Upgrade - 505: Abolish Drafts: The 2024 iPad Draft

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 505 today's show is brought to you by squarespace vitally and ladder my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike i can't drive 505 in by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. I can't drive 505 because that's too fast. My car doesn't go that fast. Ah, I was lost there. You know, I said 505, he said it back to me, and I had no idea.

Reference there. 505. 505 is the name of an interstate highway in California. So a little 505 trivia for you there. I love it. Thank you. Yes, you did hear the draft music. We are going to be doing a draft late run in today's episode. It is an action-packed episode today.

Surprise draft. That includes a surprise draft. We'll get to that late run in the show. But first, I must ask you a Snell Talk question. Okay. This one comes from Andy, who wants to know, Jason, will you be getting a Blake Snell jersey since he has just signed with the Giants yes San Francisco Giants signed Blake Snell the winner of the Cy Young

award which is for the best pitcher in the National League last year with the Padres he was a free agent all winter long and at the very end of the free agency season signed a what's two-year deal with an opt-out but basically a one-year deal with the giants and uh so for the first time ever my favorite team my childhood team employs a player a star player but regardless a player with my last name no relation by the way no relation and andy the answer is will i be getting a Blake Snell jersey? I think the entire family will be getting Blake Snell jerseys. I think it's like, look, personalized journey. I'm assuming all of the merch that could be produced in this one year period, you will be buying all of them.

Yeah, personalized jersey. You normally have to pay to have it be personalized with your name and stuff. I'm not going to have to do it. I'm just going to say, give me the blake snell number seven got it boom done and i'll just keep that for like ever i look forward to the what i'm assuming is gonna be like dad joke of every game where you're like approaching the play it's snell and you're like oh off i go one of those we we saw him pitch in San Diego a couple years ago. And every time, like, he would strike somebody out or something,

the scoreboard would have this thing. It would be like snow. And Lauren and I were just laughing. I took pictures of it. I took some video of it. It's just like it's really nice to have your whole – it's like when I was visiting my aunt and uncle when they lived in florida and we went to a jacksonville suns game and their entire their entire store was just things that were js and i said i don't know what

i'm gonna do here like can i buy it all because i've the entire stadium is monogrammed for me i bought a hat. I have a JS hat. It's great. Pretty good. But yeah, it's a little like that. It's weird. It's weird.

In fact, if I wanted a different number other than his number seven that he's going to wear, it would actually cause some cognitive dissonance, right? People would be like, well, why are you wearing a six? Yeah. So it's just all, at least seven. People like seven. That's a nice lucky number seven lucky seven it is and jamie was born on a on a seven so come on i'll put it down that way too so andy yes

the answer is yes and probably much much more that's the answer if you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of Upgrade, just go to UpgradeFeedback.com and send in your Snell talk question. Saddle up, partner. It's time for a rumor roundup. Ooh, yeehaw. Wow. The horses got here early today. Very early. There's other stuff going on in this episode. Yeah, there's lots of other stuff. They were scared away from the courthouse,

and so here they are. Oh, well, that's what you gotta get. They shouldn't be there. They should not be at the courthouse. Were they shooed away by, like, a bailiff? Did a bailiff go, like, get out of here, you rumor horses. We don't want you here to get they shouldn't be there would they shoot away by like a bailiff did a bailiff get out of here you rumor horses we don't want you and they went and he said uh yes yay yay i think yay and they and they left and they left yeah mark german and his power on newsletters reported that ios 18 previously dubbed apple's biggest update ever, will see new tools and options for home screen customization. Mac rumors followed this up with their own sources, saying that Apple will, quote,

introduce the ability to create blank spaces, rows, and columns between app icons. The grid layout will remain, but we will be able to operate more freely within that grid. So like Android. Although I will also say, you can free place widgets on the ipad you can that that's a thing that people a lot of people don't know but like you can free

place widgets you you can take a widget out of the grid and put it like down in the corner and it just stays there so they've already that was the first like oh look at this something is happening that's different so i think this is good think this is good. I've been playing with all those Android e-readers and stuff. And like, it's really nice to be able to say, I'll put this icon here and just have it be there instead of playing the weird kind of like puzzle game you do where you move one thing and then everything else moves around it.

And you're like, no, that's not what I wanted. So that's, I mean, it only took them how long, but here we are so hooray something else that uh that i like that you can do um on the ipad is you can have different app slash widget layouts depending on portrait and landscape also nice yes absolutely i'm a big fan of that good stuff i i imagine that that is all informing where they're going next with iphone home screens yeah which will be very cool maybe along with all the ai stuff sure uh also the wall street journal talking about ai stuff is reporting that apple is holding conversations with open ai and Baidu,

as well as Google, to offer AI features for the phone. This would seem to suggest that what Apple is most likely going to be doing is creating the capability for a user to choose which chatbot, I guess we could call them, just for the ease of understanding, service that they would like to work with. In the same way that you can choose your default browser right so baidu would be in china um and then you'd have probably uh open ai and gemini elsewhere um so yeah it's probably there will be a preference and someone will pay a lot of money for that i expect google um like you know like who's going to be first like who's going to be like your default uh but this is an interesting idea would and i think would make a lot of sense

i will be it would be surprising if they're going to offer this stuff and everyone's going to have it ready for september but it's a great opportunity so i'm sure it'll be prioritized by whoever apple decides to work with on one level you know level, you could literally make a query that says, please respond in this form that Apple uses to parse this and that it would actually respond in that form. I do wonder if this is general purpose chatbot feature or if some of this is what do I use as a data source when I need to get more data back from something that I don't have

through one of my other data sources. And how much of this is, like, it could be swappable. It could happen dynamically based on the results that you want. And I wonder about the business model because, like, people pay to use ChatGPT. So there's a question of, like, is Apple going to pay them to use their services? And if you're, you know, does it work out where like you're like well no but i pay open ai so i want to use their i don't know it's it's going to be interesting to see the the way that the business relationship gets gets sketched out here too but i'm also wondering like does apple view these sources

as interchangeable or is apple trying to make different deals for different markets or for different functionality i think it's all open or maybe you can only do this if you're an iqal plus subscriber otherwise it goes to the web i don't know you know maybe um i also wonder if there's a a uh distribution of of volume going on here where like in the US and other regions that have open AI, GPT and Google Gemini, if one of the concerns we mentioned last week, which is that this could potentially be

like the most AI volume ever for one of these things. And like, is there enough, are there enough resources for this thing to stay functional? Well like, is there enough? Are there enough resources for this thing to stay functional? Well, one way you can make there be enough resources would be to spread it out, right? And say, we're not just using Google, we're using Google, and we're using OpenAI, and maybe others for different queries, and then put your Siri interface in front of it. I don't know. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace,

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upgrade at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com upgrade and the code upgrade when you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our 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's time for DMA Today. Literally.

Today. The European Union has published a press release stating that Apple will be involved in a DMA non-compliance investigation along with Meta and Google. I think we've touched on this briefly. Lots of companies are involved in the DMA stuff,

but we just focus on Apple here because it's already too much of just Apple. I can't focus on Alphabet and Meta as well in this stuff. But looking at the press release that they put out, the EU is concerned that Apple is still trying

to steer users away from pricing and offers that other developers offer. The EU believes that Apple is not adequately providing choices for default apps, and they are concerned that the fee structure, I'm assuming they mean the core technology fee, may be defeating the purpose of the DMA as well. The investigation that they have launched could last up to 12 months.

And presumably if Apple has not changed things during this period, which I assume is a possibility, and if they are found in noncompliance of the DMA, the fines will begin. And remember, it can be up to 10% of global revenue. So there's a lot along the line. Yeah, this is, you know, we, it's a different form of the same thing we've been saying all along, which is one of the challenges with Apple in Europe, with the DMA, is Apple,

so the EC has been supportive of the idea that Apple as a platform owner needs to do things to protect the security of the platform. And they want Apple to continue to innovate. There are all sorts of things that they, they are, they say they're not trying to do. things that they they are they say they're not trying to do the challenge is that apple is making changes but also pointing to its role as a platform owner to say but we need to keep this secure so we're going to do it this way and i think a lot of these um conflicts are visible here where apple is saying uh well you know we we need to do like let's take uh like the the browsers or or we could take the core technology fee you know that there's this balance or like the um the access to sideloading and say um well you

know to keep it safe we're going to erect a giant, a very high barrier that very few people are going to ever go over. And that ends up being a conversation which is like, well, wait a second. And as we've said in many of these segments over the last few weeks, it's like, well, wait a second. You've set the rules of the thing that you're doing to comply to make it so that nobody will want to do it. And it's not entirely surprising that the EU regulators would come back and say, well, that wasn't the purpose. The purpose of these regulations is for you to open things up so that people will take advantage of it. So doing it, but making it so poisonous that nobody wants to actually implement it is not, in their mind, is not complying, right? And that's what's going on here. And this is one of those dangers of Apple

having this incremental approach, is they're saying, you didn't go far enough. And the question is, and I don't know enough about how the EU's system works here, but is this something where Apple is now going to get fined or is this more like apple now has a ticking clock and the eu is going to come in and say here are the things you need to do or we're going to give you a giant fine um because at some point there has to be a hammer right like whenever we've seen apple make changes in the last few weeks right and and the question is, what's the hammer? What motivates them to do that?

What is hovering over them that's like, if you don't do this, do this or else, essentially, right? What's the or else? And that big fine is the or else, right? That enormous fine is the or else. Because you're talking about, what is it like? I mean, it's billions of dollars. Because you're talking about, what is it like? I mean, it's billions of dollars. It's 10% of global revenue, but it apparently can go up to, I think, 20% if there are multiple kind of infractions, I guess.

So it's not one of these, like, pay $100 million and ignore the law kind of things. It's designed to have teeth. So that's what's hovering over Apple. And I don't know. that it's designed to have teeth. So that's, that's what's hovering over Apple. And, um, I don't know. I mean, I think the question is also, what are the regulators want? Like, do the regulators want Apple to do what they say? Um, or do the regulators want to make a, an example of Apple? Right. And I don't know the answer to that question. I think they want the Apple. I think they want Apple to comply. Um, there's a question about like, do they want the apple i think they want apple to comply um there's a question about like do they want to do a big fine just because it'll be like landmark and and and everybody'll

point to it and be like oh boy here we go you can't you got to do what they say yeah there are a lot of ramifications to that though right which is like you might want the fine but what happens to apple's business in the european union if they're going to keep getting these fines, right? If for whatever reason they are completely unwilling to make the changes. There's a lot of like, yeah, I think realistically, I think you're right. They just want Apple to comply

because then the EU looks strong and they're getting what they want, right? Which they believe, you've got to hope that they believe is the right thing to do, whether, you know, whatever. But again, there's no pre-clearance though, right? Which is the funny thing about the way this is structured. It's not like, as far as I can tell, it's not like Apple took their entire plan to the regulators and said, okay, here's what we're planning on doing. Do you have any comments for us?

Like, well, you should do this more. Like, okay, we'll get back to you on that. I mean, mean i agree but we've also spent the last month saying like we don't think this looks right you know what i mean right she's like there was a way they could have crafted their policies to be quote like to not defeat the purpose of the dma like me and you have sat here and been like that doesn't seem right and that's not their strategy that's not their strategy right it's to do it's to do what they think is the letter of the law and then basically be told by the EU that's not good enough. And so here we have this action,

which is essentially saying we're investigating this because we don't think it's good enough. And I get it, right? We've had numerous examples where we've said this seems contrary to the purpose of the DMA, the way that Apple has chosen to do it, right? We've had numerous examples where we've said this seems contrary to the purpose of the DMA, the way that Apple has chosen to do it, because Apple has... When the DMA was passed, we had a lot of sort of theoretical thoughts, theoretical stuff, like, oh, this means Apple's going to open this, or this means Apple's going to change this policy. And what ended up happening was Apple opened this to a limited group defined in a very

narrow way by Apple. Apple added this feature in a limited way with a limited set of ability for developers to implement it. And they changed policy X, created a new policy, which inherent to the new policy would take us all the way back to the start again because you've changed it right but yeah it's changed in such a way that no one wants to change right and that's that's where the you know and i i don't know if i really anticipated it being quite like that where it was like um well we we oh you say we have to do uh an app marketplace

or side loading um so we're going to do an app marketplace or sideloading. So we're going to do an app marketplace and not sideloading, which turns out was not what they intended. And in order to do sideloading here, all the rules and here's the money you have to put aside. And here, here are the other ways you have to qualify. And,

and then they build up a whole bureaucratic structure on top of it, which I didn't, I didn't think it would be quite that strategy, right? Which is we're going to do what you say, but make it impossible for almost anybody to actually use it. And that leads to this, right? Which is we've already seen them say, oh, sideloading. Yeah, we're going to add that later, where they were obviously told this is not going to be acceptable. And then by opening this up the non-compliance investigation it feels like it's an escalation but it's almost like an intent intentional escalation and it's it at least from the outside i look at this and i think this is this is the eu arming it's well you can't arm a

hammer but you know lifting the, cocking the hammer. Well, if they had a jackhammer. Picking up the hammer. Right? If it's a jackhammer, they plugged it in. No, what it is, so there's a compliance hammer to be used here. And this is them, like, if not picking it up and putting it over Apple's head, it's, you know, they took it out of the drawer. And now it's sitting right there.

Like I could pick up this hammer at any point, but that's, that's what this is. So it's an escalation. It's a reminder of what the, the fines are for not listening to them. And then it's also a be prepared for us to demand that you make specific changes to your behavior,

which Apple hates, but like, this is the game they're playing yep is they brought this on themselves by saying we're gonna do the minimum and then you're gonna have to tell us uh where we did it wrong and they're and they are they're gonna do it like i understand that there are a lot of people that don't like the spirit of the law argument right that people want there to be letter of law and like that's the way it goes i understand that i understand how complicated it can be to legislate a spirit

of the law i think that legislation like this has to be part in spirit as well as the letter because if you but apple has you could argue apple has complied by the letter of the law, but that compliance has gotten us to a point where it was kind of a waste of time for everybody. Yeah, I don't want to go off on a tangent here, but I'll just say anything written can be willfully misinterpreted by an interested party. Yeah. Anything can be willfully misinterpreted by an interested party. Yeah. Anything can be willfully misinterpreted. Where you think you passed a law that was very clear. I was just reading the story about this, about how there was some sort of,

I forget what it was, state law that was passed somewhere. And they're like, aha, we did it. We did it. It's all very clear now. And then one court case completely inverted the intent of the state law you know

whoa because they they encouraged a judge to read the case in a different way and so i think implied in the whole purpose of having a regulatory regime in the european union is when they do the DMA, they're saying, here's the big picture of what needs to happen. Here's why it needs to happen. And the regulator will ensure that it happens. And that gives the regulator some authority to say, yes, I know you parsed, like, for example, I know you parsed the thing about marketplaces and sideloading to have it be an either or, and then you're not doing sideloading. We've decided that you're doing sideloading, right? And I know people can get upset and be like, well, but, you know, it said either or, look at the, and then they're doing that thing, right? Where you're reading the

words on the page and saying, but look, but your honor, this says we don't have to do it. And that's why you put a regulator behind it. And the regulator is instructed, you know what we want, right? They're giving orders to the regulator, like, here's the laws, we've written it, and you know what we want to get out of this. And it's your judgment about, not the judgment of a judge who's listening to the regulated it's your judgment about whether this uh this is fulfilled or not and and that puts it in the hands of the european commission two reasonable people having a disagreement would listen to each other and if something was misunderstood and corrected they would try to work together to deal with it that

is not how the legal system works right where it's this idea of like well we read it this way and we can get someone to agree with us and that's the end of it and i just personally don't particularly vibe with that i know it's what has happened but i don't necessarily think that just because something has been away it should be that way forever and i think that even though this is complicated and brings its own set of issues that you have to work through that this method of legislating if you'll call it that this method of rule making where you're kind of trying to have a conversation with the regulatory body and deal with it properly so you're getting to the intention of the law in the first place i think that i that that jives more with what i want from the world rather than just a couple of smart people finding a loophole in a document.

over commerce in that region, instructing an arm of the government to work with the companies that want to do business in the region to follow the rules. If we take it to the big picture, it's like, who are these people to tell Apple what to do? Well, the answer is it's Europe. And Apple can be in Europe, but if you're going to be in Europe, you have to follow the laws in Europe, just like how Apple follows the laws in China. If you want to be there, you got to follow the laws in Europe, just like how Apple follows the laws in China. Yep. If you want to be there, you got to follow, those are your choices, you know, follow it or leave.

Those are your choices. And as a result, you've got to, you've got to listen to the regulators where, and, and if it's a tough regular, again, I think the regulators are,

are very focused on specific things that Apple does, but are actually kind of open to arguments from Apple on all sorts of other things. I think they're just less impressed with the idea that Apple is going to erect huge barriers to things that are mandated by the DMA in the name of security. You know, because like, again, with creating that proxy for a developer in good standing of two years in the app store and a million downloads. Like if I was a regulator, and I'm not, I would look at that and say, you know, you've gone against the spirit of what we're trying to do here and sort of claiming that you can't police your own developer system and that therefore you're going to erect this huge

barrier. And my thought would be your barrier needs to be a lot lower. this huge barrier. And my thought would be your barrier needs to be a lot lower. And if you're afraid about fraud, it's your job to stop people from fraudulently becoming members of your development community. It's not, you know, you can't, you can't put it on the regulation and say, well, we're going to just make it impossible for people to use this feature because we can't police our own app store and our own developer membership system and like that that's that's the back and forth that's got to be going on right now all right let's close the book on law and legislation and antitrust today in europe

as we welcome our new segment doj today oh no the u.s department of justice 15 states and the district of columbia sued apple last thursday on the grounds of anti-competitive actions related to the iphone and related products it is a very complicated 88 page document that jason has read so i read jason's article and we're going to use that which was very good felt to me anyway everybody out there can just listen to mike and it will go from the department of justice to me to mike to you yep that's how it works and we're going to use that as a framework for discussion today so you broke this down to a bunch of segments and we'll start by you know if we're looking at antitrust we start by saying there's a monopoly right that's how we get to this point so the doj is suing apple on the grounds of

anti-competitive behavior anti is it anti-competitive or anti-trust? Are they the same? Yeah, anti-trust. A trust is like a monopoly. It dates back to the days of railroads and oil companies being monopolies. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Great. So we need to first define a monopoly.

So the Department of Justice has tried to do that. A 60% share of the U.S. smartphone market, which is what Apple has, is not a monopoly so the department of justice has tried to do that um a 60 share of the u.s smartphone market which is what apple has it's not a monopoly it's not enough right it's not a monopoly doesn't seem like it so they are kind of carving it up um in a few ways one the department of justice is using revenue generate instead of units sold they have created created a new sub-market of smartphone called Performance Smartphone, which pushes Apple up to 70%. And they also accuse Apple of attempting to create a monopoly through various tactics. So even if they haven't got like 90% of the market, they're really trying to get it. Is that fair? I mean, I've just summarized your summary.

Yeah, yeah. The idea here is they need to establish why this is a monopoly, and it's actually kind of hard. And so they have said, well, it's just in the U.S., and it's just revenue, and if that's not good enough, it's just performance smartphones, which gets us up to 70% revenue share. And then I'd say the other thing they do that in my mind suggests that they know that their numbers aren't very strong and they're just trying to make their case here. At one point, they do finally get to a number that I think most people would say is verging on a monopoly, which is a number that starts at 90. And they do that by making the bold claim that 90% of the smartphone market is controlled by Apple and Google and Samsung put together, which is so amazing, right? Where they're like, aha, we got to 90 by adding in two competitors who are not part of this lawsuit. I don't, it's bananas. But the truth is, historically,

not part of this lawsuit i don't it's bananas but the truth is historically what defines a monopoly is not like a number it is it has to with the power exerted over the entire market as defined what that market is that's defined and um it also can vary based on even the regions of the the circuit courts of the federal uh judicial system and if you um if you're wondering why they filed in new jersey new jersey this circuit court had a case where they found that a company involved in making like dentures and accessories or something had a 60 some percent market share and they said they were a monopoly because of the way that they used their power. And they undoubtedly picked this court because of that. So I'm not a lawyer. I look at this, and I think it doesn't pass the sniff test of being a monopoly.

But they will make some very clever, as we said before, you can argue anything. And you could say, well, Apple doesn't have a monopoly in the sense of being 90% of the market, but the power they exert over the smartphone market is such that they are behaving as a monopoly. That would be the argument. It's just, you know, this would be easier if Apple's real market share was 70%. This would be way easier if it was 80%. And this would be, I would say a slam dunk if it were 90%. So I think it is an issue where they really have to make the case that Apple exerts huge control over this market. And Apple's defense is going to be that it's a highly competitive market, and that everything Apple is doing is because they have brutal competition, not just in the US,

but all around the world. And the more they can globalize it, the lower their market share gets because the U.S. is their best market. So this is kind of interesting because it dovetails from what we were just talking about. So for me, I don't care about percentages, like me personally. Because that last point that Apple attempts to create a monopoly through various tactics, and we're going to go through those tactics that the doj is setting out i think that that is the key to it that like apple is trying really hard and if they could they would very happily take that 90 and treat it exactly the same sure sure yeah the challenge the challenge is that legal tactics by a regular company become illegal when a monopoly does them. So there's this fuzzy line. And you can make the historical claim, right, that Apple's market share has actually grown a little bit. in a battle with Google and Android in general and Samsung in particular in the premium category

and that this is a fierce competition and that Apple's decisions are based on that and not based on control. Because in the end, it's about, is Apple just trying to take its power to reap all these benefits or is it doing it because it is locked in a struggle with the competition and it's competing? And that's one of the things we have to deal with. I should also say

for people who have not spent any time thinking about antitrust law or aren't in the US, you may be saying to yourself, why does it matter? They obviously have a big market share and they're very powerful and you can put them together with Samsung and Google and get them over 90%. Really, if you look at it as iOS and Android, it's 100% essentially of the smartphone market. And that gives Apple as one of two major players and gatekeepers enormous control over the market, which is what the EU's argument is. Except for this, in order to have a lawsuit, you got to have a law. It's got to be illegal. They got to do something illegal. Yes. And the United States has been very bad said you have to comply with it. industries like trains and oil. But this is the thing is, that's all they got. That's all they got. And monopoly law and antitrust law has evolved over time. And there are lots of complex definitions of it now because you have to kind of evolve it. Otherwise, all you're going to get is

the Rockefellers and the Stanfords of the world, from the 19th and early 20th centuries. And so it has evolved. But this is what they have to use. So if you're wondering, why are we even arguing about if Apple's a monopoly? Why can't we just talk about Apple's behavior? The fact is that if the Department of Justice can't definitively prove that Apple is behaving as a monopoly, they have no case. Because Apple's not being accused of doing anything that's illegal in general. They're being accused of doing things that are illegal for people with monopoly power to do. And that's the huge difference. So everything is about the monopoly. In my opinion, I mean, it's not just my opinion,

one of the worst things that happened here is epic took apple to court because there is nothing in here about the app store right like about apple's control of the app store because epic and apple have already had this fight and epic lost and i feel like if the department of Justice could have included in here things about the App Store, then we'd be talking about a different kettle of fish. Yeah. I think this would be a different case. Yeah. I mean, there's stuff in there. They mention it, but they are steering away from it.

And this is, okay, there's a lot of talk about this. This has been out there for a little while now. And there are people who are like, aha, take it to big tech. And there are other people who are like, this is ridiculous. This is such a stupid thing. It's a waste of everybody's time.

I would say my frustration with this is that there are lots of things Apple does that I don't like and that I think are questionable in terms of their behavior, in terms of things that I think that Apple is doing that seem very unfair and that they're using their power and their control of their platform to be anti-competitive. There are lots of examples of that. Very few of them are in this lawsuit. And, and part of it, part of it is that, um, already in the Epic games case, a lot of this stuff was sort of run up flagpole and found to be not super convincing. Doesn't mean they can't make those arguments again. And this legal panel could say, actually, we do believe

those arguments, but it makes it harder. And I think it also suggests, given some of the weak arguments that are in this first filing, I would say anything you don't see in here is probably not because they forgot about it. It's because it felt even weaker to them to allege. And as a result, I'm frustrated by this because I look at this and I think it's kind of misguided. You missed a huge opportunity. And some of the stuff that you are picking is dumb, right? Like, is this the best you can do is sort of how I walk away from this. Because I don't think that there aren't any competitive urges that Apple has that they have been exercising over more than a decade. But two things.

One, is it illegal? And that's on Congress, right? That's on the lawmakers to make laws about is it legal or not, as opposed to just feels real icky. And so, like, is it illegal or not and then is and then the other thing is the department of justice like do they even get it is the other my other concern is it's it's people remember when we talked about the ai pin the humane ai pin yeah And one of the things that we picked out about it was there's this, it's a cool demo and it's a cool product. And I think it's actually very instructive that if you don't have a smartphone platform that you own, that's dominant, it's very hard for you to even

make a presence in the market, which again, it's not illegal, but I think it's troubling about where the market is now with the two huge companies that control it. But the big thing about the Humane AI pen was also that their whole thing is sort of like, isn't it great? You can be freed from your smartphone. And you and I both were talking about how people like their phones, right? They're looking at them all the time. They like them. people like their phones right they're looking at them all the time they like them there's no i i've yet to see one of those you know like those late night commercials that are like oh i'm tired

of opening cans i hate it i open cans all day and somebody's like i've got a can opener for you right it's a little like that which is like oh i'm tired of looking at my phone all the time there's all these games and i can scroll in social media i wish help me ai me, AI pen, right? That doesn't exist. And I think of that about this lawsuit too, which is the lawsuit has a real tenor like people don't like the iPhone when in fact the customer satisfaction, as Tim Cook would tell us,

very high on the iPhone. People love the iPhone. They love it. And there is an undercurrent in this suit of this idea, because one of the things that they're really trying to challenge is lock-in. The idea that Apple traps its customers in its ecosystem and it can't get out.

And there is no doubt, no denying the fact that Apple sees lock-in as a benefit. And Apple likes lock-in. Apple likes making it stickiness. And I bet they have so much discovery, like documents and emails that confirm that part. Of executives saying, yeah, we love it. We love it. Of course they do. Why would we love it. We love it. They love it. Of course they do.

Why would we make it easier to switch to our competition? All businesses do this. Which is, again, not illegal if you're not a monopoly. But Apple's just very good at it. But the tenor of the way the document is written is very much like, aha, through nefarious means, Apple has trapped people in their ecosystem. They don't want to be there anymore. They want to escape, but they can't.

They've been trapped. And it really has this whiff of that classic argument that people who buy Apple hardware or Apple products in general are just dupes of marketing and shameless. And exactly. And then they're trapped. And then they're just harvested for all their cash by Apple. And it's like both of these. So Apple desiring making decisions that enable lock-in and making their ecosystem sticky is a thing, right?

But when I read about it in this case, I think to myself, is your end argument that people don't want to be on the iPhone but they're stuck there? Because I don't think that's actually true, right? I think it's not a prison. But they can make the argument that because of Apple's actions, people can't even dare to think, right? That's the argument they can make. Yes. And this is something you and I have talked about a lot here too, which is,

I always have thought Apple behaves, Apple should have more confidence in itself. And I know people are, what do you mean? Apple's very arrogant. It's like, yeah, but Apple, we did that episode where it's like they own the field, they own the refs. And it's like, why compete is Apple's attitude. It's like, why compete if we don't have to? And I think Apple does believe that their products are superior, but they also believe that they shouldn't have to compete because why, why bother? And, and a lot of these regulatory exercises we're going through here are, uh, those groups saying one by lawsuit, by regulation, whatever saying, no, you need to, you need to actually compete on the merits, which I think is funny because I think Apple competes fine on the merits.

And in some areas where they don't compete on the merits, I think it's true that they would work harder if they had to compete. Again, is that illegal or not? Depends on if they're a monopoly, depends on a bunch of other things, but it is, they kind of bring this on themselves because what they're doing is saying, we want it to be sticky. We want lock-in because why wouldn't we? And as a result result that's evidence of them saying we don't want competition which is not great if you're in a antitrust lawsuit i just you know we're gonna get into some of the details here but like there is just like a like a thing for me or it's like i don't think a company can make 22 billion dollars a quarter and not expect to be

regulated right yeah you know, this was gonna happen. It's just happening this way. I mean, one of my pet theories is always that Apple's corporate culture is based on when they were the little guy who was about to go out of business going up against enormous adversaries who had monopoly power

and that they were just trying to survive and that they still have that attitude even though the shoe was on the other foot now. And I think you see that in stuff like this where you yes if you and one of your competitors god i so grossly said that wrong let me say 90 billion dollars a quarter sorry not 20 that was just one product is what i was thinking of let's let's let's let's break it down and again this is not about law this is just about like common sense right smartphone is basically required for everybody every human on planet earth yeah and there's only two kinds yeah google and apple yeah within i mean again i'm sure next

year is the year of linux in the pocket but um like really ai in the bin and and i know there's different different androids and no there's two but there's two that bin and I know there's different different androids in China there's two that you've got Android and iOS that's what you've got

there's two platforms here for the most important product in the world essentially most important tech product in the world do we not think that if there are

only two that they have enormous amounts of power over the human race and do we not think that perhaps governments might want to have a say about how they perform some aspects of their business?

I think it's not unreasonable to say that. And also, when there are two and one of them has more than half, right? Yeah. That's a problem. And in the US, they do have more than half. But the problem is the governments don't work on vibes. They work on laws. And in the U.S., there are not a lot of laws that directly address this stuff.

So they got to go with something like the Sherman Antitrust Act, which has been used, used against Microsoft. Anyway, yeah, so this is where we are. I think you and I have come back to one of my initial points, which is it feels like there's something here, and this doesn't feel like it's it. But this is what we got. But it might be, though. Maybe. It might be enough, right? It might be enough, because let's go through some of these things.

Yeah, I was going to say it might be enough in the sense that it might spur Apple to make changes that are substantial. It might be enough for a judge to agree with. Sure. Sure. Depending on the details. Absolutely. Because. Okay.

Let's, let's, let's dive into it. We have all of these points and I saw someone say this and I, and I thought that it was a really good argument. Like some of these points seem strange unless maybe they have a lot of evidence that makes them make sense, right? Where like, you say, look, Apple does this thing.

We know it because here's the emails. One of them is suppressing cross-platform technologies. The idea that Apple makes it harder for developers to release software that works the same on iOS and Android, therefore making it harder for users to switch and know that they would have a comparable experience if they had a different phone phone the department of justice site that some of these things are

suppressed are cloud streaming games third-party messaging apps not being able to receive incoming sms's so you are pushed into iMessage which i actually thought was enlightening it's an unexpected argument but the argument is basically apple built iMessage, which I actually thought was enlightening. It's an unexpected argument, but the argument is basically Apple built iMessage on the fact that it was the default message receiver on the platform. I think that is a super strong argument to me. Whereas they put their messaging service in the SMS app. Exactly. Smartwatches, other than the Apple Watch not being able to be fully featured, digital wallets, and the one that is the weirdest to me, super apps. Super apps.

Super apps are mostly popular in Asia, and there are a few different ones. WeChat is often cited, but WhatsApp is actually one really in India, especially. Yeah, there's like a Tata something super app in India too, but they're very popular. One app where you do loads of stuff. So one app where you message,

you have payments, you can order food, you can order cars, right? It's a whole thing. They build little mini apps. They basically build a platform that is the app, and then they have little mini apps inside it that they control. And so you end up in a situation in China where one of the things about the chinese market and i know we talk about this when we do the quarterly stuff here is that in china if everything you do is in wechat then um you can

go to an android phone and as long as there's wechat which there is you can do everything there too you can go to iphone and there's we. So you do everything there. And this is the whole cross-platform thing. What the Department of Justice is trying to say is Apple makes it hard to switch and that that is an anti-competitive action and it should be easier to switch. And I think there are, if you try to unravel that, it gets really weird because I think that behind it is a technological naivety about platforms being different and the idea that we're not going to say all software must be developed with the same APIs, right? That's bizarre. And yet, if they're different, the more different they are, the harder it is to switch between them. Also, I would argue that if I were to switch from

iOS to Android today, I would lose my Apple Watch because it's not compatible, but I could replicate everything else I do on Android, right? So the cost of switching, I'm a little bit skeptical of, but I think it's an interesting lens for them to view this situation, which is to say how easy it is to switch. And in China, it's very easy to switch. Now, the problem with that is that there's another monopoly, which is the super app. That's the weirdest part to me. Which is itself a monopoly. I can't believe that the Department of Justice, in an antitrust case, is asking for Uber to be the place where I live my life, which is essentially what I would have, right? Which is so here's the idea mike the idea and this this comes in somewhere else which is the whole argument in this document which is that the only reason we're here today is because the doj sued microsoft which something something something big question mark allowed apple

to flourish which is not true it's it's a it's a laugh uh it is them patting themselves on the back but if you if you view it through the lens of that, then the super app thing, you could say, oh, well, this is great because it'll give them work for the next decade when a super app becomes a monopoly. They can sue them. They can sue them. Great. The Department of Justice say that Apple have

total control. They exert power over the platform to limit developers and users. Can't argue with that one. No, I mean, that's right. Not a bad. So yeah, cross-platform, total control are, I think, and lock-in, right? Those are the big arguments.

And they keep releasing new products that work with each other, and they keep trying to go into new markets. And over time, they will just do that more and more and more until they can try and control all of the stuff in technology and that is that is definitively i would say the the defining characteristic of an illegal monopoly is that you have a huge power base in one area and then from there you can exert it elsewhere and your competitors can't can't compete elsewhere with you because of your base in your monopoly because it's very hard to compete with somebody who's got that level of power and so with microsoft the argument was microsoft wasn't

allowing browser competition because it had operating system dominance and they lost that case basically they they they changed how they did it and they had to unbundle ie and all of those things happened and then apple came along so look hooray so um that that's one of the challenges here is these um are are they using that power in a narrowly defined monopoly to i, the smartwatch thing is a good example where like what they're not saying, the DOJ is not saying really is Apple not bringing the Apple Watch to Android

is monopolistic, right? Like that's a very weird argument to make to say if you don't support other platforms, you're bad. Like it's illegal to release it for only your own platform. It's not what they're saying. It is weird, though, that Garmin doesn't have an API to be able to get messages. And there's arguments that there is that to some degree, and I want to see the evidence.

But the argument that I think has more resonance, if it's true, is Apple. And it sounds like something Apple would do, right? Which is Apple built a whole bunch of APIs for the Apple Watch so that the Apple Watch would work well. And I don't think anybody would say that is fundamentally bad. I think people would, I mean, maybe there's somebody at the Department of Justice, but I think it's a reasonable person would say Apple innovating with its own product and building a whole bunch of stuff to let its own product work is not inherently bad the challenge that the doj sees here is and i don't know whether it's at the time it ships or within a reasonable amount of time is apple built all that stuff for the apple watch and the argument goes and the allegation is that other smart watches try to get

access to all of that close tie-in with the system that allows them to function at the same way that they do on Android, and they can't. And that's their argument, is that Apple... And then it goes to cross-platform and lock-in by saying, essentially, if you want to use a smartwatch on an iPhone, you can only use Apple's because the others aren't very good because they're being anti-competitive. And of course, it doesn't work on the other platform. So if you switch, you're not just buying a new phone, you have to buy a new watch now.

And that's all about lock-in and anti-competitiveness. That's the argument that they're making. And I think, again, the idea that at some point, Apple needs to let other smartwatches work on the iPhone. They can't just make it that the Apple watch works the best. If somebody wanted to put in the investment, if Google wanted to put the investment to have one of the Google smartwatches work as well with iOS as

the Apple watch does, they should be able to do that. That's the argument. They also say that Apple uses security for convenience. I'm going to read a quote from you, which includes a quote from the Department of Justice. Thank you. It calls Apple's privacy and security justifications an elastic shield that can stretch a contract to serve Apple's interests. Yes.

Go off, DOJ. Right? Like, they do do this. They do. They absolutely do. And, you know, the problem is i mean elastic elastic shield is actually really great because implication in there this is my favorite line in the whole document um the implication there is it stretches or contracts to serve its interests

it's not what it's not saying is apple says you know like we've heard these troll arguments before right which is like well apple says that privacy and security matter, but it don't really. All that matters to them is money. It's like, that's not true. Privacy and security absolutely matter to Apple. And it's absolutely a priority for them. It is also true that Apple's behavior is not only prioritizing privacy and security. It also is about their own interests, about money,

maybe about lock-in. Those things are also in there. And once you let those things creep in, it makes it easier for, say, the Department of Justice to point at it and say, you're hiding behind security. Like we said about the rules in Europe for letting somebody into the store, where they're like, oh, well, yeah, you can do sideloading. You just have to spend two years in a penalty box and find a way to get a million downloads in Europe. And then you're free to do what you want, right? And we have to do this because of platform security. And it's like, well, there are probably other ways to answer that problem, but you've decided to make it about platform security. What I would say is it's not consistent well, there are probably other ways to answer that problem, but you've decided to make it about platform security.

There are, what I would say is like, it's not consistent. There are examples where Apple is doing features that benefit privacy and security, that it's entirely about privacy and security. There are cases where it's mostly about privacy and security, but they also look at it and say, oh, we could also make some money here. And it has the added effect of having a little lock-in. It's good for us. And they do it. And then there are other ones where they talk about the privacy and security and you look at it and you go, really? Because it seems

to me like your real motivator here is that this gives you more power or control or money or some combination of those. And again, they have nobody but themselves to blame because they could, they muddy these waters. They muddy these waters with their business decisions. And it is like one of the things that you cannot avoid from this. And I think one of the things that's going to continually come back to buy Apple is they are always talking about the tight integration between hardware and software, that that is what they care about. They promote heavily on this. Is it now said that this is illegal to do? I don't know.

But the fact that they have been so hell-bent on this idea that only their stuff can work together, that's now going to become a problem for them this is this is one of the more existential threats to apple is this idea that apple's whole idea of integrated devices is actually illegal given how successful they are on the iphone i don't think i don't think that that's quite right, though. I think there's a model here that's in clear view, and I don't know the details, but the Apple Watch is a good example. We could use others. Apple does this thing where they announce a new product, and it's like, I mean,ods are like this too right where it's like oh well bluetooth

wasn't good enough so we invented a new thing and it makes our headphones way better than anybody else's headphones on our platform yep i don't think that that is in any way illegal that's apple's business model that's how they make good products the challenge and this might make the whole thing untenable which is the danger for Apple. The challenge is, if you read that as being, we built a bunch of stuff that only we ever get access to, and it means that our product in this category will always be better than any of the other products in this category. And you can buy other earbuds if you really want to, but they're never going to be as

good as ours. So you might as well just buy ours, right? Ooh, I have a good example. Find My, the Find My network. So they built their own privacy tracking device. So their tracking device, right? The AirTag. But Apple knew this was going to be a problem for them

because they were already in trouble about tile, right? Right. So they created a system where you can make a product like this and apply and you would be in the Find My Network, which benefits from the majority of features

that an AirTag has. So they've shown they can do this. Yeah. Well, I mean, the latest example is the journaling app, which includes all sorts of things that are about your phone

watching what you do, what music you play, what podcasts you listen to, where you've been, what photos you've taken, a lot of stuff that has to happen on device because it's monitoring you, right? But it's your device and it's monitoring you because it's with you all the time. And then you decide what you want to do with it. And what Apple, in the past, I would argue what Apple would have done is announced the journaling app and release it. and only Apple's app would have access to all that data. And instead, what they did is they built an API, and they released an app that uses the

API, and they opened that API up to other apps to get that same data. And I know there's details there. I don't want to get into it. My point is, this is the kind of thing that is the model, potentially, which is, so you do the Apple Watch. The question is, what's Apple's burden to allow others access to this stuff? I think the argument would be, Apple, you cannot create private APIs, essentially, for your integrations that no one else gets access to so that you can exert your platform ownership power to prevent any competition on the platform. Now, there are a lot of arguments inside there,

which is, does that mean that every time, because the way that would hamper innovation is saying to Apple, every time you do anything innovative at all, you immediately need to release a detailed API spec and have everything be public so that somebody else can come in very quickly and write to all of those APIs. And there are cases where that's probably really fair, right? Like you're a third party who's been

trying to serve this market. I mean, I don't know, you're Pebble back in the day for smartwatches. You're day one or you're an app that's desperately wanted an API for something. And then Apple decides to make an app like your app. And now there's an API for it. The least they could do is let you also access the API. So the question is like, does that have to happen when they ship it? Because that's going to increase the burden on Apple. It would be the equivalent. I mean, this is the wrong example because it was in the early days of the iPhone.

But it'd be the equivalent of saying you can't ship the iPhone until you have an app store. It's that kind of thing, right? Where they're like, no, no, no, we need time. We don't even have the developer tools built yet. We ship the product. We can do the product, but doing the developer documentation and all those things, it's going to take more time. We still are having to work on that. It's like, okay, fair enough. Fair enough. That's where we are with stuff like this, which is it's probably okay for Apple. It's okay for Apple to innovate. It's probably okay for Apple to ship a product that does some amazing new things. But I think what the argument would be is it's not okay for Apple to take all of the extra connective tissue that they built that makes their integrated product work and keep it to themselves as the platform owner so that no one else can make a competitive product and have access to that same stuff. And therefore, everybody who uses an iPhone is really going to be predisposed to buy AirPods because AirPods work better. And I think that's the biggest potential danger and change and why this thing talks about private APIs. I think it's a huge,

to me, that's a huge thing because that's the one that blares out to me as being anti-competitive, which is it's not about Apple innovating. It's about Apple innovating and keeping all of the innovations on the hardware side as special to the platform owner, leading to a situation where nobody can compete with a platform owner on its platform anywhere in any other product. And that's, I mean, this goes back to our complaints about things like the Kindle books and stuff like that, where it's like Apple has built a product on its platform and made it impossible for anyone to compete with them. That seems anti-competitive to me, right? That's where it bugs me.

And some of that's in here. Not all of it, but some of it's in here. So obviously Apple's going to fight this. They've released a statement. This is from 9to5Mac. We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it. And this is going to take years.

There'll be lots of hearings. We'll learn lots of interesting things, maybe.rosoft took a decade microsoft took a decade there'll be lots of documents released from discovery process which will be fascinating i'll look forward to reading a lot of emails from people who shouldn't have been using email yep yes if there's one thing in the last few years i've told anyone she shouldn't use email but you also shouldn't do is say you shouldn't use email but what you also shouldn't do is say let's not use email

because Google did that and then they lost so everyone you need to say in person to everyone don't write anything down and then you end up in a problem

where no one can work because nothing's written down yeah I know write it all down on paper that's the trick hey Apple I have some notepads to show you if you want them

I don't know I don't know how to break this to you Mike but that's how this whole thing started, is this paper is subpoenable. But then you can shred it. Just like, uh-oh. Just write it all down on paper,

shred it at the end of the day. The upgrade program does not endorse the idea of destroying evidence. It's like Schrodinger's evidence, right? At what point is something evidence? How do you know it's evidence? Youdinger's evidence right at what point is something evidence how do you know it's evidence you know yeah when they sue you but then it's gone you shredded it yeah maybe so we're probably going to need a new name for this segment because now we have doj today

and dma today i don't want two different things based on jurisdictions and this doesn't help us when there's something in korea that happens or at first it didn't seem like we need necessary we didn't know we were going to need that you know what i mean so answers on a postcard go to upgradefeedback.com give us your suggestions uh i i asked chat gpt for some suggestions jason oh no well actually it might be an interest you know you never know what you're going to get so but what i wanted specifically was i wanted something with up right up something uh-huh because we've done that in the past the best that it gave me which i don't like but the best that it gave me was uphold but i don't like it no we'll see we'll come up with it send in your suggestions upgradefeedback.com if you have what you think is a good name overarching for for apple and legal legislation stuff send it in because this is how

we got upshift uh but we've true as we know we need to replace we lost that one so we gotta we gotta get a new one in but yeah i think i think dma today is going to be retired because now we need a broader apple under scrutiny um, whatever it might be. So yes, send in upgradefeedback.com. We would love to hear from you. their work. Vitally changes this. It is a new kind of customer success platform, an all-in-one collaborative workspace that combines your customer data with the capabilities you expect from today's project management and work platforms. Because it's designed for today's customer success team, that is why Vitally operates with unparalleled efficiency, improves net revenue retention, and delivers best-in-class customer experiences.

It is the solution to helping your customer success teams keep a better pulse on your customers, maximizing productivity, visibility, and collaboration along the way. You can boost your bottom line by driving more revenue per customer with Vitally. It is that simple. And if you take a qualified demo of Vitally, you can get yourself a free pair of AirPods Pro. So if you're a customer success decision maker actively seeking CS solutions, working at a B2B software as a service company with 50 to 1,000 employees,

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Our thanks to Vitally for their support of this show and RelayFM. It's draft time! We wanted to have some fun because we've been talking a lot about legislation. And you know what's on the horizon? iPads! So, it hasn't happened yet, which is fantastic. I was checking the Apple newsroom furiously today. But as of recording, on Monday the 25th of March, there have been no iPad announcements. So we're doing an iPad draft. What this will also do do is hopefully give us at

least three drafts this year, which is good from a scoring perspective when it comes to drafts. These are the rules. Got to make some drafts where we can. Yeah, we got to do it. This is a great idea from you. I'm happy you came up with it, especially because we're going to be talking about so much legal stuff. It's not our first preemptive draft, right? No. We've done it before. Yes. But I felt like I was listening to Connected last week and I had that moment where I thought, you know, there's a lot of unknown things. And fortunately, Mark Gurman on Sunday did not have big iPad news to share and he's off

next week. So I thought this would be a really good time for us to just be on the details of the ipad and then we'll see what happens when it happens and we'll score it then these are the rules there will be eight rounds 16 overall picks the winner of the previous draft gets first pick that is me there are some slight amendments to these rules because of the way we're doing it the items that we're going to be picking from are chosen from a predetermined list that we have agreed upon and are not ridiculously obvious for an item to count it must be known

for certain before scoring begins that's the difference this time Stephen Hackett because it's not like there's not going to be an event probably and we're going to leave it all the way up until we score it Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case of a scoring stalemate there are no partial points

the points awarded on the episode of final are finalized during the scoring segment in the case of a tie there is a tiebreaker question loser gets a pick of tiebreaker question the winner becomes draft champion and displays the champion pennant the loser becomes the draft

challenger and displays the challenger pennant you can find interactive scorecards for this draft and all drafts over at upgrade.cards, thanks to our friend Zach Knox. You can buy your own draft t-shirt anytime at upgradeyourwardrobe.com

if you would like to show off your love for the draft. In 2023, there were three drafts, WWDC, September and Octoberober i won all of them and i am the i was also the 2023 draft champion obviously if i won all three there have been three drafts historically in march jason has won them all fun fact mike i think we should do a draft in march the 2022 march draft was the last time jason won a draft i am on a losing streak we're gonna have to abolish drafts pretty soon you think that's the way we're gonna deal with

this interesting that's very interesting uh we usually do so in in a case of a as i mentioned before if there's a tie there's a tiebreaker question jason is going to be able to to set an over under on the tiebreaker we decided which is what will be the ipad pro starting price so jason you set the number and i will set whether it's over or under so i guess this is for the 11 inch right like because it's the lowest price the lowest price that you can buy into a new ipad pro if they keep an old model around which they won't but if they do that doesn't count uh current ipad pro do you know the starting price 799 dollars for the 11 inch yep um i am going to say this is from spall in the chat does mike have a draft monopoly someone alert the department of

justice yeah i know that's right you're using you're using your draft monopoly against me uh-huh you know you want you want to say that it's just competition but i do um i'm gonna say so 799 is the current i'm gonna say 950 dollars as the starting price is the current. I'm going to say $950. That's the starting price. $950 is the starting price, yes. Under. Hmm.

Okay. I think that's... You get $949 and $899 and even $799 if they keep it the same. I thought about going at $899 or $7.99 if they keep it the same. Yeah. I thought about going at $8.99 or $900. I think it's going to be $9.99. It could well be.

We'll see. But I'm going to take the under on it because it's a big jump, right? It's a big, big jump. It is. It is. And we'll talk about why, but I think I'm going to take the under on it.

All right. So we're not doing categories in this. We have lots of different picks across all of the various iPads that we're going to choose from. But we're just doing this as like eight rounds. So my first pick, both iPad Pro models have an OLED screen.

Okay. All right. This feels real obvious yeah but i didn't line it out like i did some of them yeah um i still think that there's a non-zero chance that they'll pull a gotcha and they'll be like i agree on like the the low end model won't have oled after all and look or they just don't even do it. You know what I mean? Like, we thought they were going to do mini-LED on the 11-inch, and they never did it. So, I feel like it's until, for something

like this, like a technology like this, I do feel like there is a possibility that it could change at any moment because of an issue, until they've done it once. You know what I mean? And until they've had an oled ipad pro they've not had one it's all it's schrodinger's oled it's like it's like i read something over the weekend i didn't but it just keeps coming into my mind is it good old schrodinger

um okay i'm gonna go with there's a new apple pencil okay i had this in so i make a provisional list i think we both do this right like we were and we rank them i had this at number 10 on my potential pick list i just feel like now's the time for it i mean it is possible that they will they will do it later but i feel like if there's new ipad pro model and there's a new apple pencil coming that this would be the time to do it so why not do it right now we have a lot of potential apple pencil picks so let's not give let's not talk about the apple pencil yet in case it comes up through other things okay my second pick will be a very popular one if it happens which is that the webcam is on the horizontal edge of the ipad pro yep that's a good call it feels like this one feels like it's got to happen because they did it on the ipad and like it would really this feels to me that you

they did it on that one because that was the the first one that they changed after making that decision and now it should come to the other products in my opinion yeah no makes sense to me and if they have a brand new design of the ipad pro then like i imagine it would be hard to have a new revision of the previous ipad pro and do that because they designed that ipad in a certain way but you've got to imagine if this ipad pro has new technology in it like an oled screen there was going to need to be some change to the way that the product was made. And so if you're going to go back to the design drawing board again,

you would also include something like this, which makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I agree. I think it's coming to all of them. The only question would be, again, that Apple disappoints us and we're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be there next time. And they're like, no, no, we couldn't. To be fair, that is the under writing current of all drafts, is we can be, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be there next time. And they're like, no, no, we couldn't. To be fair, that is the under,

like the underwriting current of all drafts is we can be, it's that Apple may disappoint us. It's always there. It's always there. Now we aren't allowing anybody to pick there will be a new Magic Keyboard. Correct. Because that feels fairly strong.

So I'm going to choose a larger trackpad on the Magic Keyboard. Okay. I just try to think of trackpad on the Magic Keyboard. Okay. I just try to think of a laptop-like Magic Keyboard, which is what Mark Gurman has reported. And I think what's one of the real knocks on the Magic Keyboard is the size of the trackpad. And if they made it... A little bit larger? Just a little bit? If they made it laptop-like, then maybe it's not going to have that wild cantilever thing.

If you don't have to do that, then you give everything more space, right? Exactly. Yeah. That would be nice. I would like that maybe it's not going to have that wild cantilever thing if you don't have to do that maybe and you give everything more space right exactly yeah that would be nice i would like that my third pick the ipad air comes in current ipad pro sizes ah yes right so this is the idea that the ipad air will be uh compatible with uh with the two sizes of ipad pro yeah and we'll use the existing uh accessories for the current model ipad pro so there'll be a uh what is it an 11 and a 12.9 11 yeah i mean that would make sense from that right especially if they're going to move on the magic keyboard maybe they your old magic keyboard will go with this right it's like great now you can move that down the line the the potential issue i see with this pick the ipad air might be bigger could be could be or the or the story that they're going to do a big ipad air is not true as it turns exactly that's a possibility also possible but yeah i think i

think if they're going to do it, they do it this way. And I do think now is the time you could do it if the iPad Pro is going to take a jump. And just for fun, I think they could call that product the iPad Air+. I hope they don't, but they could. That's just a little funsy, a little tip of the hat. Nice. I'm going to say the base model iPad receives an update. Okay. New base ipad 11th generation this feels like something you wouldn't pick if it was a video right i just feel like they're

gonna refresh everything yeah but like i mean if there was an event maybe you oh yeah like do they even mention it well sure they'll mention that low cost ipad yeah they will but it's probably a minor update from the 10th because the 10th was a big update but there'll be there'll be something and they may get rid of the 9th we'll see all right my fourth pick bringing us halfway the ipad pro starts at a higher price. Oh, interesting. I do think it will be more expensive. I don't know if it's going to be from $799 to $950. Yeah, right. I could imagine $899. I think too much higher and it's maybe too much.

Oh, I agree. It doesn't mean they'll stop it. So here's my thought. I agree that making them incredibly expensive is problematic in some ways. But if they're trying to differentiate the iPad Air from the iPad Pro and they've got OLED on these devices. And $999 is right there. That's my gut feeling, is this would be an opportunity for Apple to kick the iPad Pro way up the product line, start it at $999, and, you know, I hope they don't.

Right? I hope they—it's $799, honestly. But, yes, they could be introducing the larger iPad Air purely to increase the price of the iPad Pro. Right? I hope they... It's $799, honestly. But yes, they could be introducing the larger iPad Air purely to increase the price of the iPad Pro. And I do think that that's possible. I'm just not sure it's going to go up that high. I imagine

that the 12.9 inch, that might get a bigger bump, but I'm not sure if the 11 would. Could be. Although keep in mind that the 12.9 has the fancy backlighting now, and they're both getting OLED, so what does that mean? They're both coming from sort of a different place, display-wise?

Yeah. I don't know. I don't remember. We had those rumors that they were going to be hugely expensive, and then we had the rumors that said, no, no, no, no, they're not going to be. It's like a million dollars. I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know what to think anymore. Okay, I am going to go again, be the change you want to see in the world. Okay.

I am choosing an iPad Pro case is offered in a color that is not gray, white, or black. My word, Jason Snell. In my opinion. They currently sell a smart folio that's blue. It's dark blue, but it's blue. Okay. Marine blue. So I'm holding out hope that there'll be like, and we've got, again, you know, midnight in the forest green, whatever it is, that there's some color.

Not necessarily the magic keyboard necessarily, right? Because that's probably not. That's probably going to be boring. But that there'll be a case that will not be for the ipad pro that will not be gray white or black so right now there is a case yes one one all right midnight blue midnight blue mike midnight blue but it's not black it's blue you're riding on the fact that they will they will have a replacement for this essentially right like that's what you're hoping for well i mean i suppose if they don't change the size of the ipad pro at all and they use the existing cases then that would also be true but i'm i'm thinking

they will have to do new cases because the shape will be different and they will have their usual which is like it comes in it comes in monochrome and also this one very vaguely colored one. I don't think they're going to do like bright pink, right? Yeah. But that there'll be one that is dark green or dark blue, something like that. All right. This could be an interesting one to score. We'll see how that goes.

Wish you the best of luck there because color is always fun. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Ladder. Let's be real. People, including me, we have a tendency to put things off until the last minute, whether it's that trip to the DMV, arranging a dental checkup, getting to that hole in the fence, you know, the kind of things I'm talking about. While most of the time it works out, the one thing in life you cannot afford to wait on is setting up term coverage life insurance. You may have seen life insurance commercials on TV. You may have heard them on the radio, seen them in newspapers. You're like, I'll get to that later on. But this isn't something you should wait on. Choose life insurance through Ladder today. Ladder is 100% digital. There are

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and RelayFM. Okay, round five. The Magic Keyboard has a USB-C port. Woo! Wow. Well, the current one does. So.

Yeah. Oh, well, wait a second. No, I did that wrong then. Well, I would like this out already offers an ipad pro case in a color so no but but my my reason to not line this out was that it that it works for not charging it's like with data support well then get rid of that i don't want it you're not going to pick it then no i don't want it although just saying then i will say that maybe we could have lined out

your iPad Pro case one considering it's like they already do it. But you didn't. But nevertheless, we'll let it fly. Honestly, when they do a new one, it is a serious risk

that they just go back to monochrome. I know. So I'm going to go with my fifth pick. Every time you're rolling the dice there. My fifth pick now

is the new Magic Keyboard has a function row. Has a function row. That is a better pick. Good job. I'm going to go with that pick instead. Has a function row. That is a better pick. Good job. I'm going to go with that pick instead. Okay. Because I'm not taking the data support.

I'm not taking that. That's what made that outlandish, which is why I couldn't believe that you picked it. Okay, function row. You know, again, be the change you want to see in the world. You've got the space, hopefully. I hope so. Like, the function row is so useful.

And when I use an iPad Pro with external keyboards that have it it's so great because i can do media control and brightness control and then you get to the magic keyboard which is a product that i love but like no function row is brutal so i hope that that would be like the obvious things, right? This function row and trackpad size. Yep. I would think. I would hope. Oh, do I have to pick one now? Yes, that is how it goes.

That's how it goes. Man, I don't like these at all. Okay, this is vague enough that I'm going to pick it and just hope for the best, which is iPad Pro has a new OS feature that takes advantage of Magic Keyboard. Okay. That's the thing we have. Can we try and talk about what we think that might be just for context?

Uh, Oh, you know, can I change this pick to be a new accessory? I just want to, I want to see if there's a software feature that they introduce, right? That's not in current ipad os that that that an accessory is involved with right like a new feature or or i

could take it back to it has a new os feature but like i want to i want it to be like oh here's the thing the ipad couldn't do before that it does now let's leave the ipad pro ipad all right the ipad pro has a new os feature that takes advantage of a new accessory. It's kind of got to be the two things combined. Because then it's not super, like just a new OS feature might be a little too broad, but at least this is like, maybe the pencil does something new,

like hover, right? Or maybe the keyboard does something new. There's a reason we're waiting for an OS update for these things, and it's because I'm going to say an accessory that needs a thing to do a magically new thing that we haven't seen before yep all right my pick six was that one uh finally i'm doubling down and I'm going to say the iPad Air webcam is on the horizontal edge. Oh, okay.

I'm doubling down. All right. So you believe it's horizontal everywhere. Yeah. I mean, maybe not on the iPad Mini if it gets updated and all that,

but basically you're like, no, no, this is the time where they're going to the horizontal for all the webcams. I mean, they should do it. And they have done it. So I feel like they should just continue that. Why just iPad, you know? Let's do them all. Okay. okay um I'm gonna pick more colors are nonsense magic

keyboard comes color match to iPad Pro models I like this one right so the idea here is that the reports are that it's gonna have an aluminum element to it yes and if you've got if you've got a you know starlight and midnight or a space gray and silver ipad pro presumably they would color match them right

because the current ones are in two colors but they're not matched to anything because there's no material like that on the ipad pro right now but if they have an aluminum element on the keyboard, presumably they would want to color match it to the aluminum on the iPad. That's the idea. Yeah. I mean, if they're going to make it out of aluminum, they 100% should do this, right? So I would like

to see it. Right. Can you imagine them selling a space gray model and not having a space gray keyboard? That's weird. I mean, I can imagine it. i can't imagine it i can't imagine it i hope that they don't do that but don't do it so my next pick is one that i feel like when i say it considering how we've been pretty scrutinous we might actually remove it but it was in the list so i'm gonna say it the new apple pencil charges magnetically yeah well so here's the idea here is there are,

we have an Apple Pencil now that charges via USB-C. Yeah. One of the theories might be that if they, if it attaches magnetically, but can they charge it magnetically when they're also moving the webcam?

We'll find out. I'm going to pick it. Okay. I think that would be a serious regression i agree they did that i put it in charge via usbc and then i thought well let's do both sides of this and see what happens yeah right um you know there's a thing here for me where it's like they might be able to just make it work by doing the charging on one side and the webcam on another

side and the way that the keyboard cases and stuff might work would be based on that idea yeah you know we'll see but yeah i i i can see why they would change it i would be really surprised if they couldn't have found a way to deal with this yeah i think so um magic keyboard only works with 2024 ipad pro models okay just it's a new keyboard it only works with a pro it's for the pro there's going to be something about it i think it's going to be the attachment because it's going to be more laptop like and that's going to require very specific ipad hardware that is allowed allowing it to do that attachment via magnets or whatever and it's not going to be backward compatible with any other models of ipad because of that

all right eighth pick final pick i'm looking at my list here yeah i know my little short list uh oh boy um Oh boy. I have two that I'm really struggling with to choose from. One is one that I think could happen. The other is something I want to happen. Go with what you want to happen. No, no, no. That's how you lose a draft.

Tell me about it. I'm going to go with one that splits the difference. It's one that I think should happen and one that I think will happen. The iPad Pro gets magsafe. Oh. I don't think this will happen.

Now, it's got magnets on the back, but that's not what you're saying here, right? You're saying MagSafe for charging. Yeah, MagSafe for charging. But here's what I'll say, right, about this. The only reason I've picked this, there are two types of MagSafe. There are two types of MagSafe. There are two types of MagSafe.

And I don't think it's going to get iPhone MagSafe. Yeah, you think it's going to get Mac MagSafe? Yeah, because iPhone MagSafe to me doesn't make sense for this product. Or a new third iPad MagSafe. Yeah, I mean, you know what? There might be another one. You get it if that happens.

They might say, like, you know, like, oh, now the keyboard attaches magnetically and charges via MagSafe. It's like a completely different thing. But there you go. Like, you know, you attach the iPad to the keyboard and the keyboard has a new MagSafe thing. But yeah, I think MagSafe,

because magnetic charging is good. Apple has two different types of it. at least one of those should come to the ipad stop making me plug it in i agree i agree okay i'm gonna go with my last pick uh i'm gonna pick new apple pencil has an eraser okay now now now i'm i'm gonna leave this open one of the rumors about the apple pencil is is that it's going to have swappable tips. If one of the swappable tips is an eraser, I get this pick. If it's got an eraser on the backside, I get this pick. If it's got a button that you hold down and it turns into an eraser, I get the pick.

But if there is a defined eraser function in the Apple Pencil defined by Apple in hardware. Yes, you get this pick. And there are multiple ways to do it. And an eraser. This is not. So the pick that I was choosing from was the Apple Pencil has at least one button, which is a thing I've been asking to do since the first one. Right. Actual button.

Because I feel like now they might do a solid state button because they've gotten better at that right that's true yeah yeah as somebody who you know the current apple pencil i never use their like double tap kind of thing because it's not because it's not very good it's not very reliable it's not reliable enough but if they can have a great a little button or something like that or and the swappable tips and and the reason i picked the eraser also is that i think fundamentally this will be the if it if it exists the fourth apple pencil yeah how can you have a thing called pencil and never have an eraser it's bananas weird especially when like at first all right fine you put the charging thing there but then you didn't do that you know and like this and also for people that think if it's got a button on it i'm gonna be pressing it all the time trust Trust me, you won't. I use a Wacom tablet.

It has a button exactly where your finger goes. You just know how to hold it from a pressure perspective without engaging it. Yeah. The Apple will build in a very particular level of resistance. It's not rocket science. Or it's a physical button. You have to actively press it. I actually put a little button in there.

That is the iPad draft. Maybe we'll score it next I actually put a little button in there. That is the iPad draft. Maybe we'll score it next week. Maybe it's the week after. Maybe it's four months from now. We've done this. This is for whenever these iPads happen. I guess, basically, the way we'll do this is

it's whenever they have iPad Pros. Should we just use that as the thing? Yeah. What we're not going to do is partially score the draft and wait for the iPad Air to come out. whenever they have iPad Pros. Should we just use that as the thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we're not going to do is partially score the draft and wait for the iPad Air to come out. This is dependent on the iPad Pros being released

and we'll score it whenever that happens, which hopefully will be in the next couple of weeks. I hope so. Again, if you would like to score along, go to upgrade.cards. There will be a scorecard there from our wonderful friend, Zach Knox, who puts those together for us. No Ask Upgrade this week, but if you want to send

in your questions for our next episode, go to upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason's work at sixcolors.com. I really recommend going and reading Jason's article in full. It's in the show notes as well about the Department of Justice stuff because there was much more detail there. It's a really, really good article. Genuinely, I read it and was like, I feel like I don't need to read anything else. So thank you so much for doing that work for me, Jason. You took like an hour off my prep today. Great. You can also hear Jason's shows here on RelayFM and at TheIncomparable.com. You can listen to me here on on relay fm2 and check out my work at cortexbrand.com if you want to find us online jason is at j snow j s n e double l i am at i mike i m y k e yes i am trying to shorten this all right i've heard your feedback i'm doing my best you can watch video

clips of the show on tiktok instagram and youtube we are at upgrade relay thank you to our members who support us of Upgrade Plus. Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up. Today, we're going to talk about all of the things that were on the draft list that we didn't pick.

Thank you to our sponsors, Ladder, Vitally, and Squarespace. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Order in the court. Goodbye, Mike.