Upgrade - 520: Cruel Summer

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

For RelayFM, this is Upgrade, episode 520 for July 8th, 2024. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of being joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Mike, the 520 error occurs when the Origin web server initiates a connection but fails to finalize the request. That's very sad. I have a Snell Talk question for you.

It comes from Brayden, who wants to know, Jason, on a previous episode, you discussed your home weather widget and mentioned you had a home weather station. Can you tell us more about your weather station? Was it a custom build or did you buy the sensors as part of the bundle? So for new listeners, this is the potentially annual breakdown

of Jason's weather station. Summer of fun. Yes. Summer of fun. Thank you. Currently only 58 degrees out there, Fahrenheit. It's a chilly morning.

And you know that, you know? And I know that. I know that. And that's right outside. In fact, so I wrote about that this week on Mastodon. I don't think I posted anything about it, but I did post a gist of my Scriptable widget. So I use the excellent Scriptable app, which lets you, among other things,

write widgets, iOS widgets in JavaScript. And I took a couple of widgets that I liked that were doing slightly different things that were posted about in the, um, in the automators forum. And I, I, I updated them all, uh, a bit and got them to work with my weather station. And, um, that was great. But over the weekend I realized I could, what I did was it was 80 degrees outside and my um my weather widget on my iphone in standby mode in the kitchen said um 68 degrees and that was like really really wrong and it showed how the relying on non-local sources for um temperatures here in our weird Bay Area microclimb was a bad idea. So I updated the Scriptable widget to support standby, which just, it's a small widget blown up and I had to

do a couple of tweaks, but now it actually shows the current, my phone in standby is showing the data from my weather station, as well as a forecast from Apple weather from a weather kit. So that was great. And I've done a lot of this where basically to talk about the software side first, I have an app that's a very old, but continues to be updated Mac app called weather cat that talks to the weather station and pulls down the data and then generates web page,

a webpage with it. uh, and pulls down the data and then generates web page, a webpage with it. And, uh, I'm also generating a bunch of Jason, uh, and some other feed stuff with it too. And then I got a bunch of scripts that run on my Mac mini server that, uh, do like, I've got Python scripts that do some charting. Um, it's a whole thing that I've built up because you don't have to do that. You can just use, um, my weather station comes with a webpage you can look at that shows current status. But like, I really like that I've got a database with all the data and it generates stats all time and stuff like that. And then my scripts parse the data file and do stuff with it and generate charts. It's fun. It's like a little hobby. On the 4th of July is when I did this thing and it was like, well,

it's a holiday today, so I don't have to do work. Instead, I'm going to edit some JavaScript. Wee-hee! Oh, so exciting. I don't like JavaScript. But I did it. It worked. So that's the software side.

I will put some links in the show notes of some of my stories on Six Colors about it. The weather station, in fact, we'll put a link in the show notes to the story I wrote when I decommissioned my old weather station after 17 years on the job. I put it in in 2004. It lasted until 2022, where it finally sort of like I replaced a bunch of parts, but it really just kind of was like falling apart and at the end of its life. And so I and they had updated it over time but like because the internet wasn't really a thing and wi-fi was barely a thing and and it was using like a serial port so i had to have an adapter and i had to connect it and over the years i updated it but it was still uh kind of really old tech 90s tech essentially um so in 2022 i updated it and because that original station was a davis vantage

pro i decided i would buy another davis weather station the davis weather stations are a little bit more they're a little bit extra in terms of what they are and also in terms of what they cost there are lots of really nice uh simple weather stations that you can get from like netatmo and places like that um but i got the davis vantage view this time which a little cheaper some of the sensors that are on the vantage pro i never really used and didn't really care enough to pay more money for and the nice thing about the vantage view is it's more modern it's they've built a modern uh thing on the inside i have i have on my network that basically is the wireless receiver because it's completely wireless it's solar powered um and then this little box

sits in my house attached to my network and receives uh the data from that and then everything else talks to the data so vantage view um and i do not have the console because i got rid of the console um they they they sell you a very 70s almost 80s i guess looking console that um that has like little like lcd number readouts on it and stuff um but i didn't i i have that for the old one and it's unnecessary so the new one is entirely just like if you want to look at the temperature look on the internet or many devices that i've i've got on my you know at my house to do this in a bunch of places but i love it it's great and if for nothing else that i know exactly what the temperature is outside and i don't get in a situation where it's 68 degrees or 60 yeah 68

degrees and then you step outside and it's actually 80 degrees no I don't like that not at all no thank you uh thank you so much to Brayden for sending in that question if you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of the show remember we are looking for and thank you to everybody that is sending in summer-related, you know, warm-related, warmth-related, anything kind of questions for Snow Talk. Just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in your Snow Talk question. I just want to point out

that Snow Talk was built to get me to not talk about the weather. Yeah, well, it was to stop the small talk was the idea. I know, yes, but it was mostly about a lot of weather talk in the small talk. Sure was. We're going to let you get it once a year, you know? Thank you.

Thank you. That was my day in the sun, or the fog, as it turns out. Indeed. How was your 4th of July, Jason Snell? Did you have a nice time? Have we left Snell Talk and we're just talking now? Well, we're following up from last week, where we spoke about the fact that 4th of July was coming. 4th of July has happened. We're following up on that. It's now the 8th of July, so we can follow up on the 4th.

Really, everything related to calendars technically is follow-up. Yes, correct. bit of a heat wave although where we live it doesn't get that hot even when it gets hot it doesn't get that hot um and so we uh you know i didn't i i fixed a weather widget just for fun recreationally uh you know we walked the dog read the book sat outside you know because it was a a nice warm day and then we um and we did uh we cooked on the grill because we didn't want to cook inside because it was a warm day and uh and we had set up we got stuff the day before so that we could uh do a proper fourth of july so we had burgers we had uh grilled zucchini and we had uh grilled corn uh because you can take a you soak soak ears of corn for a couple hours and then you can actually just put them on the grill for about 20 minutes and they kind of, um, steam cook themselves. And,

uh, and then we ate it outside. I, I actually, another thing I did, um, our outdoor table hasn't gotten a lot of use this year, um, so far. And, uh, and I got the power washer out and washed it down. And so we had, we got to eat at the table outside. It was very nice. It was lovely. That was what we were going for for 4th of July. And then that was it. It was just pretty simple.

But our son's home. So the three of us got to have our dinner together outside. Yeah, it was great. Sounds lovely. How was your 4th of July, Mike? Good, actually. We effectively appointed a new government. Right. Oh, that's right. It was election day. Yeah, pretty busy 4th of July Mike? good actually we effectively appointed a new government right oh that's right it was election day

yeah pretty busy 4th of July over here in England great day for Keir Starmer bad day for Rishi Sunak yeah bad day for all conservatives really if you think about it but yes we have a we effectively installed a new government which seems like it's harder and harder to do these days

but we were able to manage it good job congratulations to everybody involved a new government, which seems like it's harder and harder to do these days, but we were able to manage it. Good job. Congratulations to everybody involved. It's been an exciting week in the UK. It's fun, actually. It's a lot of fun. I have some follow-up. Bradley and Josh wrote in regarding the Upgrade American quiz. Bradley

says, the Upgrade American quiz started in Snell Talk. We had a few questions in Snell Talk, and then continued in Upgrade in upgrade plus last week go to get upgrade plus.com and sign up if you want to uh bradley says i think there may have been an error the longest river in the united states is the missouri river not the mississippi river i'm a hydraulic engineer who works on the miss on mississippi river projects for both navigation and environmental purposes. I do a decent amount of public outreach for my job as well. And the Missouri River being the longest is always a fun bit of trivia

I try to work in for audience participation. And Josh says, people disagree as to whether the Missouri or the Mississippi is the longest river, but according to the USGS, whatever that is, the Missouri River- The United States Geological Survey. Thank you.

Comes out ahead by 200 miles, totaling an impressive 2,540 miles from source to mouth. I, for one, cannot believe that people are doubting the accuracy of an apparently AI-generated quiz posted to a website as SEO spam that I found in a rudimentary Google search that involved many repeated questions. Some questions that were clearly wrong that I found in a rudimentary Google search that involved many repeated questions, some questions that were clearly wrong that I skipped, some questions that included the answer in the question. And when somebody on the Discord said, I was disappointed because every answer was A, I had to go look because I didn't disbelieve them initially. I thought, well, that would be just like that quiz

to also have every right answer be a it's not true their their right answers came from all the different letters and it was if anything c was a little oversubscribed but they weren't unnecessarily correct but they they weren't they weren't so i think mike i think emotionally the mississippi river is the heart of america and that's why that question was wrong so there you go well done i think you still got it right emotionally spiritually so good job well you know according to the quiz i got it correct and that's kind of all that matters that's well that's what i think that was my feedback to uh to bradley was um i i think the uh the the point is that the answer in the quiz is the answer you need to give right like it doesn't matter if it's wrong no that was the answer yes so you

correctly answered the quiz if not the correct my points don't change but the provenance of those questions is maybe to be dealt you can hang on on to those points. I will. I did. I was very proud of myself. I think I did well. William wrote in to say, Ming-Chi Kuo's suggestion that the infrared cameras in AirPods are being meant for spatial audio

is not entirely nonsense. Currently, AirPods use accelerometer data to determine the user's head position. Slight inaccuracy in the sensor data over time accumulates, leading to gradual shifts that must be corrected. It also works poorly in cars, trains, planes, etc.

Infrared cameras would allow them to calibrate the accelerometer readings against fixed objects nearby. I have actually experienced what William is talking about where I've been using special audio and have turned my head for too long. Maybe I was looking at something and watching something on my iPad.

It re-centers. And you feel it shift. You can feel it shift and say, well, that's not right. But obviously the accelerometer is getting confused. No, that's not it. That's not it. What's happening is it doesn't know

and it may have drifted over time. And so if you settle in a new standard position, at some point it infers from that that that is forward. And then it re-centers yeah that was kind of what i meant but i fully explained it right um so this is interesting is like maybe they will use it for that but again like i think william's making a great point but i still think we can go back to what we're talking about the idea that this is to be used for the vision pro specifically still seems weird to me. Yeah, I appreciate William's phrasing here isn't entirely nonsense.

It's not, and I'm aware of the recentering kind of system. First off, yeah, the Ming-Chi quote report was, oh, how will the Vision Pro be able to do spatial things? And it's like, well, it's got a million sensors on it, so that might be one way. But my larger point was, even if we take Vision Pro out of it and we say just airpods in

general my argument is i don't see how you need to add a camera just to make it slightly better like correct it's good enough it's not important enough of a feature to go to the lengths of adding an infrared camera on the airpods like it's too much it's way too much it i just don't think it's worth it just for that uh described case and certainly not for the case of how will the poor vision pro know which way is up because it does it's got lots of ways to do that yeah and rishad wrote in to say an infrared camera in the airpods could be inward facing and could monitor temperature of the human body which i thought was an interesting idea that's true i i uh i think that that's an interesting thought that the infrared camera is actually the inside camera

and this came up um i think you guys on connected may have been talking about this a podcast i listened to last week i'm not sure was talking about airpods and uh the phrase there's not maybe it was atp the phrase there's not a microphone on the inside came up and i thought well there is there is a microphone on the inside of airpods that's what that's how it does it's it's noise canceling is it's not just noise canceling the outside it's actually listening to what happens on the inside and then adjusting based on that it's gross wild but it does it's it's listening to your ears so the airpods are reading my mind. Yeah, but if, you know,

could this be the actually hiding in plain sight, the much suggested your AirPods are going to start monitoring health data feature? Maybe, possible. I don't know enough about whether like, about this particular part, infrared camera, is this a cheap expedient way to measure temperature? Or is there a cheaper, more expedient way to measure temperature? Given that they need to look down the air canal, maybe this is the way they do it.

I don't know. Who knows? I don't know. Somebody knows, but we don't need to know. No, we don't know. Apple's F1 movie is going to be called F1. It previously went untitled. And they're using the Formula One logo,

which is very intriguing to me. They've also released a trailer of the movie, which I thought looked also interesting. The thing that I was most drawn by is the high quality imagery of being mounted to a Formula One car. And it's answered a question. They've since answered a question that I had.

This movie was shot in IMAX and will be shown in IMAX, which is what i was hoping would happen because i felt like that was the right approach for this movie uh it's starting to feel like to me that this may be apple's first actual attempt to truly releasing a movie like that they've they've they've dabbled i feel like with like napoleon uh Killers of the Flower Moon, where they felt like somewhat limited releases. But if they're really going to go and do this on IMAX and premium format theaters, this feels like more of a concerted effort to release this movie widely,

which I think is the right move for it. Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon were also sort of awards bait. Yeah. And you were appeasing the directors in order to give them a theatrical release. And what this feels like is Apple is releasing what is essentially a blockbuster. And they wanted to do really well in theaters. And that's, yeah, that feels different than saying to Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese, yes, we will give you a theatrical release.

Exactly. Yeah. It's a very, very good point, right? Like, yeah, because this probably isn't going to win any awards. I don't know if that's what this is for. It could win maybe a special effects award or something like that. Who knows? We've been talking a lot about Vision Pro hand controllers,

and a selection of listeners sent this link in to us. There is a startup called Surreal that is making a set of hand controllers that is to be is focused to work with the vision pro to improve gaming and experiences with the headset um but to get these to work directly the primary way would be that a developer would have to integrate the surreal sdk into their app there's also a way to connect it to a windows pc and do like a whole thing with streaming but the idea would be as a game developer you would integrate the surreal sdk into your app as a controller option and then you'd be able to use their hand controllers which look pretty nice i mean they look very very influenced by the oculus controllers with along with your vision pro

yeah i got this from a lot of people um and it's unclear how many of them sort of thought, well, here you go. But as I said to several of them, the problem is it's not from Apple. So game developers aren't going to flock to Vision Pro now with their things that require that level of integration with a hand controller and build them to an api that supports a single company's product yeah which is what this is so this feels very pr stunty to me and their fallback is that they have an app yeah that works with steam on a pc to let you play steam games on the vision pro and use their controllers and like i don't know i i i'm glad this product apparently is going to exist if it doesn't already but like the solution is there needs to be a an sdk for this controller from apple or something yeah there needs to be there needs to be support

in vision os for hand controllers so that multiple third parties can make hand controllers. And app developers just have to support the API and then let it work itself out, right? Apple doesn't have to build it even. Apple just needs to build the API and then let it happen. Let the App Store happen. Let the controllers come out. Let anybody who's building controllers be able to say, we're going to support Vision Pro. That's where it needs to go. So this is interesting, but it feels very much like we've got a solution. Yeah. I don't envision this changing the world.

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Another storm is brewing between friends of the show, Epic and Apple. Love a brewing storm. I love it. Here we go. Here we go again. Here we go again. This time over Epic's alternative app marketplace. Essentially to now, here's what's happened.

Epic went public with the fact that Apple has rejected the notarization of the Epic Games Store on two occasions because of the design of the install buttons for the applications you know that are inside the marketplace apple said it was too similar to the design of apple's get button in the app store as well as epic's labeling of in-app purchases looking too similar to apple's after epic went public with this the next day apple approved a previously rejected notarization like so you know they say oh no this one this one is fine even approved a previously rejected notarization so they say oh no this one

is fine even though they previously rejected it for these reasons but they have said to Epic that this rejection is temporary and they expect the buttons to be changed Epic have said that they are sharing screenshots of their store with EC regulators they have chosen to not publicly

show the screenshots what's your take on this um i okay look epic does a lot of stuff i think epic is often a jerk i think tim sweeney is a jerk um but it doesn't mean they're they're wrong it doesn't mean they're wrong broken jerks were right twice a day. Twice a day, but only twice. And they're kind of jerks about it.

They're just kind of jerks about it. So look, we don't know what those look like. We don't know. I think it was Ryan Jones, developer of Flighty, who actually asked Tim Sweeney, like, can you post the screenshots?

And they're like, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to play that game. And he's like, ah. And Ryan jones's answer was something like i'm just asking because apple's complained about that stuff with my apps too like it does happen um i think the challenge here is they're using the notary notarization process for external apps to do it and i know like john gruber wrote a post who's like who are we going to trust like epic is notably untrustworthy and then there's apple which is like well yeah but uh there have been a lot of

issues with apple's behavior especially regarding the eu especially regarding alternative app stores i'm not sure we can particularly call apple trustworthy when it comes to no not on this issue. The accepting and rejecting of applications. And I think that Apple, it's not quite politicizing, but Apple making notarization something other than a security check and making it a place where they're enforcing other policies is bad. Let's just, I'll put it that way. I think you are turning something that is meant to be essentially neutral, essentially just a, let's make sure this follows some very specific rules so people aren't harmed, but we're not interceding as a gatekeeper. We're more just checking things out as a platform owner. It requires Apple to think of itself as a platform owner and not as a gatekeeper. That's sort of the deal there. And that's why it's allowed by the EU. They're like, if the EU allows the notarization step, it's because the notarization step is not being used

to be a gatekeeper, right? Otherwise, they won't allow it. Otherwise, they'll say you can't notarization step, it's because the notarization step is not being used to be a gatekeeper, right? Otherwise, they won't allow it. Otherwise, they'll say you can't notarize apps. And that has restrictions, that has problems because it is a security measure. So what makes me mad about the situation is Apple is taking a security measure that is probably good and necessary and saves everybody from really bad stuff in the EU, in this case, for iOS notarization and muddies the waters by having it be like, well, yeah, but we have a policy against emulators, so we're going to reject you. Or we're going to spend months holding up your apps, like what Riley Testoot says is happening with Alt Store. Or in this case, we don't like your button in your app. And as what

Tim Sweeney said is like, there's a big thing at the top. This is Epic Store. There's no attempt in this app to, according to Epic, to pretend to be the App Store. Especially when Apple makes it so hard to install these things in the first place. Nobody's surprised that they've installed it. So suggesting that a design button, and I'll also say something so generic as an install button or a get button as a security risk that must be used via notarization. What it is, is it's Apple using security as an excuse to exert control that they're used to exerting. And I have a hard time seeing a scenario here where Apple isn't in the wrong. Apple is playing a dangerous game with notarization. And I think they're going to get slapped for it because they're turning their security

excuse into just that, into a thing that they're using in order to do a de facto control of outside the app store. And they promised not to do that. They haven't done it on the Mac, but in the EU, it seems like they have decided to change their story and say, no, we're going to use iOS notarization to reject anything that displeases us and act as a gatekeeper. And again, I think notarization is a good step to have in the process. I think having Apple as a platform owner, look at stuff that's coming in and say, Oh,

this is malware. We're not going to sign it. We're going to reject it is a good thing. But if you start turning it into app store, an app store rejection and approval process that has a lot to do with things that are not fundamental security but it's like well we just don't like it that way we want you to change it then the whole thing has the potential to just get thrown out which actually makes it worse for everybody and i don't know maybe that's their intent is to

is to say the eu forced us to make this terrible but like it's on them they're the ones who are muddying what should be a very clear pristine straightforward notarization process as it is and has been for years now on mac os i'm going to read the notarization for ios apps guidelines for security apps cannot enable distribution of malware or suspicious or unwanted software they cannot download executable code read outside of the container or direct users to lower the security on their system or device also apps must provide transparency and allow user cons consent to enable any party to access the system or device or reconfigure the system or other software like i don't know within that the issue around a get button.

And the other things, accuracy, functionality, safety, and privacy, definitely doesn't apply to either of these as well. And this is from the review guidelines. So I think it's very clear at this point, as you said, that Apple are using notarization as essentially app review, which they said they wouldn't do, but they appear to be doing, as you said, that Apple are using notarization as essentially app review, which they said they wouldn't do, but they appear to be doing, because I can't

see a scenario looking at the notarization guidelines how the look of a button could be argued. Yeah. Because this has got nothing to do with Apple now. Because I would say that potentially,

even having notarization at all could upset the European Union based on the way that the DMA is written, right? The fact that Apple is still a gatekeeper, still. Yes, arguably they're using it to be a gatekeeper. And the more they make it arbitrary and not like macOS, the more they're a gatekeeper. And the more they make it arbitrary and not like macOS, the more they're a gatekeeper.

And there is a scenario, right, where this is fine, where everyone could be like, yeah, you know what? If you're checking for malware and viruses, we're not going to argue with that. That makes sense. But it should be an automatic process,

but it isn't. And now there's just more and like the thing i don't understand jason right like i kind of get to a point that we were talking about those a couple of weeks ago like the emulator apps and they reject them right that they maybe want to do that and get away of it but this is epic why would you do this like do you think that they weren't going to complain like what was your end game here it's very strange to me i can't get my head around this one even the thing of like oh well so epic complaints so they said it's okay but you still got to change it's like what is going on what yeah like what

is the what is the goal that they're trying to achieve from this it's a good question i i would also say for those who would argue, as John Gruber does, that like, well, wait a second, but it's Epic here. Do we really trust them? This is how eroded my trust is in Apple using mechanisms like gatekeeper or as a gatekeeper mechanisms like notarization to do things beyond their remit as a steward of their platform and using it as a crude, blunt instrument to smash stuff they don't like in violation, I think, of certainly the spirit of the DMA and act as a gatekeeper and erect new gates in order to,

because they were told they needed to, but use them as a gatekeeper again. I think it's super telling that. Epic. A company I do not like. Run by a guy. I think is a jerk. I think they've got more credibility in this than Apple does. I think people at Apple.

Should consider. That somebody. Like me. Who observes this stuff. Trusts. Epic. Who I don't like, and believes them more than I believe Apple's claims at this point.

And that's where Apple is right now, is that I'm inclined to believe that this is Apple based on a whole track record. And again, if Apple wants to explain itself, by all means, explain yourself. But what they're doing is the same game plan as when they were uh arbitrarily rejecting things in the app store which is it's confusing uh they obfuscate they don't really

explain themselves and then occasionally they'll just be a press report and then there'll be an approval because they just don't it get maybe it gets escalated to somebody who says it's not worth it. Just let it through. And we'll, we'll bureaucrat them later with a fix it ticket. Like I just, again, if they want to make their point, I I'm happy to hear it, but I don't, it looks an awful lot like they are completely ruining the concept of notarization as a security measure because they can't let go of the control of their platform and i understand why they want control of their platform but you know what the european commission has said they can't they can't in europe they don't get to have that control of their platform at the level that they want.

And they seem to not be able to let it go. And it's like, I get why they don't like it. But I also don't like the idea that notarization is being turned into de facto app approval. Because what I don't like about it is it feels like they're being disingenuous. That's what I don't like about it. Like they said it was going to be used for one thing and they're using it for another. And it just feels disingenuous at this point. Especially when, well, if Apple, if you don't feel that way, then let's talk about it, right?

Talk about it. You're not. Yeah. I will also just state, I will provide the opposite. I get why people don't like Epic, but Epic are a very big legitimate very powerful company who have performed some stunts against apple but these are stunts that i ultimately agreed with where they were coming from right like what people don't like epic for in a lot of instances

is what they you know by sneaking in the in-app purchase stuff into fortnite which i mean i don't know i think we go back to the argument of where we are currently sitting is did apple really have the right to own all of the in-app purchase flow for something that they were ultimately uninvolved with with the success of fortnite fortnite wasn't success successful because of apple right but yet they wanted their 30%. That's what a lot of people don't like Epic for. But if you like any of what's happening now, like anything that's happening now, Epic is the reason for it.

But then I also think that's why some people don't like Epic even more because they don't like what Apple's currently having to do. This all goes back to that free Fortnite. That's where all of this started, is free Fortnite. That was, man, that was a great day, though day though that was so exciting it was so much fun god that was a great day but yeah that's where we are who knows what will be next week but i just i i'm kind of just flabbergasted about the fact that they're playing this game with this particular company like it doesn't, I just wished I could understand the logic behind that. Because surely I do not see it.

I also think, you know, one of their motivations here, I mean, I think some of this at this point is they view them as an enemy. Yeah. And they're just going to, Apple views Epic as an enemy and they're going to treat them that way. But I think there's a larger issue here, which is Apple has often been motivated to take their cut, right? They believe that they, if you, oh, great, you didn't build Fortnite on our platform, but you want to be on our platform. Well, that's fine, but you got to cut us in. We want our cut. That's a classic Apple maneuver. It's been like that for years. Apple wants its money. And Apple believes that everybody that's on its products and platforms and is making money from things that are related to Apple is all built on the

greatness of Apple and that Apple deserves to be paid for it. That is a fundamental that Steve Jobs brought back to the company when he revived it in the late 90s and they want their money. And I look at something like this and think, you're following this instinct so far that I don't know about European regulators and politics and things like that, but I look at this and think, for want of your cut, you're going to get an enormous fine. An enormous fine. Because this is the kind of behavior that will lead to an enormous fine from the EU. It's like, you agreed to fix this,

and now you've turned the fix into uh an app review the things that they tried to do in public to be legitimate they were potentially running in the way of a fine right let alone now what they're doing post it very strange very strange saddle up for rumor roundup. Yeehaw. Mark Gurman is reporting that Phil Schiller will get an observer board seat at OpenAI as part of their arrangement with Apple. Like, Apple will get a seat and that it's going to be filled by Phil Schiller.

This is the same arrangement that OpenAI have with Microsoft, where they have, I believe it's Satya Nadella, sits on the board as an observer. This was part of the fallout of the Sam Altman drama, leaving OpenAI, or being kicked out and coming back, and they changed the whole board. An observer on OpenAI's board cannot vote or make any decisions about the company, but because they're on the board, they are aware of the company roadmap. They're present in board meetings, et cetera.

Well, I think it's great that they're giving Phil Schiller stuff to do. I think he's already doing a lot of stuff. I think that whole previous thing we spoke about, he might have been involved in that. But Phil Schiller being given a seat on the board, or as you put it, the seat that will be filled by Phil Schiller,

I just want to say the phrase, Phil Schiller being given a seat on the board, or as you put it, the seat that will be filled by Phil Schiller. I just want to say the phrase Phil Schiller seat filler. Anyway, because that's where we are. Phil Schiller seat filler. There he is. He's there. I have seen people like everybody needs to have a hot take on stuff, right? Like, so I've seen people like, what does it mean? And what do they do?

And why are they getting in bed with these awful people and all this stuff and i'll just say if if my company had a partnership with open ai and i had as a part of that the ability to have one of my people sit in on the board meetings just as microsoft does so that this thing that might be connected to my company in some way and is kind of weirdly run that I had some more understanding of what they were doing. And even though I'm not controlling it at all, it gives me a better sense of whether they are doing good stuff or whether they're going off the rails. I think it's obviously much more important for Microsoft that is hugely invested in open AI. And, and it's much more mission critical for Microsoft and Apple, but this idea of having some actual, like real tech companies watching the clown show at open AI and making sure

that they don't continue, you know, return to their, their clownish ways that they're not doing stuff. That's bizarre. Like I view it as that this is not adult supervision it's more like adults in the room to offer advice and also be able to go back to their companies and go oh boy uh this is what a open ai is up to so oh there's this exciting thing they're working on, right? How can we integrate that? Sure. When I see this, I'm like, man,

what are Microsoft thinking about all of this? Right? Where it's Apple's coming in and getting the same treatment and then providing way less? I'm very intrigued

to see what Microsoft microsoft's end game is here like because what it looks like is they're starting to build their own stuff that they will be able to replace and it's like well then what happens to open ai because open ai benefits significantly from the infrastructure they get from microsoft really interesting i think based on sachin and dell's history i actually think he doesn't care because this is not the microsoft of old yeah microsoft doesn't have a mobile operating system right it doesn't it's got windows that's great they're integrating all this stuff into co-pilot pcs and all that they don't have a mobile operating system and they're heavily invested in open ai and the competition is Google. And along this one particular axis, it's Apple and Microsoft and OpenAI on one side and Google on the other. And so there is a lot of alignment. I have heard they said, if there's something top secret that is involving the Microsoft relationship with OpenAI, they'll ask Phil Schiller to leave the room. He will leave his seat that he was filling,

feeling fulfilled, and Phil will move outside for a Phil's coffee, maybe. I mean, technically any coffee that Phil Schiller has is Phil's coffee. Anyway, I'm just enjoying that way too much. Phil's, Phil's, Phil's coffee. And likewise, if there's something that is super relevant to the Apple relationship

and Microsoft needs to not hear about it, they might ask Satya Nadella to step outside as well. So I don't think it's that weird. And I also don't think it's that big a deal. I think that there's a level of sort of courtesy involved here, which is like, since we're going to be your partner, but it's my initial reaction was, you know, they're not paying them. Nobody's paying anybody and it's an optional feature. And so why is it a big deal? I think the reason it's a big deal is more what I said earlier, which is it's OpenAI's best mobile platform access, right? Because their enemy is Google and Google controls the other platform. So they need to be in a line with Apple and they want Apple to get it, even if Apple is holding them at arm's length, which I believe they really are. I think Apple, right, they've got all the warning labels. It's turned off by default. It warns you when it goes to chat GPT. Apple is doing it kind of as a hedge, but also at arm's length. But from OpenAI's perspective,

like, it's a big deal because, you know, they're not going to... I mean, Android is open and I'm sure it'll welcome them and all that, but Google's AI is going to be in Android phones. That's how it is. It already is. It's going to continue to be that way. This is an opportunity they see to play in the most important tech space, which is smartphones. So I think that's what's behind it. Mark Gurman is also reporting on some details about the upcoming Apple Watch releases for this year. The Series

10 will be getting bigger screens with the larger option of the two being about the same size as the Ultra. So we've heard this before. This is Mark Gurman putting his kind of chip on this pile. The Apple Watch will be thinner,

but not expecting any more visual design changes. So this previously rumored Apple Watch X that was going to be like all new and different, it's not going to be this one. Not this. The Series 10 and the Ultra, which would be otherwise unchanged, the Apple Watch Ultra,

they're not doing anything to it, other than giving it a new system on a chip, which would be in both the 10 and the Ultra. Gurman says this, quote, could lay the groundwork for AI enhancements down the road. I expect we'll see about that. I'm still not sure what that story is going to be. Eight gigabytes of RAM embedded in the watch strap.

Yeah, no, I wrote that whole story. I think we talked about it. I wrote that whole story last week for Macworld about not emoji fragmentation, Siri fragmentation. And the idea like there are ways for them to approach this. And this may be that, right? This may be very much like, how do we get Apple Watch to a point

where it can hand off Apple intelligence and seem like it's got Apple intelligence, but most of it is happening in the cloud or it's happening on its paired iPhone, like something else. Like I think, cause, cause remember it's a two layer or multiple layer model that they're doing the way Apple intelligence is working. You're doing a, you're giving a command and then it's actually, the model is determining whether it's going to execute that on device or whether that's the kind of thing that it needs to go to the cloud to do and so what you'd want is a device capable of sort of like doing the top layer even if it can't really do the rest of it and has to hand it off that's one way you could approach it so beefing

up the hardware but like yeah i i think down the road is the key phrase there because it may be like they know they need to build the hardware in now, but they know software wise they're just not going to get there for another year. So yesterday I'm sitting on the couch and I saw Adina's watch had the like your battery's about to die thing. And I was like, do you want me to take that upstairs and put it on a charge for you? I was sitting upstairs. She's like, yeah, sure. She has the small watch and i was holding it in my hands it's like this watch is so small like so small well you have a you have an ultra right i have an ultra yeah but it was just like in holding it i was like wow this thing is tiny and i i mean i spoke to her i said like know, the rumors of the watches are going to get bigger.

And she's like, Oh, I don't know. Because the current Apple watch, it's still like when she was like a sport band, there's like, you can see through the sport band, right?

Like it doesn't attach to her wrists because she's, she's a very petite person. And I'm just not, I'm very, I remain open-minded, but intrigued about if these get watches, get like the screens get physically bigger, that is an interesting decision to make.

Here's my thing. I think people won't like it or people will say they won't like it, but ultimately most people will get used to it. But we'll see. This actually, I know it's one of your favorite topics. Yeah. If there's this impulse toward doing more screen like we need more screen on the apple watch which i understand i mean it's also more battery presumably more screen um i i kind of get it just because if you can fit

more on there and it's a little easier to interact but But I wonder, it is a dangerous game they're playing. They make the Apple Watches larger. Are they aware of what portion of their user base might really be resistant to having a larger Apple Watch? This is the same argument with phones. I know people like small phones. I had an iPhone mini, but Apple's decision suggests

that there aren't enough of them for them to worry about it. And if you lose some people at the bottom end, but it makes your product more popular elsewhere, then that's a decision you can make and people can be upset about it, but it could be understandable. But there's a risk there. So I just had the thought, you know what would mitigate this a little bit? Would be if Apple actually was working on a fitness band-ish kind of Apple Watch design that was really small. Because not all Apple Watch interaction needs a screen, right? A lot of it can be voice assistant. needs a screen, right? A lot of it can be voice assistant and it's about syncing to the Apple watch and, or syncing to the iPhone. And, you know, not everybody is super screen forward.

Maybe there's a little tiny screen on it that tells you like the time or shows you your rings, but it is not a full blown Apple watch. And that would be one way you could push the Apple watch up and still have people maybe like Adina and other people who don't need a full-blown Apple Watch with a big screen to be happy. And I'm a little surprised that they haven't gone down that path of having a lighter version of the Apple Watch, of watchOS that's like a different product that's more like a fitness band. I'm a little surprised they haven't gone there. Yeah. And while I want that product, personally, I still don't. And I see where you're coming from with that. I just think that there are a lot of people that would be upset about the watch size changes. It's not that they necessarily don't want a watch, right? I feel like it would be,

honestly, a harder sell for my wife to get her to change to that product than to just accept a bigger screen. A bigger screen. Well, yeah. I mean, this is the difficulty of marketing. And I'm sure that they've done a lot of research of their existing customers and potential customers and what their competition is doing when they make these changes just as they do with the iPhone. But, yeah, this one seems really weird on the outside. You know, the fitness band, I'm just thinking there's probably another segment there that doesn't need... I'm fascinated by the impulse of let's make

the screen bigger because I don't feel like I need my Apple Watch screen to be bigger at this point. I don't need it to be bigger. I just don't. I think that it's good enough and I find that a strange impulse. It's a little like saying we need our pro laptops to be very thin.

It's like, I get it on a really broad scale. But in the end, the product needs, you know, is that your top profile? Is that your top reason here? You're like, oh, yeah, thinness is the most. It's like it's not for a pro laptop. And for the Apple Watch, I'm like, yeah, bigger screens can be nice. But like, I don't know at what cost. but they are the ones who know who buys these things and they are the ones who know, or at least they think they know based on their research. And that's a tough job.

So maybe they're right. Maybe they can keep pushing it. This is the first one of these where I've, where I've gotten these reports and thought i don't know like i you're you're basically ultrafying more of the apple watch line the ultra becomes just a rugged apple watch it's no longer the big apple watch it's just the rugged apple watch it will have the battery life though compared sure because it because it because the the apple watch is really thick right and it's right rumors that this one is going to get thinner so yeah and i also agree uh this was something that came up on

um accidental podcast last week which is you know our friend casey lists people love it when we talk about casey on upgrade because he's the best is it buys a uh buys a small apple watch because he says he has small wrists and marco made the point the other day, because he saw him at WWDC. He said, you do not need to wear a small watch. You can wear the big watch and it's fine. And I wonder if part of it is Apple sort of saying lots of people think that they,

that they want a smaller watch, but they don't. And when we check and we test and we ask people and we try it, they don't. And that we think we know what they want. And maybe that's true, but your example of Adina, maybe she's a real extreme outlier. She is. and we ask people and we try it they don't and that we think we know what they want and maybe that's true but your example of adina maybe she's a real extreme outlier she is she's a very very petite person but i still think that she would actually be able to make it work it just wouldn't

be as nice but one of the things for her though that i could imagine is if they made it thinner like significantly thinner it would be comfortable in a different way because like the apple watch sits very proudly on her wrist like it's it's very chunky and so you know you're kind of at maybe at that point trading off one for the other right that it is thinner and so it doesn't stick out as much but it's a bit bigger so you're spreading it out instead of instead of just expanding it you're kind of squishing it and letting it spread out a little bit. And so we'll see. I mean, I do have faith in them when it comes to this. On the face of it, this is one of those things where I'm like, whoa, I can tell that's going to make people upset.

But I am definitely of the mind that a lot of people could wear a bigger watch and they'll be fine with it. But I think people have a hesitancy to it. But I just look at the phone thing, right? That there is, what is that? The term stated and revealed preference, which by and large, I don't necessarily agree with that thinking, especially when it comes to software and algorithms and stuff. But I think that with, with phones, that seems to have borne out that when people get the choice of buying a phone, they tend to buy the bigger one uh or they try a bigger one and they realize that they love it could never

go back i would be intrigued to see if that applies to smart watches i don't know but like for me i love the ultra and i like the bigger screen it's fine i like being able to see more on it but now i am tied to the battery more than anything else. That's what I am tied to. I see. But I don't think these are going to get that battery life improvement because they're going to make it thinner, which I do actually think is the right move, though, if you're going to make it bigger. Maybe that's the answer. It's all very subtle, but I'm looking down at my watch now, and I'm remembering the original Apple Watch.

So small. It's so much better. And I would argue, argue yes that's the dimension that I would like to see change I'm less concerned about the screen size than I am about the thickness and maybe one of the ways that you make it thinner is by expanding the footprint so that the battery can you know take up continue to take up a reasonable amount of volume while not you know in the while not in the width while losing some of the height. I don't know.

And frankly, it just comes back to the thing. If Apple's making this decision, they're making it for reasons that make sense for them. They can't try to appease everybody. We've seen them try to do that. They have that fourth phone, and that fourth phone never does well. And that fourth phone and that fourth phone never does well.

Right. And that fourth phone is the, oh, don't worry, we'll make you happy phone. And it doesn't sell and they keep changing it. Well, yeah, because they've realized, I mean, they're trying to find a market at the edges. Yeah. And it turns out that maybe none of the edges are a big enough market for them. Right. Like maybe they've been searching around in the dark,

like, well, what about this kind of phone? Well, what are those? And it may be like, no, the iPhone.

Yes. Having some other models to choose from is good. But like when you start to push outside of the middle, big middle, none of them are worth it for Apple again, for Apple to spend the time on it because, you know, there are always going to spend the time on it. Because, you know, there are always going to be companies making weird kind of niche shapes and sizes and stuff.

But like for Apple to do it, it really needs to sell incredibly well. And they've found in some cases that those are not places they want to go. I mean, I would say, though, that they should make a small phone before they should continue making the Mac Pro that's my that's my take on that one if you want to find some edges i think there's more edges for an iphone meaning and there are for a mac pro yeah there's just more but there's also more profit margin there's much more yeah but like 90 of four sales you know what i mean it rather than 30 percent of a couple of million you know yep yep uh going back to this report from mark gorman do not expect any uh significant health sensor changes this year apple continues work on their sleep apnea detection and blood pressure monitoring as their next big things to go for before hopefully getting to blood glucose down the line. But they have hit development issues on these features,

as well as having the whole problem around the blood oxygen sensor in the U.S., which would be used for both or at least sleep apnea detection. They can't, it would be difficult for them to be like, hey, we have this new feature, but not in America. So who knows what they're going to do there. Yeah, it's not great. His statement about where they are with blood pressure, too, is that they're not going to be

able to take your blood pressure. It'll be like your blood pressure was higher or lower. It's like the wrist temperature. Yeah, it's... This is a continued issue with the Apple Watches. They've got a lot of sensor data that's feeding features that... It's just... It's feeding features that it's like it's just

it's something but it's not exactly what you want well the problem with with with their health sensors is they started off with an excellent one right the heart rate monitoring which they can do incredibly well and then everything else since is like, well, we can only give you the light version of this. And I think that that disparity has gotten worse and worse over time. But blood pressure going up or down is interesting information to have, maybe more than the blood oxygen.

The wrist temperature stuff I know is useful for people, so that's good. But, you know, it's like, ah, there are more hit and miss than, like, how it started with, like, bang, here's blood, here's your heart rate. We can give you that, like, incredibly precise, and also we can save your life, right? Like, that was as big as a hit you could make,

and then everything since is a bit like, yeah, you know, you could kind of use it to check against the baseline, which is less exciting. Although, you know, I am very intrigued about their vitals thing that they're bringing, where it's like pulling in a bunch of information

where maybe it's going to be greater than the sum of its parts of what they can provide for that. Maybe. I mean, the sensors may get better. The analysis of sensor data, I think there's a lot of potential in there. That's the thing where you use machine learning algorithms to do analysis of data and you can pull some signal out of the noise, which can be useful. So, you know, over time this may evolve, but there is also just the challenge of a thing that's the size of like a big postage stamp sitting on your wrist and from there all information about your body needs to be divined that's hard to do it's just hard to do uh apple has also apparently

discussed a new apple watch se featuring a hard plastic case instead of aluminium in efforts to reduce the price. I think this is a very good idea. Makes sense to me. This makes perfect sense. I had a plastic watch for years and years and years. Perfect sense. Remember, this is what we wanted the Ultra to be. We wanted like a G-Shock, right?

Like that's what I was hoping for and they didn't give it to me. But I think this is a great idea for, I would expect, who are the majority of people that get an SE. It's for young people, and it's for older people. And it's like, you know what? This thing is a watch for a purpose. It is not a watch for fashion. Indeed.

We'll see if they do that. I hope they do, but I don't know. I don't know. I think Apple was so burned on the 5C that going back to plastic is a problem for them, which makes me sad because I think you do some fun stuff with that. Also, plastic is bad for the environment

and they have all sorts of environmental commitments. So there's a question there too. Depends how you do it. Yeah. If it's recycled plastic, it's hard to do it to their standards. Yes, of course. But they can make a good...

And also, this is one of those sayings of like what is quote-unquote plastic from this reporting right what material what is the material yeah and there could be something else depends on there yeah made of paper really good paper don't get it wet don't get it wet that's right get it wet. That's right. Yeah. It's from corn and it's pressed and it's biodegradable. Don't get it too hot. So you can get it wet. You can get it wet, but don't leave it soaking in water or it will dissolve. Yeah.

Stand too close to the grill and your Apple Watch just pops, you know? Yep. Sure. Oh, boy. Mac rumors have found reference to a new home accessory in development from apple they found it in some code being referred to as quote home accessory 17 comma 1 this makes mac rumors believe based on the way that apple kinds to delineate their naming schemes that this would be a device running an a18 chip featuring a variant of tv os

this continues the hope that a home pod with a screen is a product in the future yeah so a18 is what this falls iphone chip yeah which is interesting because that means it's potentially apple intelligence right yeah a variant of tvOS, which makes sense. This is the HomePod with a screen, right? Some people did a mock-up that makes it look like the G4 iMac, which is really great. I know Mark Gurman has reported about this a little bit, the idea that it might be like a speaker with a little kind of arm

and a screen above it that kind of can turn around and stuff. Mark Gurman keeps calling it a robot. He needs to stop. Do I have to get John Syracuse at a weigh-in? A home accessory with a screen and a speaker that might turn or tilt to keep your face in view is not a robot. It's just a thing with an adjustable screen.

Only you and John can make the ruling on this when this product becomes a reality. I wish he would stop. Because he's got this narrative about Apple's also working on robotics. And he keeps throwing this thing in. And it's like, man, this is just a HomePod with a screen. This is not a robot. Stop making it part of Apple's robotics push. Come on.

Come on. But I'm excited as somebody who had an Echo Show and now has a Google Home Nest whatever in my kitchen. I would love having a HomePod with a screen in my kitchen instead.

That would be better. I would be much happier to have that. So I hope that's what this is. Me too. Also, finally, Mark Gurman is reporting in his Power On newsletter that Apple intelligence features will launch to the public in the spring

of next year of iOS 18.4 with beta testing beginning in January. So this would be the more actual heavy stuff, right? The beginnings of understanding a lot more about your device and da-da-da-da-da. Because there would still be things this year like ChatGPT and the new Siri design for 2024.

But things that would be considered Apple intelligence would be coming all the way into spring of next year. Which is wild. Not not surprising but wild yeah i don't think this is that that new i think the assumption all along was that a lot of this stuff i mean there will be make no mistake there will be apple intelligence features that will ship in the fall there will be some but they're not going to be the ones you think more what mark has got here which is different to what he's reported before, is like, you know, it was always like, oh, there'll be next year. But now it's the kind of the nailing down

of 18.4 as the thing for when we can expect these. And also the idea that beta testing wouldn't begin until January, where there's been a consideration that maybe it would be before uh 18 launched or you know some point this year but that doesn't seem possible yeah i appreciate the detail here but it's it's not anything it's exactly what i was expecting which is i remember after wwdc just

saying look they're going to be shipping this stuff all the way until next wwdc and maybe off and beyond yeah yeah right they're just going to keep on rolling it out because a lot of this stuff is just not ready. And they're moving fast and they're trying to catch up and they're going to be shipping this and it's going to be an ongoing thing of the evolution of Apple Intelligence. But they made the announcement because they want to say, yes, we're on it, but it's going to take time. And it's going to be a real challenge. I know I've talked about it before. I know you talked about with Federico, like it iOS release day in the fall is not going to be like it was,

even as Apple's been pulling features forward, you know, and having it be more like there's a release and then more features come in the later in the fall. And the more features come in the, in the winter and the more features come in the in the winter in the spring this is going to be a lot of that this is going to be like huge headline features that are just not going to be there for a while and you know that's like i think it's a good thing to have a whole cycle year-long cycle instead of putting everything in the one edition but here it's going to be really uh it's going to be a

challenge right because we're really not they're not shipping their whole OS in the fall they're shipping a first version and then adding on with the second version and the third version and the fourth version so yeah this episode is brought to you

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you can get it from them. Our thanks to Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of this show and RelayFM. So Summer of Fun is what we're in right now. Summer of Fun! Summer of Fun! And it's where, during this time of the year what we're in right now so summer of fun and this way during this time of the year trying to find stuff to have fun with right yep i would say this summer so far tough

summer would you say it's a cruel summer i would say it's a cool summer all right i think right now it's hard like being excited about technology is a little bit tougher right now because there's so many things to drag well at least i find this that can drag me down like while i enjoy talking about epic and apple i would prefer that not to happen right like i i would i i find it interesting because it's happened but my choice would be that didn't happen right and i like covering these things on the show because if it's important i want to cover it right like if it's important to the landscape of apple and how it shifts i want to cover it this is the same of apple intelligence right where we're spending so much time talking about

things like image playgrounds i wish they wouldn't have done that but if they're to do it, I want to talk about it because I want to understand it with you and I want to talk about the ramifications of it. But I just think right now, all of these things that are happening makes covering technology just more tiring, whether it's us having to understand things to talk about them, whether we like them or not, then also having spoken about them opens the door to all kinds of feedback from listeners, which understandably a lot of the time is not really directed at us, but they're sharing frustrations that they have with certain things. and so as i was putting the document together today and i was actually feeling a little bit of this i was feeling a bit like i don't i don't know how i feel about what's going on right now i kind of wanted to understand from you if you have any thoughts about how you stay excited and enthusiastic about technology at times where news is low or where it drags you down i kind of want to talk about that today a little bit. Okay.

I don't know. Do I have a pep talk? I don't know. You don't have to have a pep talk. But at least what do you think about this idea? Do you feel like you're being dragged a little bit? Because I do. Yeah, I mean, none of us, I think,

and neither of us for sure, got into this because what we really wanted to do was talk about AI being potentially putting people out of work, potentially being trained on people's work without their permission, which is how it's basically gone. To talk about government regulation. If I could encapsulate it, I would say, as a kid, I loved computers. And when we got the newspaper, the last section I would ever choose to read was the business section. I think that's sort of what I'm getting at is I have an enthusiasm for technology. I don't have the enthusiasm. I'll put it this way. The enthusiasm does not stem from a lot of the places where we end up having to talk about it, right? That's not where my initial enthusiasm came from, right?

As a kid, I wasn't like, oh boy, I can't wait to grow up and think about government regulation of technology companies and legislation and lawsuits and tech companies that might be out of control and ripping people off and potentially leading to the loss of lots of jobs and a very strange, you know, impact on the world economy. Like these are not, these are not why I'm interested in this stuff. So I guess when, but it's part of my job, right? And job, the job is not doing just fun stuff. I mean, like I make those charts and we talk about it and it's fun and all that, but like every time we do Apple quarterly earnings, August 1st, by the way, is the date this year or this quarter. So get ready. It'll be, you know, just in time for me to be back from my trip to cover that.

But like every time I do that and it's money and charts and stuff like that, I think that's like, it's that business section of the newspaper that I didn't even read. And here I am in it. And it's like, it's been part of my profession. Like part of my profession is to understand Apple's business and why they do what they do. But like our financial results, something that I have fundamental kind of enthusiasm for, they aren't like the stuff that keeps the, the, the pilot light lit that keeps the flame burning is that there are so many different ways that, that technology impacts my life and other people's life in a fun way. And that could be as simple as I have a new nephew and the family chat iMessage thread is just full of pictures of this little baby and of my niece, his big sister, who's learning to adapt to having a younger sibling, which is exactly the dynamic that my kids had.

That is, you know, and then I can just drag and drop out of that to my mom who wants to see pictures of the baby, other side of the family, so not related. But she wants to see, because who doesn't want to see pictures of the baby? So I think about stuff like that. I think about having fun on the 4th of July,

doing something as dumb as updating my JavaScript widget so that when my phone is in the kitchen and standby, it has the right temperature on it and getting excited about talking to you about that weather station. And like, there's lots of cool stuff in terms of customizing what you do and amazing that we have supercomputers in our pockets

and all of that. It still feels like the future. It still feels like that we live in an amazing time with all this amazing capability. I can't pretend and ignore all of the the downsides and i think they're important i mean i read a lot of science fiction and let me tell you science fiction is not generally pr for the tech industry right like science fiction is has been and continues to be often extremely critical extremely wary, extremely interested in talking about

the cultural ramifications of technology in a way that I think tech companies and the social and political ramifications of technology in ways that tech companies are super not interested in thinking about, right? Because it gets in the, like, no, no, no, I just build it. I don't want to think about what it leads to because I have stock options, right? That's a lot of what's going on there. So I don't know. It's a mix. I just, when it's stuff that is getting me down, I try to also think about the stuff that is positive because I can usually find positive amidst the negative i don't know does

that make sense to you yeah i mean it's not a million miles away from where i am too i think i care a little bit more about the business side of technology than you do but it isn't why it isn't where my love comes from right yes it's similar right where it's similar, right? Where it's like, the thing that excites me is I like, you know, technology is a toy for me, like it kind of always has been. And even though I use these, the same technology to do lots of things, I also like to play with the technology. And over the, I would say maybe over the last five years or so i've been finding new ways of doing that too right where if it comes from like learning uh and building keyboards and learning like some of the electronics that go into that and recently i've been um getting a bit more interested in

like the like retro gaming handhelds and stuff and all of the ridiculous work required to try and get emulators running on them and things like that and understanding what that might lead to. It's like I've been trying to find these little hobby projects for me which are just pure because I love the technology, but it's always similar to like, oh, I want to try this new app, I want to be on this beta to see what this is about. But the problem, I think, is that as we're getting further and further along we are brushing up more and more with the science fiction of it all and it just mean that the the

toys become there are there are more health warning with toys right and then we have to consider that stuff more and because where we are in this whole thing we find ourselves talking about it more and we have and then you know like everything is just more political than it used to be so everyone you know you got to pick your side and it just becomes like a whole thing and it you know it can be tiring sometimes i think to to to focus on this stuff in the way that we do. I just think right now it's just particularly difficult. I'm finding it particularly difficult right now, right?

Where I'm wading into these huge topics about what AI is, whether I like it or not, you know? And I find it interesting to talk about, but it's also just very emotionally draining in a way that technology usually is exciting for me, right? And like my emotions are being buoyed by technology rather than being drained by technology. Do you kind of follow what I'm saying? Yeah, it's hard when you've got a hot button issue

that is an issue that you need to talk about because a really hot button issue, something like AI. The problem is that talking about it, like it engenders so much feeling from people on all sides of the issue. There's more than two sides with AI. And it can get really difficult really fast. And having difficult conversations is not bad.

In fact, for podcasting, I think it can be very good. But having difficult conversations, good, healthy, do they lead to good vibes? Maybe not. Sometimes you want good vibes. And that's just life, right? And if talking about technology is a place that maybe gives you good vibes, having the other difficult kinds of talks about technology are you know not giving you those good vibes necessarily and like it's a natural reaction you and i have had if you go back a few years we have had topics where we've talked on sunday and said basically i guess we got to talk

about it and we do and often those are good conversations and they're good episodes and the people in the discord are like i really appreciate that and we get feedback later saying that was a really good conversation and it's true and i can even be proud of how that conversation went but at the same time you know on sunday we were like we we don't want to do this, but we have to, it's our responsibility. And then as we're doing it, I feel unpleasant, right? I feel like, oh, I don't love talking about this, but we need to do the work and we need to talk about it. And afterward, I feel more relieved that it's over than proud of what we've done. Sometimes both, but like, but really it's just like, I'm glad we got through that and survived it.

And I think that's some of this, right? Which is, you could do that, but I don't want... Mike, if everything we talked about had that weight on it, I wouldn't want to do podcasts anymore, right? I just wouldn't want to do it. Yeah, if every episode was this. Let me tell you, there was a podcast called Download that Stephen Hackett and I did. And it was our attempt to do a more general tech podcast. And what ended up happening was that it became the, because of when we were doing it, it became the weekly, all of the terrible ways that Facebook is ruining humanity podcast, essentially. And we

couldn't dodge it. We couldn't dodge it. It was the tech story of that period. And you know what happened to download is we stopped doing it because it was so unpleasant to talk about those topics and they didn't bring us joy. And we created a topic that people did love called the Fuzzy Puppy Update that we did at the end of that podcast, literally because we felt like the show was so dark that we needed to cheer people, but if everything was like that, this is not what I got into this to do. I would try to find something else to do with my life. Yeah, I think maybe my particular issue is I have three shows that are talking about these topics right now. You do. And that might be too many for one person. Yeah.

you do and that might be too many for one person yeah like usually it's great like having three places where i can talk about tangentially related stuff or similar stuff but different people in different ways i love it and i'm i think even now like what we're doing right now i'm still having these conversations in very different ways on the different shows but it's it might be a lot for just one man you know I am but one man Jason Snell I agree and so yeah I don't know this is the cruel summer that we're in I suppose and it's just

a case of like pushing through it but then when I hear things like spring of 2025 I'm like Jesus please just launch it so I don't have to keep speculating about the launching of the you know what i mean just get it out there then we can understand it deal with it and move on like it's it it's like the the not knowing is the the part that's yeah frustrating for me right now maybe i want to recommend to people who haven't heard it last

week's episode of Connected, episode 509, it's just you and Federico. Federico has lots of thoughts about AI. But what I liked about it, and I don't agree, I mean, this is the challenge, right? It's also not fun.

Let's just say it. It's also not fun when one of your friends is extremely passionate about an issue and you don't entirely agree with them, right? I don't entirely agree with them, right? I don't entirely disagree with him either, but my take on it is not quite his. And that can be awkward, right? That can be awkward and difficult. I thought you did a good job in that episode of letting him say what he wanted

to say and saying, I see where you're coming from. I don't entirely agree or disagree with it. But what I liked about that episode is he got to elaborate very clearly some of his concerns about AI. And it's not, if you're thinking, if you sort of pegged Federico as the guy who's angry that models were trained on his content, that's not what most of that episode is about. It's actually, or at least the core of it, it's actually more about a concern about how AI is used and is going to be used and how it is, in Federico's opinion,

I think fundamentally, it has the potential to be frequently misused in a way that is fundamentally dehumanizing. And it's a, I mean, it's a big issue and it's complicated. And what I found valuable in that is that I really liked hearing somebody who could walk me through his entire perspective on it, even if there were points that I didn't agree with because it was really good to think about it. Was it summer fun, good vibes? No, sir, it was not, but I really liked it and I appreciated all of it while I was, this is a callback to our follow-up, while I was power washing my outdoor table. I was thinking deep thoughts about ai with federico vatici while also power washing my uh my patio so yeah i mean i feel like you know ostensibly what i am doing

as a career which i am thrilled that i get to do is to entertain people, right? Like, that is ostensibly what I do. It can be, I think it is harder to entertain people with topics like this. Now, I think that that episode of Connected was very entertaining, in like, in an interesting way. But I find it harder to produce something that I think is entertaining, like, emotionally harder, when it's about such a difficult topic.

I find it way easier to crack jokes, right? Of course. With my friends. Sure. And have a good time. And like I was saying about our difficult topics, it can't always be that,

right? We do have to buckle down and do those difficult topics and say, we have to talk about this. And, and I wouldn't, I'm not interested in doing a podcast that's, that's entirely unmoored from anything and is just in jokes and wackiness and all of that, like everything. And there's a spectrum,

there's a scale there. There's a spectrum that podcasts can run on. I also wouldn't want it. I wouldn't want it to be dead serious all the time, but I also wouldn't want to be entirely weightless all the time, right? Like the world is mixed and we need to be mixed, but you're right. The difficult stuff, even if it's necessary and good to talk about it is still difficult and it doesn't, it doesn't spark the spark the the the kind of joy that the fun stuff does yeah yeah i don't know i just i just wanted to talk about this a little bit today this wouldn't really go anywhere other than the fact of just like lifting the lid of my brain a little bit and letting people look inside like this is kind of where i am right now and uh it's interesting i am very aware of the fact that I am running

on fumes at the moment because we're entertaining over a thousand people in like two weeks so like I may be running a little raw at the moment which might be why I'm feeling this way today so thank you for indulging me

sure of course should we do some Ask Upgrade? Let's do it. Let's finish out with some Ask Upgrade today. Kit writes in and says, I have the newest iPad mini and its battery life is at a point where I'm considering ordering a new one. I don't recall ever replacing an Apple product within the same generation though. Have either of you replaced an unbroken device with a product of the same generation though. Have either of you replaced an unbroken device with a product of the same generation? I just wanted to start

off by saying that I feel for Kit and I think that Apple's doing the iPad mini an injustice. That product should be given more love. It's a fantastic form factor. Also Kit maybe, maybe battery replacement. Keep it alive for another year yeah that's the replacement

then you can hand it down and then you can buy yourself a new ipad mini but like at this point in its life cycle oh a battery replacement is going to be cheaper i think than an ipad mini so maybe you wait and yeah it will remain usable but for me the only product i could think of is something like airpods but i've i've replaced airpods within the same generation um and that is either because the batteries are so gone but like with that product the battery replacement like cost isn't really worth it compared to replacing them um And I think Apple actually just replaces them if you need to replace the batteries anyway. You usually get new ones.

So I've done it with both sets of AirPods Pro because also that's a product that lasts a really long time. And usually they've done it both times. If you do get the quote unquote the same product, it might be slightly different. Like Qi charging case or USBbc check case and vision pro features or whatever but where technically it's still the same thing but i couldn't think of anything else and i do think that is partly because you know we've we try and if we're gonna

if we're replacing something it's usually because there's something new right and we're we're replacing for the new thing way more frequently than the average consumer would yeah i think we're unusual in that way i do also do a lot of hand-me-downs so you know again usually it's a new tech and then i'll i'll i'll move them down the chain it has happened uh and again they're not quite the same but like i did get the airpods with the Qi charging case and used that as an opportunity to push my AirPods down to Jamie, I think. So yeah, there's some of that, but not really because we're primarily, you know, because this is what we do, getting the next thing. getting the next thing. And Yoav asks,

how do you explain to non-tech people, especially family, that your iPhone does not listen to you to show ads? I can never get them to believe me. I think cross-site tracking is so hard to understand and the conspiracy theory is more attractive.

I wonder if there had been a conversation around the family dinner table for you, Yoav, over the last couple of weeks. It's interesting. This is funny to me, right? Getting this question was actually a good example of this phenomenon. Two days ago, me and Idina were having a conversation about this idea. And then Yoav wrote to me.

So it's almost like Yoav was listening to me too. Oh, no. Yoav, how could you? I just think these algorithms are so good i think it's two things are going on here personally i think the algorithms are so good that they can often show you things you're interested in based on whatever it took for you to become interested in that thing because they just know plus human nature means we draw connections to things where there otherwise might not be one. So I think it's the two things going together where one, the system knows what you want and is giving it to you

and two, if you recall something then you can jump to like, oh, I was just thinking about that or I was just talking about that but you don't, for the things that you weren't thinking about, go, I was never thinking about that. You only can pay attention to the patterns. What do you think about this kind of stuff i i i was happy to

see your response because it's mine too which is it's i don't think you can convince them of anything yeah uh because it is just so much i i don't i just don't think there is because it's so easy for people to make connections like that what i will say is if you want to talk about it technically you're like oh yeah but if you say the name, right, then the voice assistant, and that means it's always listening. It's like Apple, Apple's got like markers about whether it's listening to audio or not. And the way those wake words work is that the microphone on the device, there's an algorithm that's listening for the wake word. That's why it gets mistriggered.

But like, it's not listening for conversation anyway. The only thing it's listening for is the wake word. And Apple actually got in a lot of trouble where it turned out that some of their activations, the audio was being recorded and was available in data centers. And now you have the option to say no to that. So like, I feel like, again, it's impossible

because it's a conspiracy theory and you can't. You can give facts. If they want to believe it, they're going to believe it. But the fact is- And it's also like, it's a harmless conspiracy theory by and large, right? For most people that it's just kind of one

to just let go. Of all the things, it's just the ads. Like of all the things that you could do with that information, this is actually a pretty harmless one. There are way worse things you could do. But that's what I would say is if they want to believe it, they can believe it. But I would tell you as somebody who's watched stories about Apple over the years, that if this was happening, we would all know about it, right? But we don't. And in fact, Apple is like a war with Facebook

over ad targeting. So it's, you know, but I think in the end, you can bring out all the facts, but if they want to believe that their phone is listening to them, I guess you just got to let them, but it's not. Yeah, I will.

I've never listened to the podcast reply all, but I remember they did an episode on this subject that I saw lots of people very excited about. So I'll put a link in the show notes to that. Maybe this will help them. It's called, Is Facebook Spying on You? It was the episode. And they tried to investigate this exact phenomenon. I'm sure that they probably end up in a scenario which is interesting interesting but still won't help you convince people in your lives that this isn't happening i mean the other thing you know i said like if your concern is that your iphone is listening to you even if it is that day is never finding

its way to facebook right like that's that's the problem here right like for for us is what we know we're too close to the metal they They're never giving that information to Instagram, right? Like that's not why you're getting Instagram. For sure. Right. It's not, it's not like Apple was listening to you.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They're not, they would use that for their own purposes and not for Facebook's purposes. So maybe you could shift the, uh, shift the conspiracy a little bit that like it's,

it's only Apple could even be listening and they wouldn't share that with facebook so whatever you see on facebook or on the web like apple apple doesn't want anybody else to have that information but you see you can see why why it's so enticing to people right because you don't also then have to do a lot of googling to see that apple and google have this huge deal together about you know about like search engines right which is so easy to then just be like well maybe they're just giving this data to google about, you know, about like search engines, right? Which is so easy to then just be like, well, maybe they're just giving this data to Google, right?

Like, you know, you can, this is the problem with this stuff is there is a, I think, I think sometimes in a lot of ways, wise mistrust about these large companies, but it then ends up sometimes going a little bit too far where this,

this one, it just doesn't make sense for these businesses to do this because of the amount of information they would have to be sharing and also there's a thing of like nobody cares about you that much right someone's listening to your phone i'm sorry that's not happening and also the algorithms are still not that great like it's it's literally if you search for a folding chair on Amazon, all your ads then suddenly are like, hey, folding chair enthusiast,

would you like to buy many more folding chairs? It's like, no, I bought one. It's something that I see happen a lot, and I think this is one that trips people up, right? A lot, say like Instagram or whatever, they are aware, depending on how you have stuff set up, of devices on your network and what they're searching for, right?

Based on IP addresses. So you could have a conversation with your partner and your partner went and looked something up. Then you get ads for the thing you were talking about, right? This is one where I think that's one of the things that's happening that trips people up. Where they're like, whoa, I was just talking about this and I haven't looked for it yet

and I haven't had for it. It's like, yeah, because the person you were talking to when I looked it up. That's one that I do think happens, which is not a conspiracy. That's just the way the technology works. But I think it's one of the ways that it could trip people up. I find this to be somewhat of a fascinating thing, especially having conversations with people about this stuff. But as a technology enthusiast,

sometimes it can be difficult because you end up being the one where people are like, why is my phone listening to me? And it's like, I can't help you, I'm afraid. But Yoav, I hope that helped. If you would like to send in your questions for a future episode of the show or send us any feedback or follow up,

just go to upgradefeedback.com. If you want to check Jason's writing out, go to sixcolors.com. You can hear his podcast on the incomparable.com and here on RelayFM where you can hear me too and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online. Jason is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can watch video clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube where we are at Upgrade Relay. Thank you to our members

who support us at Upgrade Plus. Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can get longer ad-free versions of this show every week. And thank you to our sponsors Ooni and our friends over at Squarespace. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason

Snow. Goodbye, my curly.