Upgrade - 537: Square Minus One

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 537 for November 11th, 2024. Today's show is brought to you by Delete Me, Uni Pizza Ovens, Vitaly and Smarter World. My name is Mike Hurley and I have the pleasure as always of being joined by Jason Snell. Hi Jason. Hi Mike Hurley. Isn't it nice that we say the date of our recording at the top of the show? I like it. I like it. I think it's a nice, nice addition. A nice addition. Some podcasts don't seem to want to do it. I don't understand that. Weird. You know.

Weird. It is strange. I have a Snell Talk question for you. It comes from John and John wants to know, Jason, have you ever or do you ever write fiction in any form? Would you like to? And if so, what kind? Um, I have. I wrote a lot of short stories in high school and college.

I wrote three novels for National Novel Writing Month. They're in a well, they're not in a drawer. They're in a folder in my Dropbox called novels. Kind of a drawer. But that's, it's like a drawer. And what I'd like to do is revise one of those. But what I found is that when you go out on your own, devoting time, you've got the time to spend,

but devoting the time to a project that will probably never amount to anything and not generate any money for your family is Really difficult for me to do unless you really really want to write like I think maybe maybe you don't really really want to I don't know Even then though like when I was at IDG I would come home and November and I would just like go sequester myself and write like yeah, but now it's sort of like I Don't know, do I, do I expend my, my writing energy on a project

that will probably not like, there's always another post I could do, and this is something I struggle with. There's always another podcast I could prep for or post I could write for Six Colors, or there's a, there's a backlog of things at Six Colors. And I think, well, am I going to push back like this last two months, right? Really from August where the betas are getting close

to wrapping up through the iPhone announcements and the OS releases, and then we had our Mac releases, this is the busiest time of the year. And like, there's never a moment, even though I've had things on my calendar saying, you should write, work on the book right now, that I just haven't done it because I can't, I feel irresponsible doing it. That said, you know, I'm, that I just haven't done it because I can't,

I feel irresponsible doing it. That said, you know, I'm hoping that I will actually get back to that and do at least a draft that I'm happier with. But, and I've given myself a little bit of a deadline for that. But the short version is yes. And in what form, like I said,

I wrote short stories when I was in high school and college. I've written three novels because I started doing that for NaNoWriMo and, you know, genre-wise, they're kind of all over the place, sci-fi, sort of fantasy, young adults, techno, thrillers. There's all sorts of different stuff I've tried. But yeah, so, you know, that's it. Maybe someday I will follow in the footsteps of Dan

Moran and have a book published. But you know, I don't know, I wouldn't bet on it only because it's difficult. It's become very difficult for me to prioritize that. And I really admire that about Dan. Like Dan has prioritized it. Like Dan, that's one of Dan's jobs is writing novels. And it's a little easier when you've got a contract. Because there's at least a light at the end of the tunnel, whereas mine, like, there may be no light at the end of the tunnel at all. But I hope to get back there someday. I think it can be hard when you have...

Like, when you, when, you know, like, the things that we do, they very closely align with the things that we like to do. And so then there can be times where there's something things that we do, they very closely align with the things that we like to do. And so then there can be times where there's something you want to do, but it's close enough to the thing that you kind of need to do for your job. And then it becomes difficult to separate the two and prioritize one over the other.

Right, if you work on spreadsheets all day, I think it's in some ways going home and writing a novel is an outlet, because it's not a thing you do all day. And that is something that I struggled with when I was writing those NaNoWriMo novels at IDG, was if it's a day where I'm like writing all day, I've got no more words left in the evening, right?

It would have to be a very different kind of day. And I think it's telling that that was also during a period where I was less involved in the editorial stuff and more involved in management. And that therefore I was using it more as an outlet where now again, I sit down at the keyboard and I think, well, I could rewrite chapter nine or I could write my review of the Mac mini

that's due in two days, right? Like it ends up being like, well, what are you gonna choose? And the answer is usually pretty obvious. So that's a struggle. If you would like to send in a snow talk of your own to help us open a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send yours in. Thank you to John for doing so. Jason, it's upgradeease time. It is the start, the beginning of the Upgradees process. It sure is. So we're very excited. We've hit that time of year.

Upgradients, it's time for you to help us. So go to Upgradees.vote and you can cast your ballot, the Upgradian ballot for your favorite things of the year to be put into the Upgradees. So the Upgradees is an award show that we do at the end of every year. And we have a bunch of categories. We've been doing it for 10 years.

And you can go at any point and see our previous winners of all of our categories over at Upgradees.com. But this is like apps and media and technology and stories. It's all stuff that we talk about on this show. But me and Jason will make the ultimate award winnings the winners. We will cast our votes for the winners and decide the winners in every category, but we sometimes struggle in certain categories or we need like a tiebreaker. And so we ask for the upgrade ends to vote too. So you can

cast your vote over our upgrade ease dot vote. It's a Google form. You can fill it in, you can fill in as much of it as you like and submit it and it will help us at the end of the year. So voting will be open until December 13th and the 11th annual Upgradees will be broadcasting live on December the 30th. So I'm very excited. This is a great way for us to also be pointed to things that we maybe missed that we need to pay attention to. So I would say very much think of this as it can be your personal Upgradees list, it can also be your nominations for things for us to consider

and that is very helpful to us. And sometimes we'll use it as a tiebreaker or we'll throw something to the Upgradians, but it's most useful I would say as a way for us to, at least for me, to have it be a little bit of a safety net where I will see an app and I'll say, what is that app? And I will go investigate it. And that can be really helpful too.

Definitely. Upgradies.vote, we appreciate your help. We do indeed. So yeah, Upgradies.vote, you can make your nominations until December 13, where they will then be closed and tabulated via a very technical and complicated process to work out what the upgrade Ian's voted for and it's just always fun too because this Jason says sometimes this stuff like Podcasts and movies and TV that we're I didn't really think of or really even know about

And especially in the books category because I ain't reading nothing No, that's my category to yeah, But it's nice to hear what the, yes. And then that'll be our, just a very exciting, not that exciting, scheduling thing. We're gonna do our holiday special on the 23rd of December and we're gonna do our Upgradees show on the 30th of December. The 30th, we'll even be live on the 30th if you wanna tune that in. That one will be live for

Holiday special will be a pre-record. But yeah, anyway, so we will be, we're not letting those Mondays slide on by. We're gonna... No way. We're gonna keep on publishing episodes of Upgraded on the last episode of the year, the Upgrade-es. I have a couple of items to follow up. This one, I saw this Jason, this is purely for you. So version 1.4 of MATTER is available now to be implemented. It includes support for solar power, home batteries, and heat pumps, which I thought maybe could be good for you in the future. Maybe. So this would, in the future, okay, so here are my thoughts. First is, this will

be good for future products that are made, are built to the matter standard if those products are made. My question is, do I think the products that were installed in my house already will be given firmware updates to support matter? My guess is no, but you never know. You never know. I sort of feel like a lot of these, you know, home heating systems and all of that once they're out the door, there's basically nothing that gets changed on them. But I believe my thermostat supports Alexa and Google, but not Apple Home, which is fine, because there's a Homebridge plugin that supports it. But it's one of those

things where if they did an update, might they just do it to support Matter and that gets them everything? Maybe, but I don't know if I buy it. But anyway, it's good for future devices. And then the other thought I had is having support for these items in the Home app means that an app like HomeBridge can support it more directly. That's what I was thinking for you. Yeah, having used some of this now,

they're like, the solar power, here's a good example, like how much power is coming in from the solar panels right at the moment. I believe that's implemented as a light with a dimmer. So you have a fake light in HomeBridge, you have a fake light in Homebridge. You have a fake light that is at 40% and that means it's at 40% of power in the solar system. Right?

And a battery is similar in the solar system. Yeah, I know. I like that. It's good. It's so here is the thing. Like if that's, to me, that's the thing that makes me most optimistic is that it might mean that the home app understands other kinds of devices so that we don't have

this thing that happens a lot in HomeBridge. And I assume in other apps that do similar things where it has to kind of, it's amazing that it can put it in your, in your home app at all, but it puts it in as something weird because it's sort of like, well, all this can really be as a fan. So it's a fan. And it's like, but it's not a fan at all. Why is it a fan? And it's like, well, you could be a light, but it's not a light either.

It was like, well, look, all I know about is fans and lights. So that's, that's my, that's my real hope is that at some point I will be able to use some sort of software that will bridge into the home app that will accurately reflect what this stuff is and that'll be great, but until that day, you know, I it's great. This has been one of the challenges with with the home app and matter and home kit and everything is that there are a lot of Sometimes they are slow to add device categories that are smart

Yeah, this like this probably won't find its way into iOS maybe until 19, right? But it's similar to emoji, right? They approve the emoji standard and then it has to be implemented by the software manufacturer, like the device manufacturers. So it could find its way into a point update of 18 or you'll wait to 19. But I thought at least, as you were saying, even if they don't, even if your stuff doesn't work, if you can get it on Homebridge, at least the Home app will have a better interface for some of these integrations.

And also as well with this, the thing that seems to be continually worked on, the underlying technology they're trying to make better and more reliable, and they've been doing this since the original version of MATA. So we're still on the right path. Yeah, I think it's good. The current shipping beta of Vision OS 2.2 includes support for the ultra-wide Mac virtual display. Now, to do this, you have to be running Mac OS 15.2. So I'm not, so I haven't tried this out, but I believe you have I I did I tried this out with an m4 MacBook Pro which I can admit that I possess now sick

and my vision Pro and It was pretty great. Although I did I did notice one quirk I'll get the quirk at first which is you know how it's got that amazing new feature in visionOS 2 where you can see the keyboard, that it punches through the keyboard from the, from your, your background. So you can see it, even if you've dial up, you know, Joshua tree all the way, you can still see your keyboard. It doesn't work if you're not looking at it. It needs to be seen while you dial in your environment. Otherwise, later,

if you look down at it, it doesn't recognize it as a keyboard, it doesn't bother. So I had that moment where I'm like, where's my keyboard? And the answer is you got to look at the keyboard while you dial it in. And then it does the whole job. I still want them to do what the Quest can do, where you can, in Horizons at least, like in the Horizon workroom thing, you can just draw a part of your desk that breaks through always. So it could be any keyboard, any mouse,

and like they should be able to hold that in position so I can just put it where I want. So for me, like I could draw out, this is my keyboard, my mouse, and my notepad, like just this part of my desk, and then I can do whatever I want. I still want them to do that, and I hope that they will at some point.

But the wide screen, does it look good? Does it feel like a gimmick? Like, what do you think? It looks good. Okay. It looks good. It is, so it feels like the whole thing is a little bit, I mean, I can't tell for sure,

but it feels like it's a little clearer than it was before. Like they've improved the feature fundamentally. I've seen people saying that online too, like, and I don't know if this is a, is Safari snappier thing or not. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I can't, I almost said it feels snappier.

It's one of those things I can't tell. I can't tell. But the thing that, so floating over the Mac display share is a little icon showing you what Mac it's from. And if you tap on that or whatever the right verb is for that in Vision Pro, you select that, you get a choice of standard wide and ultra wide. And I'd say, so it's interesting,

you have to choose the mode because it's basically refreshing the size of the virtual display. The ultra wide is too wide for me, but anybody like Casey Liss who uses three monitors, I mean, that's who it's for. The wide feels like it's more like, if not two monitors, then more than one,

and it can fill your field of view. And what I like about it is it's if not two monitors, then more than one, and it can fill your field of view. And what I like about it is it's the idea that you can plop stuff. Okay, one of the things I really like about the Vision OS interface in general is that I can take an app that I'm not really using so much and I just kind of put it to the side,

and it's very glanceable. And I don't do that, I have one monitor at my desk, right? I don't do that in my regular Mac life. But I do like that in the Vision Pro, the idea that I just got a Vision OS app, it's playing music, whatever, and it's kind of over there. It's over on the right side. What this, in wide and ultra wide mode, what it does is it absolutely lets you do that with your Mac workspace. So then you end up having this workspace where you've got a big central part where you can do your work, but you can take that Mac app

that you don't wanna look at right now and put it over there, and then you're looking to the right. And it's very, I'm sure this is why people use multiple monitors. One of the problems I have with multiple monitors is that they extend too far out, and you have to fiddle around with aligning them

and all of that. And that's the beauty of this is it's a single display and the wider it gets, the more a curve kind of is introduced so that it's kind of equidistant from you all around you. I think it's good. I know that a friend of the show, Mark Gurman, basically said this is what he was waiting for and this makes the Vision Pro far more usable.

And I think that there, and it gives it a reason for him to use it is use it as a virtual Mac display. I need to spend more time with it, but I am also optimistic about it. It makes me a little more excited about using using the Vision Pro as a really good Mac display in a way that maybe I the old version didn't, you know't excite me as much. So I'm optimistic, it looks pretty good. And I think especially for people

who are multi-display people, who don't, they're like, yeah, okay, but I've already got a MacBook Pro that I'm traveling with and it's got one screen. And what I really need is I wanna replicate my two or three screen experience at my office and I can't do that. This is going to be a winner for those people. I assume that the Mac sees it as an ultra-wide display, right? Like the Mac that you're

attaching. So like, yeah, if you move stuff around on that display and then when you go back to your Mac, it's all going to be weird, right? It just pushes it all back into whatever the new space is. It's screen sharing, right? So it's taking out that window and making it really wide, the display. And then, you know, anytime you change display resolution, if you've got stuff out on the edges,

if you go from more space to bigger, it does the same thing, right, on the same monitor. It shoves everything toward the center because it obviously can't live at the margins anymore. Yep. This episode is brought to you in part by Delete Me. The sad fact is data brokers, they profit off of your data. Your data is a commodity, and people on the web

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You can get 20% of your Delete Me plan when you go today to join deleteme.com slash upgrade 20 and use the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. The only way to get that 20% off is to go to j-o-i-n-d-e-l-e-t-e-melem.com slash upgrade 20 and enter the code upgrade20 at checkout that is last time join delete me.com slash upgrade 20 and the code upgrade 20. Our thanks to delete me for the support of this show and Relay. Room around uptime Jason Snell. Yee-haw! According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple started exploring a smart

glasses project dubbed Project Atlas. This has only gotten off the ground last week and is currently at the stage of gathering feedback and ideas from Apple employees. A quote from Mark Gurman's newsletter, when Apple is considering whether to enter a new category often hosts secret focus groups to understand what people like about existing products. The more I've settled on this report, we spoke about it a bit on connected and you know, it's been about a week now since this report came out. The more I kind of feel like I'm not sure what I think about this. Like what, like they're just start, what is this project? They're just starting, like just starting. And how long is that until there's a project? Like, I don't know what I think. Yeah. So I think one of the challenges here is we, it could be one

of two things. It could be that Apple has completely written this entire category off. And finally, they have said, Oh gee, I guess there is something here. Maybe we should talk to people about what they get out of this thing. Because in fact, you could imagine imagine if you mention the internal politics, it's like whoever's in charge of wearables and stuff looks at this and is like, this is stupid. We're not going to do something like that. Why would we bother? We have AirPods, they're better, whatever. And then there's a little bit of momentum and somebody somewhere with more authority is like, why are you guys not working on this? And it's possible that the person who's pooh-poohed this before is like, all right, I guess we should talk to people who like this thing and figure out why they like it. And it might even be like, we need to prove why this is a thing that people care about

because obviously our people thought that it was dumb, but obviously somebody cares about it. So it's possible that this is a somewhat functional because obviously our people thought that it was dumb, but obviously somebody cares about it. So it's possible that this is a somewhat functional response to a somewhat dysfunctional situation, where somebody, and I've seen this happen, right? You've seen this happen too, where somebody in a position of authority doesn't get it.

And no matter what you do, they just don't get it. And you know you're right, but you just can't make them see it. And that's a possibility here. And if so, it's not great, because it means that Apple is behind on something that honestly with the money and the resources Apple has, Apple should be investigating all sorts of different shapes

and sizes and product types for things that are wearables, including something like this. It's also possible that there was a domain issue different shapes and sizes and product types for things that are wearables, including something like this. It's also possible that there was a domain issue where because their glasses, I mean, we see this when people discuss this too. You start talking about the Meta Ray Bands and everybody starts talking about the Vision Pro and it's like those products, other than that they're on your face, are completely not alike. Maybe they will be someday,

but they are entirely different classes of product today. The Meta Ray-Bans and the Vision Pro, the Meta Ray-Bans and the MetaQuest 3, right? Like they are not the same at all. They are not even remotely the same. But it's possible that there's a turf war somewhere where the Vision Pro people are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, people are like, no, no, we have all glasses belong to us. And there's somebody over doing AirPods is like,

but we just want to make AirPods and glasses. And they're like, nope, can't do it, not allowed. So that's a possibility also would be a little bit disturbing, right? Because that's a dysfunction inside Apple that made them fail to do this. However, I will also give the optimistic read here, which is Mark Gurman only has one view here

into this product, and he is referring to this focus group. And I would say, I'm not entirely convinced that the focus group is step one. What would encourage me is if Apple does have people doing wearables R&D who've come up with all sorts of things that are like the Meta Ray Bands, and it's never really gone anywhere because they haven't really cracked it.

What's Apple's take on it? Why would people like it? And they're like, yeah, we can put AirPods in glasses, but why and how would that work? And I would say last week's connected, a little bit of follow out here. I think Federico especially did a very good job of kind of elaborating what an Apple version

of the Meta Ray Bands would be like. And the answer is, could be really good because Apple has some huge advantages there. Like his point that if you take a photo with the Meta Ray Bands, you have to like go to their app and then export it to the camera roll or the photo library. And like, imagine if it was Siri and the photos library and Apple intelligence

and AirPods and all integrated like every other Apple wearable. That would be pretty good right so so my hope is that this is not step one. My hope is that they've been trying stuff out but before they before they lock down exactly what the product is, there was a feeling like they needed to talk to people because they were concerned that they didn't get it. They, that they didn't get what exactly makes this product interesting. So there is, if you want a positive read, a potential optimistic read, that's it. But I agree with you, Mike. I am concerned that whatever the reason is, and I just listed a few of them, that Apple, you know, whether it was a Vision Pro kind of turf war, or whether it was a lack of imagination from people who are on the wearables team, or people in positions of authority on the wearables team, that they've missed the boat on this. And the concerning thing is, when you get a report that says,

well, we just got a bunch of employees together and we talked to them, it's like, that doesn't even sound... Like, look, Apple having launched a crash project to make glasses, you know, for like AirPod style glasses, crash program, they're starting, it'll be out in a couple of years, would be a disappointing report. But if it's Apple is talking to employees

to get their feelings about what they might do to consider starting making a project, right? You're not at square one then, you're at square minus one, right? Like that's the thing that bothers me is if this is the beginning of the beginning of the process, what took them so long, and it implies a level of kind of cluelessness and dysfunction. So what I want to believe is that they they have been playing around with this, this category concept and just are going to people because they want to lock it down and

make sure that it's going to fulfill what they desire. But you know, that's the most optimistic read I can have here. The pessimistic read is they blew it and they're still kind of blowing it. So someone wrote into me and said that like, this report is wrong. Apple has internally been working on a glasses product for as long as they've been working on the Vision Pro. But, you know, this person wrote and told me this and I believe it, but my expectation is that's not the product I'm thinking it is though. That's AR glasses.

Yes. And I think this is not AR glasses. This is a take AirPods about glasses, right? This is Siri glasses. This is, yeah, it's glasses with speakers or bone conduction, but like basically AirPods and a camera, which is great for visual intelligence and a microphone. And you can do Siri with it.

And except you wear them as glasses. That's all this is. It's not something with a display again. And that's one of the challenges here is that what if that tripped people up and they're like, no, no, no, stay out of this is. It's not something with a display. Again, and that's one of the challenges here is that what if that tripped people up and they're like, no, no, no, stay out of this category. But I have a hard time imagining, I will say this for the, the case for optimism here is I have a hard time imagining that inside Apple, the people who build AirPods and the people who are apparently, according to Mark Gurman, trying to build AirPods with

cameras in them, that they, that they haven't considered the idea of, well, you know what would make this a lot better is if we just made a pair of glasses that had AirPods in them, some version, bone conduction, whatever it is, and boy, then we could get the camera position just right. How could they not have been experimenting with that? It seems so clear to me, but that gives me, takes me back to my worry, which is, is there some person with a lack of vision or a, or a political something that has led them to kind of sideline this product? I have a couple of thoughts on this. One is like, I agree with what you're saying, but I do feel like at the same time that, you know, the Meta Raybounds

have been around for a while. The version one, nobody really paid much attention to. I didn't think it was that great of a product. The version two. The Snap stuff. And still even then, right? People, I think there was a feeling that like, oh, nobody wants this. They don't want cameras on their faces.

But then Meta made a compelling enough product that it worked and that's been moving the last year or so. Right. So do you dust off the old project at that point and go, oh geez, we gotta get to something out there. I don't know. Well, this is my concern, right? And I mentioned this in connected. I'll repeat

it here too. My concern is that there is, there is such a disdain for meta inside of Apple that they would be blinded to the fact that meta could create a compelling product. And so seeing this competitive product out there, they were just like, well, that's not going to work. No one's going to want that. And they ignored the category. That is my concern. And that if they have ignored the category, which Mark German's report seems to indicate, then we are multiple years away from them producing a product like this, which at that point, I think is a problem.

It's not great. And you're right. If there is some institutional arrogance where they're like, oh, Metta, whatever Metta does, don't do it. Do the opposite. And again, I'm sure some people are out there listening to this. And you're right that if there is some institutional arrogance where they're like a meta, you know, whatever meta does don't do it Do the opposite and and like again, I'm sure we're some people are out there listening to this Like why is this even a category? Why are we even talking about it? But I can tell you I know people Mike Federico

Yeah others who have this product and it's pretty cool and and Federico like I said last week made the really good Succinct point about how imagine if this actually was an Apple product. It would be better integrated and it would be good for Apple and it would be like a different version of AirPods that's got a bunch of other stuff in it and it's a really interesting idea. And look, not every product is going to come out and it's possible that again, people at Apple have looked at this and have said it's not a thing. The danger is that it is a thing and they made a mistake and, and how quickly can they repeat it. And the other thing that I would say here, and this is, so I was a little back, a

little behind the scenes. I listen to podcasts when I'm walking the dog and when I'm taking a shower, I believe this was in the shower, washing my hair, putting in some conditioner, listening to connected. And I had this thought, which is, say what you will about how efficient and powerful and profitable today's Apple is. If I were Tim Cook, Jeff Williams, any senior person at Apple, at Apple, one of the weaknesses that I would identify in Apple today is that Apple is so streamlined. Apple is so efficient. I wonder if they've lost the ability to move quickly and Apple needs to be nimble. It needs to not be a lumbering colossus, right? It needs to be nimble.

And I would look at this and say, we can do a better product than Meta's Ray-Bans. And let's do it. And I would say something like, I wanna announce it next fall. And everybody's gonna be like, but remember, we can't make a product in a year. And what I would say is, well, the iPod came together in like a year, year and a half.

The iPhone was a lot of research, right? Okay, I'll give you that. But like, this is an accessory product and we have all the pieces. And like, if Apple, maybe not a year, maybe it's 18 months, but like, this is the thing. This is my real question here is if Apple has realized that this is a thing that they should make, probably, they're not quite sure exactly what they've got the pieces, but they have to put it together, they might have some prototypes, but they're not really right. How quick can they turn that into a product? My concern is what you said, which is it's two, three years away. This is like all the rumors about those HomePods, like the HomePod with the screen.

We've been talking about, it feels like we've been talking about that for like five years. And look, not everything is a priority one category, but I would say if you have a lack of vision sometimes in the tech space that moves really fast. And I understand artificial intelligence is actually probably the best example here where Apple intelligence is a moment where the company has to turn on a dime. OK, I'll give you that one. But on the hardware side, here's an example, which is you make a lot of money from wearables, home and accessories.

You have a hot accessory category that you didn't think was going to click. And it clicks. How fast can you get a product out? I'll tell you, Samsung can get it out real fast. Can you? And I'm not saying make it bad. I'm saying make it real good, make it up to Apple's standards. But how fast can you do that?

And that's my, that's my concern about this story writ large, is I'm a little worried that politics might make them clueless. I'm a little worried about all of that. I'm a little worried about the maybe some turf wars and things like that. But my biggest concern is you're going to miss stuff. How do you react to that? And my concern is that, is that they're unable to react quickly, right? That is the biggest worry to me is the broader inability to work quickly. This episode of Upgrade 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 very own home. Uni pizza ovens can reach temperatures of up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit cooking pizzas in as little as 60 seconds.

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this conversation from a slightly different angle because we haven't, there is some stuff that I wanted to touch on and lawyer up today. We haven't come back to this in a while, but there's been some big movements. But I'll start by saying the iPad, the iPadOS is also now under formal investigation by the European Union in relation to the digital markets act. It became a gatekeeper, classed as a gatekeeper back in April, which is why Apple brought alternative app marketplaces to iPad OS 18. The EU has stated that iPad accessories like the Apple Pencil and the tight integration that

they have together is going to be investigated as part of this device. They already in September as well added to the many things the EU has added on to Apple's investigation, that they're looking into interoperability of smartwatches and Bluetooth headphones and like how they all connect and is Apple being fair, similar to what the Department of Justice is doing. The reason I wanted to pivot into this now is like, I was thinking when she was talking, like, you know, the idea of like Apple being so large and stuff like that. Like the only product area that they have moved into in recent times, new one is the Vision Pro, which was, you know, trying to create this whole new thing.

And this is the beginning of hopefully a long period of time where they tried to do this. But realistically, they're never going to have another iPhone. The likelihood of them having a success like the iPhone, it just doesn't feel feasible. Nobody's gonna have another smartphone. Because the world is just so different now. It's like something, we don't know what it would be, but it would be something else.

So basically the best thing Apple can do is make accessory devices for the iPhone. Right. Yes. AirPods have been a success. Apple watch have been a success. Why? Because everybody has an iPhone in their pocket.

Right. And so like the idea of creating smart glasses that talk directly to the iPhone should have been maybe in retrospect, but should have been a product that you can buy today. Because that is Apple's best way to create something successful, is to attach it to the iPhone. Now, the EU DMA argument about what we talked about previously about the glasses is,

why does Apple have to make that product? Yeah. Why? And what I described, what Federico said, Federico was essentially saying, well, what would make the Apple product better is that Apple would actually integrate it. But what, you know, if you read between the lines, what is also apparent is the meta glasses aren't as good as they should be because they don't have that level of access to Apple's platforms. They have kind of lower quality Siri

and they have a more limited way of syncing stuff into the photo library. Not that it isn't there, but you know it wouldn't be as good as an Apple product. And I wanna be clear here, there are two interesting sides here. One is Apple's integration makes their products better, their accessories better,

in part because they are the platform owner and they can build the software into the platform that makes accessories shine. That is a secret sauce thing and they're very, very good at it. The DMA and the EU would say, you should do that, but you can't limit it to yourself. And what they would basically be saying is, you can make those Meta Ray-Ban competitors Apple, but the moment you ship them with the software that you ship, that software also needs to be available to Meta

so that they can compete with you with their existing product. You can't beat them by creating special software on your platform that only you have access to. And that's really interesting, right? Because it means Apple can make that product and make, but in doing so, they will also make Meta's product better and they will have to compete on a more level playing field with Meta.

Now I would argue as the platform owner, as Apple, they have so many advantages already that letting Meta's product be a little bit better. It's like, just let them, just let them, you could probably beat them. Just let them, let them, let them compete with you. What I, what I, I don't think is happening, but it's a little concerning is that you might not go into an accessory category because you don't want to make that stuff available to your competitors, right? Like, oh, well, this just lets Meta integrate stuff with the iPhone without our control.

But you see the two-edged sword here, right? Which is, the secret sauce is all that integration. But what the EU is saying is that integration is fine as long as everybody can do that integration, right? And I don't think the EU is saying is that integration is fine as long as everybody can do that integration, right? And I don't think the EU is saying you need to build an entire smart glasses regime into iOS because Meta wants you to. But they are saying that if you're going to build your own smart glasses and do special stuff in your software to support them, Meta needs that access too. And that is an interesting place to end up. I believe, I'd heard this from someone,

I'm trying to find an attribution for it, but I can't, but I'd heard it on at least, I think maybe the Vergecast were talking about it, that Mark Zuckerberg has been lodging, or Meta have been lodging complaints with the EU about the fact that they can't put photos in the camera roll on iPhone because they can on Android. You can just say it's been shared to the camera roll.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, I know I believe that I haven't used this product, but I believe that's because there's something involving it's like using Google Photos. If the app's not active, it can't wake up and put photos in the photo library? I think it's something like that. Where there's an extra step you have to go through. You have to connect to the device. It's actually really annoying.

So you open the app and it sees them, and then you have to connect to the Wi-Fi network of the device to download the images from the device to the phone, and then it says into the photo library. And if they are able to just connect, have like a constant connection, they could transfer that over, but they can't do it on iOS. Right, and you know that that wouldn't be the case

with Apple stuff. And that this is, I mean, my counter argument would be, if Meta is asking for Apple to build them features that don't exist to prioritize an Apple product, I'm less interested in listening to that argument, right? I think it becomes a much stronger argument when Apple builds a product that has that feature and doesn't allow meta access to that feature, right? I think that's the issue there. Not saying, well, Android does it. That's not good enough. well Android does it, that's not good enough. But this is a real, it's an interesting issue, right?

Because I'm actually confident that if Apple were to build those glasses, they would have to build it with APIs that were accessible by third party glasses, accessory makers, right? They would have to, if they wanted to ever ship that feature and that product in Europe. Cause that's how it's working. Now, honestly, a lot of what Apple ships these days

is built with APIs for third parties because of this. It's already started. It's already started. The main reason that I wanted to bring lawyer up back to this episode is that Bloomberg, clunk clunk. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is set to receive the first fine related to the DMA. It's expected to land later this

month before Margaret Vestager, the current EU competition commissioner is leaving her post. They get their Leonard dunk one. I mean, she's pushed his foot on the other way out the door. So I think for her, I expect she wants to do this before she moves on, right? Yeah. Apparently as well as the fine itself, which will probably be very big, like 10% of global revenue or whatever it is, the EU could also demand periodic penalty payments until Apple are seen to be fully compliant with the DMA. It's expected that this fine and the penalties would be in relation to the

ways in which Apple restricts developers from attempting to steer their users away from, you know, basically steer their users... the ways in which Apple are trying to stop developers from having a direct transaction, right? So you don't need to buy this here. You can buy this on our website. Steering is the term, right? Right, yeah, right. And the anti-steering stuff that Apple puts in,

because they don't want you to, they don't want you going somewhere else. And so like, you know, don't, it's a classic, right? Don't admit the web exists. Don't admit the internet exists. Don't admit that you have a website. Netflix, pretend that there's, you don't know how to log into, how to make a Netflix account.

Just pretend, just act dumb. And it's stupid. And this is one of those areas where Apple, I think that the interpretation of the EU or the European commission is that Apple has paid this lip service, but has failed to actually implement what they told them to,

which is stop steering people, stop preventing apps from steering you away from the App Store and Apple transactions. They added some very limited functionality that is not, you know, it's that typical, like not appealing to anyone. And the EU is basically saying, no, that's not it. You need to actually do this.

Essentially, the things that they have done, right? So developers are able to communicate deals to their customers. They're able to offer outside payment links, right? So they can use alternative payment services. But you still have the scare screens that pop up, right? They say, like, oh, you know, can you trust this kind of thing? You still have to give Apple their cut, right?

They're still going to take their money. And to be able to use these things, you have to join the new payment business terms, which include the core technology fee. So I think potentially it's not really seen as there is actually much of a choice, right? Like if you're making this decision. And this is the process, right? It's like, they say, here's what you have to do. Apple does something in the end of Apple, right? It's like they say, here's what you have to do. Apple does something. In the end, if Apple's approach is to drag their feet

and say, no, no, we've decided that this is the appropriate determination, their final recourse is to say, you're operating outside the law and we're gonna just keep finding you. And if you wanna do business in the EU, you're now gonna, you either follow our rules or you're gonna pay us billions of dollars.

So I guess if this happens, we're at the crossroads, right? We're here. Are they going to pay the money? Like this is, this has been the game of chicken, right? And we're still playing chicken because Bloomberg has, you know, Bloomberg got this information, right? Like we're, so, you know, everyone's still playing chicken here. There's a lot of conversations. I'm sure that happening in the last week between uh, Apple's lawyers and the European commission's lawyers, but if they give them this fine and I'm sure, and I don't know what the, the kind of consequences would be, right? Like if you

don't pay the fine, then what, right? Like do you, do you, do you, Tim Cook go to prison if he goes to Paris, like what, you know, what happens, right? We don't know. But here's my question for you. And I'm sorry to ask this question. We're going to ask it. Do you think this changes because the president is changing? Do you think that there is a possibility that the Trump approach would be

different to the Biden approach? Cause the Biden approach to the EU's DMA has been, I don't know what you're talking about. Right. They've just done nothing, it seems. Rather than not really any comment. Do you imagine a scenario where that is different? I have a hard time imagining that the EU is going to back down from this approach. Yeah. Because if they if they if they put this fine up and then immediately back down, then what was the point of it? Right? Like it's like, they kind of have to stick to this,

but like I just, I'm, I can't see how this is playing out. Right. Apple's not going to give, I cannot believe that Apple will give the European union 10% of their revenue that they have made this year. I can't imagine it happening. Apple will, well, look, Apple just gave 10 billion to Ireland. Yeah, but that was a taxes thing, right? Like that was like a, they shouldn't have done this and they did it, you know?

Bottom line, this is, do you want to do business in the EU? Yeah. And ultimately you either need to pay the fine or you need to not. This is not like Russia fining them where Apple's like, whatever, um, because we're not going to do business with you.

Apple and I don't think it's realistic to say Apple's going to pull out of selling things in the EU. I don't think that that's going to happen. I know there are people who make that comment. I think it's unrealistic for that to be the case. But let me, let me just, if you would allow me to devil's advocate this, right? Let's say that Apple have decided they're not changing the way that the app store works, right? That they will not do what Europe wants them to do. They will be fine forever.

Now, at a certain point, that fine is going to be more money than they make. In that scenario, then what? OK, so well, that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen either. Look, either you are, uh, following the laws, which I would argue they have to do yes, because it doesn't stop with the EU. You don't have to like them, but you do have to follow them. That's right.

Um, that's, you know, don't murder everybody So that's a reference. Sorry a little aside the Don't Mike Don't real men don't burn real men don't you either play ball or you don't but the problem is if you walk away If you take your ball and go home You have you're basically committing to taking your ball and going home from every region and country that puts these rules in place. Yeah. And that is a high, that is a high stakes game. Which could include the USA at some point, right?

Like it could include the USA at some point. It could, but probably not. I guess what I would say is you're committing to a very high stakes poker game where you're basically saying to every regulator in the world, do you want Apple products in your country? Yeah. Because if you do, you can't regulate us like this, or we're going to walk away. Personally, I don't think that's going to happen. And my number one reason is because Apple is already

playing ball with the European Commission, right? They're already changing all of this. They are. Well, they're doing things, right? They're not doing what they want them to do. And we've known this the whole time. So I think the fact that they have been doing it, dragging their feet, fighting it, not trying to overdo it, do literally the minimum responsible, I think suggests that they're most

likely going to continue that. The alternative would be for them to walk away. Again, the alternative would be we're going to walk away. And that could even be a negotiating tactic where they say, all right, we're gonna pull out of the EU and see if the countries of the EU and the European Parliament, because that's the other part of the politics here, right? I don't know anything about European politics and European community politics, European Union politics are weird

because they're elected from the countries, but separate elections from the elections in the countries. It's a it's a different kind of thing. You know, you think the electoral college is weird, there's lots of weird electoral things out there. And so sometimes the people, and they don't always function as a block. But anyway, so I guess my question would be one change is that the political desire in Europe to go down the path of regulating big tech becomes less. My understanding is that it's not going to happen. But if it were to happen, that would be one thing where literally the European Parliament could be like, EC, uh-uh, DMA, it's out. We're going to repeal it. It's gone. We don't want to do that. We love big tech companies. They could do that. I get the feeling that they won't, but they could do that. But if Apple wanted to make a stink and say,

we're going to just leave the EU, it would be potentially calling them on that point. It could also be a negotiating tactic where it's like, okay, do this and we'll waive the fine or do this and the final be lessened or whatever. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying that they already are playing this game, which leads me to believe they will continue playing this game. It would take a real hard liner inside of Apple to say, no, this is where we draw the line this far, no further. And we're doing this not just for Europe, but for everywhere else. We're basically going to threaten how, how good does Apple think it is? We're going to threaten the world with if you regulate us,

you don't get our stuff. That's some, that is an incredible thing to say, right? Like that is like super villain kind of stuff. It is, it is. It is. Well, one way that Apple's getting carbon neutral is that they found an island in the Pacific where they're relocating. Anyway, yes, it is super villain stuff. And the problem, I mean, the danger is that Apple

is so arrogant that they believe that withholding Apple's beautiful greatness from individual regions will terrify the politicians and the regulators in those countries. And they'll be like, no, no, no, Apple, please don't go. I think the reality is that Apple needs, in most cases, Apple needs them more than, you know, than they need Apple. That's the bottom line is like Apple needs money and growth in all these regions. And if Japan comes and says, you need to change your app store rules, like Japan's a big market for Apple, they're not going to walk away. The EU is a big market. And that's why I don't believe them. I don't believe they would walk away because I think that they would be a cascade of lost markets and that is, again, it's a tough one because it's Apple's desire for money and Apple's desire for control. But I believe that in the end, Apple wants money more than it wants

control. And if it's, let's see, we can let people link to outside the App Store, or we can't sell products in the European Union or Japan or Australia, or India, or whatever, you start to list them. Like, come on, you would have to be the hardest of hardliners to say, the right thing to do is forgo all of that revenue in order to maintain that control. The only thing I'll say about the about the incoming administration in the US is that it's going to be super friendly to business. And I think the only thing there would be that we go back to politics. If there is some incredible trade war that happens where the EU is super disaffected with the United States, or the, or the, the US is going to pressure the EU to lower their restrictions on big tech companies and it creates a political environment where the European Parliament backtracks, again, backtracks on the DMA. that could be a scenario, but it doesn't seem to me to be as likely. Nothing is impossible. I think last week proved that nothing, anything could happen. But I think it's more that the US will remain a favorable place for Apple in a lot of ways. We haven't even talked about like, Apple does a lot of business in China and there are a lot of tariffs coming from China. I would, or tariffs that may be placed in the way of companies that do business in China.

I would, my quick read on that is, it's an issue for Apple, but I feel like this is why Tim Cook, congratulations, Donald Trump on being president, Tim Cook, Tim Apple goes to those things, invites Trump to his factories in the US. I think there's, the quid pro quo there is be visible with the president, agree to some stuff

that gives a surface veneer of USA, USA, and if you do all of that, we're not gonna, we'll find a way for your business not to be hurt by what we're doing. Because it's more about making people feel good than it is about. Because again, although, although the incoming administration is totally going to be trade war with China focused, what you don't want to do is be seen as destroying one of America's most successful companies, not just in the US, but worldwide.

You don't want that. That's not, Apple, I firmly believe, is not going to be a victim of a trade war with China. Well, they weren't last time, right? Exactly, and Apple's important. Apple, and the last thing, American politicians wanna look tough on trade, but what they don't wanna do

is destroy American companies, right? They don't wanna do it. They to make it look like they've convinced the American companies to be more USA centric. They do. And that's what Apple did last time. So that'll happen again. So unless there's like a real schism with the EU. It's like where last time Tim Cook kind of was getting the moniker of America's ambassador to China, right? Like for these reasons, like he is, you know, got a phone in each hand, one of them has the US president

and one has the Chinese leader, right? He uses so many different Apple products at once, yeah. I do just wanna read a little bit from the Bloomberg article, right? Going back to the money of it all. Under the law, EU regulators have powers to find the world's most powerful tech firms, 10% of their global annual sales, 20% in the event of repeated infringement or periodic fines of as much

as $5 of the average daily revenue. 5%. Oh, sorry. Yeah, 5%. So that would be right to start with if they do this rule that that this fine would be $39 billion, which is 10% of their revenue for this year. They're going to continue repeatedly infringing it, I expect. So that will be, I don't know, 20% more. I don't really get that 20% part, but let's just do the periodic thing. 5% of their average daily revenue every day until they get compliant. Like I know what you were saying about Ireland. Ireland was 13 billion.

The beginning of this is three times that. Sure. It's going to be a problem. It's a problem. It's a problem. It is. I'm just saying that I think that in the end they will play ball. I mean, I rather than take it because again, it's, it's revenue versus control and it's not just the cost of the fine. It's the cost of abandoning every market that regulates Apple. And I don't know what they're gonna do because I would say, my impression is that there are people within Apple who are hardliners who really believe like,

no, let's just get out of there. But I think in the end, when Wall Street wants growth, you can't abandon markets. And also it's not just the EU, it's literally every other market that wants to regulate Apple. Who has the upper hand? What does Apple threaten?

Apple can only threaten leaving. And if you're a country or a region that really believes that big tech is out of control, I'm not sure that is enough, right? The threat of Apple abandoning your country is like, well, yeah, but you're gonna lose our access to our market then and you want our money, right? So I think in the end, I mean, we'll see what happens in we're back to internal Apple politics. But like, at some point, somebody just has to to say what is obvious and has been obvious since the beginning, which is steering people away from the app store isn't worth this. It's not worth it.

Yes. It's not worth a lot of things that they do. You know what I mean? Like it's not worth a lot of it. A lot of things they do aren't worth it. Apple, for all of the times that Apple acts confident to the point of arrogance about the quality of everything they do, when it comes to competition, sometimes they sure act small, right? And this is an example where there are so many advantages that Apple has on its platforms. So many advantages in being the easy, already pre-wired, you can pay for it, whatever. And yet they're willing to risk billions of dollars in fines, tens of billions of dollars in fines, because they're afraid to compete with the outside. Yep. And maybe, you know, when nobody is regulating you, you know, even if it's, you know, some millions of dollars,

but not billions of dollars, even if it's, you know, it's money, why would we give it away when we can keep it? Once one of your regulators comes to you and says, no, if you keep doing that, it's not gonna cost you millions, it's gonna cost you billions, then the conversation changes. So look, the challenge here is we don't know what the politics are. We don't know what Apple's internal politics are. We don't know what the European Commission's internal politics are and the European Parliament's internal politics are,

nor do we know about other countries in other regions that are looking at what's happening in Europe. And I'm telling you, they're all like, oh, we're going to do that too, if it makes us look good. You know, right? So it's a high stakes gambit here, right? And I, if I were at Apple, my gut feeling is you just got a cave because it's not going to stop at the EU.

You can't start abandoning categories, right? You can't do it. And so you just have to take it and they're not gonna like it, but they're gonna have to take it. And their strategy so far has been this passive, aggressive resistance strategy, right? It's the, we'll do what we think the letter of the law is,

but no further. And maybe these fines will be the thing that forces them to realize that that is not going to work. That's not a winning strategy because they're trying to make it like, oh, well, you know, we did what you said. And the commission comes back and says, no, you didn't. You did, you did, you interpreted this in the most favorable way for you, but you've completely missed the point. And we told you, you missed the point. And at this point, you either get the point or you get fined billions of dollars over,

again and again, it's not pay a fine and walk away scot-free. It's you will pay a fine and then keep paying it until you do what we want until we are satisfied because that's the relationship is you need to satisfy us and unless there's somebody at Apple who's a hardliners like this destroys our business and our business model and we can't do business here and they choose to walk away I would argue even that is probably a

negotiation tactic because I just can't see Apple saying we won't do business in any place that dares to regulate us I just don't see Apple saying we won't do business in any place that dares to regulate us. I just don't think that's going to fly. Well, I look forward to seeing how the rest of this month unfolds. If they're actually going to do this, it's going to be messy and we'll see. This episode is brought to you by our friends aty. Vitaly is bringing a new era for customer service productivity with their all-in-one platform. Vitaly's collaborative workspace combines your customer data with all the capabilities that you expect from today's project management and work platforms. With Vitaly, you can measure the effectiveness of OKRs and operational strategies on customer outcomes scale thanks to their Goals feature. Goals allow you to track the progress of your accounts against target metrics, meaning you

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schedule your call today by going to vitally.io slash upgrade. That is V-I-T-A-L-L-Y dot I-O slash upgrade. Vitaly dot I-O slash upgrade for a free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule qualified meeting. Our thanks to vitally for their support of this show and relay. So the M4 Macs are available now and you have over six colors. The whole team, you and Dan have been working on reviews.

So you had the Mac Pro and the iMac and Dan had the Mac Mini, right? Yes, correct. Have you used or seen a Mac Mini at all or did I just go completely? I haven't. I haven't. Dan's got it. So I would like to... It's in the East Coast Bureau.

East Coast Bureau, I love that so much. It makes me smile at the bottom of every Dan post. East Coast Bureau Chief. Are you the West Coast Bureau Chief? No, I'm the editor-in-chief Okay, so there is no West Coast bureau chief. No, there doesn't need to be because it's me. Couldn't you be both though? But I'm not okay. You could manage yourself, you know, you can have like one-to-ones anyway, I do takeaways

What are your opinions on the performance of the m4 chips? Yeah, so I got the m4 and the m4 Pro You know, the short version is M4 Pro equals M3 Max for some things other than the GPUs. I mean, the GPUs, what a Max chip gets you is maybe a couple more cores, right? But what it really gets you is, or CPU cores, but it gets you the option to have lots and lots of GPU cores that are not in the Pro. So if you're a GPU constrained person and you just want the most GPUs possible,

that's what the Max is for. But the Pro is for everybody else because it's still got a lot of GPU cores, just not as, it's got 10 and not 20, but like it's still pretty good. And performance keeps going up, right? Like the base m4 that was part of my takeaway actually one it's a challenge because Dan got to

review the new hot thing and I got to review the just incremental updated Mac models but I will say one of my big takeaways of this review cycle was that that the M4 MacBook Pro, the base model, which has been a joke for a while, right? Like it went through the process where it was like the last touch bar model and it was like why would anybody buy this and why is this even called a MacBook Pro? Because it's basically like a MacBook Air but with a fan but otherwise the MacBook Air is nicer in every way and all that and it's evolved over time. Got the screen last time I believe and now it's got the screen and it's got an extra port and also the M4 is a very capable chip and I feel like I've come around to the point where the

M4 MacBook Pro feels like a full-fledged member of the MacBook Pro line and there are lots of reasons that you would choose it over the MacBook Air. I don't know if I would choose it over the MacBook Air, but there are a lot of reasons one might choose it, because it is a MacBook Pro. Yes, it's heavier and thicker and all of that, but it's also got the fan,

so it's gonna run a little bit faster. It's got the ports on both sides, which is really nice. It didn't used to have that. It comes in the black color that it didn't used to be allowed to have, because that was only for the better MacBook Pros. It's just better and all those was got the webcam that's new and improved over the old webcam.

So that part of that is that the M4 is that much better, right? It just keeps getting better. And part of that is that they've upgraded the rest of the base model MacBook Pro to feel like it feels like they're not withholding fundamental features of the product line from the base model which is how it used to be now it's just the one with the M4 chip in it and I think that's better it feels less like this redheaded stepchild of the MacBook Pro line and more like an actual you know full-fledged member so but yeah Apple's doing a great job with the chips. The chips just keep advancing and the Pro took a big step forward this time to the point

where I feel like there are a lot of people out there with older Macs chips who may look at the Pro, including not just the MacBook Pro, but also like a Mac Studio versus a Mac Mini, for whom the extra, we don't know what's gonna be in the Ultra, right? But if you're not looking for the Ultra, and you're just gonna go with the Max, we don't know what the specs are gonna be

of an M4 Max, Max Studio. And they may cross over, it may be one of those things where you could get either one and they're both pretty close together, the build up of an M4 Pro Mac mini versus an M4 Mac Studio. There'll be a little bit of a crossover there and you get more GPU cores and like, I could see that, but I think for a lot of people, it's just not worth it, right?

Unless you really need all that extra stuff. And I'm speaking, when I speak about a lot of people, I'm including us in this, like the M4 Pro is so powerful, I'm not sure that more is necessary unless you're in a very stratified, rarefied, special high end position where you really need to crank it on GPU cores or whatever. Yeah, I think that Apple have done a good job of actually naming these chips, right? That there is the standard one, there's the pro one, and then Max and Ultra, the names of those, like if you take them out of the context of the way that Apple uses those names in other places,

which isn't like, it doesn't really, I think, do the job, like with these chips at least, like Max and Ultra should be scary names to you because they're scary chips, like you don't need that. Like, they are very specific. You know if you need it. And if you don't know if you need. Like you don't need that. Like, like, it's very specific. You know, if you need it. And if you don't know if you need it, you don't need it. Like genuinely, I really probably know

once you buy the ultra, like realistically, it's too much computer for basically everyone. Yeah. The people, people who need the ultra know who they are. Yeah. So I would say that the, the most key takeaway you've given me there though is what you said at the start, which is that the M4 Pro is basically the M3 Max chip. Like that's pretty impressive, I think. Other than that it has fewer GPU cores, but otherwise, yeah, it's the

performance. It's come a long way. Like the M4 Pro is, I don't want to think about how it performs compared to my M1 Max, Max Studio. But it's faster, right? Like it's faster. It just is. That's just how it is. And so that's, you know, this is time marches on. But what it makes me feel again is that for most people, first off, for most people, the M4 is plenty, which is one of the reasons why I thought, you know what, you want a MacBook Pro or your corporation only buys MacBook Pros and won't buy MacBook Airs.

Like the M4 MacBook Pro is great because the screen is amazing and it's got ports on both sides, which if you've ever had a situation where you're like, yeah, but I want to charge on this side or I want to plug something in on this side and on that low end configuration, it's like, nope, you know, if you've ever had a situation where you're like, yeah, but I want to charge on this side or I want to plug something in on this side and on that low-end configuration, it's like, nope, you can't. It's all on the left side, only on the left side. Great. So it's got all that, but like the M4 is so good that

like, do you need to pay more money for an M4 Pro, MacBook Pro? A lot of people just don't. They just don't. I could argue that Apple Silicon is so good that there are very few people who even need to upgrade from an M1 to an M4 because the M1 is still so good. So certainly the M4 as a base chip is great and then the Pro is that much more powerful in a lot of ways in CPU and in GPU. It does a whole lot more. It's a really nice leap. If these are the only two chips Apple made, it would be pretty good. The high, high end people would be sad, but it's an increasingly small amount of people who really need it. They have reasons to be sad that are other than just

the power of the chip. They do. Apple don't really make a computer for them anymore. If you asked me before Apple Silicon was announced what Apple's strategy was going to be, I would basically say look at the M4 and the M4 Pro. That's what I thought the strategy would be, which is we've got a phone chip that does a Mac thing, and then we've got the better one that is for pros, and they write it off then. The fact that they have a Mac Studio and a Mac pro and aim an M4 Max chip and a forthcoming M4 Ultra presumably that that's Apple going above and beyond for the high end of their market because that's what they can do. Like there's

all the other things they can't do, but that is what they can do is scale up that thing. And that's great again, but but the M4 Pro is so good that I think it will slice away a whole bunch of users who might have previously focused on the Macs both as a MacBook Pro buyer and as somebody who's choosing between like a Mac Studio or a Mac Mini. The laptops that you had, the screen. The screen, oh my the screen was actually,

took up quite a bit of the review. And while I feel like we understood what, you know, the idea of the being brighter and there being the nano display option, I kind of got the feeling from you that if you were buying one of these laptops yourself, that you would, you would want the nano texture and you would go with the brightness that you'd be happy with. So you'd be, you would lean maybe Mac pro now, Mac Pro now.

I am an inveterate, you know, MacBook Air user. I love the little laptops I always have. But you know, when I'm writing a review, I really want to put myself in a neutral position and understand who the product is for. And I accept that my gravitation toward the MacBook Air is in part a very much like, it's a idiosyncrasy of me.

And I don't want to write, you know, that's one of the challenges of being a reviewer is you, your review is less useful. Your review needs to be something opinionated, but it's less useful if you say, well, I wouldn't want one, so forget it. Right? Because that's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to understand who it's for and how it serves those people. So I might not buy a MacBook Pro, right? I like the air. I like how small it is. I like how thin it is, all of those things. But boy, first off the MacBook Pro display, I don't get to use it every day. So I've lost, I have not lost my awe of it that MacBook Pro display, I don't get to use it every day. So I have not lost my awe of it,

that MacBook Pro users, like I have to send my review units back, right? And I have a MacBook Air. MacBook Pro users lose the awe of that display. It is beautiful. It is big. It is a promotion, which is gorgeous. It is such a good display.

And now it's brighter because even though they've not changed the max HDR brightness, they've changed the max SDR brightness, which is the mode that all of us use most of the time, to a thousand nits. This is the second, I think, consecutive generation that has increased that. So it's actually because it was 600. and then before that, I think it was like 375 or 400. So like over a couple of generations, if you're using like an M1 MacBook Pro, this screen is so much brighter if you crank it up all the way, which why would you do that? And the answer is, because you're outside. And I write outside, I use my MacBook Pro outside

all the time, or my MacBook Air outside all the time, and my iPad Pro all the time. So that, and then the nano texture, right? Where you're in situations where there's glare. And yeah, if you're with a laptop, right, you could like change your angle and try to get rid of the glare. But in some circumstances,

especially if you're outside, you can't. Or even if you're at a meeting and there's a window behind you, you can't. So if you combine the nanotexture with the extra brightness, you've got a computer that can be used way, way better in really bad lighting situations, including maybe especially outside. And the nanotexture is good. It is noticeable.

If you're in a normal lighting environment, you will notice that everything is a little diffused in a way that, you know what I mean? Like the contrast goes down a little bit, right? Like the blacks aren't quite as black because they're kind of gray because the light is scattering off of them. And that's just, that's how it is.

But it looks pretty good. And your benefit is, it really is, it does your brain on. I mean, you've seen nanotextured displays before. You have that moment where you see the edge around it that is not nanotextured and it's all shiny and then as you move, the light source moves into the nanotexture and it just vanishes.

It's like it's not there anymore. It's extremely strange and amazing. So yeah, it's a huge display upgrade to probably the best Mac display ever made already. So, you know, let's not sleep on that display. It's gorgeous. When the studio display came out and it had the center stage camera in it,

you got into a little bit of a controversy not like you know you were involved in a lot of reporting around the quality of the center stage camera yes and it became like a big thing mm-hmm the center stage camera which is also still a 12 megapixel camera that is on the iMac and on these laptops looks significantly better in the images that you've posted. It is much better. Original center stage camera like in the studio display looks, I think part of the consternation about it was it looks good, it looks fine in good light, but once the lighting conditions get weird, it starts to look real bad. So there's a new sensor.

It's a 12 megapixel ultra wide, which previously wasn't in either of these products. They just had a 1080 camera. But in other products, they've used this 12 megapixel ultra wide. That was what the center stage camera was. It's a new sensor, Apple tells me. And the housing is a little bit different in the iMac than in the MacBook Pro because of the size, right? The MacBook

Pro is not as thick as the iMac, so they have to figure that out, the display portion. But I will tell you, I was sitting in a badly lit room, the back bedroom here, like really badly lit, no lights on afternoon, a little bit of hazy sunshine coming in through the blinds, but that was about it. And I opened photo booth on the iMac and I'm telling you it didn't take more than a fraction of a second for me to go, oh, this is better. And their reviewer's guide says it's new, but it's new to the product. It doesn't say it's new to Apple's product line.

So it was unclear and I had to actually go to an Apple PR person and say, is this new new, not the same as in the studio display? And I was told yes. So okay, great. But like it was obvious. It's harder to see it in stills. I had to crop a still for use in my review of the iMac.

But like my, and I put them all at the same level as my studio display that I have back there. So I had the studio display and then I had the iMac and then I had the MacBook Pro. And I think the iMac is a little bit better than the MacBook Pro. I don't know why, my guess is that the optics are a little compromised, but it's still better than the center stage camera was.

And I like center stage as a feature, right? Because you wanna be able to choose your angle, right? It's nice to be able to, even if you don't use the auto zoom in modern, you know, current Mac OS in 15 and 14, you can also select the camera and just choose center and it centers it on you. And that's nice.

And a regular webcam won't do that. But if you look at the sample, the studio display webcam in the bad light, my face is all blotchy. It's blotchy because it just can't, it can soften it, it can process it, but it's blotchy. And the iMac and MacBook Pro camera, like you can see the specific shadows,

you can see little lines around my eyes, you can see blemishes on my face. I mean, it's not like the most flattering picture, but it's in bad light and it is just clearer in every way. So, Apple, this is totally Apple realizing that they kind of biffed it with CenterStage camera and putting a better sensor in there. And I'm a fan of CenterStage as a feature. Like I said, I think there are a lot of things that benefit from it. And the iMac is the most important place to have something like Center Stage and it was so frustrating when the m1 iMac came out And they'd already introduced the iPad with Center Stage and then the m1 iMac came out and they're like no it doesn't have that feature What are you doing? Why did that happen? But it's finally here looks great on the iMac It looks good on the MacBook Pro and I think it's a good feature again If you I wish that the Center Stage algorithm was a little bit smarter It still feels sometimes like it gets confused about what it's a good feature. Again, I wish that the center stage algorithm was a little bit smarter.

It still feels sometimes like it gets confused about what it's looking at. But the beauty is that in 14 and 15 of Mac OS, you can just click on the little camera icon in the menu bar and turn off center stage, and then just like drag the angle around and zoom in and out, or just click re-center, and it'll give you exactly the shot you want, which is is really nice because you don't have to tilt your laptop display

to a weird angle or tilt your iMac or turn it you can just change the view and that's very convenient. You know why you didn't have the Mac Mini? Obviously you are aware of Dan's review the same way that I am so I just wanted to point out a few things that I thought were interesting. One of the things I found funny is like Dan was referencing the reduced weight of the Mac Mini which makes it really easy to get to the power button because you know. You just lift it up. Actually my favorite my favorite bit of trivia and I had to check

is it's the lightest Mac ever. Oh, what? No, it's the lightest Mac ever. It's lighter than the, uh, than the little Mac book. No way. Yeah. That's wild. It's the lightest Mac ever.

And I guess I looked and I couldn't find a, I couldn't find a lighter Mac. In part, I would imagine that. It doesn't have a screen. I mean, that helps. Well, yeah, but I would imagine they... It doesn't have a screen, I mean that helps. Well yeah, but I would imagine they're also using as little aluminium as possible aren't they in this one. That's kind of the impression that I get. Sure, and it's very light material. It's obviously very small. But it's tiny and less than two pounds. That's fun.

And yeah. That's a fun stat. Yeah, and there are a lot of nerds out there who listen to podcasts like this will say why are they trying to make it smaller? That's not it. That's not it. First off, the one, the last one was big because it had to fit an optical drive in it. Yeah. That's how long they've had that one is, is it comes from when they had an optical drive in the Mac mini. If you look inside a modern Apple Silicon Mac mini of the older vintage,

you will see there's nothing in there but air. They're not making the Mac mini smaller and then having to compromise the Mac mini in order to fit it in because who needs a smaller computer? They're making the Mac mini smaller because it doesn't need to be any bigger anymore. And so they made it smaller, which I really love, but I don't think it's a compromise at all.

Yeah, the only compromise they made is putting the power button on the bottom. But I just don't think that's a compromise at all. The only compromise they made is putting the power button on the bottom, but I just don't think that that is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. Yeah, well, I mean, this wraps it up for my whole thing, as I think I said last week, of shutting down my computer. Like, this is Apple very clearly saying, why would you use the power button? But, you know, it's a quirk. There's always going to be a quirk. I heard from somebody at Apple who said, I have known all along that people would make a thing out of the

power button, even though it really doesn't matter. And it's like, of course, of course, everything, there's always a thing. There's always a gate. There's always a thing. So, Charles Miller on the 9to5mac today wrote about a quote from an interview on Chinese video sharing site, Billy Billy with Greg Josueck and John Ternes, where the translation is of one of them saying this, it doesn't state which one, we shrunk the size of it so much, it's equivalent to half the size of the generation,

previous generation, so we needed to put the power button in the most appropriate spot because it's so small, it's convenient to press, just tuck your finger in there and hit the button. In fact, the most important thing is you pretty much never use the power button on your Mac I don't even remember the last time I turned on a Mac. See yeah, it hurts my heart, but but that's the thing like that is my my my Mac studio is mounted under my desk, so if I had a a

An under desk mount for the Mac mini. Mm-hmm It would just have a cutout there I mean I already have to reach under my desk to the backside of the Mac studio and press the button every morning. The Mac mini, now I get that would actually be more convenient, right? Like the barrier. Yeah, if you bury your Mac mini, like on your desk behind stuff and all of that, like I get it. I'm sure there will be interesting little hacks for it. But but it's true. The bottom line is Apple doesn't expect you to shut down, hard shut down your Mac mini on a regular basis or your Mac in general. They expect you to put it to sleep. And the fact is three quarters of the Macs that are sold

and have been for a long time are laptops. And Apple, that means that Apple has gotten sleep real good, right? And one of the reasons I shut down is because I come from an era, I used to use a MacBook Air at home and at work and travel with it in my backpack back and forth. And I can tell you the number of times that I opened it up at home and it was hot in there because the Mac had failed to sleep. There was a time when sleep was real bad on the Mac. It's not, it's really good now.. So I like I said, my reasons to shut down are more

about power management, because I have a smart switch that turns off a bunch of other stuff when the Mac goes down. So I don't have to do it. And I really like that automation aspect of it. But I'll figure it out or I won't. But but generally, Apple doesn't think you should shut down your Mac, right? And there's a setting for, and you're like, what if the power goes out? There's a setting in energy. I forget where it is in the settings app. There's a setting that's like reboot when the power comes back. Literally, there's a setting, reboot when the power comes back. So if the power goes out and that box is checked, power comes back, Mac turns back on.

It's fine, right? So they're trying to reduce the number of times that you ever need to press that power button. So I even saw, I remember this, like when it came out, like, so people were being like, So they're trying to reduce the number of times that you ever need to press that power button So even so I remember this like when it came out like so people mean like oh What about the people that rack mount them this isn't and like and I saw on threads I'll put a link in the show. It's Mac Stadium who are the innovators and leaders in Mac mini hosting They got early access to the M4 Mac mini and we're posting about it and they're like, yep, no problem, we just rack mount them.

Like, it's no issue for us. Like, we got it handled. So like, they got it handled, you know? So don't worry about it. Yeah, I saw a 3D printed 2U rack mount for them that somebody did. Like, all the 3D prints will be out there and then all of the other things, it's fine.

I think that the real question is, are we buying this Mac Mini? Because I feel like the answer is probably yes Yeah, it's definitely I mean like Dan's review kind of sold it to me for a few things of like one thing You know, he kind of explained it the way that having the ports are great But like I know I'm still gonna need my dock But I'm still gonna be able to plug the stuff in that is most important to me and I have a little bit extra More I have more ports available to me on the computer itself than I do on my MacBook Pro, which is docked right now. It's tiny and powerful and it's going to be

great. And so basically my thing is I am going to buy this. It'll leave at the end of this year or early next year. And I'm leaving it because it's going to be a big pro. I want to do it as part of a big project. Basically I just need to tear down my desk and rebuild it. So I want to have, make sure I have the time to do that, which I don't have for the next little bit. Um, but the reviews like Dan's review especially, it's just like, yep, this is exactly the computer that I want. I had a moment of realizing that if I'm living the two desk lifestyle, which I am now, it's getting colder here. And so for the last few weeks, I've been in studio B on three days a week.

I'm out here in the garage Monday and Tuesday because I'm doing things with video. This is a better place to shoot video, upgrades, YouTube videos, and Mac break weekly. But Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I'm just leaving it cold out here, not using power to heat this and working in the back. And I have this realization, which is one, if I buy a Mac Mini,

I can either have it in the back or I can have it out here and put the Mac Studio in the back. And then I've got desktop power instead of my M2 MacBook Air, which is fine until I want to encode video or something, or a Zoom meeting ends and it's trying to demux the Zoom file that has been recorded. And then I realized, oh yes, it is kind of slow at that stuff because it's just an M2, right? Like I love it, but as a desktop, I can feel that it's a low-end laptop. I get it. I get it. Then, Mike, though, I had the real weird realization, which I don't think I want to set it up this way

because of what would be required to disconnect it and reconnect it, but I had that thought of like, or could I just take the Mac Mini between the rooms and plug it in? Very easily, yeah. In either place. If you use the dock, especially. I would need to plug into the studio display and a dock

so that I didn't have to unplug five things and replug five things every time. But the thought occurred to me that with the Mac Mini, I could literally just pull it out and walk back to the other room and it would be my same computer in both places. That would be the perfect scenario. That would be the perfect scenario.

Which is wild. Especially if you had a good enough dock, you could just have the display go into the dog is one cable right yes that would be because I was right say to you like I thought you were saying or maybe I'll get the Mac mini but it's like well but then you've got two desktops so I was the point of that but yeah if you just have one desktop one you're just moving between the spots that would that what what yeah so I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it. It's interesting. I could actually try that. Then my next step, Mike, was I could actually try that with the Mac Studio. Yeah, you could. You totally could. You totally could. But it's

not fun. It's not as fun as a little Mac Mini. You just pick it up with one hand. And also the M1 Mac Studio has the loud fan, so it really does need to be under the desk because the fan is kind of loud on it. This episode is brought to you by Smarter World. I know you're into podcasts because you listen to this show, and I know that you love podcasts that talk about how technology shapes our lives. Well, let me tell you about this. Let's start with a couple of questions. How do you control the robotic forearm with your voice? What technology allows cars to communicate in real time as they drive? What's inside a smart plug that reduces home fires and saves lives? If you think that these questions sound interesting and you're curious about

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It comes from Stefan who says, was it clear, this is in relation to last week where we were talking about John Turnus taking over from Tim Cook one day. That's the idea. So Stefan says, was it clear that Tim Cook was being prepared to succeed Steve Jobs in the same way it seems to people that John Turnis is being prepared to succeed Tim. Also, I get a little nervous with how confident people are that Turnis will do this. It feels unwise to be unconfident about such things, but maybe I've just listened to too many history podcasts.

Right. A little unwise to be overconfident, Stefan says. Well, nobody's counting their chickens. I think what, uh, German is reporting is that, is that Ternes is the most likely candidate and they're trying to coach him up. I think German himself has reported that like Jeff Williams is the

person who would do it if Tim Cook, um, had a, you know, the proverbial hit by a turnip truck kind of thing, right? Hit by a bus. If something shocking happened and Tim Cook had to leave or, or passed away or whatever, I think Jeff Williams would probably do the job for a while. But he's about the same age as Tim Cook, so it's not really a solution to retirement. And that Ternus has been identified, and you do this, right? You identify potential people and you try to train them up. And we've talked about that here, that Apple can't find people on the outside. So they really need to get it right and make an effort to train people up on the inside. But nothing is guaranteed. I think that that Today's thinking and thinking can change, right? So I don't know who would be overconfident John turn this maybe I mean he shouldn't be but I'm not sure who else even has confidence John turn this is is

A possibility, but nobody should count their chickens before their hatch So I'll say that in terms of Tim and Steve first off Steve. I mean Steve Steve's cancer diagnosis changes the whole scenario here right? Like yeah the answer is yes. Was Tim Cook being prepared to succeed Steve Jobs? Not only was he, Tim Cook did Steve Jobs' job while Steve was on leave for his cancer treatment. Yeah it was obvious to us at the time because it was made obvious, right? In that way of like, Steve's not going to be around for a bit. Who's going to run the company as interim CEO. They, he appointed Tim Cook. So like it was more obvious

to us then that if something happened to jobs that cook would take over. Yeah. So, so cook was always that guy and, um, and they had, I think Phil Schiller did the keynotes, but Tim Cook was always that guy. And they had, I think Phil Schiller did the keynotes, but Tim Cook was the interim acting CEO as the COO. And it was very clear. And at the end, when, you know, if you read some of the stories about it, we think of Steve resigning as CEO and remaining like chairman, becoming chairman of the board and

appointing Tim as CEO, we read that now as part of the story of the end of Steve's life, right? Because he did that and a month and a half later he died. it. My read based on the reporting we've seen is they were treating Steve pretty aggressively during that period and that I don't know how much of this is just people talking to other people and it's not the reality and if you were in the family, if you were Lorraine, you know, you knew what was going on. But the reports at least suggest that they were still aggressively treating Steve and that there was some surprise that it reached the point where he was going to go because they were hoping that these other treatments were going to work.

I think, I think the way that they did it would suggest it was an intentional plan, right? That like, because if he, if he thought he wasn't going to be around anymore, he could have just taken that as the opportunity to retire. But he did. Right. And he remained as chairman, which, you know, again, it could be for show, but this is what I think. I think he got sick enough and was going, I think the thought process was probably more like, he's so sick now that he is going to need to do nothing but treatment because otherwise he's gonna die.

And that's what happened. But I think you're right. I feel like, my gut feeling is that wasn't the move. That this was a move intended to be permanent, but not intended to be a handover and then, and then Steve dies six weeks later, right? I don't think that was the plan. So anyway, so it did happen, right? It did happen that way. But, but the real clincher is that Tim was the, was the acting CEO when, when Steve was on leave for his cancer treatments earlier.

And that that was a period a few years earlier, and Tim Cook was in charge. So it was crystal clear from that. A Bright Sentence says, I haven't heard anybody go deeper into the software capabilities of the new iPad mini, so I've not been able to figure out if the A17 Pro chip allows the iPad mini to run apps like Final Cut or other Pro apps like Swift Playgrounds.

So it does does actually. It couldn't before, but the A17 Pro chip now allows the iPad mini to install and use both Final Cut and Logic on the iPad, which is very funny to me because the screen is so small, but you can do it, but you plug it in to a display. I think I think Maybe with the iPad mini you could you could do some display mirroring But it just doesn't have stage manager still which is again that I think the funny thing So you can do it. Yep, you can do do it You can do it if you want to want to but I do by the way

I'm gonna as a footnote here I just want to say one of the arguments, and I know you've made this, which why wouldn't they put an M1 or M2 in the iPad Mini? And I think what we've heard is it would have required a substantial revamp of the product that they didn't want to do. But I have heard the argument that is, well, but it's too small to run stage manager

and all M series processor iPads can run stage manager. And so therefore they wouldn't do it. My answer would be, I just want to say it. My answer would be, if Apple wanted to put an M series processor in the iPad mini and didn't want to enable stage manager or didn't want to enable stage manager on the internal display only, they would just footnote it. They would say all iPads except iPad mini.

Right? Like it's not a law where it's like, well we can't put it in there because then we have to offer stage manager. They don't have to. They could disable it and they just change the wording. So, but it is great that it runs Final Cut and Logic. That's hilarious and great. And you can plug it into a display. The iPad mini with the A17 Pro supports one external display of up to 4K. So Final Cut would, you could set it to show the output on the external while you were editing it on the internal.

I'll say this is also funny because I reviewed the previous generation iPad Mini and edited a podcast on it using Apple pencil and ferrite and like eight tracks and it was fine. So, you know, the, the Apple stuff has higher requirements than maybe, um, other people's stuff does. Cause the iPad mini, I mean, it was ridiculous. I had to edit it in vertical orientation so I could see all the tracks, but I totally edited a, I think a total party kill entirely

on an iPad mini a couple years ago and it was fine. So there's plenty of power in there. And now with the A17 Pro, there's a huge amount of power in there. This question from Tom carries with it some sentiment I've been seeing a lot online recently, which is curious to me. Do you think the reaction to Apple's September iPhone event shaped the series of Mac announcements? It seems like people were underwhelmed after the September event. Do you think Apple could and would

have reacted that quickly and changed plans for October to something, quote, less than an event? No. No, I don't think so either. And I also don't understand the underwhelming part of this September event. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's a little echo chambery. Like you can listen to people who are underwhelmed,

but like Apple has to do it. Everybody's paying attention. The iPhone launches, the iPhone's their most important product. They have to do it. They have to do it. They should do it. They will keep doing it.

WWDC and the iPhone event are the landmarks. They will always happen because they need to because they're important. I don't think they reacted quickly and changed plans. I think that they're experimenting and I think their idea was the Rolling Thunder thing which they've done before where it's like product, product, product.

And this was a better version of it because they had a little video for each one, right? Like a little mini keynote. I think the videos needed to be promoted better and in fact I think that they might've even benefited from having them premiere at a time like other events and they chose not to do that, but they did it. And they got Apple intelligence in your face

and every single one of them. And they got coverage that rolled out over time. And then the review, people were talking about it and like, oh, and then this happened on Tuesday and this happened on Wednesday. I feel like it was a winner for them that they had those things rather than having it just be a single thing. The only issue is the logistics of it in terms of talking to the press. And that wasn't a problem either. They had their little creator event

where people were like shooting video and photos of the products. They did Zoom or it's WebEx, WebEx things with people like me and then shipped us product for review. Like it's WebEx, WebEx things with people like me, and then shipped us product for review. Like it's all fine. Like they can do it that way. I think it was just an experiment and I think it has some value. The iPhone, I mean, look, I think if I were at Apple,

I would say the iPhone event has to be about the iPhone, important iPhone accessories, and anything else that we want to get the spotlight of attention on that the iPhone event brings. So I think you've got to have some discipline there. That's why it tends to be the iPhone and the Apple Watch. But if they've got something else that they want to put a spotlight on,

it's a great event to do that. The problem is you are also going to be competing But if they've got something else that they want to put a spotlight on, it's a great event to do that. The problem is you are also going to be competing with the reports about the new iPhones. And so there's only so much you can do. I think if I were an Apple watch person at Apple, like, would you rather be a part of the iPhone event or have your own release and video a few weeks later? I think my answer is you'd be, you'd rather be in the iPhone event

because you're an iPhone accessory and you want to be part of the new iPhone story. Be like, not only is it a new iPhone, it's the also the Apple watch. You want to re, if you're Apple, you want to reinforce in everybody's mind, Apple watch is for iPhone. And if you are an iPhone user, you should get an Apple watch

and, and you can reinforce that. But anything that's extraneous, anything that's a little bit kind of beyond. I would the more, more than ever before I would kick all that stuff out. Cause you can launch a product, your Apple, you can launch a product anytime. So only use the iPhone spotlight when it really makes sense. And otherwise just take it out, just do it, do it some other time. And that goes for like AirPods, right? Honestly, I know it's an iPhone accessory, but I feel like the

AirPods stuff might have worked better as a standalone announcement. Maybe not. Maybe it's, maybe it's too small and it needs its big buddy I don't think anything works better on its own than it would with the iPhone Well, everything is raised by being the iPhone No, I don't agree because if they came out with new Macs on iPhone day Nobody would care about the new Macs. Yeah, but more people would say they just wouldn't care. More people would see them Yeah, but they wouldn't care. Yeah, I think that's what I would say is they wouldn't care. More people would see them. Yeah, but they wouldn't care. Yeah.

I think that's what I would say is they wouldn't care. So I think that there's some discipline going on about what goes in and what goes out because otherwise everything should be in the iPhone event. And I don't think that that's true. People that wouldn't care about that. Why would they care about them being announced on their own? Well, they wouldn't, but you would get more visibility because this is the problem. It's not just about reaching people who care. It's about reaching people. If everybody cares about the iPhone, but you would get more visibility. Because this is the problem. It's not just about reaching people who care. It's about reaching people. If everybody cares about the iPhone, but only some people care about the Mac,

that means that if you announce iPhone and Mac, everybody cares about the iPhone. So even the Mac people care about the iPhone and they're distracted from the Mac. It's better to do it later, I think. Okay. No, I understand. Look, these are the conversations

that Apple marketing undoubtedly has, right? Yeah, because we've seen it, right? Like they announce products alongside the iPhone These are the conversations that Apple marketing undoubtedly has. Yes. Right? Yeah, because we've seen it, right? Like, they announce products alongside the iPhone when they're new, and then they sometimes find their own place later on. That's the spotlight thing, right? When they're trying to, like, shine a spotlight on it, and they're like, hey, AirPower, it's here.

And, you know, anyway, but I don't think it could be, but I don't think Apple reacted that quickly. I think that Apple was already going to be experimenting with its Mac rollout, just as it's done the last few years where it did the thing in New York and like they're, they're experimenting. They have new people in charge. They've gone through some leadership changes in marketing and PR over the last few years and they're trying stuff.

And I think that's good. I think they's good. I think they should try new stuff. The pandemic really changed it too, right? They were a little bit more stuck in a rut in terms of, you know, for me, it was a lot of Jason go to, I mean, sometimes fly to New York, but a lot of times it was just go to Cupertino,

get your briefing, you leave with your review unit in a bag, and you go home and you start reviewing it. Like, that's what it used to be. And after the pandemic basically completely rewrote it where it was like WebEx briefings and we'll FedEx you the products and like now they have all the tools, they can choose what they want to use. And finally, we have a question that comes in from Jay who wants to know, have you used the Macintosh dynamic wallpaper and what do you think of it?

Um, I really like it. It was in my review of Sequoia, the classic Mac imagery that's going to be a screensaver and it can be dynamic wallpaper and I think it's really nice. I'm using it on the computer on the MacBook Air, which is also the computer I'm working on in Studio B. And when I'm out here in the garage, I don't use it because I am using Downlink, which is a great little app that puts live, I mean it's not like a video, it's every 10 minutes or something, 15 minutes, but it's live satellite imagery of the Earth, in my case of the West coast and the Pacific Ocean. So I can see the the storm that is hitting us right now on my desktop. And that's also dynamic, but in a different way. But I do love it. And I love the bright colors. How does it work? Does it like

rotate often? I think it's a setting. Also, when you lock and when you wake up, it goes back through that thing. If you're using the screensaver, the screensaver comes on and then when you wake it up, the screensaver sort of slides to a stop and that's your desktop. So there are a bunch of different ways that it will cycle through and you can choose color or have it be random. I've not used it. It's really cute. It's fun. I'm going to try it on my second display as I've just turned it on now and I think I've got something like, it looks very Newton II because it's green that's funny okay yeah but they're different ones there's orange and there's a lot of different colors and it's like there's one where you're in a in like teach text and it's typing here's

to the crazy ones and cute there's like the old Mac control panel and it's just it's cute it's it's never let it be said that Apple doesn't do whimsical and nostalgic things because that is both of those. And what are they doing over there? Don't they? Hmm. If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show, or you've got some follow-up or some feedback, just go to upgradefeedback.com.

You could check out Jason's work at sixcolors.com. You can hear him in the incomparable.com and hear a relay where you hear me too. You can check out my work at Cortex brand dot com. You can find Jason online. He is at Jason now. J S N E double L. I am I Mike. I am Y K E.

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We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody.