongly like with the Vision Pro, once it's out there, you learn and you grow and you can still be hanging your hopes on full self-driving. But you've got to ship a product and learn and iterate. And they didn't seem to want to do that. I've heard a lot of people talk about spinoff tech. Like, it'll never be worth the money they put in. Whatever spinoff tech they come out of this will never be worth the money they put into it but there will be spinoff ai and yeah there's vision

yeah computer vision that has value right there's a lot of things where you're taking input from cameras and then trying to process it a lot of that is using machine learning stuff like they will they will pick over the body for parts right but they they're not going to be able to use all the parts of the buffalo there's going to be a bunch of stuff left behind it's just like not right it's never you're just making you're making what you can out of the out of the issue and yeah there may be some great breakthrough in there you you didn't need to build a car chassis to have someone come up with better lidar technology right right like that was not needed. Exactly.

But it's what you did. Yeah, it's what you did. As well, there are obviously good parallels to the Vision Pro in all of this. Part of it is that they didn't abandon the Vision Pro. I think that says something about their commitment. These are products that maybe were going on at the same time, took a lot of money, took a lot of effort. But then also going back to what you're saying, right? Like we all know what the Vision Pro is.

It is the first step towards Apple glasses. And they think maybe they can only get to glasses by having this this but it requires starting somewhere and they've started somewhere with the Vision Pro in public. What can we actually make and ship? And they've made that and they're moving forward with that and it could maybe one day lead us

to something else. And I'm not advocating for shipping a product that's not viable but at some point you do need to, I think it clarifies the mind to work on a product that's shippable and i i come back to again the moment of the moment of saying we're going to invest a lot of money creating something that requires a breakthrough that we haven't broken through on i just i think it's a bad idea that and that's why i was so offended when i read that mark german report fairly late in the game 2019 something like that saying they were still designing a car without a steering wheel and it's like what are you doing like how because if elon

musk had said that tesla would have just gone out of business right like because and this is a guy who was convinced or at least said i don't know if he was actually convinced but keeps saying self full self-driving is right around the corner. But he shipped cars with steering wheels, sometimes bad steering wheels, but steering wheels because he also wanted to sell cars and make money no matter whatever his confidence was on full self-driving software. So I don't know.

It was, I don't think that it was a mistake from the beginning. I think it got completely off track. I think they should have killed it way sooner. Given that I'm glad that they killed it now because, uh, and I'm glad that they apparently went through the process of looking at everything that they'd done and saying, can we ship something?

No, then let's kill it. I think that that was the right thing to do. I just think that they should have done it a lot sooner. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. With Squarespace, you can stand out from the crowd of a beautiful website, engage directly with your audience, and sell anything, products, services, even the content that you create. Squarespace has everything you need all in one place. It's so simple to get started. Squarespace has designs like website template designs for every

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when you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. It is time for Ask Upgrade Questions to finish out today's show. And Adam starts with, a month in, how much are you using Vision Pro

on an average day? I don't, I hate these questions. I don't have an average day. I don't have an average day. Okay. What's your average day like? I record part of a podcast. Would you like me to cut this question?

I write part of an article. No, I think it's fine. I don't have an average day. I will give you an example of a day, which is on Friday, I was trying to write a column that was my Apple car column and I was struggling with focus and I drank some tea and I sat down at the computer in the back bedroom and I just, and I just couldn't, I was like trying to get going and I was doing like all the avoidance of, like, I'm just not ready to write this yet. And then I sat down on the couch with a Bluetooth keyboard and the Vision Pro and brought up Runestone and wrote the whole article.

So as an example of a way that I'm using Vision Pro on a day to do a task, I also watched half of, I ran out of time, half of Dune part one in 3D on Vision Pro because that looked awesome. And I wanted to rewatch it before I saw Dune part two, which I saw this weekend and is excellent. But I didn't get to watch all of Dune part one, but that was a beautiful thing. And Lauren was at work.

And so that was a thing I could do, uh, that didn't, you know, that wasn't closing her out. Um, so I am, I don't have a number of like average,

but I can tell you, I, I've done, I do some writing in it. Um, I do some sort of, as Mike said last time, noodling around of like,

I'm checking on this and I'm checking on that to try and, uh, and then I'm also using it for things that are not normal use, which is like trying apps that come out and seeing what they're like and seeing how they're, they're used. So have I found like a routine? I haven't. Maybe a better way to ask this question is like, are you finding yourself using it on a daily basis or a somewhat daily basis? And it sounds like the answer is mostly yes. Uh, yeah, it's certainly not every day. Or a somewhat daily basis? And it sounds like the answer is mostly yes. in my life and the places where it doesn't. And the two places now that I found it is viable are another place that's an alternate way to get my brain out of its, you know,

whatever space it's in and focus for writing. Because you can put a million windows around you, but you can also just put one window and put an environment up or even not have an environment up and just have the one window and focus on it and it's i find that pretty useful what about you yeah i would say like i i own i keep my vision pro at the studio so i only use it on days when i'm here so just on work days and i find time to use it every day as part of my work day and it's very easy for me to do that because of the idea of it's noodling around time. And like, it's the computer that at the moment I am enjoying the most of like.

For the noodling. Because I have a list of things that I want to use. Like, you know, like, oh, there's this new app. Like, so that's part of noodling. But also is just the kind of like, I don't have a fixed piece of work that I'm going to do right now. So I'm just going to be bouncing around from thing to thing for a little bit.

And that's great. But also it is just like, I want to just hang out for a bit. It's perfect for that. And it's like comfortable to use. So at the moment, I am very easily finding time to use it every day. I don't feel like I'm forcing myself to use it in that way i will give some real-time follow-up from zach hall at nine to five mac who has confirmed by talking to apple that apple will indeed be adding the second external monitor with lid closed feature to the 14-inch macbook pro with m3 in a future software update so it is a software slash firmware issue

not a some not a like this is the way we made the hardware for the macbook air different it good it feels more like is that they can update the firmware with software right okay i feel like it's probably what's happening as you say it wasn't like a oh this has a second display controller and the system on a chip right i i would have uh i would have uh asked apple but i was doing a podcast indeed instead but yeah indeed yep chris asks when the time comes for apple to update their mac accessories do you think they keep the magic mouse around yes yeah you think so i think so i think i think people use mice i don't but people do and i think apple is committed i i mean they i'm sure they see the numbers but like i'm sure people buy an imac and they get the they get it with the mouse right i i have a hard time envisioning them

not offering a mouse i i really do i i i get the the argument is lots of people make mice and that's true but like i don't know i think apple will keep making one because some people want it i could see a world in which they're like you can use a mouse we just don't make one like i can see that world and the reason is it's like some of the decisions they've made recently like a vision pro you can't use a mouse you have to use a trackpad like mice just don't work stuff like that is like they're very trackpad focused didn't i see that in the new beta the developer beta you can use a mouse oh really they've added that i don't know i don't use the developer beta i know you so you can use mice now i don't i thought i saw something about that, but I don't know.

I just, either way, I think they could drop the mouse. I just don't think they will because people use mice, so they'll offer it. I doubt it will ever be innovated severely. They might change where you plug it in, i i don't think that that's what they're going for but i do think that they'll keep it around i just i can see the scenario but i just don't think it'll happen well we'll see uh what else have we got and can that be a new segment can that replace that we could replace upshift with like just mouse time mouse talk uh the mouse is in the house or something like that mouse click mouse click it's the mouse time no nathan asks a ces belkin announced chi

2 magnetic battery packs i've also seen these from anchor too do you think apple's gonna rejoin the club with their own usbc magsafe battery pack or leave it to third-party accessory makers? I have no opinion about this. I've never used one of these products. I don't particularly get them. I'd say that since Apple... Okay, here's my answer. Since Apple's done it in the past,

when I thought, why would they do that? Then probably in the future, they'll also make them. I mean, it goes back to... You just said that they make mice because people use mice, so they'll mice and be people use the battery packs and have used apple's cheap battery pack they had before that they stopped making uh yeah will they make another one it's not quite the same because like if you buy an iMac you do need a pointing device to use it so they have to offer something to you um where a battery pack is optional but yeah i i feel like uh if they find that it's i

mean they did i i don't know i i would say sure why not because they can make money at it but it does seem i've always thought that that was kind of strange how about the upgrade mouse club or mike mike's mouse club mike's we need another m though. Like Mike's Mouse something. No, because it's like the Mickey Mouse Club. It's Mike's Mouse Club. Oh, Mikey's Mouse Club. Mikey's Mouse Club. Legally distinct. Legally distinct. Mikey's Mouse Club. All right.

And finally, David asks, and he's asking to me here, if I recall, Mike, you are wearing the latest Apple Watch Ultra 2 with the tap feature. So like the double tap when wearing the vision pro do you have any input clashes as they're using the same pinch gesture for input so a couple of things here one the scenario in which that would have to happen will be rare right of like pinching twice because typically something has to be going on as well on the pretty forceful yeah and forceful is not a thing on, right? Because force is doing it on the watch. Yeah, they are nowhere near the same gestures.

It's literally a camera that's looking to see where your fingers are. So they're very different gestures. But I also do, when I watch on my left wrist and I operate Vision Pro mostly with my right hand. I don't know why. It's just the one that I've chosen probably because it's what I typically will use my mouse with. It's like my mouse or trackpad. In Mikey's mouse corner, I use my mouse. My mouse corner is on the right-hand side.

So I have never had this happen. However, Apple, in their wisdom, have added a feature that is going to be in 17.4 to allow you to turn off double tap when using the Vision Pro. So that your watch will know when you're wearing the Vision Pro and turn off the... You can choose to turn off the double tap feature when you're using it if it was something that you were getting into trouble with but i i i would find it for me like very difficult to find the way

in which that happens because it is while it is still the same finger and thumb it is a much different um um amount of force like the the way you do it is very, very different. But maybe you're just furiously clicking around when you're noodling on the Vision Pro and you set things off left, right and center.

If you would like to send us a question for us to answer on a future episode, please go to upgradefeedback.com. It's where you can send in your Ask Upgrade questions, your Snow Talk questions,

or any follow-up or feedback you may have about the show. If you want to check out Jason's work, go to sixcolors.com. I'm sure Jason will have some stuff to say about these new Macs. As soon as he's able to try them, you'll be able to read them there at sixcolors.com. And you can hear his podcast here on RelayFM and at theincomparable.com, where you'll also hear me too.

I'm on many shows here at RelayFM. You can check out my product work over at CortexBrand.com You can find us on Mastodon. Jason is at Jsnell on Zeppelin.Flights. I am at iMike. I am YKE on Mike.Social. You can find video clips of the show

on our... We're on Mastodon as Upgrade at RelayFM.Social. Also on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube we are at Upgrade Relay. You can also find, we've put on the YouTube channel now a couple of segments of the show instead. If you want to watch a segment of the show that maybe

you enjoyed, went to see what our faces looked like during that segment rather than watching the full episode. Maybe. Our continued experiments. We're both on threads as well. I'm Mike, Jason is Jason L. Thank you to our members and supporters of Upgrade Plus, where you can get longer ad-free versions of the show

each and every week at getupgradeplus.com. Thank you to our sponsors, Squarespace, ExpressVPN, and FitBod for helping make this episode happen. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, everybody.