Upgrade - 524: We're Making a Trifle

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

from relay this is upgrade episode 524 for august 12th 2024 this episode is brought to you by uni pizza ovens and delete me my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snow hi jason hi mike how are you? I'm doing all right. Nice weekend. Had a nice weekend. Got some stuff done. Some chores done.

Love it. We haven't got time for that. No, we haven't got time for that. It's still time for Snell Talk. We've been watching a lot of the Olympics, is the answer to your question. Yeah. All Olympics all the time in the Hurley household, snow talk comes from ann who wants to know if you could be good enough to perform in any summer olympics event oh what would it be i see i got you i knew i knew what

you'd say yeah because i just say curling because i do play an olympic sport and i'm not very good at it so that would be it uh it the um the closing ceremonies now let me tell you i'll be up there with phoenix i'll be up there with phoenix i gotta say i might be in the minority here i hated the opening ceremonies i did not like it at all i enjoyed how strange it was it was that was fun for the first 20 minutes. And then that guy, they showed a montage of it, uh, right before the closing ceremonies.

And there was that guy who was running on the, on the water. Yes. And Lauren said, Oh yeah, that guy who was running on the water for a very long time. And I'm like, yeah,

that was really boring. So here's my thing about the opening ceremonies. It took too long. Uh, the boats didn't look good enough they should have done something to actually make the boats look like something um all of the sound was terrible the lighting was bad because it was outside and uncontrollable uh and because of their requirements to move things up and down the sand things that should

have been impactful took too long like the joan of arc like horse thing took ages and like then when they took the flame from the eiffel tower to the toccadero i think it was whether it's just forever everything took too long and so i i think that i think that their decision to do everything on the sen made everything a little bit worse because the closing ceremonies were fantastic because it was a performance that people you could hear people they could enjoy it the music was good and i loved it there was a dystopia there was a dystopia where they they couldn't find the olympic rings and so therefore earth was terrible and then they found them and then everything was fine and then phoenix. Do you know, I don't know because we get different

commentary, like what the impetus for that was? No. So, do you know the, I think it's on the Voyager, right, as a golden record? Yes. So that was produced in France, the golden record. Ah. And so the opening ceremony started with them playing a piece of music that's on the record. And then that was an alien that came to Earth after Earth was, quote, a archaeological remnant. Yes. And then I think that's why that alien was gold.

And it also was referencing a statue in France. And so, yeah, that's kind of i think that's why that alien was gold and it also was referencing a statue in france and so yeah that that's kind of what that was about yeah the american announcers basically said ah now we're going to go tell this is a story about a future dystopia where the olympics do not exist which made me laugh it's like yes what could be worse than there not be being the olympics uh there's no earth left i i don't uh so other than other than up with phoenix you know can i just say how uh fun it was to have one of my favorite bands have a concert in the middle of the olympics closing ceremony it was a great surprise and then all of the collaborations that they did were fantastic yeah yeah and so so on um the u.s there were a bunch of different

commentators but um for that part uh it was jimon and Mike Tirico, who's the host of the Olympics on NBC. And Mike Tirico was like, Jimmy, these guys and Jimmy Fallon's like, oh, Phoenix, I love them. This is so great. They've been on my show a bunch of times. They're so great. It was like appropriate amounts of enthusiasm. And he was like, oh, list of mania. Yeah. And then they get to 1901 and uh mike terrico says now jimmy you're the music guy but even i know this one it was really cool it was like they were enjoying that it was phoenix and i love phoenix they're great that was a wonderful band yeah that was a that was really fun and then all the extras and i i honestly i did love um the uh the bit with tom cruise i'm sorry it was my favorite part it was my favorite part it was my favorite part yeah lauren was out and she came back and i said now if i told you that tom cruise stood on the top of the stadium jumped off of it repelled to the floor uh got the flag put it on a motorbike

rode out and flew to la would you believe it because that's what happened i was already excited about the prospect of the la olympics and seeing that whole section was like yeah it's going to rule it's going to be so good my favorite part about the tom cruise thing is what i assume was his dictated camera shot where the camera goes above his head and he looks into the camera as he jumps so no one could doubt that it was him nope yeah yeah absolutely he's looking up they're like yeah it's me i'm here here i go i can't wait for the la olympics man but this one was fun the overall the games brilliant i watched so much of it loved it

my mini upstream here i'll just say is nbc who has had the almost every olympics in you know modern memory in the U S, um, after a lot of experimentation this year, they, they, they nailed it. They nailed all of it. They showed all the events live and then showed them in prime time. They used to hide events.

They used to like, not like the ones people wanted to see. They wouldn't show them live. They would hold onto them because they were afraid people didn't want to watch, uh, prime time. It wouldn't want to watch in primetime.

They'd have already heard about it or seen about it. Well, the world has changed and they gave that up so you could watch them live. Their streaming was really great. You could watch anything you wanted live or on a replay and they had this Gold Zone channel, which is literally the Olympic equivalent of the NFL Red

Zone where they literally had the hosts of that on it. And that was basically you just tune to that channel and they take you around to whatever is going on that's interesting and that was on for like eight hours a day yeah it sounded like that experience was really really good ours was like okay like it didn't have anything special but it sounded like peacock really went all out this time yeah the peacocks oh and i should say the kevin the kevin hart uh keenan thompson uh comedy highlights show that they did i mean we watched one last night it reduced me to tears it was so funny uh just so funny those guys so and that was a case where it's like nbc's not so uptight that they can't they were like we're gonna just make a comedy

show i mean it's like a streaming comedy show they there's the bad there's bad words and stuff like they don't care and and it's the olympics and they just don't care because that's that's if you want that it's there and it was really funny so i think they got it and making snoop dogg like the international olympics ambassador i don't know why that works so well but it really does work very well yeah like so good but i love both the basketball games both basketball finals were just fantastic two of my favorite yeah women's soccer final was great too women's soccer final was amazing but if you could be good enough to perform in any olympics event what would it be i said closing ceremonies other than that i

don't know um like i i i like um uh archery oh okay i don't know i would take like skateboarding or something i think oh well that would be cool i i thought of archery because um i i saw some video of that and it's amazing because like they're they're these tight close-up shots they don't show like the arrow flying so it's like somebody very carefully looking looking looking they shoot cut to the target and then several seconds pass before the arrow comes in you're like oh my god wow how far away are they? And the answer is they're extremely far away. If they cut and showed that they're like 10 feet away, it would be really disappointing. No, they're not. They're very, very far away. So I'll say that. It seems low impact. If you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of the show,

please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your Snell talk. Thank you to Anne for giving us an excuse to talk about the Olympics. Yeah. Jason, it's time to lawyer up. All right. So this is kind of lawyer up and follow up. Thank you. It's like lawyer up and follow up kind of in one. So

we were talking a bit about the streaming. Follow lawyer up. Yeah, follow lawyer up. But it's not all of it. Some of it is new stuff. So we were talking about Apple and streaming, like revenues and stuff like that. Services, I should say, sorry. Well, a US federal district court judge, Amit Mehta,

has ruled that Google is a monopolist and has used its power to its gain in violation of US antitrust law. And why is that relevant? You may hear me asking for us talking about Apple here. Well, one of the key things that has been brought up in this monopoly case is Google's deals with browser companies and firm manufacturers to basically pay for placement of the default search engine.

Basically, this further entrenches their power and et cetera, et cetera. If there's still a lot to go here, right? Like there's actually, for as much as I can understand, because this stuff is quite complicated, there hasn't been anything to say that they will block this stuff from happening. No remedies have been suggested.

Yeah, we can assume that this will be the case um and so if we get to a point where google is no longer paying apple around 20 billion dollars a year that is going to affect apple services revenue yeah it's a quarter roughly a quarter of apple services revenue is so this could be this could be quite uh problematic for apple where actually might not be that problematic for google yeah well yeah good congratulations google you just saved 20 billion dollars i do wonder i mean so here's the thing a lot of these antitrust remedies are i mean first off it's going to take a long time and a lot of them are weird a lot of them can be very very strange we think of like simple like don't do that anymore but it may be a much more complex negotiated regime like do they take google search and force google to spin it off or follow certain

rules and you think well that seems impossible but i mean they could they could do it they could say um what if google has to make search available to other parties so that advertising in google search is separated from the search business right because i think one of the problems with antitrust is that monopolies aren't illegal. It's using monopoly power to exert your authority in other places or to maintain your monopoly, right? These are the parts that are illegal. So is there a solution where different companies can put ads on Google search, including Google, but that other people can too, and then there are different versions of Google search and you can choose them or they're chosen for you or whatever. Like there, it could get weird. And, and that means it could get to the point. And what I think

Apple would probably come in as a potentially harmed subject here and say, you know, we, cause it's Apple, of course, uh, we think that every search from our apps should kick money back to us. And you're saying that you materially hurt our business if you disallow this. And could money to Apple even be part of the remedy? I don't know, right? But it's not impossible. I know a lot of people talked about this. It's like infinite possibilities. But it's not impossible. I know a lot of people talked about this. There's so many.

It's like infinite possibilities. surfacing their search engine more prominently in, in more places and also potentially putting ads on it is not beyond the realm of possibility. I think it's unlikely that Apple would entirely override, like all searches now go to Apple bot. Like I don't think so, all searches now go to applebot like i don't think so but they're they could take a lot of stuff and divert it into places where apple would make the money off of advertising and i i wouldn't put it past them to do that we also don't know what the impact of kind of like ai stuff is on all of this because you know it could it be like with with apple intelligence

the strong implication and we heard this um on the call the strong implication is that if you want to search with siri for world knowledge you'll go to chat gpt or another ai provider well if that's the case like is that where search is going and the this and and the the u.s is uh stopping the last thing when the new thing is already here that's going to replace the old thing i don't know but i i just i think i think apple's going to be okay either way because it's not like they earned that money they just i mean they earned it by being in existence and asking for it but like it's not like they they invest that's a that's a 99 98 profit category right they may amortize they may like say well safari development is covered by this or something but like really it's it's just free money and it's free money to help google prop up its monopoly

so if it goes away it's not the end of the world but i have a hard time imagining that the apple we know that we cover in this segment is going to just go oh well easy come easy go and not find another way to get money out of somebody the money might not go away just the default might go away right i mean i think there's a possibility where they just say um we have a new affiliate system and uh i believe that as a search pays apple for whatever bing searches go yeah like if you choose safari right bing as your default app that apple get money from microsoft i think so i think it's very much like kind of an affiliate search engine arrangement so apple will just put up a choice and people everyone will just continue choosing Google and nothing changes. And Google will keep paying

Apple because they're paying for use and not for exclusive payment, which I think honestly Which I think is the way to go. Yeah, I think honestly that is the that is the truth, is that it shouldn't be necessarily legal under this ruling for Google to pay to be the

default, but that doesn't mean that it's illegal for Google to cut in Apple for searches on its platform. Right. Cause that's not necessarily the same. So I don't, I don't know, but like, again, you know, could Apple shrug and say like, you know, it's fine. Uh, sure. But nothing we see in Apple's behavior suggests that it's a company that's willing to leave a dollar on the table that they'll find something is owed speaking of which yeah apple has found another new and exciting way to charge developers 30 percent so last week apple announced a new set of rules for external linking in the European Union. So this is what gives the, and will give developers the ability to direct customers inside of

their iOS apps to purchasing options on the web that don't need to go through Apple's in-app purchases, but you can have as many links as you want now. It's not just this one link. They can be as many as you want and they can go wherever you want now. It's not just this one link. They can be as many as you want, and they can go wherever you want. And apps that opt into this new system, they have no restrictions. They can have tracking parameters on the links, and the links can be opened in an in-app web view. So this is essentially, it's like, oh, great. This is exactly everything that you would want. It's enabled via Apple StoreKit entitlements. And this is also available to customers who have accepted the new EU business terms and also ones

who have not. So again, all of this is like, this sounds great. But then you get to the fee structures. There are two different fee structures. I'm just going to preface this by saying this is very complicated, but we'll get through it together. There is an end point to this, which is the same either way. But just for completeness sake, if you are on the new business terms, so this is where you're paying the core technology fee and all that kind of stuff. If somebody clicks a link inside of your app and then goes and makes a purchase, you give Apple a 5% initial acquisition fee of the price of the

purchase and a 5% to 10% store services fee, whether you pay 5% or 10% depends on your app size, like the size of your app, because that changes some of the fees that you pay otherwise. So you pay a 5% to 10% store services fee plus the CTF. And this store services fee is on any purchase within a 12-month period. This would result for Apple in a 10% to 15% commission plus a 3% payment fee if you use Apple's tools because you can still use Apple's purchasing tools, even with the outside linking, plus the CTF on top. If you're on the regular terms, you have not opted into the business terms, you pay the 5% initial acquisition fee for the price of the thing. So you pay 5% of whatever that is, plus a 7% to 20% store services fee that results in a 12% 27% commission plus the 3% fee for payments.

I'm going to now read how Apple describes these two fees again for completeness sake. So this is the- Please stand for the reading of the rules. The initial acquisition fee. This is coming from Apple's developer pages. You'll pay Apple a fee on all sales of digital goods and services the customer makes on any platform that occur over a 12-month period after initial install. This fee does not apply to transactions made by customers that had an initial install before you make your app

available with the entitlement profile to link out. The fee reflects the value the app store provides when connecting developers with customers in the EU. And then the store services fee. In addition to the initial acquisition fee, you'll pay Apple a fee on all sales of digital goods and services the customer makes on any platform that occur within a fixed 12-month period from the date of an install, including app updates and reinstalls, after you make your app available with the entitlement profile to link out. app updates and reinstalls after you make your app available with the entitlement profile to link out. This reflects the ongoing services and capabilities that Apple provides developers, including app distribution and management, app review, app store trust and safety, rediscovery, re-engagement and promotional tools and services, anti-fraud checks, recommendations, ratings and reviews, customer support, and more. Customer support. I reset that part. Apple

didn't. So essentially, again, like with the other stuff, Apple will reserve the right to audit any company. So you have to collect up all of the transactions from a specific customer who initially went through Apple no matter what platform

they're buying on, which is an incredible overreach, in my opinion, aside from everything else that they're doing. And essentially, the result of all of this, Apple's getting its money. It's just going to get it in a different way. But they don't care. They're getting their money.

Yeah. I really don't like this. I mean, honestly, Jason, it's... Okay, I've been a bit annoyed about this today, just't like this. I mean, honestly, Jason, okay, I've been a bit annoyed about this today, just talking about this. Like, I want to cover these things because I think they're important, but I didn't feel the need to do an insane amount of research on this

like I've done in the past because this is just another attempt at doing the same thing that won't pass. It's the same thing they've done before. And in six months' time, I'll be telling you about their new way that they're going to try and get to 30%.

So here's the simplified version of this, which is Apple believes that if you have an app on Apple's platforms, Apple is the source of your success and that Apple wants a cut and Apple wants a cut. I mean, let's be honest. If Apple could say, if you have a corporation and you, and your corporation has an app, you owe us 10% of your global revenue. They would do that if they could just like literally you built your business on us, on our greatness, and therefore we want our cut. Now, I'll point out again, Apple doesn't cut developers in on iPhone sales, and apps are a huge contributor to the success of the iPhone as a platform,

the existence of third-party apps. When Apple tells the App Store story, they like to talk about that it's a partnership between developers and apple but they also like this whole mythology of oh apple invented buying software on the internet which isn't true um and and it is this you know idea that apple and the developers are partners but like apple takes 100 of iphone revenue for itself. It doesn't share that with developers. Doesn't do that, right? But developers have to share with Apple, which says something about how Apple

really feels about developers. And this is the icing on the cake. Not only is it ridiculous that Apple doesn't want links and things in apps and says it's because of safety and privacy this is that little little thin privacy shield that they put up like oh oh going to the internet buying things on the internet that's dangerous everybody does it it's that we've done it forever have you have you heard of cyber monday like i mean what are you about? And this is the mask coming off, which is Apple doesn't actually think that the internet and links are bad, except in the sense

that they prevent Apple from being the gatekeeper and taking a cut. And so what they're saying here is once they leave our app, anything your customers do is because of us give us money this in this scenario they would make more money than they're currently making right well because it's a poison pill because they they don't want anybody to use these terms which is why they will you're right which is why they will be found to be unacceptable by the ec at some point here. But I just think just the gall of saying we own everything. Like I would be okay. I actually would be okay with the idea of like, if you have a link, it's like an affiliate deal, right?

It's like an Amazon affiliate deal. If you have a link in your app that directly results in a purchase, cut us in. Okay. But they're like, no, no, no, no, no. If you have a link that that goes out then everything forever because it's a 12 month purchase a 12 month period except if you update your app everything else thereafter just pay us money because it came from our app and therefore

we are the one who brought that customer to you which is hilarious because of course it it again suggests a world where there's no other way to find an app that there aren't brands out there that are saying, find our app on the app store, download our app. And it's coming in from their greatness. Apple scenario is basically no, no, no apps are only discovered by the app store, which is hilarious. If you ever tried to discover apps in the App Store. Right? So come on. I mean, like, I know that this sort of versions of this do happen, but I'm just saying,

if, let's say Federico writes about an app on Mac Stories, and it drives thousands of app sales, should Federico say, no, you've got to pay me 20 of your revenue because that link came from mac stories incredible thing is there was a scenario like this once but apple took that away there was there was an affiliate marketing thing where you got like two percent if you link to it and they're converted and all that and they took it away because they just don't want to do that anymore they wanted all the money that wouldn't be and for from federico standpoint you know there's a lot of things it's like with wire, where if you're making your money on the referrals, you have to distance yourself and say, no, no, we make our selections regardless of the referral revenue.

Instead of targeting the referral revenue and creating a business that's basically advertising and marketing of apps. So it's complicated. But what I'm saying is Apple really thinks that it's a partnership that they should be a participant in when it benefits them, but in no other case. In no other case. And I'll just come back to, again, if this was a partnership, why doesn't Apple share 30% of iPhone revenues with developers? Well, we know why. So anyway, the idea that they would reach their claws in even further here and say, basically, if you have a relationship with a customer, it's because of us. It's just, it's ridiculous. But you're right. I think on its face, it's very hard to see because it's designed in a way to be so unpalatable. It's hard to imagine

that the regulators aren't going to look at this and go, no, that's not going to work. I'm so happy that Apple are on a run right now of making incredible products. I feel like the last two years, they've been making some really, really good stuff. Because if we were in a period right now where the products were bad and this was happening, I would be struggling. Because this stuff, it just puts such a bad taste in my mouth like because this stuff just it just puts such a bad taste in my mouth that that if i was also like let's imagine we were in the the the real bad mac time yeah that was many years ago like i would be i would be struggling right now like a lot because this stuff just makes me so angry and like disappointed that if the products weren't good i would be i would be i would be

really struggling you know i i keep going back to like the the ebook thing where yeah you know you can buy a book in in the u.s right you can buy a book in ibooks but not in the kindle app or the kobo app for that matter and apple will tell you it's like, oh, well, you know, they need to do 30%. And in fact, there's a story today about how Patreon now is going to have to finally do 30% in app. I'd like to get into that next week. But yeah, we should talk about it a little bit now. But like, I really want to do some reading about it. I think that would be a good big thing next week. They're continuing to try and, you know, catch as much money as they can out of everything so that's all going on and it's this i don't know it's just it is it is frustrating because i don't

disagree that there is something there but like apple can can sell books without a middleman but nobody else can and and you're saying, well, yeah, but they're using Apple's in-app purchase, but it's like Apple makes it illegal. This is the thing is that a lot of the, but this, but that kind of things are only because of Apple's rules. Like Amazon, I have a linked credit card at Amazon. When I'm logged into the Kindle app, it knows who I am and it knows how I can buy things. And it's not allowed to let me buy them and download them straight in the iPhone app. It's just not allowed. Buy Apple. And what Apple's saying is,

well, you know, you think, oh, well, why don't you link out to Amazon.com and buy them there? And the answer is no, you can't because Apple still wants its money because it thinks that if you buy a Kindle book on an iPhone, you're doing it because of value that Apple has

added. Come on. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company, letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your own home. Uni Pizza Ovens can reach up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit and cook pizza in as little as 60 seconds. That high temperature is what you're going to want to get the best pizza possible. This is also like that heat, and especially that's on the speed that you can cook pizza in when you get to those temperatures. That is what sets an Ooni apart from a conventional home oven. Also, an Ooni pizza oven, it heats up super quickly. You'll be ready to go from turning it on to cooking pizza in 20 minutes.

That's just enough time to get your dough rolled out and your topping spread on. Whether you like authentic wood-fired flavor, the convenience of cooking with gas, whether you would like the option to cook with wood, charcoal, gas, or even electricity, there is an Ooni oven that fits your needs and lifestyle. If you're looking for maximum portability, they have the wood pellet fueled Fira 12 and the multi-fuel Karu 12G. This is made for people who like cooking on the go. Maybe you want to get out into the wilderness, do some camping, and also be able to cook some great food. Ooni has the stuff for you. Whether you want to make pizzas indoors or outdoors, they have Ooni's electric Volt 12 pizza oven, which is the one that I own and love. But if you want both the convenience of gas but love the flavor of wood-fired cooking,

then you want to check out Uni's Karu line because you can use wood or charcoal right out of the box and you can get an optional gas burner for cooking flexibility. Uni have all of the accessories you're going to want to take your pizza cooking to the next level. They also have cast iron cookware if you want to make more than just pizzas, but they have pizza peels, thermometers, loads of other accessories to help you level up your cooking. You can buy

your groceries from them too. You can buy your dough and some toppings and you can rest assured that they've done the work so you don't have to. I also will make a recommendation here for two things. One, Ooni's app. They have a great app that has loads of great tips in it. And also their YouTube channel. So when we got our Ooni Vault, we watched a few of the videos that they have on their YouTube channel and it really just gave us the confidence.

It's like, oh, how do you stretch the dough? And like, what's the best way to clean it? They have a really, they've done a really great job of making lots of instructional videos for all of their products. Ooni's ovens are for more than just pizza. You can also cook juicy burgers, sizzling fajitas, buffalo wings.

If you can cook it in an oven, you can cook it in an Ooni, and your results are going to be fantastic. They start at just $299. They have free shipping to the US, UK, and the EU. Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni pizza oven. Just go to Ooni.com, that's O-O-N-I.com and use the code UPGRADE2024 at checkout and you will get 10% off your purchase

of an Ooni Pizza Oven. Ooni Pizza Ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your home. So that's O-O-N-I.com and use the code UPGRADE2024 for 10% off. Our thanks to Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of this show. Jason, I've been thinking today's episode

when I was planning out the subjects is kind of like a trifle. Trifle is a dessert that comes in layers and in a trifle... This isn't that... I was flashing to that Romanian Christmas thing, but that's a different

thing. You don't want different thing you don't want that i don't want that trifle is a dessert right okay and there's layers in a trifle and maybe some things in the trifle you don't like but some you do but you eat them all together and you're like oh that was a good trifle so that's how today's episode is where there's some good stuff and there's some bad stuff and some good stuff and bad stuff we're making a trifle next up how today's episode is, where there's some good stuff and there's some bad stuff and some good stuff and bad stuff. We're making a trifle. Next up in today's trifle is Rumor Roundup. Oh, yeehaw!

Mark Gurman is reporting that the first Macs with M4 chips are on track to launch this year. The iMac, the MacBook Pro, and the Mac Mini in 2024, followed up by a refresh to the MacBook Air, the Mac Pro, and the Mac Studio by mid-2025. A little bit sad that the Mac Studio is being pushed out so long.

I don't like that. Yeah, but more importantly, is just some more information about that M4 Mac Mini. It's going to see a new design, making it, quote, the smallest Mac ever. It would be likely close to the size of an Apple TV, but a little bit taller. So kind of the dimensions-ish, you know, like the area.

Like the old Apple TV. Yes, actually. Well, the old Apple TV was bigger, right, than the one we have now. So it'd be like small but tall. Yeah, I guess. I mean, the first of the black Apple TVs were taller. Right, yes. Then they got a little shorter. So like that one. I was, the first of the black Apple TVs were taller. Right, yes.

Then they got a little shorter, so like that one. I was thinking of the big silver one, the ITV. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, the tall block one, yeah. Apparently, Apple have been testing a version of this product with three USB-C ports and HDMI. And a quote from Mark Gurman, people involved in the development of the new Mac Mini

say it's essentially an iPad Pro in a small box. Yeah. It's like, yes, that makes sense. What do you think of this tiny Mac Mini rumor? I love it. I love it. Well, I looked. I wrote about wanting this seven years ago.

Okay. Yeah. Because this Mac Mini design has been around about 15 years. I checked in with Stephen Hackett about this because we were on the six colors podcast. I was kind of like trying to remember the various, I opened that original Mac mini so many times. We talked about the optical drive.

The truth is that they went to this design, this design. Look, there should have been a Mac mini redesigned seven years ago, clearly because this design is actually from an era where they still had an optical drive and spinning hard drive and then they dropped the optical drive and then they got rid of the spinning hard drive but it's still in this big wide pancake thing and uh like it doesn't need to be right it's it's essentially a macbook air or maybe a macbook pro if you put the pro chip in it it's so it's very very small or an ipad pro

right it's very apple has has reduced energy consumption and the chips don't run as hot and like there are all these reasons for them to do a new enclosure and i think it just says how apple feels about the mac mini which is that it's not a high priority that they haven't done it up to now i'm kind of amazed they're doing it at all i honestly i kind of gave up but yeah seven i looked it up i wrote i wrote columns about it seven years ago saying wouldn't it be nice if we had a much an apple tv-ish sized mac mini instead and people always are like oh does it matter the size of a a desktop uh computer does it really matter and the answer is look the mac mini is a is a multi-purpose tool it fits in a lot of workflows having it be smaller so it can get stuck in another little place somewhere is better and it's also not necessary for it to be as big as it is now

because there's very little inside. There's very little in there. You could just throw this in your backpack. Like, you could just throw it in there, you know? I just think that's awesome. I don't know what use that would be for me, but I love the idea of being able to do that because this is the thing for me.

Do they need to do this? Absolutely not. Would it be cool? Yes. So that is a reason, you know? Yeah. of being able to do that because this is the thing for me do they need to do this absolutely not would it be cool yes so that is a reason you know yeah because cool computers sell like we're seeing i feel like we've seen that like with the apple silicon right that i feel like they they went on this big resurgence because they made these computers that were like really interesting and people wanted to buy them like and i I just think that this is a very exciting prospect of let's make a computer from Apple, let's make a Mac that, as you say,

can be used in places that a Mac would maybe not have been used before because of its physical dimensions. I just think this's really cool. I just think this is a cool thing to do. Yeah, I mean, the Mac mini has always been that thing, right? Which is like, what is its target audience? And the answer is, I don't know.

Like it's whatever, it's anything. It's where I need a Mac to do a thing. And it's a cheap desktop Mac. It's the cheapest desktop Mac. And you can kind of put it anywhere. desktop Mac. It's the cheapest desktop Mac and you can kind of put it anywhere. Now, there is a question about size, which is, there are a couple of questions here. One is power supply, right? There have been Mac minis with big bricks outboard and there've been Mac minis where there's just a plug that goes out. So I've heard there are a lot of assumptions people

are making about this product. Some of them may be true, but we don't know. So let's just a plug that goes out. So I've heard there are a lot of assumptions people are making about this product. Some of them may be true, but we don't know. So let's just put them out there. The MacBook Air doesn't have a brick. The Apple TV doesn't have a brick. So I'm hopeful that this won't have a brick either, that the power supply will be in it. Because that would stink

if you have a little tiny box with another box on the outside of it. Unless you put a couple of ports on it. Well, okay. They've never done it in anything other than the iMac. One thing they could do is something like the iMac where there's a magnetic connect and then there's a brick later on that has Ethernet at least on it. They could do that. They could do that. They could do that.

My guess is that they know that these things get put in racks and stuff and that the ideal situation is for it to be, you know, one surface without like a lot of messy extra blocks somewhere. The other question is ports. And I get it. I mean, that would be a challenge. I will say the Mac Mini was designed in an era where Apple didn't put ports on the front of anything, because how dare you? And we live in an era where the Mac Studio has ports on the front of it. So the Intel NUCs that are of this sort of class of computer that I had one for a while running as a Hackintosh server, it's got ports on the front and it's got ports on the back. And it's very useful.

And my guess is that that's what we will get out of this. Now, what ports there will be, I don't know. And keep in mind that the Base M2 Mac Mini today has two USB-A, two Thunderbolt 4, so USB-C, HDMI, and Ethernet. Will it have all of that? I don't know. They're absolutely going to remove the USB-A ports. I think that's true.

And then what I would say is, what does the base 13 MacBook Pro have? Right? Like, what does the base 13 MacBook Pro have, right? Like what does the base 13 MacBook Pro have? That's probably what it will have. So what is that? I'm trying to find that out. Here it is.

It's two Thunderbolt USB, an HDMI power headphone jack. And in that case, it's got a card reader. Like, yeah. So that's my guess is that, is that it's going to be, you know, fewer ports because it's not going to have the USB-A ports anymore. And, and, uh, I fill up my ports on my Mac mini. So I hope that's not true. I hope it has more ports than that. I'll just point out that at least with the M2123, there's actually a limit to the number of ports they can put on there. And the reason the Mac mini has the USB-A is because they can, they can, you can put more USB-A ports on it because you don't need as much as you do with a USB-C Thunderbolt port. So we'll

see. My hope is that they have ports front and back. My hope is that the power is internal, um, because I think it makes the most sense that way. But we don't know. We don't know. But it's exciting. This is going to be a new shape of Mac. That's exciting. Those don't happen very often.

And in the case of this computer, 15 years. Yep. I think three USB-C ports, a HDMI port, and Ethernet on the power brick would be pretty sweet, I think, as a combination of all of those things. I think that would be pretty nice.

Yeah. But we'll see. Time for the details. Woo-hoo! We're going to talk about macOS privacy dialogue. See, we're in another layer of the trifle now oh okay do you see do you see what's happening leaving the sweet layer behind i see i see maybe you have like a slight intolerance to whatever's in this layer you know like it maybe it makes you a little tingly uh apple has added new privacy and security prompts

in mac os sequoia i always forget what the name of this macOS is, by the way. I'm always happy to get that information whenever I receive it, which is reading your articles. It's strange for a California Bear trophy holder not to know, though. Yeah, because nobody won. It's the reason that we both have the trophy. We both won. That's true.

So new privacy and security prompts in the latest betas of macOS require weekly reauthorization of any app that can capture your screen. There is currently no permanent authorization that can be given. So you can't say, hey, just stop bugging me about this. And this adds what I would say is another stone on the pile of dialogues Apple has been adding over the years, which I know has been a bugbear of yours. We've spoken about it many times. So you wrote a great article about this in six colors but i would like to go and talk about why why would

apple add a weekly security dialogue to a screen recording entitlement or if you would write that or api so one of the things that i tried to do in my article, which is called Apple's permissions features are out of balance, is I didn't want to write what I kind of desired to write, which was an angry screed about Apple getting in my way and get out of my way and this is my computer. Because the truth is, Apple's motivations are good. Apple's motivations are that capturing your screen is a huge invasion of privacy. And if somebody can either talk you into authenticating, which is, that's how malware spreads. The number one way malware spreads is that it's, it's, it's a social engineering, um, at least Mac malware.

Number one, I don't know. It is a very common way where, where somebody calls you or you are told to call, you text them or whatever. You end up on the phone with an expert. They have you install software. They have you put in your password and stuff like that and now they're in your computer right like that's super dangerous also um abusive relationships people have access to one another's devices a a person who is an abuser in a relationship might choose to uh or you know for whatever reason in a relationship but like i think a common case is abusive relationships to have surreptitiously installed software monitoring software on a computer so the problem is if you if it happens once and then it's there forever that's really dangerous so what you i'm sure the

motivation here is you got to ask them again later because outside of being talked to talked to by a social engineer or outside of the surreptitious installation of the software on your device if you get a prompt that says did you know that this thing can see everything you do are you sure that this is a good idea at a later date where that that person is not around or you know or or that that person is not on the phone it's an opportunity for apple to say hey you might not want to keep giving this permission it's very similar on ios there's a lot of this stuff right like i would argue too much actually i haven't gotten into that but like i i am very tired of being randomly prompted if my weather app should know where i am or if my maps app should

know where i am similar kind of thing and this comes to the the the truth of it which is good motivations all i think all of these scenarios should software know where you are should software see your screen absolutely you should be made aware of it and not just in the moment the problem is that in mac os sequoia they're literally saying approve for one week and at at no point am I, as the user, so far as I can tell, given the opportunity to say, actually, I'm okay approving this forever now. And I can see scenarios where like

permanent approval at the moment that you install it is dangerous for all the reasons I just outlined. We're going to ask again later. My problem is, it seems to be that in this cut of beta i'll grant them beta of mac os sequoia what the only power they're giving the user ever is to just put kick the can down the road for a week which i have a couple problems a week is what is wild a week is

wild it is wild like they've i think they've done a decent job with some of the iOS prompts, like the location prompts and the photos prompts. I don't know what their timeline is, but they pop up every now and again. And I think they do okay. Part of my issue is at some point as the user, as the owner of the device, I do want to be given the authority to say, stop asking me. The answer is yes, right? I want to be able to say, hey, dummy, I do want Google Maps to know where I am. Stop asking, right? And the problem is that you can't.

And again, I'm not saying you have to do it right at start, but eventually, after you get past that initial thing where you're like, oh, they might not know what they did. Let's ask them later. As the user, I need some recourse that is not ask me again in a week. And there's two reasons for that. One is, well, there's many reasons. It's terrible user experience. It gets in your way. And often it gets in your way when you're trying to do something on your device. then says, oh, hey, by the way, this thing is going on. Or if you're trying to do screen sharing in your office meeting, in your company meeting, and suddenly it's like, oh, by the way, do you want to approve this thing? Which is the worst possible time to ask. It also leads to permission fatigue

where people just say yes, which makes sense. Security people hate this, right? Like, oh, why do they say yes? Well, it's like, if they say no, they break their software, right? If you say no, I've had this

where a thing has come up and I'm like, do I want this? Like, well, I'm trying to do something right now. And if I say no, I know it's just going to break and I'm going to have to go to system preferences and turn it back on. So I guess I'll just say yes. So you just overwhelm people and they don't want to break their stride for what they're doing. And then I would say not given enough focus is I think Apple, whether intentionally or not, is trying to drive a wedge between users and their software.

And I hate it. This is the thing where it's sort of like, oh, you want to use that software? Well, we can't stop you. But every week, we're going to warn you that you shouldn't, essentially. And you can give it another week, but eventually you're going to give up. Like, well, you can do this. How long eventually you're going to give up like well you can do this how long you know who who's going to outlast who it's like a a staring contest who's going to outlast who well guess what the operating system is a computer it will never stop bugging you if it's programmed that way and i don't like that i don't like that it is apple programming its operating system to get to bug users say, hey, don't run software outside the Mac App Store. Hey, don't run that program that uses that API that's useful, but we

don't want you to run it anymore. Hey, hey, hey, hey, you over there. And it's super gross and bad. I'll throw in the other thing that they changed, right, inia which is gatekeeper which is what happens when you launch an app for a first time uh and if it's not notarized by apple a system that used to be completely neutral but that apple has weaponized in the eu for ios makes me feel much less charitable toward gatekeeper and toward notarization um the first time you do that on Sequoia, it directs you to system settings and you have to approve the idea that you could possibly open software that isn't notarized by Apple. And then when you double click on it, it's going to give you another warning and then you have to authenticate and then it will finally launch this app that is a program you installed and want to use. Right? Theoretically. But worse than that is the language they use,

because the language they use is scary language. It's Apple can't vouch for this thing because we couldn't scan it for malware and we can't say whether it's safe or not. And again, I think the attitude that Apple has with this is attempting, intentionally or not, to drive a wedge between users and the software that they use. And with the ultimate goal of saying, if it isn't in the Mac App Store, don't trust it. Why can't they do the scanning on the device? The scanning that they do for notarization that confirms there's no malware, why can't Apple just do that to any software I download?

What they're doing is, the notarization includes a signature. So they scan it for malware on the server, but it's also got a cryptographic signature on it, which means that the app that you're using, they can verify is the app that they saw. It hasn't been modified. So they have to see it for that.

You're right. They could potentially do some of the scans that they're doing. It's an automated process, right? Mac notarization. So like why can't, whatever they need to do to sign it, why can't my device do that? Now they can't sign it and they shouldn't sign it. But in theory, they could verify it for malware if they wanted to.

They could, but they can't sign it. They have to have the one that's on the server so they can verify. And I think what they want to do is they want to verify that the one that's on the server that they're signing is not full of malware. And I do support Mac notarization. I do think that if you make a piece of Mac software,

you should get it notarized because it seems like it doesn't harm you in any way and actually is better for even your customer support. If you offer a piece of software, people are going to be emailing you and be like, I can't launch it. Yeah, but that's because

of a barrier that was erected by Apple in order to get people to notarize their software. I agree. Notarization on the Mac is harmless, at least so far. And the apps that aren't notarized, I don't know why they're not notarized. I don't think that the ones that I've tried are for malware. I think it's for reasons of either not wanting to play with Apple,

play Apple's game, or feeling like Apple might reject them for content, which I don't think they would actually do. I don't think make MKV, which is a, you know, basically DVD ripping software. I don't think it actually would get not notarized. I think it would be notarized, but the guy doesn't want to do that. And it's like, okay, fine. But anyway, so this, this is my, this is my issue here is it's the same thing we've talked about over the last few years, which is people at Apple who say, oh, God, we got to add this privacy thing, this security thing, because what if get their way? And there seems to be nobody who is empowered to push back and say this degrades the user experience and that's the out of balance part which is i i went into this when i was talking about migrations

which seemed that they may have been fixed now but you migrate to a new computer and then you have to re-approve every single app on your system and i had people say to me well what do you expect i expect a better interface for that so i don't have 50 dialogue boxes that I have to click through one at a time. I expect Apple to build something better that says, oh, you just migrated. Here are your apps. Or perhaps in the system settings, there should be able to look both by permission and see apps and by app and see permissions so that you can have like a good interface to this stuff but but authorized for one week is the laziest most user disrespectful thing you can do i'll

grant you it's a beta but that should never have been put in an operating system. This isn't a bug. This is a decision. It stinks. It says, again, I'm not inside Apple, so I can't say. All I can say is from the outside, Apple seems to be behaving like a company where the privacy and security people can get anything they want. And anybody who speaks up and says this is bad for the user and ultimately probably bad for security. Those people are not empowered to get to be heard. And so everything gets approved. That's this draconian security stuff.

And there's nobody there to fight for the user and say, this is the wrong way to do it. And I blame Apple's managers, right? I blame Apple's software managers. I blame Apple's software managers. And ultimately, I guess I blame Craig Federighi for this. Because I'm not saying you shouldn't care about security and privacy. But if you're going to play that game, you also have to spend the money and the time on the user experience. They go together.

You have to do both. And Apple, it seems to me, is much more concerned about the one than the other. And that leads to authorize for one week. So the issue that I see here, it reminds me of something that I experienced quite a lot when I worked at the bank that I used to work at. So for people that don't know, I worked at a bank for like 10 years. I left school and I ended up in the marketing department. I was responsible for, you know, sending out email campaigns and mailing campaigns and stuff like that. And during that time, I kind of coined a phrase in my head, which is institutional one personism. Now, I'm not saying this is bad or good, but it is a thing that happens where every

decision is met by, well, what about the one person who might get this who X, right? So like, for example, you're sending out a mailing campaign to, let's imagine people you know who are getting married, right? That they've applied for a loan and the people you know who are getting married right that they've applied for a loan and the reason is that they're getting married and you want to send them out a mailing campaign about congratulating them and then someone says but what about the person who got left at the altar and then the entire campaign ends because of that one person now i'm not saying that this is good or bad but it is a thing that happens. And the reason I bring that up is like,

one of the things that you mentioned is like, a reason to do this is because of potential abuse that people might receive, right? That you may be in a harmful relationship. Because of, if that is considered to be important enough, and I'm not saying it is or isn't, I'm just saying if that is considered to be an important enough reason, there is no scenario in which a global approval could ever exist. because people may be abused, you can never create in any scenario, any kind of setting that turns off those security prompts. Because if you started down that path, you can only get more strict with it. Right. And this goes to the core of what a Mac is.

And again, you could argue that it's different from the iPad and the iPhone. I would argue that Apple's made some decisions on the iPadad and the iphone that are also questionable but what is a mac you know and and i've heard people argue over the last few days who've said to me you can't let users make bad decisions you can't do it and that's wrong and so you you keep saying i'm not going to say it's right or it's wrong, but I'm going to say it's wrong. Fundamentally, it's wrong. Saying we're not going to put up a sign that says Happy Mother's Day because what if they don't have a mother? Come on.

Come on. There is a limit. I'm sorry, people. There is a limit to this. It is the what if one person. I agree with you. What if one person, exactly what you're saying. So this is the thing. The Mac needs to let me do what I want at some point. I agree with you. are a little bit better protected. Yes. Am I willing to give up the ability on my Mac to do what I want,

which means install software Apple hasn't seen. It means give permission for utilities to monitor my screen, even though Apple thinks that's not smart. Apple thinks I shouldn't do those things. And this is the bottom line here, which is I'm willing to be inconvenienced a little bit for the general safety of the platform. I am not willing for Apple to take my agency away and say, this isn't your Mac anymore. There are things on your Mac that you've always been able to do.

We don't think you should do them. And there's no way for you to tell us otherwise. That's my problem with it. And it is, I'm just going to say it, Apple has spent so much time on iOS and iPadOS now where they have a top-down paternalistic attitude toward all of its users for some good reasons. Again, I'm not saying that they're bad reasons that it's seeping into the Mac. And I've had people say to me, why are you guys making such a big deal about this? It's just a beta.

And the answer is because if we don't, if we don't scream bloody murder about it right now, they'll just do it. Yeah. The reason this will change, if it changes this summer, the reason it will change is because a whole bunch of us complained, filed feedbacks, got John Gruber to write a post about it, all of these things. For somebody inside Apple to say, I told you this was a mistake and have some manager who didn't care and didn't think it was a big deal because users are stupid and we should just not let them do things, say, okay, you're

right. I guess that was too far and fix it. I should also mention as a footnote here, I've also heard from people who, including some people inside Apple who say, I think there's actually a new API that does this stuff that doesn't trigger this thing. The problem is one, I've heard other people, other developers say it actually does trigger this thing. Maybe it's a bug.

I don't know. One, I've heard other people, other developers say it actually does trigger this thing. Maybe it's a bug. I don't know. Two, why is there a approve for one week in any scenario, even for an old API? And three, I talked to developers who don't know what's going on. They have no idea. Is there like a special approval, a special entitlement that Apple can provide?

Nobody seems to understand it, which comes back to the original point, which is, so who's up on this? The security and privacy people clearly can do whatever they want, but developer documentation has nothing. The user experience is nowhere. And you're just out of sync. You can't run an organization like that. Those three groups need to be in lockstep. You need to have good UX for your new security and privacy settings that and if you're making changes that developers have to build you need to tell the developers here's what we're doing we're going to give you a warning if only there were some sort of developer conference that they could hold at the beginning of the summer to talk about this and make it clear to developers what's going on but unfortunately nobody is capable of such a thing in discord zach says it's a shame they have nowhere to tell all developers worldwide worldwide changes like this is maybe a conference

it is a tragedy look the beta thing doesn't work because there wasn't a bug in the computer that wrote a dialogue that said one week right someone made a decision but like it is a beta yes so feedback can be collected but if you complain to people that are talking about this this is part of the feedback process like year after year after year this is what happens things happen in in ios or mac os people write about them we talk about them on our shows and it helps drive some people to make different decisions like this is i think at this point an accepted part of the beta process that we're all a part of together and i will say like you mentioned ios again and i will just say i i think in general they have done a really good job job with iOS prompts in the last few years.

They're providing visual context to the thing that's happening. I never get the thing that I do on the Mac where I do one thing and I'm prompted with eight different things. That never happens, which is good. And also, they seem to find good time. So, for example, you get these prompts on the home screen when you're not doing the thing where it's like hey whatsapp has access to your photos and it shows me my photos that you want to continue like i think that they need to do that right so for example you know it's like every now and again on the mac it pops up and it's like hey it shows like a little screenshot of my desktop and says like these five apps have access to this.

Would you like to manage that? Like, that's the way to do it. But like, do it, you know, whatever. I don't know what the intervals are on iOS, but they feel better than this. Right. And I would say also, ultimately, I need to be able to go somewhere at some point, not right away, and say, stop asking me about this app. Right. I need to be able to do that. I think you're right in general. Like I said, I mentioned the example

before, which is my frustration on iOS and iPadOS is also, there are certain apps that I want it to stop asking me. And sometimes they do. I think there there is i think it's hard because it's a progression i think maybe you get that i think maybe you get like you get the location approval and then there's the sort of like when i use it or all the time that you get eventually but you don't get you don't get it at first they still check in after a while though like it is a progressive thing when you're like no this is fine and then you can say whenever i'm using this app or just like all the time because that that bugs me when they put up the map i'm gonna i'm just gonna be blunt here when they put up the map that says oh your weather app showed you your weather where you were and look at this map your weather app this is this is the

driving a wedge thing i know they think of it as disclosure, but this is them saying, carrot weather is spying on you. And like, okay, if I'm unaware, that's great. But as a user of that app, at some point I need to be able to say, never tell me this again. My weather app knows where I am. Yes, thank you. Stop asking me. It's just, they have to. That's just good user experience. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Have you ever wondered how much of your data

is out there on the internet? It is uncomfortable to think about your private information being out there, especially since there are data brokers who can make their business selling your information. But the good thing is we actually have the right to stay private and protect our privacy. And there is a way that you can say to these data brokers, hey, get rid of it. But it's really hard. Do you even know who all these data brokers are? How would you even find them? This is where Delete.me comes in. Delete.me is a subscription service that removes your personal information from the largest people search databases on the web, and in the process, helps prevent potential ID theft, doxing, and phishing scams. You sign up and provide Delete.me with exactly the information you want to be

deleted, and their experts take it from there. You don't need to give them everything. You just say, this is the information I do not want to be out there. Delete.me will then send you regular personalized privacy reports showing what information they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And this isn't just a one-time service. Delete.me is always working for you,

constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the internet. A couple of weeks ago, was it maybe last week, I got my most recent Delete.me report and I love it. I love that I could see

all of the services and all the brokers that they've removed me from in the past. I really like that. They're like, hey, look, we've done this before and they're still gone. And then these ones are in progress of being removed. And my favorite thing about it, though, is it's just the information that I don't want to be out there because I'm a person on the internet. I don't want everything about me completely removed from all of the internet. But there are things that I want to be gone. And what I also like is there's a customization to it too.

You can contact their team and say like, hey, you don't need to delete me from this one and they'll take care of that for you. It's really fantastic. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me with a special offer for the listeners of this show.

You can get 20% of your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash upgrade20 and use the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is the way to get 20% off. Just go to j-o-i-n-d-e-l-e-t-e-m-e dot com slash upgrade20 and the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is joindeleteme.com slash upgrade20 and the promo code upgrade20. Our thanks at checkout. That is joinDeleteMe.com slash UPGRADE20 and the promo code UPGRADE20 are thanks to Delete Me for their support of this show and Relay. The next layer of the trifle. Okay.

So this upcoming Sunday, the 18th of August, is Relay's 10th birthday. So we turn 10, which is an incredible thing. Hooray! Me and Stephen were talking with you last night and we both ended up posting this to social media but uh we we found the like the um the we did like a post yes announcement post kind of saying like hey we're coming in a week and these

are the shows that are done steven uh we thought we'd lost this multiple years ago and we ended up finding it again and steven posted it on 5.12. So it will remain online forever, which is good. Because we had this like, it was like a static page that was living on the domain. Our launch was 10 years. We barely got this thing together. And so I'm happy we found that. So that was interesting to think about.

And obviously reflecting a lot this week. So I thought, what was going on with Apple News in 2014? So I have a list of things here that occurred in the year of 2014 that we could maybe reflect on a little bit. This covers Upgrade episodes minus 30 to 10. minus 30 to 10. The majority of the stuff that I'm talking about, we would have actually covered on the show. Just because of the way in which Apple works, right?

As a company where the majority of things that are happening happen from June to December. That's true. So the biggest news of the year was the 6 and 6 Plus were introduced. Yes. So this is the first time that we got a big iPhone. No, both big. But we got a bigger one. Yeah, big and bigger.

Yeah, this is the origin of Plus Club. I guess that was the early days of Connected was Plus Club. I remember this. So this is at the same event that they introduced the Apple watch and i guess i should just get it out here that was september 9th 2014 literally the executives at idg came to me and said we would like to lay everybody off on september 9th and i said well many of those people will be you know large numbers of the editorial staff will be at or covering remotely the apple event maybe you should come the next day and of

course famously this turned out it was because one senior executive had a kid soccer game that they didn't want to miss and i'm all for work-life balance that might be a swing but hey suit who's hey suit who's here to lay off dozens of people you gotta wait a day sorry i have no sympathy for you uh so anyway uh the announcements at the apple watch event and the iphone 6 and 6 plus and i got review units of the iphone 6 and 6 plus and i had that moment where i'm like uh i need to tell you i'm not gonna be and the pr person was like no no no no no no no no it was very nice like i'm not gonna be there um but i got the review unit so that was real question of like what i wasn't gonna do and i think i ended up making a deal with macworld where i would write the reviews for them they couldn't pay me because

i'd been laid off but that's okay they were paying me severance it was great uh and i was starting my own thing but they had to link back to a uh like a reviewer's notebook piece that i was going to write on six colors when i launched six colors which is why six colors launched when it did anyway. So I remember walking around XOXO the festival in Portland and then, and then Seattle, cause I went to Seattle afterward for a day, uh, with these and walking through parks with these two phones, taking pictures. Cause like the cameras were upgraded and all of that. And then writing my review and all of that stuff going on here. That was my little teeny tiny interregnum between my two jobs was literally that weekend and the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus review.

So it is burned in my brain. And obviously that time was important. That was when we were starting the show right so we we were getting ready for episode one of upgrade yes just around then too which is an incredible thing for me to consider and one of the reasons i wanted to talk about this is because me you and dan had a very good long conversation in a pub a couple of weeks ago talking about this these exact two weeks oh yeah of everything happening everything kind of like falling apart and being built back up again uh and what a wild time that

was then i feel like uh like i i told you i don't know if i've mentioned this to you before but the email that you sent to me to tell me you wanted to start this show i was at my granddad's funeral which definitely improved that day um and like i we'll get to more of this in like a month from now when upgrade turns 10 yes we're literally releasing our episode the week after presumably the apple event i'm assuming the apple event's going to be on the 10th but um the week after that is our 10th anniversary yeah that that that day so we'll get to it then us being able to to bring you on and bring over clockwise and bring on upgrade was an incredibly important moment in relay fm success because it was a you know like we we had a very very successful launch and i could not have been

happy with the way that it went and we ended up with like all of the shows that we launched had bigger audiences than they had a five by five when they started i don't know why i i just think we we were able to i think cash in a bunch of favors and we had a lot of goodwill from people online and everyone was really excited for me and steven but then when you joined us too it was a bit like oh wow because you could just own your own thing you know and and you know people wanted the j Snell podcast, right? People wanted that. Did they? Yes. Did they, though?

We've been doing this for a decade. People wanted it. And yeah, so it was very important for us then. But yeah, so that happened, 6 and 6 Plus, which also started BendGate. Yay! BendGate! Was the thing that happened.

It's not BendGate, which is the stuff that you rub on your arm to make it feel better and warmer there's a t it's bend gate bend gate when people said hey you know if i push on my uh iphone i can get it to bend yep and they could and they did and lots of youtubers bent their phones uh and apple said it didn't happen very much. But then it ended up happening more. And then apparently it didn't happen very much, but they changed the internals to be stronger. I saw a phone, and I forget where, because there was so much going on when we were in London,

that somebody's phone was bent. And it was like sitting, and we're like, is that bent? And they said, oh, I don't know. No, probably it's just a, and they pick it up, and we're like is that bent and they said oh i don't know no probably it's just a and they pick it up and we're like no that's bent that phone is bent i forget whose phone it was wow yeah there was a bent bent iphone out there still have a more modern vintage i don't know and of course there was the the apple watch which was a fascinating launch like remember not not released just announced they didn't release it until the next spring but they showed it with that classic what doesn't it do um it does everything digital

touch it'll send your heartbeat oh your kids are gonna love it hey it's time for lunch draw a fish send it to your friend um and was was it this event or the next event where they had like marathon runners and people coming on stage i don't think it was this event i think it was i think it was the next one but of course we got uh the gold watch right and that's this one yep that's what idg in hindsight that's what idg should have gotten me they should for all my years of service they said we'll give you a gold watch series one we're about to lay off a little bit sooner if they're gonna give you that gift your severance is being paid in gold watch gold watch but of course the most infamous thing which i cannot

believe this happened at this iphone event but it did uh when apple created their own malware in the form of a u2 album yeah that they infected every apple device with songs of innocence technically u2 created the malware and apple just distributed it that's true that's true they didn't they didn't check that one yeah this is the the little uh finger touch between tim and bono yep the cringiest thing i mean lots of apple events are cringy that was the cringiest things ever happened at an apple event because it genuinely felt like nobody knew what was going to happen at that moment but they just did that like and i'm not really sure how that came about right like we're going to touch our fingers together it really felt like it was just a thing that started happening and they did it so they committed to it and it just truly it felt like nobody had a plan for that where like yeah so just the whole idea of it was just in hindsight very poorly thought out

so i'll just say so uh they did this at the flint center in cupertino incredibly crowded and cramped the seating was awful we were in the back i'm like just it was so my knees are hitting the seat in front of me and i'm not i'm not like tall i'm just average height i'm i'm trying to type and my elbows are like in at my side and like it was super uncomfortable. I'm also going through my head all the stress of knowing that, you know, this is the end for my job. Yeah. And the job of more than half of the people next to me. And I got to be honest, I missed this moment.

I didn't, I was typing something. I was doing work on and typing something in and I never saw the finger touch until after. So I missed a meme of a moment alas maybe you would have like turned to dust if you would have seen it maybe maybe yeah dodged a bullet there so because i'm sure there are people that maybe aren't completely familiar with what happened here though you two wrote and had a new album called songs of innocence and they did a deal with apple where for some reason they would distribute this album to everybody that owned an iPhone. It was like went to every iPhone.

Everybody that had an iTunes account. iTunes account. Got it. It was this thing where they got paid a blanket fee or a very low fee, but it was to everybody. So they got a big check, probably more than they would have made otherwise. And this album, and then they would have gone to number one on the charts probably because of it for this album.

And that was the deal that Apple made. And Apple had previous, obviously relationships with U2 and they had done the U2 iPod and they had performed at the California Theater for Steve Jobs at that event. And they came out and they did this. I think ironically, or maybe not,

as a longtime U2 fan, it's not a very good album. It's not very good. It's like one of my least favorite U2 album. So that's sad. It's just sad. So it was, yeah, malware in all senses of the word. I believe,

so somebody wrote about this a while ago i think that there is a tool to remove it to remove it from your library yeah there's a tool to remove it you can go there's like or there was i don't know if it still works but there was a url they would send people to and it would remove songs of innocence from your itunes library for those people who didn't want to see that i ran it i ran to people like oh that youtube album still there were people who like i never bought anything on apple but uh i have this youtube album i'm like well like if you know if you if you just had streaming right you're just like streaming uh but it's it's uh now you still have this like purchased item in your in your in your library uh apple pay launched in october of

2014 hey which you know i think it's one of these things that was exciting when it started and now is just like could not be more you might do you remember this was a moment in upgrade history because i got to report firsthand using apple pay to buy peanut butter and manchego cheese. Manchego cheese. Manchego cheese. Yes. At my local Whole Foods. Of course. Using Apple Pay.

It's true. From the grinder, peanut butter from that grinder and the manchego cheese. I ought to do that again. To celebrate the 10th, I ought to go get some ground up peanut butter and some manchego cheese.

You should do that. I should, yeah. Obviously, I love it and still do because of the tube and you know also like apple pay just rolled out significantly easier here i think that they did in the us we'll do a little preview of uh stories i feel like we need to do some 10th anniversary things on upgrade uh once we reach our 10th anniversary and one of them is we should cover this apple pay launch in a little more detail because i'll just say now apple pay like everybody else had tried

this samsung and google tried this didn't work apple did it and it like it really set off a huge change in u.s transactions because the u.s was so far behind and this was a major driver in getting uptake of contactless payments in general in the u.s you were so far behind where here everybody was using contactless cards like your debit card had a chip in it and you just use right and that had failed in the u.s basically to roll it out i i know i've said it before but like i got a card with a chip in it and like eight months later my said, we sent you a new card without a chip in it. I'm like, what just happened? And they're like, well, we gave up on that.

So yeah, so now when I travel internationally, like I just did, it used to be as an American, when you travel overseas, you'd be like, whoa, they really got it together. We're so behind. And now, not so much. Not so little bit, but not so much. And I really firmly believe that Apple Pay was the impetus for finally changing that. In May of 2014, Apple acquired Beats for $3 billion. Hey, speaking of Dr. Dre, who appeared in the Olympics closing ceremonies.

So this was the combination of Beats Music, which had launched a few months earlier which is an app right beats music excuse me service that me and federico loved and also the electronics company too and that started i think apple's dominance in headphones i think probably came from this i'm sure they got some really good talent for helping them build things like AirPods and stuff like that, but also they continue to have the Beats brand, but then it also gave them the underpinnings to create a music streaming service in Apple Music. So, another

huge moment. I will say, there's a few more things on this list, but I am very struck in going through this how important 2014 was for Apple. Bigger phones, the first apple watch apple pay beats beats swift was announced at wwc which i remember that wwc for me was a very boring one oh yeah it was a very boring wwc but for developers was a big deal and like this swift

was the thing for that wwc and so it took up a lot of time in the keynote, rightly so. But as somebody who is not a developer, this is one of the times where the WWDC keynote kind of went over my head, which is I can't think of another one that was like this. But they obviously spent a lot of time really focusing on Swift. And 10 years later, Swift is, it seems to be, going great.

Also in 2014, the European Union launches a formal investigation into Apple's tax arrangements with Ireland, which ended up going to the point of Apple paying a lot of money. I guess it's our second Apple Pay story from this year. Oh, hey.

There we go. There we go. But this is also like, it was funny looking back at this. Oh, the European Union's here. And they got some stuff to say, you know? Yeah. Very fun. And the last thing I had was Tim Cook published an op-ed piece in Bloomberg Businessweek where he comes out as gay.

That also happened in 2014. It's a big year. Big year. And Upgrade launched. Of course. Oh, wait. That's how we started this. Relay was announced, and then it launched, and then about a month later, Upgrade 1 happened.

So, yeah. It's good stuff. Well, happy anniversary. And there'll be more celebrations i'm sure but um we already have the big relay 10 event as well so just it's uh it's the fun it's fun season this is a good if we've reached if we're near the bottom of the of the of the parfait or whatever you said was the trifle it's going pretty well so far now. Down here at the bottom, it's pretty nice. Is trifle not a thing? Because you seem to have not

locked into the trifle idea. Do you know how I have trifles? I think it's a very English thing. I think we probably do have it, but it's very English. It's not a common thing. Maybe it's something to help with Americans. There's an episode of Friends where Rachel makes a trifle and she puts meat in it.

Oh, no. Because she gets the recipe mixed up with another recipe. And then that is a very funny episode of Friends where Rachel is serving the trifle and everyone thinks it's disgusting. But, of course, Joey loves it. Of course. Oh, right. He, like, polishes it off, right? having the trifle and everyone thinks it's disgusting but of course joey loves it of course oh right he like polishes it off right i think i remember that shot where he's like they got him and he's got the spoon and the bowl and he's like oh this is great he's having a great time yeah they make this sometimes i think on um great british bake off but but great great british bake

off as an aside is amazing in part as an American because there are the things that they make that we're like, yes, okay. There are things that they treat as incredibly exotic that as an American, I'm like, well, that's just a thing. Why is that exotic? And it's because it's American. It's not a thing that happened in England for whatever reason, or at least it happened in America. It might not be from america but it happened and then the things that they say that uh as normal and as an american you go what a what now because it's a very common english thing that um uh that or or a thing that english people know about like in some cases they'll be like this is a swedish cake and i'm like i have

never heard of this thing oh no no sometimes they show the swedish cakes and i'm like i have no idea what that swedish cake yeah but this yeah the one in particular yeah they'd sometimes surprise the people and they're like i've never heard of this the one that made me laugh the most and we had this i should say we had this um lauren ordered it at uh as a dessert at one of the places we went when we were in the UK. Because they announced, Paul Hollywood announced that everybody was going to be making, and I'm going to say it in a clear way, they were going to be making tart tatin. Oh yeah, tart tatin. Which is a French dish, commonly known apparently in England.

As an American watching, everybody starts saying ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta. And Lauren and I thought we had lost our minds. And we finally figured out what they were saying. It was like, turn on the captions, see what it is. So anyway, Lauren had a tart-a-ton. It was nice.

Tart-a-ton. That is actually a joke in our household because Idina likes tart-a-ton and I always go da-da-da. So there you go. There you go. Tart-a-ton. It's a thing. We've reached the end of the trifle. Oh, that's the end. So that was the nice Joey was scooping out the bottom

of the trifle right there. All right. Great. The end of the trifle. We're going to do a couple of ask upgrade questions to finish out today's episode. That's right. The first comes in from Chip. Thank you. Who says?

Listener Chip. Listener Chip. I rarely see out in the world, brightly colored cars, premium phones, or other big ticket items. Do you think Apple could push the market in a more color-friendly direction?

Or does their market research tell them that pro customers are in fact boring and it's not worth it? Is the colors are leading or is the colors are following? Love the podcast, especially the video version. Oh, I see which chip this is. This is a nepotism question.

Oh, I see what you're doing, Chip. I see it. Mm-hmm. Look i we don't know apple knows exactly how many of each color of phone they sell and in what markets i don't know though has the iphone pro really ever been made in a bright color and maybe it's just because the materials they use are not conducive the premium materials they use are not conducive to bright colors. They really, with the anodization and the coatings they use and all that, they can't make it be bright. And maybe there's a very technical reason why.

I'm not sure that they even have the data to say, oh, we definitely can't make one option that's fun because nobody will want that. That's probably, you know, maybe, maybe so. I just, I feel like I think Apple has enough sway. I mean, we've seen it with,

you know, even back in the iMac days, Apple can make something that people really like. And I think they could affect fashion. So I think they, the colors are, could push things in that direction if they wanted to. But again,

I do think it's, you know, in the end, if they're going to choose a great premium material or they're going to choose something that's a bright color, they're going to choose the premium material every time. And so maybe that's the reason. What do you think, Mike? I would put Apple in the category of kind of like fashion. And in fashion, there's lots of color options.

And I think that the thing that I keep coming back to and we come back to a bunch of times is that people put their phones into a variety of high color cases. The phones can also be fun colors too, right? I don't think that just because it's pro, it should mean that it is bland in color. I don't think that's the case. Yeah, I think choice is good and that if they have the ability to offer a choice that's fun, even if it's just one, I wish they would do it because I would probably choose it.

And these rumored new base iPhones look fun. And again, I always hear from people who are like, oh, I don't want to do color phones. They're never going to, like there's always a black phone and a white phone and a gray phone. My argument is just some more choice would be nice. But yes, I think to Chip's point, there are a lot of gray cars out there.

We do live in that era and maybe Apple is following. I do think that Apple could be influential here if it tried to push things a little bit. But, you know, Apple knows. Like if Apple puts out five iPhone 16s and the boring ones are the ones that sell best,

then I mean, I understand it, right? They've got their sales data. So maybe, maybe, but I don't know. Or maybe they know that some people like pastels and some people like bright colors. And so they alternate years and that's how they do it. And it's like, okay, I just, I wish the pro stuff was more fun. I wish I had a, uh, had the ability to get a more brightly colored uh phone or or laptop for that matter right and we have another question here it comes in from Brad who says my wife and I live in a busy house with our three young children we have a

shared google calendar for all of our family events we currently transcribe this calendar onto a pair of whiteboards this week and next week that we stick onto our fridge. I would love to replace these with something digital. And I'm thinking an e-ink display would be good, given there is no power on the front of the fridge. Do you have any suggestions about how I might go about this project? Do I ever? Yes. Yeah. However, yeah, so I've got a post that we'll put in the show notes about my e-ink calendar that I built.

I used a bunch of Python scripts from a German guy and his 3D model. I got a 3D printed model and then I've updated it since then to do exactly what Brad is describing. So the only difference is that I leave it by the side of my microwave. And so it's plugged in all the time and it updates every hour. But you could very easily do something where you stick it on to your fridge, but you'd have to plug it in to update it every so often right because that's the that's the there's a raspberry pi attached there too and it does need power the screen doesn't need power but the device that does the updating needs power that's the thing you could do on a sunday or whatever right you go and you update it and you're kind of

publishing if it can if it can show the whole week, right? That's the question. If it needs to update midweek, you would have to do it. But I did it with a thing that's just setting to the side. There are other things that use different technologies that I haven't liked as much that have like – that you can build with a – that have a little battery in it. And so those will last for a while. Dan Morin's using one of those in one of his, he made a, uh, an on air display using a battery operated e-ink device,

which is kind of cool. Um, and so it's checking every 10 minutes, it wakes up and checks to see if Dan is recording a podcast and all of that. Um, and so that's a, that's a different, that's the ink plate six color. Uh, but for what Brad's doing, I would say, yeah,

E-ink is great. And, um, at some point I should probably put a version of my modified, uh, version of the German guys. His is like a portal themed calendar and I've stripped all of that stuff out, but I've added a bunch of other stuff in. It shows my calendar and our family calendar and Lauren's calendar, and they're in different formats like color or italics. It's got a little symbol on the night for the trash to go out about whether we're taking out our paper or our glass and plastic. That is great. It's got a little Apple weather widget in it. It's got a bunch of stuff in it.

And if you know Python, especially, you can play around with it and make it do anything you want, really. So I think E-Ink is fun and it's a great way to do it, but you do need power at least to update the display. So if you've got a way to, you know, if you can get something that just displays your calendar, you know, yeah, for a week or whatever, you can plug it in on Sunday, have it reload, and then stick it on the fridge. That would work too.

If you would like to send us in your questions for Ask Upgrade or your feedback or follow-up, you can always go to upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason's work over at sixcolors.com and you can hear him over at the incomparable.com and here on Relay where you can hear me too. You can also check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online. Jason is at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. You can watch video clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We're at Upgrade Relay. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. If you would like longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week, please go

to GetUpgradePlus.com, find out more, and sign up. And most of all, as always, thank you for listening. Oh, and thank you to our sponsors this week, Delete Me and Ooni. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody.