Upgrade - 542: Wellies on the Ground

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

from relay this is upgrade episode 542 for December 16th 2024 this episode is brought to you by Squarespace and FitBud my name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell hi Jason Snell hi Mike Hurley how are you doing oh I'm feeling great I by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Mike Hurley. How are you doing? Oh, I'm feeling great. I have a Snell talk question for you to start out this week's episode. It comes from Mark. Mark wants to know, Jason, regular listeners are well aware of your opinions about peanut butter.

What are your thoughts on peanut butter confections, such as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Peanut Brittle, Peanut Butter Ice Cream, et cetera. Peanut butter flavor is good. Stuff that tastes like real peanuts is better than stuff that tastes like fake peanuts. Reese's peanut butter cups are nice. Peanut butter and chocolate are two great tastes that taste great together. Peanut brittle is great. I don't have it very often.

It was my dad's favorite candy, actually, was peanut brittle. Peanut butter ice cream is good. I'll tell you, there's a frozen yogurt place that we always went when we visited Lauren's parents and we actually went, they kind of closed down the store by their house, but they've opened a new one now, which we were all very excited about because my kids especially, like this was a special thing

about visiting grandma and grandpa was going to Golden Spoon yogurt. And most frozen yogurt places, but certainly Golden Spoon, always had a peanut butter flavor. And what's interesting is there are actually two kinds of peanut butter flavor. Like I said, there's kind of the one that tastes more like roasted peanuts, and then there's the one that tastes like peanut butter flavor. And the peanut butter flavor is fine, but the roasted peanut, the actual like real peanut butter sort of flavor is the best.

And in fact, if I see peanut butter on a frozen yogurt menu, I will order it always default. Number one, always what I will get. But it's not my favorite ice cream flavor. I don't really buy it. It's kind of weird, but the frozen yogurt, there's something about it. And it's just my favorite ice cream flavor. I don't really buy it. It's kind of weird, but the frozen yogurt, there's something about it. That's just like a special kind of thing for me,

the little soft frozen yogurt. Maybe frozen yogurt is closer or hang on a second. Frozen yogurt. Geez, I got to try and keep somebody's, you know, we had a family thing at the weekend and everyone was making fun of me. Join us. As they do. With all your Americanisms. Oh, the funny things you say, you American. Anyway, frozen yogurt is closer in consistency to peanut butter than ice cream is. And I imagine that might make it nicer. It is, that's true.

Not that I would know, because I'm definitely allergic to peanuts, but in visuals I can see that it would be, you know? Well, I mean, you know the difference between, well, that's true. You can see that it would be, you know? Well, I mean, you know the difference between, well, that's true. You can see what peanut butter is from a distance and probably have tried frozen yogurt before. I sure have.

If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question to help us open a future episode of the show, go to upgradefeedback.com and do that. Thank you to Mark for sending that one in. Let's do some follow-up. This really isn't follow-up, but there isn't really a section to put it. I wanted to say-

Oh, it is. It is follow-up. It is follow-up, I guess. It is? It's secret follow-up. Secret follow-up. Yes, you know what? Very secret follow-up to my last couple of years.

Very happy to share that my wife and I are expecting our first child in February. Very excited. Edina is doing great. We're having a baby girl and we could not be happier about it. I give you my public upgrade. Congratulations for this. Obviously, I've known about this for a long time and given you many private congratulations

about it. You kept this on the down low for a long time, which is great. In fact, funny story, we were over at your house, Lauren and I were over at your house right before the Relay 10 show over the summer. And you were showing us the house. And there was one room where you're like, and this is gonna be a room that we use for things.

And as we left, I said to Lauren, that was totally the baby's room, and they're not telling us that they're having a baby yet, but that's totally what's going on. And then a week after we got back, you're like, yeah, we're having a baby. It's fucking awesome. Yeah, when?

It's like, aha! During Relay 10, Adina was pregnant, but it was incredibly early. Still in the very much don't tell anyone phase. Right, but I cut your slip. And I was like, I know what's going on here. But we're not going to say anything. I'm not going to ask. It's just,

you're going to be, you're going to tell us when you were ready. Uh, it's great. Also, I feel like, uh, the untold, this is not, I mean, this is true, but it's like, it goes beyond this, but like the, the, uh, Steven taking a month sabbatical, great idea. I'm glad he did it. I do believe was prompted by the idea that, that his co-founder was going to be taking paternity leave, but everybody heard about them in the opposite order. I find that hilarious.

Yeah. So me and Stephen were recording backstage today, which is a membership show. It's like a monthly membership show. And we talk about this of like, it, it wasn't like, oh, hey, if you're going to do this, then I'm going to take time. But it was like for him of like, oh, you know what? I am able to do this, then I'm going to take time. But it was like for him of like, Oh, you know what? I am able to do this. Like, cause the, if Mike is able to take a paternity leave for an extended period of time and that'd be okay. It means that if Stephen wanted to

take leave for some reason he could do. And so he decided to take his sabbatical, but then it's ended up being in the inverse as you say. So yeah, I'm gonna be away from my shows for somewhere between six to eight weeks, probably eight weeks. At some point in February. Great news for all those people who write in when we have a guest host saying the guest host is great and forget about Mike.

Yeah, those people are gonna have a great time. They're gonna be really excited. Oh man, the listenership on Upgrade is to just shoot up for six to eight weeks. Yeah. And then it's going to rocket plummet down to earth in May sometime when all those people's hearts are broken because I returned to the show. You triumphantly return for the for Yep. That's right. That's that's planned for some time in February. Anyway, I don't have any guest host announcements to make yet, but I imagine I'm going to rotate through a bunch of people who have guest hosted on this show before,

and so you could pretty much guess who they are. Steven was a great replacement for you a couple weeks ago. We'll bring Steven into the mix. I think, you know, I think I've asked... Oh, I guess I am naming names. I asked John Syracuse, and he seems up for it. I asked Dan Moran, and he seems up for it. I asked Dan Moran and he seems up for it. We'll mix through and then-

You need reliable podcasters, right? Like that's what you need, you know? Yes, that and also maybe I'll just finally pull the ripcord on the all Kindle episode with Scott McNulty. That'll drive listenship. Jason, do that the week before I come back. So that everyone will be really happy that I've returned. You got it, you got it. Maybe if there's an episode with no ads in it,

we'll just pop that one out right then. I don't know. I guess anyway, congratulations. People are asking that I am going to be away from all of my shows and I'm only pre-recording Cortex. So we're pre-recording a couple of episodes of Cortex cause otherwise the show won't happen. Um, and so we're going to do that. And then other than that, all of my costs to be an incredible and I'm gonna provide me that time off so

Get ready for lots of conversation about baby technology because that's gonna happen I will say send in if you have recommendations for apps or if you have recommendations for baby tech or just general baby Recommendations send them in go to upgradefeedback.com send them in to me I will appreciate it and there will be a whole new realm of content for me to talk about. I will say before people recommend, there is an app that I've had a bunch of recommendations for right now, I think it's called Mango Baby,

and it is made by a solo iOS app developer who's made this app. So I'm really excited to check that one out because that's exactly what I'm looking for because it's like an app that follows all of the iOS conventions. You know, like they're adding the new stuff every year. I want to get the developer's name

because I followed them on Blue Sky today. What does it do? Well, okay. So this is maybe Yee-Lae Yang. And it is one of these. So maybe, you know what, Jason, this obviously wouldn't have been a thing for you. There is a new thing. It seems that people do where they're tracking things that babies do, you know, like, you know, stuff that babies do, you track that stuff and share it with partners and things like

that. We had that too, but it was like on a computer or written down. Back then it was like you could log it on your computer, but now you can have an app for it. Okay. So it's like logging. Yeah. Baby logging. Yeah.

Okay. But this even has like shortcuts, support and widgets and everything. It's exactly what I'm looking for. So I'm looking forward to checking out on that. But I will take any and all recommendations that people have. And I would also like to thank everybody for being so wonderful and congratulating us over the last week. It's been lovely. But now we do have some more follow up iOS 18.2 featuring Apple intelligence features is now available. You've written a couple of posts about this and I just wanted to know because you know,

obviously I've heard about this in the show But I think I would expect that there are more people in the six colors readership than necessarily Upgrade listenership who've maybe tried this out for the first time and I wonder if you've had any specific feedback You know, I'm not hearing a lot about it. I think a lot of people have been on the betas and so they've been trying it out about it. I think a lot of people have been on the betas and so they've been trying it out. Yeah, so I have not. It's been relatively quiet. I think that there's a piece we're going to talk about, a thing that happened that we talked about later that's the most obvious thing that was ever going to happen with this. And we'll get to that. Definitely, it's what you'd expect, where some people are like, this isn't very good. They put in pictures of people they know

and are horrified at the results. Yeah, I've been seeing a lot of that too. I did discover after ignoring it the entire beta that there is this view into creating a generic person. This blew my mind. I saw this in six colors. I had no idea this existed. Yeah.

And it's, I didn't either. And, you know, friend of the show, Griffin from Cult of Mack actually is the one who sent me a note saying, oh, it's actually easy to create fake humans. I was like easy, except that I didn't know it was there. But it's called appearance. It's in the upper left corner of that thing

where it's trying to get you to pick a person you know, not searchable by name, which is very frustrating. I mean, I guess you can try to do it typing it in the prompt, but that doesn't always work. Anyway, you can also choose upper left corner appearance, and then you choose a skin tone and it gives you three buckets that seem to be more female, assorted and neutral gender and more male. And, but each it's random for every generation of sort of like what person gets generated. So you can't like pick a model and say, I want to use this model in a different setting.

You like a model, you can't pick it. It's more like you will get this assortment of generic humans and you can't, you're limited in what you can specify. It's kind of weird, but there is a way to do it. It doesn't work with Image One. So me trying to draw Abe Lincoln and get a generic Abe Lincoln-esque kind of figure

does not work. But it does work for Image Playground. And then for Genmoji, you get to pick which of the emoji people, if you want a generic emoji person, you can pick male, female, or neutral. Yeah. Cause I've, I've made a bunch of those. I actually made a really great gem Moji today of Idina pregnant, which is great, which is very funny. And we found it to be very cute. So like Jen Moji again, I will say is great. Jen Moji is such a good feature. Image playgrounds, not so much.

But we'll talk more about Apple Intelligence in a minute. Last piece of follow up today, MacRumors is reporting via French publication, I Generations, that's how I imagine it's said. By the way, I'm currently listening to the French Revolution series of The Rest is History. Jason, I'm so happy and also sorry that you introduced this podcast

to me. I, uh, you know, when you're on vacation and you get behind on your podcasts, that happened to me and now I'm not catching up on any of them and they're all getting behind because all I'm doing is just mainlining the rest is history. The rest is history. It happens to all of us eventually. Yeah. I apologize. Also, I would like to issue my formal apology to all of the podcasts in the Upgradees category because I think you're going to struggle this year. Probably so. You're going to struggle, but we'll find out. Anyway, Matt Groom is reporting via French publication, iGeneration, that from December

28th, Apple will no longer be selling any iPhone of a lightning connector in the European Union. So this is information that has been passed to Apple retail stores from Apple and it's gotten to iGeneration. This is related to the USBC regulation that passed in 2022, which I believed was only for new models, but it seems that for whatever reason, Apple is applying this. Now, there is a reading of the rules, which is like, you can't make new devices, but you can sell old devices. Maybe they don't have enough. Maybe they just can't in it. But basically this means the iPhone 14, the iPhone 14 plus, the iPhone SE and like Apple keyboard, bunch of stuff won't get updated.

This makes me think maybe this is why the AirPods Max was updated with USB-C. This is why the keyboards and track pads have been updated with USB-C, because they were kittens. It's interesting. It looks like maybe it's arguable, but the reason is when units,

individual units are placed in the market, they must comply, which is, I wonder if this reading changed or if this was always it and we just had best read it, but either way, the idea here is basically like, I think they could import a bunch into the market and dump them, but once the deadline happens, they can't anymore.

They can sell what they've got, but that's it. So it sounds like they're just exercising this, and this was the plan was to just cut it off here and they do have a new iPhone SE coming in the spring and they did replace all of the keyboards and trackpads and mice and so you know here and AirPods and all those things. So here we are. If you enjoy this show you would like Upgrade Plus because you get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week and you have just a couple more days to get 20% off a new

annual membership. Go to getupgradeplus.com and use the code 2024HOLIDAYAN, an annual membership and you'll get 20% off. There will also be a link in the show notes so you can do this, or you can go to giverelay.com to learn more or gift a membership to somebody else. So with Upgrade Plus, you get those longer ad-free versions of the show every week.

You get tons of bonus content. I referenced earlier Backstage. Backstage is a monthly show where me and Steven talk about what's going on behind the scenes at Relay and also answer listener questions that we collect from our Discord, which you also get access to. There's tons of great stuff available at Relay and also answer listener questions that we collect from our Discord, which you also get access to. There's tons of great stuff available for Relay members

that you can get as becoming a member of Upgrade+. You also help support the show, which, for reasons mentioned earlier, I would really love more members. That is my key thing, because membership is reliable income for us. Advertising goes up and down, it's uncertain, but members, one of the things that's incredible

about relay members is they become members and they stay members. Our churn, which is where people leave, is incredibly low. In fact, member four, who we work with, they're always really pleased and surprised about how low our membership churn is. So I appreciate that for our members. So, but what that means,

if you're listening to me is people who become relay members value that membership. It's a good deal for you. So go to getupgradeplus.com use the code 2024 holiday and you will get 20% of an annual membership or you can sign up for a monthly membership at full price. Or if you miss the deal, then you will be able to pay and still get it, but it will be worth it. In upgrade plus this week, we will talk more about my upcoming child, because I think that will be fun for us to talk about in a little bit more detail together today. So getupgradeplus.com. So let's talk about Apple Intelligence and the British broadcasting company, the BBC.

So the BBC have issued a complaint to Apple over an Apple intelligence summary that was shared on social media that shows the BBC news app saying that Luigi Mangione, the man who shot and killed health insurance CEO, Brian Thompson, which I can't believe is the thing we're talking about on this show now. Uh, it said the BBC news app preview said Luigi Mangione has shot himself, which did not happen. No. Now, in the article that I've included, which is the BBC's write up about this, the BBC does not share the actual headline of the article in their story that like was was the

article headline. I would like to know what that was. And I couldn't find it because I was just interested. Like what, what did it say that the AI got mixed up with right? And it might not even be the headline it might be the push notification text right? Yeah that's what it is but like I was I was intrigued what it said just out of like curiosity but it didn't it didn't say that but nevertheless it did do that kind of truncated summary. And this is an exact example of the kinds of things that we knew we were going to see. And it's, I think, pretty problematic for Apple

that it's like the BBC is this company. You know, it's like similarly if it was the New York Times, which I think the New York Times did have one in November, but now it's shipping to everyone. And so as well, the BBC say that Apple declined to comment on this story. Uh, and this is the first in what will be, I'm sure a long list of stories like this. And I am really intrigued to see if Apple says anything or does anything about this. Yeah, it's interesting. Um, I thought, was this not a thing that we predicted? And I actually

looked at our draft of the ages, which were about halfway through. And I predicted actually that Apple would apologize for something generated by AI, which hasn't happened yet. But I mean, give it time. By the way, if things hold now in the draft of the ages is we're about halfway through, it's been looking bad for me. But there's time there's time the upgrade dot cards if you'd like to see the draft in case people are interested it's in there but we're well that's for 600 where we predict the future from 500 and we're only you know 42 in so we've got time left shout out to James Thompson or 42 in yes, what is Apple's policy about commenting on AI generation from their software? Are they going to have a standard boilerplate? Are they going to say nothing?

I mean, this is the BBC like demanding, you know, they are complaining anyway. I don't know if they're demanding an apology, but they're complaining and Apple is declining comments. So I wonder if they're, if they have a strategy, if silence is the strategy, if they're going to come up with boilerplate responses that are just like, you know, you know, from time to time Apple buys companies, it'll be you know, from time to time Apple's AI generation will be, I don't know, something like that. Or, and I do wonder about this, or is there going to be a moment where some executive reads this stuff and says, well, why are we even summarizing that? Or if is there no way for us to back off of summarizing something if we're lower, if we lower our confidence in it, or maybe we shouldn't summarize those news headlines, or I don't know what right like maybe they make a change to kind of reduce their exposure, even if it reduces the utility of this. The problem is these issues are cropping up in all of the summaries, right? Because there's famously that summary about the, uh, the woman who got her mom

sent a text that was like, Oh, I took that hike today almost killed me. And the summary was like, mom attempted suicide or something like that. And it's like, what? So bad. So I don't know. Like the problem is that there are fundamental problems with this technology that it does hallucinate even if you tell it not to. And I don't think the technology exists. Wouldn't it be nice if it did to add like a scrutiny layer that looks at it and says, are we confident that this is something that would happen? Or are we, you know, are there subjects that we're not going to summarize? And what are those words? And then sometimes summaries just because that happens now with some stuff where the I don't know if you noticed this, but there was this one conversation about how certain LLMs wouldn't say certain names.

I don't know if you saw that story. We're like, there are certain names that if, if, if you either mention the name, or if you tried to lead it to say the name, it would cause an error. And they think that this is because these are public figures who either have complained or asked for their name to be stricken, right, you know, right to be forgotten, or they threaten lawsuits. And it's this sort of like exposure of potentially like a blacklist of items. Like it's like we're going to ban all of the mentions of these people. And that would be a path Apple could go down, but it's going to just lead to us seeing the residue of any ban list that Apple makes. Because they're going to be like, oh, no wonder, why didn't this get summarized? Oh, it's about somebody dying or whatever. But I don't have a simple

solution here because I don't think there is a simple solution. It's like you, it's the two-edged sword of using these models is they aren't people. You know, they are, they are LLMs. I wonder in the long run if what Apple might try to do is get more data, which is just off the top of my head. Like I wonder if they could expand the push notification protocol, for example, to add a rich layer of data that was beyond it so that it could actually, like the BBC hands it a more complicated summary that it could use to process to make its own little headline. I don't know what the right answer is here, but I've heard from, like, I still have my summaries on

partially because I write about this stuff, but I totally sympathize with people who've just turned them off because you basically can't trust them. I mean, I mostly use them as at a glance, did something happen. But it's true that then you need to read the individual things, right?

You can't not read the individual things. So like I'm seeing a lot of people online, especially a couple of sky and stuff, like can talk about the story and they say like, nobody's asking for this feature, this summary feature. And I would just be the person who defends it and say, I am asking for it. Like I like the notification summary features. Like I, and I, I feel like I am present in mind enough to be able to

pull these things apart, right, from each other. But what I do do is turn it off for certain applications. If like, for example, podcasts for overcast, I turned it off for overcast because it doesn't make sense for me there. But for like message conversations, I find it to be very useful to get six notifications summarized into one quick sentence. Of course, I'm going to read them anyway, but that's the whole point. Even the notification of a message, you see the notification in its full text,

you still go to the message and read it again, because that's just how we deal with notifications. You're just thinking about them differently. I think that it's great that Apple offers the ability for you to opt in and out or opt into everything and then opt out certain applications. You the ones that work for you but there's certain types of apps where they send notifications frequently and all you really need is a quick glance at what these things are and I find it to be personally I find it to be a very useful thing but I know why people don't like it but I think you can kind of exert your own control over it a little bit and just have the types of apps that you want rather than everything.

But I do think that there is a lot of utility in this feature. Part of my frustration is that some of the stuff I hoped it would do, it doesn't do. Like it will coalesce, yeah, it'll coalesce headlines and stuff like that. But the one that I really hoped it would do, and this is, I wrote a piece about this at Macworld, is I wanted to do a better job processing message notifications. Because you know, you get a chat in messages

like a group thread just pop off. And that's where I want summaries, right? That's where I want summaries, right? That's where I want my family chat, that's Lauren's whole family, and there's 18 messages. That's where I want a good summary. But it doesn't do it. Like, instead what I get is every individual message, but then I look at the notification and I get a summary. And it's like, I want this stuff to be more intelligent. I want this stuff, especially for something like messages, to be, oh, or any app that's spamming you.

Like, I feel like it does a good job with, with my camera notifications, right? But I've not been able to experience this with messages where what I really want is, I want it to be like, oh, it looks like this thread is popping off. I'm going to not bug you about it. and just put a thing, give you a notification that says this thread is popping off and it's about this. And it's not subtle enough to do that. It's not smart enough to do that.

And so like, I see a lot of utility in doing this, a lot of utility in silencing things and summarizing them. But, and maybe it's just my settings, but like the one place where I wanted to see it, which was in that family chat, where like there's nothing and then suddenly there's 20 messages. And in most places I've muted it because I just can't.

But even then when I go to my lock screen, I get there were 17 messages and not a summary. I don't know what's going on there. But yeah, I agree with you. I think that this is a feature that has a lot of potential. were 17 messages and not a summary. I don't know what's going on there. But yeah, I agree with you. I think that this is a feature that has a lot of potential. I just don't know how you handle the downside of this in a way, if you're Apple, that, do you just say nothing

and say like from time to time, the headlines in your news headline summary are going to be wrong? I just, I don't know. Like this is like a microcosm of the problems that Apple intelligence has at large, which is there is promise here, but you may turn people off of it because you didn't implement it fully enough with the first version. And like, and I also think of like, that's the danger series, not smart or in any possible way, but they tried to make you believe that it is, but it isn't right.

And like, so I worry that, that in doing all of this and doing it the way that they have done it with the rollout that they have done, that they have ended up harming themselves for later on. But maybe this is the only way you can do something like this because you have to learn from it. I don't know. I will say before we move on from this, do yourself a favor and just turn off notifications for news apps.

Like I just say this to everyone in the world. You do not need push notifications for your favorite news service. In my opinion, like go to the news when you want it. The news doesn't have to come to you. Yes. Yes. Although again, I would say there is a revamped notification system here that would allow you to set your notification

for your news to be whenever you glance there's a news summary, but that it doesn't, certainly I think that pushing headlines to you is something you shouldn't do. I think notification center is not a great place for news, just in general, no matter how you do it, in my opinion. I agree. Other people obviously disagree, and they

want to get their breaking news there. I think the problem also is that once a news organization has you, they're going to push notification you to death. Here's the issue. There is no such thing as breaking news anymore. Every piece of new information is considered to be breaking news. Breaking news used to mean something serious is going on, but now everything is breaking.

Because the term breaking has lost, it's actually been reduced to its actual meaning, which is here's some new information, but that is not what we thought it was. Yeah, it's coming over the wire right now. Yeah, so. Absolutely. No, you've got it. And also there's just a structural, right now. Yeah. So absolutely. No, you, you, you've got it. And also there's just a structural, if you can talk somebody like, even if you are a very important news organization and you say, look, we have lots of different notifications you can get from our

app, but one of them is high priority. It's only the most important things. I'll guarantee it. Somebody's going to look at the metrics and say, too many people have signed up for this thing. There's so many people there. We really need to promote this puzzle that we did today. Or we really need to promote this recipe that we did today. And yeah, somebody in their editorial group or their tech group can say, no, we said that this would only be the most important stuff. But I can, I will guarantee you there will be somebody who's got revenue attached to their, their compensation, who will override them and force those things into the push notification. So you can't win. You can't win. past, we have tracked Tim Cook's movements across the world. Mm. Yes. So I want to talk about where's Tim, because I think something's going on, Jason. Oh, interesting. Intriguing. I think something's happening. So last week on the 11th... Where in the world is Tim San Diego?

There you go. Last Wednesday, an article went up on the UK Apple newsroom, right? I think it's just on the UK Apple newsroom. Apple expands UK investment and doubles local engineering teams. This is, all respect to the people that put this together, an absolute puff piece where all it's doing is talking about Apple's investments over time. Like it's not announcing for what I could say. Like it's not like, oh, hey, we're about to double it.

It's like- Just breaking news. Breaking news. To your point about what things aren't breaking news. It begins, Apple today announced today, there's your news angle, it's investment in the United Kingdom has grown to exceed 18 billion pounds over the past five years.

We announced today that we did a thing before. And its engineering teams have doubled during that time, yes. Apple today announced that it's been a good five years. Yeah. Where I also think it's not that they have necessarily employed new people, because they basically made Battersea the European headquarters, so I actually think they consolidated some roles into London that maybe weren't there before. But so this went up and I

was like, hang on a minute, something's going on here. Because it just felt like a weird thing. I was expecting Apple trying to leverage something in the UK. And then Kirstama, our Prime Minister, post a picture with Tim Cook sitting together. They're talking for some reason. The Prime Minister is advertising Apple intelligence to people as he says. Good to meet Tim Cook. Apple's investment in the UK and the rollout of Apple intelligence is testament to our world-leading tech sector, which I think is hilarious because it's got literally nothing to do with us, but Kirsten is taking credit

for Apple intelligence. Just be sure mention Apple intelligence. So that's happened, right? And then, so then I'm like, oh. Mike, Mike, the subtext there is it's not launching in Europe, right? That is a labor prime minister making hay with a Brexit thing. Right. But it is true. It's like, look at us though. We've got it. And does the EU have it yet? No, because we are- That's a good point. Yep.

... a lawless, you know, outside the realm. We're more like the US, basically, is what he's saying there. But fair enough. And so when I saw this, I'm like, oh, here we go. Something's happening. Because one of the pillars of the Labour government is they are trying to get business to invest back in the UK. It's like part of trying to drive our economy. And I was talking to Stephen and Federico about this

because I was like trying to piece this together. I felt like Charlie from Always Sunny, right? With the string on the wall. And Federico said something that I thought was really interesting. And he's like, I bet there's gonna be an announcement of a data center in the UK. And I think something like that might be coming, that some infrastructure product project is going to be announced here.

Now, wait a second. Were you talking to Stephen and Federico on Wednesday when you were recording Connected? Is that when you were talking to them? Yes. Because the next day, what happened? The king. The king. Yeah, I mean, just starting a sentence that way. The storm clouds of war. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We love the king. We love, we love a king here on the Upgrade program. We love to hear about a king. This is, again, in the context of Mike's yarn diagram, we've

reached the point where the king appears. The king of England appears in the United Kingdom because it's United England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, yada, yada, yada. But you get me. Charles the third appears with who? With Tim Cook So this is so this is where it continues for me where this visit Appears to be like hey so like the royal family is like hey the king is at Battersea today and He is visiting with some local businesses that have set up this market

and he's also going to meet Apple and Apple have put on the biggest show they got all the employees in the hallways he's meeting with people they unveil this plaque that commemorates the King's visit Jason something's going on and I don't know what it is, but like something has happened or is happening. I am convinced of this that like all of these things mean something. I just don't know what they are because this was an awful lot of stuff to occur right in a couple of day period because Tim makes visits here all the time. He's always doing

things. We've made fun of it in the past. He doesn't typically meet with the two most powerful people in this country within a 24 hour timeframe. And that is what's happened. So something's going on. Something is going on or it's the we need to maybe it's like the UK. We want them to not have a not pass something that affects us. Yeah. Or we want to we want them to not have a, not pass something that affects us, or we want to, we're gonna give them another investment and make an announcement so it's seem, right? It's the politics too. It's like, it makes it seem like a win

that Apple is a friend of the UK, that it's not a scary big tech company, that Keir Starmer could be like, yay, investment. And by the way, Apple intelligence, like it's all part of that game. But I don't believe Ke game gets that photo, right? With that, like there's something's going on. And it might not be that they make some big announcement,

but like I see this and I'm like, something is happening between Apple and the United Kingdom, which I mean, I don't mind. I'm happy about that. Like I want investment in my country. We need it. And so this is great. Then Tim Quakes takes quite the detour and he's dying. Madonna Trump at Mar-a-Lago the next day is reported that he's gone to Mar-a-Lago and I'll say I

said this on the show before right. Like I've seen this. We've had some people write into us and they're like, what does this mean? Look, look, we've been here before. All right. We have. He has to do this. And like, I understand that you don't like it, but Americans, he's going to be your president in like a month. Tim has to have a relationship with him. Like I love the idea personally of Tim Cook deciding to shun Donald Trump. I think that's so fun.

Right. That would be great. But then what happens to all of Tim's employees? The thousands and thousands of people that he is responsible for. The company gets harmed and then Tim Cook is replaced by the board is what will happen, right? And that's the truth is I know people,

it's very easy for people to be like, well, if I were CEO of Apple, I wouldn't meet with Donald Trump. It's like, well, okay. Well then you wouldn't be CEO of Apple for very long. You wouldn't be CEO of Apple for very long. You wouldn't be CEO of Apple for very long. And that's Tim Cook's other option here is just to quit.

I mean, that's his other option, but the next CEO will need to do it too. And as we know from what happened, during the first Trump administration is, they're playing the game, it's uncomfortable, but it ends up being a way for Apple to navigate treacherous waters and maybe get relief from tariffs or other sanctions

to be viewed as an ally in terms of being a conduit to China, to being supportive of Taiwan, to maybe building up chip infrastructure in the US, right? Which is, because that's part of the story too, is things like Trump administration pretty bellicose about China, but like the Chips Act and TSMC building a factory in Arizona and like to build chips for Apple.

This is all part of this global kind of thing. And if you can also give Trump a mess, a win in saying, look at Apple doing things in America, even though Apple's still also doing lots of things, not in America, uh, you, you, you go by and like that's, that's like, again, he's the CEO of a giant company. This is, this is a corollary. And I know we've talked about this before, but it's a corollary to that whole thing about Apple

is also not a charity. Apple is a profit-making company, publicly owned. It is all those things. The job of the CEO, this is the fiduciary responsibility. The CEO is to do stuff like this. And I think Tim Cook has shown that he has actually proved to be a skilled diplomat who gets what he needs and gives what he needs to to get it

without completely selling out. And that is just the, he is navigating some treacherous waters. That is the storm clouds are gathering, Mike, is what I'm saying. And Tim Cook is getting his, what are they called? What are rain boots called in Britain?

He's getting his wellies on. Yeah. And, uh, he's got his, he's got his umbrella out. He's got his Brawley out. I mean, look as well, it seems like. Trump is calling all the CEOs cause there's been like, I think Zuckerberg was there, Sundar was there, like he's calling them all in and they're meeting with him and talking about whatever it is they're talking about. But this is the way it

has to go. Like if this is the scenario, there is no other way to deal with it, right? You can't ignore him. It's just you're the CEO of a company, this is what you have to do. And again, yes, it's diplomacy and trying to, you know, trying to make a deal. I mean, that's the funny thing about this is Trump, you know, Trump is a deal guy. That's his whole thing. Like talking to businessmen, first off, he loves it.

He loves talking to businessmen because he's rubbing shoulders with legitimate businessmen. And he feels like that makes him look good. It's like, this is what's great about America is we got all these CEOs and we got all these big companies. Their skepticism about big tech that they've had is a threat, but at the same time, as I said a few weeks ago,

also, these are huge American companies. And so there's that aspect of it, which is this is American power extended around the world. And that is a thing that I think as a US president, you have to view positively. So all of these CEOs just have to navigate all of this. And it's, do you think, I'll say this, I am sure that there are some of these CEOs

who don't mind it. And I'm sure there are some of these CEOs who don't like it. And in fact, I will say, knowing what I know about Tim Cook's background, I don't think he likes it, but I think he knows he has to do it. And I think he's good at it. And I think that that's actually important is if you can be seen by the President of the United States as to be in this case, but thinking back to 2016 to 2020 as well, as an ally, as somebody you can do business with,

as somebody who has connections in places like in China that are useful, right? Like that's a good place to be, is to be in that position and not be adversarial. And, you know, does, does, does Trump know that Tim Cook disagrees with him about lots of stuff? Of course he does. But when it comes to money and business and maybe international stuff, if you can be seen as somebody who is, you know, not an adversary, then is, you know, not an adversary, then you're gonna, you're gonna be better off. And that's what that's the game Tim Cook has played before and is playing again. Now, I don't know exactly what that means about the king and Keir Starmer.

That is still a mystery to be unraveled by Mike Hurley, official UK yarn correspondent. But on the ground, well, well, he's on the ground. Well, he's on the ground. Well, he's ony's on the ground. Welly's on the ground. Welly's on the ground on this one. But yeah, I'm convinced something's happening here. I just don't know what it is yet. But as soon as I find out, I'll follow up on the show. Okay.

By the way, the tip line is open. Upgradefeedback.com. You can send in your anonymous tips. We did break some news retroactively last week. Yes, that was pretty fun. Just as an aside, we were a footnote in a Daring Fireball article that mentioned an anonymous thing we got about, which we had forgotten about from several years ago

about how the M4 or M5 Ultras weren't going to happen because they had already moved on. And this happened two years ago. But John remembered and found our transcript from David Smith's pod search transcripts and posted it. And it was just a hilarious moment of upgrade. Just we're breaking news left and right this, this, this month. It's amazing. So send those anonymous tips in the anonymous tip line is open. If you so happen to hear the king and Tim discusses something, you let me know.

You let me know. Oh, oh, man. Can you imagine? It's like I am I am within the government and I like the anonymous Westminster informant who's like, here's what Keir Starmer is up to. Yep. Oh, love it. Can't wait. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace, the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Mark Stahl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mark Gurman. Yeah. Yeah. I watched a Western movie yesterday. And so I'm really feeling the roundup part of it, just because I was in that mood. By the way, as an aside, one of the, as it came up,

the warning label on it was, rated R, Western violence. And Lauren and I, because my immediate comment was, oh, my favorite kind of violence. And Lauren and I discussed what other directional violence we preferred. She said she preferred Southern violence, like angry penguins. And I said, my second favorite after Western violence

is North Northwestern violence, because that's somebody trying to kill you with an airplane. Okay I like that. I like that. Well maybe it was rated R for Roundup. Did you consider that? Oh for rumor Roundup. Rated R. Rated double R for rumor Roundup. Mark Gurman has shared some details on where Apple currently stands on foldable devices. So it appears that right now that the device that one of the devices that Apple is working on would be an iPad that when it's unfolded would be about the size of two iPad pros side by side. I'm assuming 11 inch iPad pros is what he's talking about. It looks like this project is targeted for release in 2028.

As you can imagine, Apple's designers are working very hard to minimize screen creases. And apparently, this is something they've had some breakthroughs in. And Mark shares that Mark shares that he is unsure which OS would run on this device. So this feels I'm not sure what I think about this. Okay. I want to read this paragraph. Okay, because this is the paragraph. So Sunday morning comes, and I made a mistake of launching social media before I launched my RSS reader on Sunday morning.

And so I was spoiled about Power On, which is funny, because I was like, oh boy, what is Mark Gurman up to now? But this is the, as I read it, this is the paragraph that blew my mind. It's not yet clear what operating system the Apple computer will run. Okay, that's right.

So it's like an iPad, but is it an iPad? If he's not sure what operating system, but my guess is that it will be iPadOS or a variant of it. Well, that's interesting, right? Is there something that is an iPadOS, but is like iPadOS that runs only on this device? Still a mystery.

He continues, I don't believe it will be a true iPad, Mac hybrid, comma, but the device will have elements of both. What does that mean? Does that mean it'll have like different ports? Is it a Mac or does he truly, as he says, it's not yet clear, which is a very passive statement of I don't know, right? Because what he really is saying there is I don't know. But it will have elements of both. What does that mean? He continues, by the

time 2028 rolls around, iPad OS should be advanced enough to run macOS apps. To run macOS apps, what? What? Is that just an aside of like, oh, by 2028, iPadOS will just run macOS apps? Or what does it mean? I mean, I could argue that it's advanced enough to run macOS apps now, it just doesn't.

But by 2028 will be even more, he continues, but it also makes sense to support iPad accessories like the Apple Pencil, which sure, if you've got a giant screen like that, you'd want to use the Apple Pencil on it. I don't know what any of this means. It sounds like what he's saying is it could be an iPad, it could be a Mac, it could be some other variant of it. I think it'll be an iPad or some other variant of it. I don't think it'll be a hybrid, but by 2028, iPad OS should be able to run Mac OS apps. Should, I mean, they should be able to run them now, but they don't. But by 2028, the advancements will have

happened so that they will be able to, Mike, I don't know what this product is. And the problem is I think Mark Gurman doesn't know either. No, surely doesn't. Because I think this is literally, not to jump ahead, but I think this is literally the same device that was rumored to be a, jump ahead, but I think this is literally the same device that was rumored to be a a laptop foldable that we reported about where we felt baffled about how it could be a Mac given what it was. And I would say the same about this prediction, the idea that there is a giant iPad like thing that you fold out. That's fine.

But I, I, I find it funny that Mark German is sort of like saying it could be anything. Essentially, he wants to say it's an iPad. He says it's iPad-like or it's basically an iPad, but that one paragraph is so full of doubt. It's like, could be an iPad, could be a Mac, could be a hybrid, could be an iPad that runs mac OS apps. I don't know. Probably has Apple Pencil support. And I share his confusion about what this product is because I am also unclear about it. Is it just a giant, unfoldable iPad

or is there more to it than that? Can you attach a keyboard to it and have it be a Mac? Or is it just a big iPad? Does it have a kickstand? How does it stand up? Like, I don't know. I don't know. It's a real mystery here. Aaron Tilley and Yang Jia at the Wall Street Journal have also published a report about Apple's foldable ambitions. They also talk about a 19-inch folding screen, which they

reference would be, quote, intended to serve as a laptop. What is this computer? What is this? What, why, as a laptop, what does that mean? You use the bottom half of the screen as a laptop or not? Cause Mark talks about it. Well, it folds, right? So it could fold to laptop shape, couldn't it?

Sure. And then you could also open it up, which is why, you know, as a convertible, it seems interesting. Like, look, I have said for a while now that I want Apple to try bizarre shapes of computers, right? Almost a form factor, which I don't like saying. Ah, you know, I wrote form factor twice in the document and deleted it today.

But I want weird computers. I want Apple to try weird computers. I do, I do. And this is super weird, right? Like what is it? And I'm sure that if they come out with this thing, it's gonna have a whole line of accessories and they're gonna be like,

this is how we expect you to use it like this and all of that. But like, I love the idea that they seem to be making a convertible essentially. It's something that could be used as a laptop, used as a big screen. Is it an iPad? Is it a Mac?

Not even Mark Gurman knows for sure. Maybe it's both. Maybe this is the moment, you know, sometimes Apple likes to roll out major new features attached to hardware, right? So the idea is we're gonna hold on to trackpad support on iPad until the Magic Keyboard comes out. Cause then it's got a trackpad.

And now everybody can use trackpads and you can pair external ones and whatever. But like we didn't we don't roll it out until we've got that thing. I think that's the thing Apple does. So is this the moment that Apple says, oh, yeah, you can run Mac OS or Mac OS apps on iPad OS. Is this product? Do they are they are they targeting this in twenty twenty eight? I don't know. But I like as a laptop, it doesn't make as much sense to me. That seems really weird. But I don't know. I don't know what this product is. But I love that it's out here.

Well, this is the issue sometimes with and I don't think his fault is this sometimes the issue of Mark Gurman's reporting because he is so well-sourced right obviously clearly He is the sheriff right like he is The top game in town. Yeah, he doesn't have vision into this necessarily or his people don't know But what the point what I'm saying is we don't know right like is this comment should be able to run Right? Like is this comment should be able to run Mac OS apps? Is that his opinion or is that something he knows? Like that's always the problem with this stuff, right? But that is the fun in it too. That reads like knowledge to me, right? It reads like he knows something about iPad OS

in 2028 being advanced enough to run Mac OS apps. 2028 is quite specific, but I will go back to 2028 is when he's saying this product will come out. Right. And I don't think he's written a story. And if this was more, he would have a story about it that Apple has a plan to run Mac OS apps inside iPad OS apps. And he hasn't reported that, I don't think.

Well, this might be his March report for WWDC, right? That he does, you know, he always had that big report at some point where he's like, all right, here's what's coming. And like this maybe isn't, if he does know this, this isn't enough to do that whole report yet maybe, or maybe he's not well enough source to put it on Bloomberg. If you reverse engineer this though, it's also possible that there is a project inside Apple that he knows about that lets iPadOS run Mac apps. It certainly exists.

Well, but here's the thing. So he's talked to somebody and they're like, yeah, we've got that running, you know, it's probably going to ship in the next couple of years, but it's also possible that they're just going to pull the plug and never ship it because it's very controversial on the inside and we're trying it out But we don't know and that that kind of non-committal information This is the sort of way that it would get presented right if I'm gonna reverse engineer Which is you say it should be you know that there's something going on that if they want but there's a question of will Like will they do it it'll be there if they want it to be there, but it might not be there

I do I really do wonder about that because that there if they want it to be there, but it might not be there. I do, I really do wonder about that because that is quite a little bomb to drop like that. And I think the reason that's not another story is largely because he doesn't know. And this is how that that comes out is this, this whole paragraph is like Mark Gurman sort of trying to get at what he, the uncertainty that he's hearing about what's going on here and what he doesn't know about. But it's fascinating to see that because,

I mean, his sources are great, which the truth is this is a product that we're talking about that's four years out. So there's a lot of vagueness about it, right? There's a lot of vagueness about it. That was the biggest disappointment to me in this report is that's a long way away. That's a really of vagueness about it, right? There's a lot of vagueness about it. That was the biggest disappointment to me in this report is that's a long way away. That's a really long way away still.

And I understand, you know, like this is, if they do this and they do it right, it could be pretty amazing. And so I do want them to get it right, but that's a long way, especially when Mark also talks in this report that Apple is exploring a foldable iPhone, which he wouldn't expect to see until 2026. And like if they do actually release a foldable

iPhone in 26, which I also think is too far away, but nevertheless, it would be even worse that we don't get this iPad Mac thing until 28, right? Like you got like another two years after foldables begin. And I'll also say that the Wall Street Journal report also talks about the iPhone and says that the plan Apple has right now is that it is an iPhone that folds inward. So kind of think more like Z Flip with a display that would be bigger than a 16 Pro Max. I don't know. I don't know about that. Don't know about that. Are they going to put a display on the outside? I hope so, but I don't know. They reference in the article

that it's considered, but maybe not decided upon. I don't know. We'll see. Additionally, in the Wall Street Journal report by Aaron and Yang, in this report, they also talk about the iPhone 17 Air, that it will be quote, ultra thin with a simplified camera system with a starting price lower than the pro phones which is not where I think we thought that this would go. It's literally the replacement for the plus yeah even in terms of the price slot. Yeah. Sounds like. I think I'm kind of happy to hear this because I don't think this is the phone for me. It will be really interesting, but you know, my concern was like if they, if they really went all out with it, they could

maybe try and make up for some of the things that it's going to lose. Um, but I don't think I would want to simplify camera system and what would definitely be worse battery life than the phone that I currently have just because it's thin, you know? Yeah. But I do still support this idea because this sounds to be potentially a more compelling product than the Plus Phone because at least it's doing something different. It has a point of view. And you can see people opting for it instead of the 17.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, because it's really thin and something else, you know, shiny. Yeah. Going back to Mark Gurman, he reported in Power On that Apple is redesigning the magic mouse saying that they are aiming to devise something that better fits the modern era and that Apple is looking to create something more relevant while also

fixing longstanding complaints. Of course, the way it is charged. Uh, I find this interesting because I just just I think we spoke about this on the show before. I just assumed that the magic mouse would just go away and that was the end of Apple's time with mice. Well, your anti mouse sentiments are not shared at Apple right now. Right. But the thing is that good mice like the Logitech MX Master 3S that I use right now, they are best when they are most ergonomic. And the style of ergonomic design

that I think is required for mice is not really Apple's style. Okay, let me paint you a picture because I was thinking about this too. And I think this also goes back to our previous statement about USBC in the EU that like everybody got all upset that the magic mouse didn't change. But that was that was a port swap. That's all they were trying to do there. They weren't trying to redesign that thing. And and they haven't. And that's fine. Here's let me paint my word picture for you here, which is the last two times I've had a briefing

about AirPods, Apple has boasted about all the work they've done to get biometric data about people's ears so that they can fit, they can build this design that is kind of, if you look at, have you ever really looked at an AirPod, Mike, they look kind of weird? They look kind of weird. That's not true, I think. They look kind of weird.

And the reason they look weird is they're trying to create a shape that is kind of conducive to the most ear shapes around in the world of people. And they've said like their first thing was an one size fits all that was like just round and they realized that didn't fit a lot of ears. So they made shape changes and then they did it again with this latest version. They said that they changed the shape again based on even more data. I asked them about this because I thought it was compelling the first time when they said, you know, I got the sense they didn't say this, but I really got the sense that

they had just used it. People at Apple had used it and we were like, yes, it feels good. And that in the world, people's ears are not like being represented inside Apple. Like that there's a broader range of ear shapes out there. I say all of this to say I could totally see Apple do a new mouse that shaped a little weird that Apple thinks is like the best ergonomics for the. Apple thinks is like the best ergonomics for the widest range of people, which is not to say it will be like a very specific niche ergonomic mouse, but that they will boast about the ergonomics and the research they did. And German suggests this when he talks about it being ergonomic and that, and that they

will, but it'll be like AirPods. Not everybody's going to like it, but it will be something that they'll be able to claim is going to be better for mouse users in general. I could totally see them doing that. A thing that's sort of like a mouse, but shaped a little bit strangely, you grip it a little bit weirdly, but it's more modern. I mean, they want it to be stylish,

but they also want it to be, be able to make some ergonomic claims. I totally can see that story being one that they would tell. And finally, Apple has made progress on the hypertension detection for the Apple Watch. So rather than a system that would be able to give you a blood pressure reading on demand, say like the ECG on the Apple Watch, this system would warn you of hypertension, which is a state of abnormally high blood pressure and encourage you to have a traditional blood pressure test.

So this would be more of a warning thing, like the sinus, like, so you know, you've got like a heart event, or if you have sleep apnea, you know, like the system can be like, hey, you should take a look at this, and then go and get an actual blood pressure test done. But yeah, another thing that could potentially be coming to the Apple Watch in

the near future, they've made some advancements on it. So let's do a very quick details, Jason. We don't have anything to say on this, but as we are recording iOS 18.3 is out. It never ends. iOS 18.3 is out now. I am installing it as we speak. Maybe we'll have something to talk. Well, we will be able to, we'll be talking about this, I don't know, late, probably next year now, right? Because I guess this is something we're saying.

Next week is the holiday special. Then it's the Upgradees, and then we'll be back to regular schedule programming in January. January 6th. But I'm expecting in point three, more Apple intelligence stuff would be the expectation. So we'll see.

Here's my guess. I haven't gotten any briefings from this, from Apple about this. Which leads me to believe that maybe it doesn't have any major Apple intelligence features, or at least not yet. Cause that's the other thing they could do. They could roll that out in a later beta.

I think maybe they just wanted to get this beta out the door to start the beta process. But look, everybody's going to be going on vacation and and stuff at Apple to for the holiday break. Yeah, so I think I think this might be more placeholdery than that, but we'll see. And we will catch you up if there's anything to be caught up in January. This episode is brought to you by our friends at FitBod.

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Choo-choo-choo-choo. Ooh, dramatic, I loved it. Will says, I loved hearing about Jason's recent switch to an all laptop lifestyle, and I'm curious if and how this could impact backups. Obviously iCloud backups would work, but do you use Time Machine or Super Duper or Backblazer and everything like that?

And does the machine not being always turned on and plugged in to an external storage limit the usefulness of these backups? Still working on it, but I use Time Machine to my server. And that happens whether it's awake or not. So that one's fine. I have been using carbon copy cloner and that will probably continue because what I do is I have it attached and then at a time during the day it clones and then it ejects the disc basically just unmounts the disc.

Uh, So I figured that unless I happen to pull it the computer off in the middle of a clone, it will continue to do that. I probably will position a different disk at both places I work, so that I've got two clones going on. But I haven't figured that one out quite yet, but yeah, that will be the end result is that in addition to Time Machine and I have Backblaze running on my server but not on my actual computer, but I do have backing up the files on my server. So that's the answer is Time Machine plus the clone. Does that back up machine on the server to back place?

Does that work? I don't know. I should check. That could be interesting. That one's a mystery. Also, by the way, yes, for those who are asking, I am on the Macbook Pro docked at my desk in the garage right now.

How are you feeling about it so far? I am learning about all of the edge cases like this question from Will that now come up where like here's an example I do podcasts in both places I have different microphones in both places right well audio hijack doesn't like that doesn't like that audio hijack doesn't have the ability to say it use this microphone or if not use this microphone. And you can put two microphones in there, but then it throws an error every time you start saying, I, one of the microphones isn't there. And I don't want to do that.

So I have had to struggle with like all of these little details of how does this work and when does the power shut off and all that stuff. Because you could set it as default audio input, but then you've got to trust Mac OS to set it correctly, which I would not. And it's not going to change my default audio input from one microphone to another. It's not going to do that.

And also, there's output, right? Because I also listen. And this is a detail that I think a lot of people miss is I Listen to our conversation and headphones attached to my interface because I can also hear my own voice and that's very important I don't use these headphones to listen to any other sound on my system So I can't set my default audio output to my USB interface That doesn't make any sense and I'm not moving all of my microphones from room to room. That's stupid. I would never do that. The whole point here is just the laptop. And I have the two setups, I don't need to move my microphones, I have the two

setups. So ends up being things like, what I realized is I have two different stream decks and stream decks don't sync. sync. And so I just have the button. I actually I found a I found a shell script that you can run that will list all of your USB devices that are attached to your system. And so my shortcuts have been amended to basically say, if this one is there, this is the name of the audio hijack session to run. And if this other one is there, run this other audio hijack session. You would have set for set like audio hijack setups. I was thinking I could have different automations on my buttons on my stream deck.

But I what I decided to do actually is just have duplicates of my audio hijack setup set to the different input devices. And then the shortcut that I that fires when I press record sees which mic is attached and runs the appropriate thing. Now I also did a feature request to Rogamiba saying, you should probably have like a chain of input devices that are allowed. So it's like use A and if A is not there, use B. And then if you can't find one, then give me that error

that you like to give me that you can't find one, then give me that error that you like to give me that you can't find it. That would be nice, but I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna wait for that. So that, but this is my point is it's stuff like this now that are coming up, which is it's the, Oh, I can move my computer between setups, but the, the, the accessories are different. The setup is a little different. How do I deal with that? That's the stuff I'm grappling with now. But otherwise, I mean, it's been pretty great.

I mean, the nice thing is I add things on the computer in the back and then I move the computer out here and it's the same computer. So all those things are still there. That is fantastic. But there's a lot more yet to do, I guess I would say. I just use Backblaze and don't think about it. That's me.

Oh yeah, in terms of backup, sure. I just don't wanna, I mean, I'm not sure I need to do that. All my super important stuff is backed up so many different ways now, including from the server via Backblaze, that that's what I am doing. But I don't just I've got my time machine and I've got my clones and I'm happy with that. Well my weird thing is Backblaze and Dropbox because I saved

literally every file in Dropbox and so almost everything that I have is either in Dropbox or iCloud it really is just the like the clones are really there and even the time machine they're really there for a quick, for convenience sake. Time machine is there so I can roll back to a file earlier like yesterday if I make a mistake. And the clone is there, in fact, to get to this computer state now, my migration from the Mac Studio stalled out.

But my migration from the clone did not. So I just used the clone of my Mac Studio stalled out. But my migration from the clone did not. So I just used the clone of my Mac Studio to migrate to the new laptop. So it's like, for convenience sake, more than anything else. So I can save all my preferences and stuff like that. But my important files are in the cloud somewhere, probably in multiple places, plus in multiple backups, et cetera, et cetera. in the cloud somewhere probably in multiple places plus in multiple backups etc etc. And I do also I mean I do also have a time machine drive attached to the computer that I'm talking to you from right now.

And so even though I so it's like I save everything in Dropbox so Dropbox is on backups and then Backblaze is backing up my Dropbox and then I have Time Machine also backing up. So it's distributed in a way, so I have it if I ever need it. Eric says, if either of you were offered a job at Apple doing what you do best and didn't have to move, would you take it? You'd have to give up your current businesses and go radio silent as a public person on the Internet.

This is just a version of that Dodgers question, honestly, which is if they paid you, would you be a Dodger fan? It's like, everybody's got a price. I will also say that several of my colleagues at Macworld over the years went to Apple and went radio silent, at least on, you actually don't go radio silent as a public person, but you do go radio silent for technology and things, right? Like, I mean, that's gotten better over time. Like

it used to be like, no, you never speak. You don't speak anymore. That's right. It is, it's better than it was, but it's still true that you're giving all that up. Like Chris Breen, who just retired, but he went to Apple and it was like, that's it. Composer of the upgrade theme music, all of our music, Chris Breen's. Exactly. Originals. And he could still do that. Mm-hmm.

But he had to, he was a person on the internet who had opinions about tech, and all of that he set aside to go work inside of Apple. And that's, what I would say is, everybody's got a price. I don't know what my price would be to give it all up and go on the inside. It would probably be pretty high because I feel like once I give it all up, there's no going back. At least not easily because the damage will be done. I'll have to shut everything down. So it would have to be a lot. And I was thinking about this

because there's a story that I'm sure I've told before I might have even told it on Free agents podcast back in the day But I'll just I'll do a quick version of it here, which is early on in my career as an independent a friend of mine used to work at Amazon and he Was pitching them on a job where they would get an editorial. He was a designer on the homepage of Amazon. And he said, we need editorial for the homepage of Amazon. We need somebody who is looking at what we're doing from an editorial and

content standpoint to manage it. And I know just the guy. and that was me. And he set it up, and Amazon recruiters, like, set up a flight to Seattle and for me to be interviewed and all of these things. And the day before the flight, they contacted me and said, we've decided not to do this. I was like, that's fine. Like, okay.

Very funny that you got to this point and then decided it. But I think they rethought it or some inter I don't know what the internal politics of it are But I was willing to talk to them because Amazon and that sounds like a huge interesting job And it was early on in my time. But here's the thing One of the things I had to do in that period where there were while I was being an independent there were also people coming to me with job offers and

I kept thinking, you know, I'm new to this. Is this gonna last? Am I gonna be able to make a living? At the very least, I need to listen to the job offers. But I had been doing it long enough that I knew how much money I was making and that I had basically replaced my income from IDG. And I was happy doing it. And it looked like this business was solid.

And so I started to think of what they would have to pay me. I actually, because I say everybody's got a price, I started to think what would you have to pay me for me to, as Eric's scenario suggests, to stay at my house but work somewhere else. And do I have to commute like to Apple? You know, do I have to go ride on a bus for an hour and a half every day and each way? Like, right? Like that's part of it too.

So do I work from home? Do I have to commute? Do I have to move? Do I have to move out of the region? These are all, they all change the price, right? But what I realized, the most important insight of that Amazon thing is that I started to think like,

if they offer me this job, what would it take for me to move to Seattle and drop all my stuff and just do this job? And it was a great exercise, because I looked at what I make and I look at our life and I look at, at the time it was like, and my kids and all of that. And I realized that it was, the amount of money people would need to pay me

in order to stop what I'm doing, which I like, and when it's just working perfectly fine, to do something else is always going to be more than anybody should pay me. If that makes any sense. The amount of money you would need to pay me to stop doing what I'm doing is not money you should pay me because I'm not worth it, right?

Like it would need to be in the scenario of what if they paid you $150 million to be a Dodger fan? It's a fun thing to think about, but in reality, anybody who would be willing to pay that to me is not thinking straight, right? Like it doesn't make sense. And it's mostly about me. Now, if my business was falling apart

and I didn't have enough money to support myself and somebody, well, obviously my price is lower than, but currently, and certainly was the case when I was a year in or whatever, it was just a fun realization. So everybody does have a price, but I would say, I don't expect anybody, this is why I've stopped thinking about it at all, is this is the true reason why I'm unhireable now.

Not only have I done 10 years of being my own boss, which like, I'm not, I'm sorry, I'm not receptive to not being in charge at this point. That's just the truth of it is I have my opinions and, and, and I collaborate with people all the time. We do it here, but like to just go and be a cog in the corporate wheel at this point. You had to be somewhere at a certain time, be at this meeting that you don't wanna go to, like when you have no control over it,

that kind of stuff is difficult. Right, I'd rather not, right? I'd rather not, and I don't need to. And I can't envision a price that is rational that you would pay. And so I realize now, this is why I think I'm essentially unhireable at this point in my career, is that, is there's no job that makes sense, that makes sense, that

would pay me enough for me to take it. Yep. And that's a, and I want to be clear here. I'm not boasting about this. This is a, was a very important personal insight and I feel very fortunate to be able to make it. But right. And it could change, you know know if my business falls apart in the

next five years I could be in the point where I'm like ah maybe doing what Chris Breen did is a good idea because and I think Chris was burned out I mean Chris yeah anyway I'm not and there's no judgment here but it's like maybe a retirement job where I work there until I retire and they pay me fine and I do and I'm toiling in obscurity is What is right for me at the time? But right now it doesn't make any sense. So the answer is to Eric is There everyone has a price But I can tell you in my previous dealings with Apple where they have recruited me before and after I worked at IDG

Or I mean while I worked at IDG and after I left, I talked to Apple people about their jobs. And when it comes to what they pay me for the job that they were thinking of for me, like, I gave them a figure, I actually did give them a figure. And they're like, Whoa, that's out of our price range. But we do have like stock options. It's like, the answer was that even Apple could not pay me what I wanted them to pay me. So it's unlikely. It would take like an executor's like, Oh man, we really want that Jason energy. It's the only person that can save us. At any cost or to take them off the board. There's that scenario too. You want to talk about your conspiracy theory, yarn board. That is like, how much does it pay for Jason to not?

I think the reverse is actually true, which is that, that Apple would rather that I, I be out here doing what I'm doing than to have me stop it. But, um, anyway, so that's the answer is look, I am sure that there is a price that I would be happy to walk away from everything I do because it would be life changing money, but I don't expect that to exist anywhere except in the realm of fantasy What about you Mike? It's not about the money for me It's about the work Because like if we imagine a scenario it's like Apple comes to me now and they're like hey

You know that thing you've been building for like the last 10 years throw it away now and come work for us. I Have too much pride in what we've done to let go of that. So they would have to, so like, I don't, I actually genuinely don't think there's an amount of money that again would be even close to the realm of realistic or even past like realistic level one, right? It really is for me, what is the work? Because you're talking about throwing away what you built.

And are they going to give, I would say also unrealistic is, well, I'm going to need, you can pay me this or you can pay me less, but you have to give me a five year contract, right? Like that theoretical Dodger contract, right? And nobody's going to do that. But it's like, well, I'm not going to shut down my businesses that I've spent 10 years building to go do a thing that may or may not last a year. Right? Like, no, I'm right. Right. Cause you built this thing and you would

have to walk away from it. But there are jobs though. Like there are jobs that if Apple came and said, Mike, come do this job. I think I would find it very, very hard to turn them down. But they're jobs that they would not give me, right? They're jobs that they would not give to me. But for example, I don't know what the job, I would wanna work in the top design team. We're not gonna give you that job because I have no skills in that, right?

Like I'm not skilled enough for that. Or I wanna be very senior at product marketing. So we are they not going to give me that? But like these are the things where if somebody at Apple came to me and said, no, you're the only one. We need, we need just your brain. No one else's brain will do the job. Then, then I would, I would consider it, right? But like that's never going to happen because it's not accurate. They're not going to need me. And yet never gonna happen because it's not accurate, they're not gonna need me. And yet in another way it is perfectly accurate because what we're describing, those jobs,

we need your brain, absolutely it has to be your brain, those are the jobs we've built for ourselves. Yeah, exactly. So we're already there. They're already there. Hey Mike, we need notebooks, but it's not the ones you think, You know, like we need the other notebooks and only you can do it.

I wanna be clear, we're both very lucky to have ended up here. We also worked really hard and took risks and all of those things too. It's all, and not everybody, as I used to say on free agents all the time, not everybody can do the kinds of jobs we do in the sense that like, it's really hard.

You have to supply all of the responsibility. I talked to some people who were like, I could never do it if I was my own boss. And it's like, some people can't. And we are fortunate to be able to do that and have our projects. And trust me, I'm sure you feel this way too. I absolutely have those days where I'm steering

at the computer, I'm like, and it's like, there's no boss to set a deadline. I have to do it. I just have to do it because it's my livelihood. Well, I mean, similarly, I have the days where I'm like, man, I wished I was just on a salary. Like that I didn't have to worry about money right now. Like, you know, like I just wished

that I knew what my salary was next month. Now the realistic part of that is you can always be fired. Right. And like, and I know that. So like really nobody ever feels comfortable. And in a way I at least have a sense of agency in that like I can do things, you know, but like, which is much harder if like you do not have the control to move your business forward, but it's failing.

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. There's the regular gig. This is, I always thought about this in the context of John Cerecusa, who was sort of reluctant to leave his regular gig for a long time, was a regular gig is secure in a sense, cause you don't have to worry about it, they just pay you, until they stop paying you.

And that's the thing is that what you really are is insulated from the vagaries of month to month, because they're gonna give you your salary regardless. Whereas if it's your own business, you are not insulated from that. And if the money doesn't come in, you don't get paid. And that's just how that works. And so it's just different, but look, everybody's different. We're very fortunate to be able to do this.

And yes, if you're a billionaire who wants to just set up Jason and Mike LLC and give us a lot of money, we'll talk. Yeah, if you're a billionaire that would like to buy relay or upgrade, like, hey, if you're a goal hanger and you want, and you want, the rest is technology. You just call us, we're here. Call us, but what I would say is it's, you know, I'm always, if somebody approached me and said, Jason, I want to talk about this job, I'll talk. But I no longer feel like

there's any likelihood that it's going to lead anywhere. But you know, I will, I'm always going to listen, but it's not, I think it's not realistic at this point, which is fine. Yeah, it's a great question. Thank you, Eric, for sending that one in. If you would like to send in a question of your own, you can always go to upgradefeedback.com. You can send us your Ask Upgrade questions or also your feedback or your follow-up at any time. You can check out Jason's work at sixcolors.com you can hear his podcast at the incomparable and here on relay. You can listen to me here on relay to and check out my work cortex brand dot com. You can follow us on social media We're both on mastodon blue sky and threads I'm more on threads than Jason is but you know, you can you can at least follow in there if you if you want to

I've been enjoying blue sky. I you know not you can at least follow in there if you want to. I've been enjoying Blue Sky. You know, not for... I've just been enjoying it. It's been the one I've been checking first. I had a post that went viral on Blue Sky. Oh, did you? What was it? What was it about? The Cal Bears hired, as an offensive consultant, the former coach at Washington State, who was fired for refusing to comply with their vaccination policy.

And my post was next year's Cal offense is going to be great until the polio sets in. And very slowly it gained speed and people retweeted it or reposted it or whatever you do. And I thought that was amusing to see a very slow but viral spread of something on blue sky. I hadn't had that happen before so that made me laugh. You can watch clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube or at Upgrade Relay. Thank you to our members who support us at Upgrade Plus. And thank you to our sponsors, FitBot and Squarespace. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with the Upgrade Holiday Special.

Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.