Upgrade - 551: The Paternity Draft

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

From Relay, this is Upgrade episode 551. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, FitBard, Google Jam, and I, and DeleteMe. My name is Mike Hurley. I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Mike Hurley. I'm going to miss the big Mike Hurley intros to Upgrade. I know.

I know. This is my final upgrade before my botanical leave. It's a big show tonight, I'm very excited. Listeners will have heard that the draft music played. Gasp. We'll get to that. It's an idea we had last week. Yes, yes. We'll get to that a little later on in the episode.

Jason, there is a Snow Talk question, but it's actually for me. So would you like to read it? Oh, good. All right, this Snow Talk question for Mike comes from Sims who asks, Mike, before you leave, have you been to Waffle House? I love this question so much.

I love it so much. I love this question so much, because I've been asking, you know, if there's anything you need to know or want me to talk about before you go, just send them in and we have some- How many roads must a man walk down before he considers himself ready for fatherhood?

And the answer is, how many, has he been to Waffle House? How many Waffle House? Has he made the journey to Waffle House? Not metaphorically, literally, have you been to a Waffle House? Many times, actually, because- been to a Waffle House? Many times, actually, because, so for many years,

each year I would go to the Atlanta Pen Show in Atlanta, Georgia. Ah, yeah. For the pen addict, and they have, so is it the same hotel? I think it's a Wyndham Hotel? It changed, I think, like what type of hotel it was, and it also didn't matter,

because the pen show happens in the hotel, so you go to the hotel. It's the I think, like what type of hotel it was. And it also didn't matter because the Penn show happens in the hotel. So you go to the hotel hotel. Yeah. There is a waffle house in the parking lot of that hotel. So, so there you go. I would go probably twice, you know, maybe like one lunch and maybe one like easy dinner for the whole time. I was there, especially in the earlier years, there wasn't really anything else around. And then over the years that I was going, there were more restaurants in this, like, cause it was kind of like absolutely nowhere. You couldn't walk. There was no way to walk. Right. So they added things over time, but yeah, Waffle House. I've been to Waffle House many times because of the Atlanta pen show. I've never been outside of the Atlanta pen

show. Like it's never been any other time. Doesn't matter though. Yeah. You've been to Waffle House. And that's all that matters. you've been to Waffle House. I see you've been to Waffle House too. I actually don't know. I remember seeing them in Jacksonville, Florida, where my uncle used to live and driving by them and commenting about them. I have no memory if we actually went to Waffle House or if we just stuck to like Cracker Barrel.

I don't know. It was a good time. I mean, I like breakfast food, right? Like it's my favorite type of like food, just general breakfast. It's Lauren's favorite. Lauren would do breakfast for lunch and breakfast for dinner if she could. Yep. Yeah. Definitely. If you'd like to send in a snow talk question, I mean, I guess they're going to be weird. Do you want to talk about how you want to do snow talks? It's all up to you now for the next couple of months. So what are you gonna do?

There may be Snell Talk questions. People can send those in. And there will also be an additional segment that we'll be introducing next week. Oh, I don't know what this is. I'm excited. Okay. We've touched on it before, but yeah,

there'll be an additional segment at the top of the show so that we're more likely to get Mike to hear that part. Okay. Okay. I look forward to it. It's for you. It's good. There's going to be a segment for you when you're not here because that's complicated.

I'm excited. Yeah. All right. But you can send in your questions at any time by going to upgradefeedback.com. We have some follow-up. TikTok is back. TikTok's back in the app store.

There was a letter sent from the US Attorney General to Apple and Google assuring that they would not be penalized if they offered the app in the store. Again, still not entirely sure how that works. Whether that's legal or not. Yeah, but they're doing it anyway. And I guess really for both Apple and Google, this is very important now actually, because new phones. You know, event at the time of the year

where there's new phones coming out, there's gonna be new Google pixels later on this year, but there are of course also new Samsung phones, you know, like we're in that time of year. We're expecting probably the iPhone SE even the next week, this week maybe, uh, and then the going on further into the year. And so they want to be able to offer it in the store cause they can't, people can't download it. Right. And so, because my expectation, I don't know this for sure, but until this

point, if you had got a new phone and transferred from a backup, you wouldn't be able to download TikTok because it wasn't in the store at all, right? Oh, I don't know. You might've been able to because it was an existing, but no, you're right. I think maybe not. If you deleted it, you couldn't restore a purchase. Yeah. Yeah. So, cause yeah, there was a podcast that I follow. He, he loved TikTok, but he deleted it when it went away, right? And they couldn't get it back. He just hasn't been able to get it back until now. Not great. But anyway, so it's back.

I am fascinated to see what happens. I think it's like sometime in March that 75 day extension comes up. Cause there has not been any real news yet about anyone buying TikTok to US operations. So fascinating. I will look forward to seeing about that. Yeah, well, we'll check in.

We've previously spoken about the possibility of AirPods Pro getting heart rate monitoring. This is pretty heavily rumored at this point. And last week, Apple released the new Beats, Power Beats Pro and they have it. So they have it. These are the fitness headphones, the Apple's fitness headphones with the Beats brand. They look like a great set of headphones. It's got a bunch of features. It has an H2 chip in it so it's got all of the fun stuff that it's got in, you

know, like I assume it has the adapter but it has like the transparency, it has the noise cancelling, it has a ton of but it has like the transparency, it has the noise cancelling, it has a ton of stuff. So like these look actually like really good fitness headphones. Apparently they sound very good, all that kind of stuff, but they also have heart rate monitoring in them. It's like an adaptation, a miniaturization of the sensor that goes on the Apple watch. It actually looks somewhat similar, like it kind of looks like the green lights that we

got on the Apple watch. There's a, I put a link in the show notes to Victoria's songs review over the verge. Victoria's very good at fitness stuff. I think that's mostly her beat is a big part of her beat on the verge. She does like smartwatch reviews and stuff. And in reading their view, I find it really interesting and this like weird offshoot that Beats is at Apple. So the support for the heart rate monitors at the Powerbeats Pro is somewhat spotty in the operating system and amongst Apple's overall apps that had done deals with a bunch of workout apps to have the heart rate monitoring show up natively.

But the heart rate monitoring in these does not work with fitness plus right now, which I think is kind of hilarious. It works of a lot of the third party apps. It shows in the health app, like if you're using it. So if you can see your readings in the health app, like of an Apple watch. But if you were to wear both. health app like of an Apple watch. But if you were to wear both, so an Apple watch and the Beats, uh, Powerbeats Pro, you cannot choose which device the heart rate is read from and the system will always default to the watch. So the expectation there being at least for Apple's technology, the watch is what they consider to be a more reliable

reading. I saw how I would take that. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Because I know that like people say that, you know, the ear is a better place to take this reading from, but that is with conventional technology, right? And, and I, because I would expect a lot of what's going into these at this point is algorithms, as well as the data that they're drawing. And you've got to assume that Apple at this point is algorithms as well as the data that they're drawing. And you've got to assume that Apple at this point is very confident in their Apple watch data. And maybe this is part of them building the system to put this in the AirPods, right? So then by the time it comes around in AirPods, maybe it will be more fully featured. But yeah, I thought it was interesting, very interesting to see this feature be added to

non-AirPods headphones first. I thought it was a bit fascinating. They only update these Powerbeats Pro very seldomly. So I think it makes sense to, you know, if they've got that feature ready to go and it's especially these are fitness headphones, specifically designed as fitness headphones. Yeah putting that feature in kind of makes sense But it is funny right that it that it didn't debut in air pods even though it might get there. That's weird. Yeah. Yeah A couple of weeks ago on our upgrade plus segment, which you can get by signing up at get upgrade plus comm We spoke about Jason caning his Netflix subscription.

This is just a lead in for me to mention the Netflix thing that happened last week. So for about 12 hours, I think it was last Thursday or Friday, Netflix became available in the Apple TV app. Users could add Netflix shows to their queue, like they're up next queue. And also, you would see a splash screen users could add Netflix shows to their queue, like their Up Next queue, and also you would see a splash screen in the app for adding Netflix as a content provider for Up Next.

So people were very excited about this. Like finally, Netflix was coming to the Apple TV. And then Netflix said it was added in error and they took it away again. Yes, as our friend Joe Steele wrote, Netflix deeply regrets accidentally making Netflix a better product for its customers. But here's the thing I find interesting about this, Jason.

And I have no doubt I'm the first person to mention this, but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about it anyway. Netflix have obviously done the work to build this feature. Yes, I got a comment on, I wanna say Blue Sky, where I am Snell.zone, you can check me out there. That's a little plug. I love that, I love it. Just instead of at the end of the show,

I just mentioned it here, because I mentioned Blue Sky. Is that where it was? Or maybe it was Mastodon where I am- Give yourself a plug for Mastodon too then, I guess. I'm J Snell at Matt Zepland off lights. No, it is Blue Sky. Somebody wrote in and said, I'm gonna read this is Mike.

He said, as someone who has written the code to implement this feature, there is no way it just accidentally happens. See, this is what I thought. Something's going on here, right? So here's my bigger theory. This is happening and they did it too soon by accident. That's my feeling about it too,

is that they are going to do this and they're talking to Apple about it and they made a mistake. The Mike who wrote in said, it feels to him like it's like an AB test kind of thing. And that actually also makes me wonder because they love doing that. Like you turn it on for some people and see what happens and allow this change to happen. But yeah, it seems unlikely that this was just a switch that got flipped.

It's more like they built this feature, but they're not ready to roll it out yet. Yes, they have to have built it, right? Like for some reason they have to have built it, right? Like for some reason they have to have built it. And whatever reason that is, I mean, there are many reasons you could draw that one. They do wanna do it or they're testing it, or they want something from Apple.

So they've built this and they're like, hey, look, we're just like ready. Or they've got it and it's a deal and they're just, they're, you know're getting it finished and they're gonna turn it on with a rollout and an announcement and things like that. And instead it just sort of appears randomly on a Wednesday. But it is, if this isn't going to go to everybody soon, Joe's point stands, which is, this is ludicrous.

Like it is, and I'll tell you, this little episode, it made me realize that part of the reason I had no problem dumping Netflix is because I use Up Next in the TV app all the time. Oh me too. That's how I manage, that's how I manage what I'm watching on television. And I don't watch a lot of Netflix stuff, which is why I was able to cancel Netflix, knowing that inevitably it will come back at some point when there's something for me to watch

and I'll probably just pay for the ad tier and whatever. But that's a symptom. The fact that I don't have a lot of connection to a lot of shows on Netflix is in part because of their content and in part because what they have that I do want to watch, I can't mark and have it show up and up next. And that's bad. I like that. That's just bad. And it's so stupid that Apple and Netflix can't come to an agreement here. You can lay the blame in lots of places. I'm gonna lay it's easy to lay blame on Apple here. I'm gonna blame Netflix. Netflix, because they're the number one streamer, they basically don't want to share interface space with other programs on other streamers. They just want you to use the Netflix app and stay there. It's silly because they actually do have integration in some of the other apps and it should be there. So they've apparently built this thing and I hope they turn it on for realsies sometime

soon. Yep. And Tim Cook announced on X that Apple is hosting a hashtag Apple launch on Wednesday this week. Apple launch is a funny, that's a funny phrase. It is. It's not an event, it's a launch. That's clearly what they're saying is. It's not an event, it's a launch. That's clearly what they're saying is that it's not an event, right? And so

my expectation is this will be like the videos that we got for the Max in October of last year, when they did that like series of videos on YouTube and put them on the website. Like that's what probably what we're going to get, right? It's more than a press release because they don't pre-announce press releases. So the expectation is an event. So that is one of the reasons that we're going to do a draft today. I do want to give a side, an interesting side note for me. I think it is a very strange decision at this point for Apple to be just using X for these

kinds of messages. I mean, even avoiding the obvious, right? Which I think is plainly clear to the majority of our listeners. Like the fact that the main reason, like a lot of people left X anyway, we did a long time ago, right? And just stopped using it.

A lot of people, I just think at this point, why just post there? Like why not have... Like, why doesn't Tim Cook have an account on Blue Sky and Threats? Like, I don't understand that part at this point. I don't know why they continue to rely purely on X, because I think that the platform is definitely not as strong as it used to be. Like, so even if you take out the reasons that many people don't use X anymore, of which

there are many, I find it peculiar that they still use it. I don't think it has the same cultural cachet as it did before. I think I agree with that. And also, it reminds me of an interesting story about how there were a bunch of different sports teams that tried to set up Blue Sky or threads accounts and were told by their leagues to turn them down, pull them down. It's like the New England Patriots had a Blue Sky account and it was pulled off.

And this story in Sportico that we can put in the show notes, uh, talks about the NFL has signed deals with tick tock X YouTube and some other platforms. So partly, I think, I think maybe some of it is Apple has an existing X relationship and contract that they can just turn back on. I don't think they're like, no, no, X baby, X is it, just X from now on. I think maybe some of it is Apple has not spun up their approach to some of these other places

and their relationship with those other places and therefore is not there yet. But it's also possible that this is just currying favor with people in power. That's also a possibility. But it's also possible that this is just currying favor with people in power. That's also a possibility. But it's marketing, so I would think you'd wanna be wide. But that's my point. That you can still do all of those things, right?

They obviously have a relationship of X, right? They have for a long time. It's one of the only places that they do marketing and Apple has recently relaunched their marketing on X. So it's like a whole other can of worms, which is just like, again, now they're doing it. OK, I mean, it's obvious why they're now doing it then, because they want to be in favor with the administration. They're but. If these are marketing messages,

why would you not have these in all places? Like, I find it just it's just odd to me to be like, this is the, this is the place that Tim speaks like just here. It's not, it's not like they own this platform, right? Like, cause they don't. So like the, it's weird. And I don't and would not assume, and I don't think Apple should create a Macedon instance. Like that's just, that would just seem strange to me.

Honestly, like I feel like what they should do is post the threads, just get over yourself and post the threads and federate. So then people can follow Tim on mastodon via threads, right? And also be, I mean, and maybe don't bother with blue sky. I don't know. But like I think you should, but maybe don't like whatever. But I don't understand why they're not at least on threads and Instagram. Like look, I get it. You hate matter. But like, do you love X? Like, you know, you've been in love with it. Like it's, I find it very peculiar at this point, but that's not really

in the importance of this message, but I just thought it was a thing to mention at this point. But yeah, something's going on this week. Yes. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or managing a growing brand, you can stand out for a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell you anything from products to services, even content that you create because Squarespace has everything you need all in one place and all on

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you know, so you're like, oh, I have this type of website or I like this type of design. And then it is so easy with their tools to get everything to a place, which is good for you to then go in and customize. And you can customize things so simply. It's not about code. It's about I want this color. I want my page to be laid out this way. I like these fonts. Really easy, really fun tools to build your website.

And then they also go deep with this stuff. So you don't have to think about it. Like, for example, if you have a website, you want people to find it. You have to be optimized to search engines. Every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions and an auto generated site map and so much more. So you're showing up more often to more people in global search engine results. Now I don't know about you, but I don't know how to do this, and I love that Squarespace handled it for me, so I don't need to. And that is the whole thing with

Squarespace. They make everything so easy, from having payments set up to analytics and so much more. Go to squarespace.com, you can sign up for a free trial. Don't just take my word for it. Go there right now and build your website. Then when you're ready to launch it to the world, go to squarespace.com slash upgrade, and you will save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash upgrade

when you decide to sign up to get 10% of your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay. Welcome to the Paternity Draft. Yay! This is the rules of the Paternity Draft and we will explain what this means. So, there are going to be seven rounds, 14 overall picks.

The draft will not be split into any categories. We have a bunch of things that we can pick from, and we're going to pick freely between them. These items are from a predetermined list, as we always have, which we have agreed to. For an item to count in the paternity draft, it has to happen between now and when I return to the show. Whenever that might be. Whenever that might be. The winner of the previous draft gets to pick first and that is me.

Stephen Hackett will adjudicate if we have a scoring stalemate. The points will be awarded on the episode that I return on and it will be finalized during the scoring segment. We have a tiebreaker as always. The winner of this draft will become draft champion and display the champion pennant.

The loser will become the draft challenger and display the challenger pennant. This is a great way for us to deal with any draft that could potentially happen. It's like, this is the answer to the draft. Right? This is it. And just to be clear, there's an out of time episode

coming in a couple of weeks with Mike in it, and that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Mike's paternity leave. Come on, people. When I actually return. Imaginary people. When I actually return. When I actually actually return.

Yes. Anybody, any attempts to score the draft during Mike's out of time episode will be, I mean, invalid because we won't have scored the draft in that episode because we didn't know we were doing a draft when we recorded it. We actually did not. You can find an interactive scorecard

of this draft over upgrade.cards, courtesy of our friends at MNOCs. And if you want to celebrate the draft today, you can go to upgradeyourwardrobe.com and you can buy yourself a draft tee that you can wear at any point of your choosing. So you can always be ready. Anytime, during the leave, yeah.

Indeed. I've gone through and got some results for you as I like to have. I have a great, a good list of results. So the 20, I am currently the draft champion in 2024. There were four drafts and I won three of them. So I wanted the iPad draft, which was in May and then above September and October, we did a weird draft because we knew max were coming. Uh, Jason, one W W C. Uh, while this is the first time we have done a draft of this kind of length with the ramifications, cause we don't do like the, uh, episode 500 draft or whatever, but they're not fully sanctioned games.

Um, but this is a fully sanctioned draft. Um, we have done pre W-WWDC drafts before, which this would kind of count as. Jason has won three of those in 2018, 2019, and 2022, and I have won two in both 2021 and 2024. So we have a tiebreaker question. We do. Would you like to let me know what it is, so I can pick my over-under? So we have a tiebreaker question. We do. Would you like to let me know what it is? So I can pick my over-under?

It's how many minutes of upgrade runtime will occur during your paternity leave? And just some notes, it does not include upgrade plus. Okay. It does include the pre-recorded episode that is going to be released in a few weeks. Okay. Couple of weeks. That's it. And I guess we should say right now,

the plan is for you to return after eight weeks. Correct. Right now. We never know that's all part of this. It's all to play for, but that would mean that it will. The current plan is eight episodes. Yes. Of upgrade.

Yes. Without you. Yep. So how many minutes am I picking from? I was really vacillating on this because the average upgrade episode varies, but it's been mostly in the 90 to 110 lately. lately, but I think I'm going to put it at 850, 850 minutes, not 800 minutes. Because here's, I'll just say one of the issues is I went back and looked at episodes that I have guests on and oh boy those are longer usually. So we'll see. But so 850, which again, if you're gone for eight weeks

is 106 minute episodes on average. That's not bad. I feel like I'm being generous. I might pick 900, but I went with 850. I'm gonna go over 850. I think that's the right call. Because I know some of the people you have booked. So I feel pretty confident that you'll exceed that time.

It's fine. Yeah, but you're not taking into account that special short episode that I've done. Oh no, the one minute episode. That would be the week before. One segment. All right. So it's draft time. So basically this list is comprised of a vast variety of things.

I think I'll give our listeners just an overview of the kinds of areas we're talking about. What we have tried to stay away from is as we say, the really obvious stuff. Like for example, I saw someone say in the chat, iPhone SE four ships is not a pickable, I know because that feels incredibly obvious. Now we have some things in here where they are a little bit more like that

because there's no kind of set kind of period on there, but we're talking about picks are related to the iPhone SE, a potential home device and home devices, some Mac stuff, mostly MacBook Air, a couple of iPad possible picks, maybe display picks, some general kind of iOS, Apple intelligence picks, and then I have a couple of weird WWDC picks, which are probably neither of us will pick,

but I put them in there anyway, because during now, when we returning, I expect WWDC 25 will be announced as existing and the dates will be given that they usually do that in like March April-ish time, if I'm remembering correctly. So that will, it will at least be announced. And I'm excited about like my return, I basically return and then it will be about a month in the WWDC starts, which is,

so that'll be like a fun ramp up and a summer of fun. Good for you, yeah. Good for Mike. Everything's coming up, Mike. Coming up, Mike. All right, so my first pick in the paternity draft is, low end iPhone has a notch. Okay, sure.

That's what I'm going for. Now look. All right, you play to win, I get it. It might have a dynamic island. Like we actually, I mean, we don't know, no, right? Like, cause there have been multiple leaks. Some leaks, hardware leaks have shown notch, software leaks have shown dynamic island. It's like we don't know.

But yeah, of course I'm planning to win. That's the whole point of the draft. But that's what I think. I think low-end iPhone as a Notch is my first pick. I think that's good. I think that's likely. I think that you're getting a point there. I'm going to pick with passion.

Okay. Passion of draft for me, maybe this time. And I'm gonna pick, there is a controversy about the speeds and capabilities of the low end iPhones, Apple built modem. Love this pic, Jason. I love this pic so much. Now what people are like, what is a controversy? I mean, you know what I mean? I mean, there are going to be some articles that are that are on websites that are going to be like, Oh, it turns out there's this quirk of Apple's modem that's different than the Qualcomm modem. And it affects right like in certain circumstances, or in certain countries, or we measured the speed

and it's sometimes slower, or I don't know what it is. I'm just saying, I'm picking that there's gonna be a thing that comes out that people are gonna be talking about about how Apple has built its own modem for the new low end iPhone and it's different because human nature, basically. But I like it. It might not happen, but I bet it happens.

And this is fun for us because we usually couldn't pick something like this. I know. Right. Because I mean, we have, we've got eight weeks, we have something in here. And my next pick was going to be the low end iPhone has an Apple built cell motor, but I will not pick that now because, just because I feel like I need to, I also need to go with a little bit of passion. But I mean, we've spoken about this for a while.

I think we spoke about it maybe last week or the week before. Like I do, I genuinely think something like this is gonna happen. I really do. It'll be a quirk, a weirdness. I mean, it's almost like a function of the fact that they're doing it and they're doing it in the low end iPhone for a reason,

which is to shake out the bugs. And that suggests that there will probably be bugs. Because there have been issues of iPhones before with like the actual established chip makers. There are like a couple of different modem chips and one of them didn't work very well. Yeah, yeah, there was that like, if you get this iPhone with an Intel chip,

it's a little slower than if you get the iPhone with the Qualcomm chip or whatever that was back then. So yeah, yeah, I just feel also everybody wants a controversy involving Apple. So they're gonna look for it. Oh, there'll be people looking for it. I feel like I was 10% slower, but that's why I say it's sort of it's sort of human nature, right? And then at that point, you write an article about it and then everybody else on the sites that rewrite somebody's article, rewrite their article and then it's a controversy. I'm gonna jump down my list

to pick a little more passion. I wanna meet you here at this moment. Thank you. And I think this is somewhat passionate. A new Apple built home device is announced. Oh, wow. Yeah, let's bring, I mean, again, bring it on. Maybe, you know, be the change you wanna see in the world.

Draft the change you want to see in the world. I think it could happen. I think it could happen. I put like 10 different Apple home device items in our list for this reason. I do think it could happen because we're talking about eight weeks now. So, or nine weeks, I guess, or, I mean,

it depends on how you measure, but like we're talking a long time. It's a couple of months where there could be Apple announcements. And, you know, our friend, Mark Gurman, says it's gonna happen. It's just a matter of when. So, yeah, bring it on, I say. Bring it on. I love it. When do you think it's going to get announced?

Right before you come back? Maybe, I mean, it could happen on Wednesday. It could, it could. They could pre-announce. They could. Obviously what we're talking about here is like, it is the smart home controller device. We're not naming it in this pic,

because we have pics for namings, but what we're talking about is- Square screen home controller tablet. It's a home device of a scrabble. Basically, if it's the shorthand of this, yes, I could I could see it happening this week. I mean, there I can also see it because here's the thing like I I'm not sure how much of a developer story this thing actually has. I think realistically it doesn't, and it will work with some existing technology. So they don't need to announce this at WWDC, right?

I don't think that's needed. You could argue that they could announce this thing and then at WWDC say our software update for this thing this fall will enable some third party features and here's how you can add them. Yeah. But I do think, you know, we could see something, you know, as we said before, like the widget system, right? With the projecting of widgets or some kind of app influence thing, like something, right?

It's just building on existing technology so they don't need to have full third party apps. And like, but maybe they add them later, right? Like I think that it, I think it would be a mistake for Apple to announce this product and try and sell people on a brand new app store. I think that might not be a good idea. I agree completely. If they can to begin with, make it a compelling product with integrating some third party features as well as their own

stuff, that would be maybe more interesting and more likely to have what would be considered a level of success than if they were like, they're basically the Vision Pro approach, right? Here's the app store, bring your apps, go wild. Yeah, everybody in the Discord is trying to play that game of but what about, but what about? And again, this is not the Rickies. We know what we're picking here.

They're like, but what about an Apple TV update or a HomePod update? It's like, no, a new, what part of new? A new Apple built home device, a new product, not an update to an existing product, a new product, period, that's what we're talking about. All right, I am going to pick in a different category. I am gonna pick that there's a MacBook Air M4

and it's at the same base price, 1099, as the M3. Okay. I know there is, we live in a world with mystery tariffs and who knows what else going on. I know, I feel like Apple is super committed to having a MacBook Air start at 1099. So that's what I'm gonna say, is there is gonna be an M4 MacBook Air

and it's gonna start at 1099, just like the M3. Yeah, I feel like it wouldn't be a good idea. I mean, the only way that they don't do this is they keep the M3 at 1099, but that seems really weird The M unless the M4 MacBook Air has some other whizbang features that mean it should be more expensive But that's not likely to happen right like if they're like oh this this is the one with an OLED display Which is not happening, but then you could say like all right fine Like maybe that one is just the more expensive,

but they've just gotten to the point where the MacBook Air story has been simplified. Surely they're not gonna make it more complicated. And I think history has shown, recent history has shown, they cannot have the MacBook Air begin at a higher price than that. So I agree with you, 1099 is the right call. There'll probably be the escape valve that I won't talk about of like what could be 999 and where can you get it?

Because maybe we'll talk about that in a minute. That's another option here. Another option. Yep. This episode is brought to you by FitBard. If you're looking to change your fitness level, it can be hard to know where to get started. That's why I'm pleased to let you know that FitBard is an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan for you. Everybody has their own path with fitness, which is why FitBod uses data to make sure they customize things to suit you perfectly. It adapts as you improve, so every workout remains challenging, pushing you to make the progress you're looking for. You're going to see the best results when a workout program is tailored to you, to your body, to your experience, to your environment, to your goals.

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All right. My next round pick I've blown up my order. So usually what I do is I go in. Nice, nice, nice, I love it. And I pick up, you know, I pick out the things that I think are most likely. Yeah. And then I reorder them based on what likelihood

do I think they have? And I have just, I've completely exploded it now. Okay, great. I mean, I love it. This is uncharted territory. It's a paternity draft. It's fun. It's different.

We're just doing stuff. It's great. Yep, nobody knows. Nobody knows what paternity draft. It's fun. It's different. We're just doing stuff. It's great. Yep. Nobody knows. Nobody knows what we're doing. All right. Nobody knows. All right. Here we go. Upgraded webcam in the MacBook Air M4.

Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Apple has been taking to upgrading their webcams a little bit so that they're a little bit nicer than what was in the like studio display. And they did it with the MacBook Pro, right? The MacBook Pro webcam and the iMac webcam in the last fall in the M4 revision were better. And the question is, will they keep the same kind

of marginal MacBook Air webcam, or will they put that new upgraded MacBook Pro webcam? And I agree with you. That's why I put this in here. I think Apple, I know Apple likes to differentiate between its Pro and non pro systems. But what also Apple likes to do is reuse parts. And I feel like if they've engineered a new webcam for the Mac that can go in the MacBook Pro and that they're also, they also stuck it in the iMac. Probably what that means is that every Mac that's got a webcam, and that means the MacBook Air, is going to get it. So I think this is a good thing to look for when the MacBook Air comes out. have been panned since the pandemic began, right? About the quality of their webcams. And they tried to make them better and better. They had the studio display controversy, right? That camera was just terrible.

And then they upgrade. And over time, they, is it the studio display? Was that the one that was really bad? And then they fixed it to software somehow? They didn't fix it. It just is, it is, cause they use the, yeah, they use the ultra wide and it's not high enough resolution so that when they crop it, it doesn't look very good. And so they've tried to, they've tried to change that.

But the iMac one is significantly better and it's also what they put in the MacBook Pro. So I would just be surprised to see a new MacBook Air not get the center stage camera. I mean, cause we spoke about before like, center stage makes a lot of sense in laptops cause they move around. Like, so having a camera where you can get the framing that you want, you have flexibility on the framing is maybe even more helpful in that kind of product

than a product where you essentially can just fix a framing based on the fact that your screen's in a certain place. Yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah, that's my guess and it's your pick. So I think it's a good one. I think there's a really good chance of that. In fact, I'm not gonna predict this, but I predict that the only substantive change other than the processor in the MacBook Air M4 will be the webcam. Yeah, that's actually a good one.

Everything else will be exactly the same. But my pick now is going to be AirTag 2 introduced. It's out there. We know it's floating out there. We know that they've been working on it. Mark Gurman says it's going to happen And I, you know, it's, do we need an AirTag 2? No, but my guess is that the technology has advanced and that they can put stuff in it that is more precise

and maybe has longer battery life. And there's lots of other ways that it's time to make an AirTag 2. So I'm gonna put a chip down on AirTag 2 or whatever they call it, but you know what I mean, a new AirTag. Yeah, there was a Rumor that it would get ultra wideband to make the product even better. It has it has ultra wideband. That's it

Originally tech has it ultra wideband. Yeah Then I don't know what I'm talking about But I don't know it already has ultra wideband I don't know if you know that why did I I'm sure I saw I saw that somewhere. That's why I struck it out of our document, because it already has it. Maybe it's gonna get better. Because you can do precise positioning with it. But that's, well yeah, that's what I imagine

is that there's more precise precision finding or whatever in it, and probably. I mean the two things you want is maybe more precision and better. Okay, I found it now. Next generation Ultra wideband chip to considerably increase the range. That's what I've been looking for.

So that's what it is. So I saw ultra wideband and just like put that in my brain. Yes, indeed. So yeah, that would be good though, because that product more than anything benefits from that system. And the AirTag is like so good.

What I don't like is if it is so much better, I'm going to end up buying like six because I have so many at this point. AirTag is a funny example of an Apple product that is not a, it does not seem like a hit and it's not that exciting and nobody talks about it. But you know what? I think it's been really successful. And I think a lot of people use them and like them. And that's just, yeah.

Yeah, so time for a new one. I think it's one of those products, like how we have mentioned, like potential smart home products, like sensors and cameras, that while you may not sell to 6 million people, you might get a million people by six of them. And I think like, that's kind of what happens, I think with air tags.

I think once you have one, you buy a bunch, right? And so like I probably have them between me and Adina, we probably have like eight or 10 or something like that across various bags and items. Like something I do on my suitcase. I put one on the outside and one on the inside. Yes. I know this about you. Cause they're one on the outside is for if it's found. Right? So if it's found by someone so they can help you.

But if it gets lost or gets cut off, I had one on the inside and that one's for me to do my tracking, you know? And I've noticed sometimes when I travel, so I'm looking for a bag, one says it's still in London and the other's like, oh, it's here with you in San Francisco. Because they're just out of their opinion. So I like multiple. All right. So my next pick. Okay. Oh boy. I really, uh, give myself. All right. Okay. Uh, the iPad air gets an M three or M four chip. Oh, so the iPad Air was last updated in 2022. So it's been knocking around for a while. I think it's a good product. It deserves an update every now and again. This feels

like a prod. Honestly, I would imagine this one, if it happens, happens within the next seven days from now. That they're like, all right, the iPad Air's got this. So I just got told that the iPad Air got a revision in May with the M2. So I- With the M2, it was last year, yeah. Yeah, so I have caused myself a problem, but that's my pick and I'm sticking to it.

Cause I- Okay, I was gonna say, didn't they just update the iPad Air to M2? They absolutely did when they introduced the 15 inch. That's where it got me. A year ago, I thought, Hey, you thought, I was curious that you went this way. I've done it. Fatherhood, you've got baby brain already.

Leave me alone, leave me alone. All right, I'm gonna go what is called one of the features of some of those Ricky's sites that I enjoy, where they keep track of the Ricky's competition for the connected program, is they have a label called Buzzkill, which is you pick something not happening or something not fun happening.

I'm gonna do a little bit of a buzzkill here. I'm gonna go back to the MacBook Air and predict the same colors, unchanged color profile for the MacBook Air M4. Now, if there are very, very, very slight changes in hue, we can say, I mean the names, right? I mean, I mean the names. So if I had picked it this way for the iMac,

I would have gotten it right, right? Which is they're gonna keep the color names the same, even though they refreshed the hues a little bit, whatever that means. I'm saying just nothing. We all want a brightly colored, fun MacBook Air. I want it to happen, but I'm not going to manifest it. I'm not going to draft something that I want to see in the world.

Instead, I'm going to be a sort of cynical, sad, beaten down person who says, no, Apple will not let us have any fun because if they wanted us to have fun colors in the MacBook Air, they would have done it already and they didn't. So here we are. Oh, I screwed myself. Okay. So now I know I've definitely lost a point. I mean, maybe.

It's very unlikely. Okay. I am going to go with, and we will talk about this more in a little bit. Just feel the passion. We will talk about this more in a little bit. Apple does not ship improved Siri and personal contacts to customers. So we're going to talk about this in rumor roundup coming up. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'll just say we, it's discussed in rumor roundup, but it's unclear whether it, it, what we discuss, we'll discuss later. It's unclear whether it will happen or not. And I will say on top of that, I put this pick in the document before Mark Gurman wrote about this. Just thinking, you know, what if we've been waiting all this time for the improved Siri and the personal context stuff. What if they they're like, we can't do it. Sorry. Yep. Or we have to start over. What then?

What then? What then is it doesn't ship. That's what, that's what then. It just, it just doesn't ship. Yeah. Um, wow. Okay. Well, you took, you took my next pick. Okay.

This is the fifth pick for you. So I am going to be, I'm going to make a riskier pick. Okay. In part, accepting the fact'm going to make a riskier pick. Okay. In part, accepting the fact that you whiffed on a pick. Absolutely. So, I'm going to pick, oh, I'm going to do it. Low end iPhone is not called iPhone SE. Wow, okay.

I made a kind of a promise to myself this time that I was not going to pick any naming picks. I know I wasn't going to either. I've been burned way too many times and trying to predict names and prices. I just, your, your, um, your embrace of iPad air passion made me think I could, I'll just do that. Maybe it won't work out with me. That's okay. That's okay. The truth is most of our drafts are incredibly close. Yes. So it's fine.

Yeah, I have come around on this. Well, one of the clues, Mr. Policeman, I left you all the clues, is Tim Cook saying the next member of our family. And even Mark Gurman, who's been pretty sit-in fast on the idea that it's the iPhone SE, was like, oh, does that mean maybe that they're gonna integrate it in a different way

and it won't be called the SE anymore and it'll be integrated into the family? I don't know. I just, I like the, honestly, iPhone SE as a concept does not thrill me. And I like the idea that it's just another iPhone that's more affordable, that's released on a different schedule. And actually makes it more like a thing that you predicted a long time ago, which is the idea that they would start introducing additional phones

kind of off season. And that would be this, which is what if they just say, yeah, well, you know, we'll have some other iPhone, whatever number models in the spring. Maybe that's this. I don't know. So look, who knows, maybe the next couple of years, we finally get what we want. And they actually stop numbering these things, because if they have this with a name and they because basically, I still think that it would be a mistake to number this product with the current numbering. I think that is a mistake personally. Yeah. I'm not predicting that, right? Anything could happen.

But I'm thinking between this and then the iPhone Air. Now surely, well, not surely, but they could just call it the iPhone Air. They don't have to call it the iPhone 17 Air, right? And then you've got the iPhone Fold or something comes next year or something like that. Maybe we could finally get to this point where they can detach numbers from these products, which I think would be, I would prefer that. They do everything else, right? Like we don't call it a MacBook Air 16 or whatever, you know, like it's not, it's not what we do. And then us as nerds, we put our own characteristics on them, which I think is fine. But then to the general audience, they're not like,

people aren't like, oh, I'm so confused. What iPad do you mean? Like, it's just not a thing that people care about. And you can just, they'll just make it work. This is the new iPhone. This is the old iPhone. And then it's just a line of products that exists. It's not like you go into a store and you can choose from the iPhone 16, 15, 14, 13,

you know, they have like limited availability. They'll make it work. It's totally fine. That's what I think and what I would like, but nevertheless, it is, I would be very intrigued to see what they name because the iPhone SE brand, it's just not a very good brand. It's just not like a very exciting brand name. SE. Like, what does that even mean? Like realistically? What does it even mean? And the answer is kind of nothing. And so I would like them to come up with something a bit more fun for it.

But then what happens to the. They have Apple Watch SE, right, too. They do. Maybe they can give that a better name too. The S stands for speed. And the E stands for everybody. I'm gonna go with... It's getting harder now here at the end. I'm gonna double...

Do I wanna double down? I don't know if I wanna double down end. I'm going to double. Do I want to double down? I don't know if I want to double down because then I'm out my arm. But it's really tough at this point. All right. I am going to double down. New home device has Apple intelligence in some way. In some way?

Yeah. I put that in parentheses. Yeah. What does it mean? It doesn't matter. In some way, I put that in parentheses. What does it mean? It means that they say it connects to Apple Intelligence, something like that. So there's going to be a new home device, and it's going to have some sort of connection to Apple Intelligence. It's either going to run Apple Intelligence, or it's going to use Apple Intelligence from your iPhone, or I don't know what, but that they're going to not release that product. If they release that product, I think you get this point because Apple's not

releasing non-Apple intelligence products anymore. Period. That's what I'm going for is based on like, if it exists, I feel like this is the safest thing that I can say about it is that it will feature Apple intelligence because I agree with it. There was like a time I remember when touch ID became a thing. And I remember back then we were saying like, or Apple pay, like they're not releasing a product now that doesn't feature this thing. And like there are two items where it's like, it has to, everything will support

Apple pay and everything will have touch ID and then eventually became face ID of just like the idea that they would release a new product that doesn't have this is wild. And that's where we are. We have an intelligence, like everything they release now has to support some of these features in some way, because it is core to what they're talking about right now, whether you like it or not. Yeah. No, this is, this is a company wide effort to do this.

This is their moonshot kind of things like everything's going to have Apple Intelligence in it. So it will in some way in some way. All right. I'm going to and this is more just like, is it going to happen in the next two months or not? But I'm going to say we finally get that base level iPad. OK. Oh, do I have to pick it with an M series chip? I don't want to do that. I'm going to say we finally get that base level iPad. Okay. Oh, do I have to pick it with an M series chip? I don't want to do that. I just want to choose that the base level iPad is updated.

There's an 11th gen iPad. I don't want to say that it's got an M series chip. Is that too obvious? Because it may have a speedy, well, we don't know. Oh, okay, so here, I'll make my argument. We don't know when that thing's coming out. It could come out this week.

It could come out in May. We don't, it could come out in June. We don't know when the 11th gen iPad is gonna come out because it didn't come out last year, but I don't think it may have an M series chip because I think it might have that A series chip. Yeah, let's make it the base level iPad that's in the mini. Is updated to support Apple intelligence. That is a, that's a fair enough product to me. And supports Apple intelligence. If we don't know when that product's coming out, That is a that's a fair enough product to me and supports Apple intelligence intelligence You don't know when that products coming out we'd expect we don't come out then like between now and then but it's not it's not a given I think in the way that the se is I was viewing this that that was risky enough

But I but what we said before I don't think they're gonna release it without support for Apple intelligence But I think it'll be the iPad mini chip that a 17 or whatever was in there. Yeah Yeah, we'll go with that and I again I think it's it's it's not certain in part because we really don't know when that product I mean that product could come out now it or it could come out in the fall like it literally Whenever but I think supposedly it's a spring release. We'll see All right one more pick, Mike. One more pick. Final pick.

Final pick for you, yep. M2 Air Remains. Yes. So this is, the theory here is that probably what will happen is they'll introduce an M4 MacBook Air, they will discontinue the M3 rather than rolling it down. And that's because they want to get everything off of the M3 that they possibly can, other than the weird products that they ship with the M3. But you know, but no, I mean, they're not doing the M3, right? They're doing

the A17 or 17 or whatever. Like, just get it out, right? Get the old chip process out. But the M2 is really nice and will probably remain. And it continues to allow them to have the $999 starting price for the MacBook Air. Exactly. Or maybe even $899. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe even $899. But certainly $99. M2 Air is still great. I do wonder one of our things that we might or might not pick, I might or might not pick for the next round is what becomes of the M1 Air and is it still on sale at Walmart in eight weeks?

I don't know, but I love the M2 Air remains pick. You're making a lot of picks that I endorse. Thank you. And that I put in the document Air Remains pick. You're making a lot of picks that I endorse. Thank you. Except that one. And that I put in the document. Except that one. Except that one. Yeah.

But yeah, because it's a good product and they don't want the M3 around anymore. It's like I was saying earlier, the 1099 spot is like they want that spot, right? And so the increase in that price would surprise me for like whatever is the newest MacBook Air. But similarly, I think more importantly they need that $9.99 spot and the easiest thing to do there is just keep the M2 Air going rather than the M3 Air because the M2 Air they've got even more economy of scale on it and we know from various reporting that that M3 processor was kind of like an ugly duckling

and they replaced it as quickly as they could. So the idea of them being able to continue producing M3 chips on the long term is not so likely. It's the understanding that I have anyway from the way people have spoken about the processors at TSMC. Yeah. Yep. M2 MacBook Air remains.

I am going to pick with my last pick and the last pick of the paternity draft, the low end iPhone has an action button. Wow. We go back to the low end iPhone and think they're going to give it an action button but not camera control. Oh, I love that you've picked this one. I wanted to pick this one. But, but I didn't.

I love that you have. Well, that's the question. I love that you have. Well, that's the question is how low can you go with the low end iPhone? I feel like action button is, they can throw in an action button. That's fine. Yeah. Do that. Yeah. I put this in and I put in the camera control one as well

because it kind of felt like both of those buttons are important for different reasons. And like, which is the one that is gonna appear? Because the camera control was surprising that it appeared everywhere. Yeah, but you don't need the camera. Action button works kind of like camera control, except it's simpler, which is arguably better. And that's also what the phones had last year. The high-end phone have just the action button.

So that sounds like a pretty good compromise. So yeah, my thought on the camera control, why I put it in there, is how important do they think visual intelligence is? Because if they think visual intelligence is a really big deal, and they just haven't gotten to that yet, you would maybe want it in this phone that will last for multiple years,

but I don't know what the answer is to that. But it can have access to it. You can have access to it via the home screen or via the action button or however they wanna do it. There are other ways they can give it. Or in the camera app. You can just have a button that you press in the camera app and it goes to visual intelligence.

Yeah. That's the draft. Throw it out there. That's it, that's the paternity draft. Check back in when Mike returns from leave and on that episode we will score the paternity draft and declare a winner. Yep. Yeah.

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. I tried Gemini a couple of days ago. This is Gemini Live where you can talk to it and it is wild to have a full-on conversation with this thing. I was messing around. I asked it to give me some ideas for hosting during a holiday season, and when it starts to give you results, you can just stop it and say, okay, but what about something low key for a smaller group? And then it adjusts to that. You could just keep going until you get

an idea that you want. I think this is what I would use it most for, is brainstorming things. It's so good if you don't know where to start or you hit a wall. You just go to Gemini, it helps you get the ball rolling. But you can use it for all kinds of stuff. If you wanna learn something new, you can have it give you advice. Ask it to explain Bitcoin in simple terms, or you can have it quiz you on microbiology. Imagine being a student

and you've got this personal tutor on hand. It's hard to explain, you really have to just play around with it. See how it listens to you, responds and adapts to your style of conversation. Just try it out, it's free. Our thanks to Google Gemini for their support of this show and all of Relay. Rumor roundup time! Yee-haw! Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple has found its partners to allow them to launch Apple Intelligence in China. So to set the stage for this, as we previously understand, Apple needs to work with local partners in China because the CCP rules that any AI model needs local approval.

They have to approve other models. So Apple is apparently going to be working with Alibaba and Baidu as their two partners for launching Apple Intelligence. But this partnership is not the same kinds of partnerships that we've seen them do with OpenAI. So as well as acting as probably the world knowledge service, Alibaba will also be creating a second model that runs on device that

analyzes and can modify Apple intelligence responses to satisfy Chinese censorship. So it's like a sandwich of models I guess. So the way to think about this is there are, Apple will throw things out to chat GBT if you want and that's one thing but Apple has its own models that it built that run on if you want. And that's one thing, but Apple has its own models that it built that run on device and that's, that's not going to get approved by the Chinese authorities. So they seemingly have a partner and that what will be approved is that Apple will do its thing and then the other model will run essentially and say, can I run this?

Can I show this to somebody in China and then pass it on? And that's, that's what the law is in China is to do that. This model will quote from, and this is, this is the quote from Bloomberg, sensor and filter AI output to comply with requirements from the Chinese government. They're also working with Baidu as a secondary partner for handling visual intelligence, kind of like how Google does the visual intelligence. It's like, you can ask over there, I do a Google image search.

I wanna read a quote here from German's reporting in Bloomberg. The Chinese government will be able to direct Alibaba to ask Apple to make changes to AI models when it has issues with the information being delivered to customers. This part makes sense to me. Here's the next part that I am very perplexed by.

In cases where a customer's device is still running an outdated model, Apple will temporarily disable AI features until the data is updated to remove prohibited content. Right. I don't understand this part fully. No, I think that makes sense to me. So it basically means, look, if we find something

that we don't like and we build a Basically, cuz you've got your AI model running on your device and it's versioned and it allows them to say if this version is out of Date or needs to be replaced Turn this feature off and then and then update until you download the new version. And you can download, I am assuming you can download these AI models in the background and it has nothing to do with OS updates

or anything like that. You can just download a new model. And so this is the idea of like, something comes up that's controversial that the Chinese government wants to censor and it's not in the model or they discover something that's getting through that they don't like, they can basically say, okay, turn that off until you do the update that fixes this.

That's not great, but I think technically that's how it would work. My government also expects that Apple will need to find a partner, a local partner, to create the offsite capabilities that are handled by Apple's private cloud, private cloud compute. I would question whether it will actually be private cloud compute that will handle these. No. Well, it's in China, so it can't be private cloud compute. It has to be a cloud. It has to be a cloud alternative, right?

Because some stuff is not being done on device. Basically, like everything else in China, there will be an alternative that will provide kind of a parallel feature set that is just for China, that follows Chinese law. That's how Apple has been. That's why Apple's in China and not is allowed to sell phones in China,

is because they have support for Chinese search and Chinese social media. And all of this is because China is running an alternate internet, essentially, and alternate websites and alternate features. And that's just, that's, if you want to be in China, this is what you do. They must really want these features in China. I'm sure they do.

I'm sure they really want to be a player there. This just feels, I don't know what, this just feels really weird to me. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised because of all This just feels, I don't know what, this just feels really weird to me. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised because of all of the things that I know they already do, but I think it's kind of like, you know, every time like a stone gets added to the pile, you know, like, so there is this, so it's like,

I just take for granted the fact that they do all of the stuff that they do to cooperate with the censorship in China. And then it's like, oh, we're also now gonna, we're gonna add something into our technology stack. Like we're gonna do that. Like we're gonna add that in to just this on-device censorship.

They keep doing it. I think that they actually see that there's an advantage here where not only are they competing with Chinese companies, but they've, you know, it allows them to continue to be a Western company that plays in China. And some of their biggest competition in terms of AI is not in China. So if they can work with Chinese partners

and have their own models, it gives them a leg up over some of the other competition, unlike in other models, or in other countries where they are behind, maybe here, it's a little bit different. But yeah, I mean, there is a question which is, when is it no longer worth it to customize everything and it just to remain in the Chinese market?

But given how invested Apple is in China, I think that that's a long way off. We mentioned it in our draft, but more important from what German suggests, Apple is struggling to roll out their remaining Apple intelligence features. It seems that the ability to power the personal context, on-screen awareness component,

and on-screen awareness components of Siri, as well as the ability to control apps via App Intents, are facing severe engineering problems that could be significant enough to either postpone the features or limit their functionality if they are released in 18.4. One limit could be, for example, to include them, but turn them off by default, making users go in to turn them on.

Right. It's a beta that is off by default or something like that. Yeah, that's a really great endorsement. And as I said, I put this in our draft picks before Mark Erman's report came out, that what if this is so hard, basically, that they can't get it in, or they delay it, or they pull part of it out, or they push it to 18.5, or they push it to 19? What then? Or I think just as possible, which is, they have, and they've been kind of vague about it, but like that they had a concept for what they were going to ship back last year. And now that they need to ship something, it wouldn't surprise me if what they ship is dramatically paired back from what they were thinking they would ship. And that the bulk of that then gets rolled into iOS 19 features instead.

Because they realized that to get to the concept that they showed they actually have to do much, much more underpinning work that they didn't know that they would have to do much more underpinning work that they didn't know that they would have to do or something like that. And this was always a next year feature when they announced it in June. And so I don't wanna jump on you. You have a note in our little show document here, but just to further my thought,

I'm gonna quote from your thought, which is, if you're that far out, there's like a line, right? Which is like, what are we going to have in 11 months? And you have to make a call of like, yeah, we can ship that. Yeah, we'll ship that next spring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it. And this is the danger, right? This is the danger of looking all that way out,

nine, 10 months into the future, is the further out you go, the more chance there is that by the time you get there, you think, oh no, we can't do this, we can't ship this. If you are showing software, if you're Apple and you're showing software that you don't believe you can ship to customers for 10 to 11 months, it means it's not working.

And if something is not working, maybe you shouldn't, like maybe you don't announce it. Here's the thing though, there's almost no penalty to them because they, last June, they wanted to make a splash about Apple Intelligence. And let's be honest, maybe the most intriguing, certainly for some of us, of everything Apple did was talk about the semantic index personal context.

Absolutely. Looking at your screen, they had the whole demo of like being able to ask, you know, for the reservation to change based on the mom's flight. And it was able to look up the mom's flight and, you know, put it on the calendar. I had to look at an email and do all these things. It was really Apple saying, this is the kind of stuff

that really is gonna set Apple apart. And I wrote a lot about the semantic index and how, and the onscreen awareness and how that is a game changer for Apple. That's why they announced it last June. And that even though they weren't probably sure if they could actually make it happen. And so if they don't ship it or they ship it late, or it goes rolled, rolled into 19 and they say, sorry, it's just taken longer and we're still working on it. I know that they'll take a penalty for that but I'll tell you this,

I'm 100% sure it is not as big a penalty as they would have taken by not having it in their presentation. You're absolutely correct. No, you're absolutely correct. Yes. They put it in there. They got the bump that they needed and then if it ships later, whatever or if it never ships Whatever. Yeah, it may there in hindsight. Sure but like at the time if you if if the week before WWDC this year we look at the state of affairs on the iPhone and then backtrack that to what a you know, the real Keynote would have looked like the previous June of what they were actually gonna deliver. It would be worse, like appreciably worse probably.

And again, I mean, does that mean that they lied? I don't think so. Does that mean that they maybe took a larger risk about over-promising than they would normally because they felt they needed to make an impression? Absolutely. Yeah, if if WBC. Twenty twenty four was, hey, we're going to let you rewrite some text,

make some emoji and we're going to summarize your notifications. But we would have been even more upset than we already were. Right. Like because it would have been, oh, so you're doing all this and it's not really anything. I mean, seriously, the killer feature was, ah, because we know all about you. What we're going to be able to do is create a semantic index of the contents on your device. And on your device, we're going to be

able to infer things from it. And that was the truly whizzy, amazing, futuristic, oh, Apple's in the game part of that presentation. And is it any wonder that it was the last to ship and hasn't shipped and isn't in the beta and might even struggle to make it in? Not really. I mean, it was the last ship and hasn't shipped and isn't in the beta and might even struggle to make it in. Not really, I mean, it was super ambitious, but also it was a huge part of Apple's narrative building

back last June. And so, you know, I'll just put it another way here. Do you think anybody at Apple regrets making those promises even if they can't deliver them right now? No, they don't. They don't regret. Yeah. Yeah. they don't. They don't regret. Yeah. Yeah. They don't. It worked for them. And yeah, and none of our I told you sos are going to counterbalance the fact that it gave Apple a bunch of steam back in June. Yeah.

Realistically, while we will make fun of them, they shouldn't have to care about that. You know, like that. And like, you know, and where I'm sure I'm going to take it. But you had it in the ads, you had it in the app. They also don't care. Right. They don't care. Because when they made those ads, the features weren't shipping. And, you know, so that they realistically, they don't have to care about that. Provided that they do at some point, ship those features. Right. Realistically, it's fine. Right. And my money is on them shipping reduced functionality versions of those features, dramatically reduced.

Before, before 19. It'll only work on certain data types. Yeah, on certain data types in certain apps that are Apple apps in very, very limited contexts and maybe labeled as a beta, maybe turned off by default, but it'll ship before WWDC, maybe not even in 184, maybe in 185. Um, I do, I think they will ship something, but what will, what will have happened behind the scenes is that a lot of the stuff they expected to ship will all get deferred to 19.

Yeah. I, my, my bet is some of this ships, at least one of these three things, which is personal context, onscreen awareness, and the App Intents, just goes to 19, and I think it's App Intents. Could be. I think App Intents does not make iOS 18 at all. Could be.

Because that feels like, to me, the most complicated part to make work properly, and is also the thing that requires the most buy-in. Yeah, I mean, they could limit it. I think the only argument I would make about App Intents making it in is that they can make it App Intents based on like three apps that are Apple apps. Yeah, that's fair. No, that's maybe it's not the hardest.

Maybe the hardest is personal context in that regard, right? Because that is like a we know everything that's going on on your device on on your device. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's really interesting the suggestion that they might ship it and turn it off by default. Then it's essentially a beta test even in the shipping software where it's like if you know, you know. Otherwise, just leave it off. And it allows them to say they

shipped it. But that's where we are with this feature, right? But it was worth it. It was worth it for them in terms of the press. In hindsight, it's like yeah, that made the the Apple Intelligence vision seem a lot better. And they were essentially selling us something that even at the time we knew was sort of like step one down a path to a much more glorious future. But it turns out that that step might not even happen until the following year.

MacRumors has shared a report from display analyst, Ross Young, that Apple is working on a new external display with mini LED. This is expected to debut at some time this year. So this is my questions for you, Jason. Is this a studio display? Is it a new display? Does it, is it the end of the pro display XDR?

Yeah. Um, well, I mean, the Ross Young report suggests that this is a new studio display and that Apple is not interested in updating the Pro Display XDR. I'm sure you can listen to your accidental tech podcast and they'll have lots of thoughts about this because that's a podcast populated by two-thirds of the hosts their own Pro Display XDRs, but this report suggests that Apple's just not interested in that design and they are interested in a new studio display. Now, maybe they would keep the old studio display around

and put this one above it or something, I don't know, or they'll just replace it. But this sounds like, and it's not that exciting a product here, because it really sounds like it's the studio display with a better backlight rig. That's it. So like imagine a more HDR studio display with a presumably that better webcam as well, the iMac webcam.

That's probably what this is. So I would say I walked away from that report being not impressed because it sounded like Apple was back to doing the minimum here, which is after many years, they will do a minor update to the studio display to make it a little bit better. You know, and yeah, will it have high frame rate? I don't know. Is it 27? Maybe? ProMotion is what I want on this display.

Yeah, I know. Because I mean, look, the mini LED display on the iPad Pro have ProMotion. Like they, you know, they know how to do this. That would be a great update for the studio display. If it even it was just a studio display, and it would justify a higher price than, you know, because, because studio display is still out there. But like, there are many now, displays

that are comparable in functionality that are cheaper, either cheaper list price or cheaper street price. And so that would be a good upgrade for them to say, oh well, Studio Display 2 now has, you know, brighter dynamic range, ProMotion, you know, hooray. Get this, Jason. Studio Display remains. Studio Display with Mini LED, ProMotion, Studio Display Pro. It's more expensive. Yeah, could absolutely be. Or they could call Studio Display XDR or HDR or whatever.

I think the Pro Display, they've got to get rid of that thing. They've got to get that thing out of there. I think you're right. I think that Pro Display is a goner. Curm me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Studio Display have some specs that are better than the Pro Display? Isn't it like some weird, there's like some areas in which it is better or maybe it's the, I mean it's the displays in the MacBook Pros are significantly better than the studio displays display in some areas? Certainly that, that is, that is certainly the case. Certainly the case. Yeah. Because yeah, I just think again, it's like, you know, the studio display, so the pro display reminds me of the Mac, the iMac Pro, right? It's like it was just from a different time and we're not in that time anymore.

It's like a Mac Pro display, basically. Yeah. And we know how important the Mac Pro is. I think the studio display. I love that Apple finally is making a display again, right? That was a huge thing where they were out of it. They said they were out of the business and then they came back with the Pro Display XPR and then the Studio Display. The Studio Display feels like a more appropriate product for Apple's current product line that allows them to say, you can dock it with a laptop, you can use our Mac Mini and our Mac Studio with it. That's what it's for. And like, it's nice and it's gonna be more expensive

than the monitors you could buy elsewhere, but you know, it's from Apple, it's really nice, it's gonna be more expensive than the monitors you could buy elsewhere, but you know, it's from Apple It's really nice. It fits our our aesthetic. I have two Right. I have two and I'm very happy with them. Honestly because they are all of those things. They've there it's nice It's basically the old iMac display, right? Which was good the 27 inch iMac display They don't make a 27 inch iMac markman had a report where he was like, yeah, they might do that eventually, that he tossed off. It's like, okay, I'll believe a 27 inch iMac is coming when they announce it and not before. But yeah, no, it's good. It's good.

They should, the studio display is the product that they need to be focusing on if they're gonna make a display. And they should make a really nice display for people who are willing to spend a little more for an Apple product for them to pair with primarily their laptops, because most Macs are laptops, but also the desktop Macs can attach to it. That's it. The thing that I just cannot get my head around is that no matter what display you buy from Apple, if you have a MacBook Pro and you plug it into that display, you have a worse display. 100%. The MacBook Pro display is so good and they have nothing comparable on the desktop and I think that they, I believe that they should

because I think they're doing a disservice to MacBook Pro customers. I hear that the MacBook Pro display is really good. I have one right in front of me but it's always closed. You never see it. You never see it, right? That's just a shame this computer is capable of driving such a great display and you don't get to experience it because you use it.

It's blocked. My keyboard gets to see it on a regular basis. Your keyboard's in there like, wow, man, this is amazing. They're snuggling. Trackpad's loving it. Loving it. Final Mark Gurman report, final rumor roundup report from, I guess this is my final rumor

roundup for a long time. Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple have a big Vision OS 2.4 update on the way. This article was really surprising to me. So Vision OS 2.4, probably going to beta within the next week or so, it's gonna get Apple Intelligence. It's gonna get writing tools with ChatGPT. It's gonna get Gemmoji. It's gonna get image playgrounds.

Yep. So they're the first features. Maybe it'll get other little bits and bobs, but it's getting stuff. There will be a new, quote, spatial content app that will allow users to view 3D images and panoramas from third parties. Don't know what that means, really? Like I can conceptualize what it is,

but I don't understand it. Like, is it just a viewer? Can you go in there and see stuff? I'm not sure. And then changes to guest mode to, quote, potentially make it easier for multiple users in one home to share the headset. Something that Mark gives us an example is so with Vision Pro, if I want to give my Vision Pro to Jason, when I set it up, it's like what apps would you like

to be used like that the other person can see? You can say everything that's open or you can choose a list. And it's actually very cumbersome to kind of like choose the list of apps that you want. One of the things that is said to be added is you'll be able to do this from an iPhone so that someone could put it on and you could put it, it will be into guest mode and you'd be like, I want this app, this app,

this app and this app. And then they'll be able to use it. And my hope would be you could maybe while they're in the session, turn some apps on if they wanna try things out. So that's that. And also game controller support. I want to see this wasn't in, um, Mark's reporting, right? We've moved into the wish casting segment.

This is what I want to see. So that's the information you hear. I don't have a ton to say about it. Like I, because I don't understand it. The reporting is spotty or etiquette. There are, these are things that are happening, but there's a lot of implementation details that I would like to know more about. Something we talked about when Vision Pro turned one was I have been impressed at how they brought that platform forward over the last year.

It has gotten lots of updates that have made it appreciably better. So this report suggesting that Apple Intelligence is coming, which they, you know, it was one of those things that was not promised initially, but then there was sort of behind the scenes, it was like, well, of course it will, but they weren't ready to sort of commit to it in the same timeframe as Apple's other platforms. But here it is, if this report is accurate,

along with some, we complain about spatial content and you know, Mark says there's gonna be a showcase for it. And we complain about guest mode and Mark says,'s gonna be a showcase for it and we complain about guest mode and Mark says there'll be a better guest mode it's like great like great these are literally I know vision pro is a complicated subject and a lot of people have strong feelings about it but I will say as somebody who's got one undeniably it keeps getting better yeah and that is good so I hope this is all really great and I look forward to seeing the official announcement of this

Whenever that occurs every point update for the vision Pro has seen significant change Which is not what you can say for every point update of the other operating systems now This is a younger operating system So it makes sense that it would but it is great that they are doing that. Like every point update is bringing with it stuff that is very good. But game controller support, I want that. That was rumored. I want them to do that. I hoped me and Federico were hoping like Sony had an event last week and we were hoping that they were going to announce that, but they didn't. And so we're still hoping for something. I really want to be able to play some cool games. But I do think like I was talking about this with Federico and John

Voorhees, we talk about video games a lot. There probably needs to be a game that comes with this. Sure, sure. It'd be interesting to see what that could be. It could be a Sony game. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Can you get that fun Sony Astro Bot? Can we get Astro Bot in there? It all depends on just how powerful, processing-wise, the Vision Pro really would be for a game. And that's a question that I can't answer.

Well Astro Bot, for the previous generation, the original PSVR, surely could. The rescue mission? I mean, you would hope it could. Yeah, surely it could do that. Yeah, you would hope so. And that's one of my all-time favorite VR things, is Astrobot Rescue Mission. So good.

So good. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Delete Me. You've heard me talk about how much of a personal data could be out there for people on the internet to see, and honestly how uncomfortable that could make you feel, how uncomfortable it makes me feel, which is why I am a very, very pleased, very happy user of DeleteMe and very pleased with the service that they provide because my privacy is important to me.

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So there's a selection- Watch the lasers, baby. Watch them, watch them. This is a selection of questions that I picked out for some of the ones we had sent in. Maybe you wanna read them to me, Jason. Oh, sure. Steven asks, Mike, do you plan on purchasing a big camera like a mirrorless camera? Will you rely only on your iPhone for photos of your newborn? Or perhaps you will take a hybrid approach and hire a professional

for special occasions and annual shots and use your iPhone for the rest. So I have a Sony camera of which the name I don't remember. DSR-1032MW. I think it's a. Something like that. It's a Sony A6400 mirrorless camera. Oh okay, the one that everybody has, yeah. Yeah. I got that one. I bought this for streaming because it's a good quality camera for streaming, but I've

also used it for some product photography stuff. I today put it in my backpack to take home. This was suggested to me from friend of the show, underscore David Smith. He said, just put it in the bag and take it to the hospital because you want these pictures forever and you want them to look the best they could possibly look that you're only going to get these photos once do it. Now I don't expect to, you know, I don't, I'm not going to take all my photos with this camera. Um, like, but you know, maybe we're in a recovery room and take some pictures of my wife and

my daughter. I can't believe I'm saying these words. That will be an incredible thing and I will be very happy for the rest of my life that I had the best possible camera with me to take some of these photos so I have a selection of them. So I'm planning to do it for that. Outside of that, I don't, I don't know, I don't expect to want more than my iPhone for just kind of the average stuff.

And I don't know, special occasions, I have no idea yet. But I know that the first occasion that I can think of is the birth, and I have my plan for that one. Good, the good start. I like it. Logan writes, what are you and Adina going to have your kid call you when it is older? Are you a daddy and mommy couple or something different?

And what about grandparent names? So the grandparent part is easy because of the England and Romania of it all, right? So we can have like nanny and granddad, which would be what we'd do. And then, uh, Boonica, which would be for how you would say grandma. Um, the mom and dad of it all is complicated for me. Like I'm not sure about yet. So I think Adina feels pretty like she's leaning towards mama because that is what she is used to. And now I, I don't have like, I don't have a lot of association to like dad, which is just, we don't need to get into this, you know, but like, I don't have like a lot of

association with that. And so I kind of feel like mama and papa, that they sound nice and they like work together. And that is kind of how we've been referring to it. But also I know that like, it's, I guess to some element, maybe the kid will want to decide. Like, I don't know really. It can happen. Yeah.

Sometimes they just do what they want. That's the thing about kids. You can't just tell them You shall refer to me as Papa only Can't be done. But I think I think there will be a combo of mama and papa and mom and dad That's what I imagine will have that combo because I like Papa. I think it's I think it's quite sweet actually Well, the child child turns 10 and they're like I'm not calling you mama anymore You're your mother mother and father.

Yes, mother and yeah. My mom refers to her parents as mother and daddy, which I thought just says a lot about her relationship with her parents. Mother. Yes, mother. Daddy. Mommy and Mike. Yep.

Adam writes, what type of YouTube videos do you watch? How do you expect that to differ post child? I find this a funny question because I don't really know about the first part. Like I watch lots of types of YouTube videos. I think one thing that people say, here's the thing for me, Jason, I'm going to try my best for this one. All right. Now this is me.

This is me as current Mike looking at future Mike and trying to see if I can put anything in. I wanna try my very best to have my child avoid YouTube. Okay. I wanna try and keep YouTube away from her in her younger years, because I feel like even with YouTube kids, there's just, it's too easy to get into some like weird content, right? Like weird places. Yeah.

Just like unsettling stuff. And there's so much content on all of the streaming services that we have for kids that are, you know, that are good. Right. And I'm sure that we will find some YouTube shows that we could watch. I mean, I've heard, I've heard very good things about a show called Miss Rachel. I think there's even doing some Netflix specials, but I've heard good things about that. So, you know, maybe, but the idea of like just YouTube, just being a thing that we choose kids stuff from, I'm going to try and not, I'm going to try and avoid that. I mean, we have Disney, right? We have the BBC. I think between that, we can probably get through what we want. But if, you know,

if we do go with YouTube stuff, uh, I'm going to do my absolute best to have a separate profile. I don't want, I want to try my best to not ruin my YouTube with just all kid stuff You know good point. I have an alternate answer to these these questions Mike, which is What types of YouTube videos do you watch long ones? How do you expect that to differ post child short ones? Yeah, that's actually that's that's a very good one. Yeah. Yeah, that's gonna Yeah, I'm really interested about how my kind of like what my content consumption looks like post. Like it would be intriguing to me to see what stays

like and what doesn't. Like what are the things that I think are maybe important to me now that I'm happy to let go of. Like it's gonna be, I'm interested to see what that looks like. Yeah, I mean, prioritization is a thing that, you know, you kind of can't know until you're in the moment, you're like,

I'm not, I'm not going to catch up with that. I'm going to do this thing, especially since so much of it when you're, when you've got a young baby is opportunistic. So, you know, you end up with, well, maybe I'll sleep now, or maybe I'll watch this short thing and fall asleep., you know, right? Whereas you before you might have been like, Oh, this seemed like it was important to me, but I'm not going to do it. I'm just not feeling it. We'll find out. And also like I wonder, you know, me and Ed, you know, watch a lot of shows together. I wonder if that will remain the same or if maybe we will prioritize different things and watch them together, but separately, you know, like could be because we have certain types of content that maybe we value more than,

than others. And if we have that, if we have less time together content that maybe we value more than others. And if we have less time together, that maybe it's like, I want to watch one thing she wants, and watch the other, and we do that. Or maybe like, we watch less TV together, I play more games while she's watching TV, you know, like that kind of thing. It's going to be interesting to me to see

like what is the content mix, like when we have way less time. Yeah, exactly. Rosemary asks, what milestones are you most looking forward to and how are you planning on documenting them? So with the milestones, I've had lots of good advice from parents in my life who urge me to try to get ahead of myself with milestones, right?

Because every phase that you're in will stop. And so if you do, I don't want to wish away the moments that I have, but in the near future, I guess, talking will be great. Like that will be a big one for me. I care more about talking than walking. And I like, I would imagine different parents have different feelings and that, but the talking I look forward to very much. When it comes to documenting, as well as the obvious of photos and videos, I am working on, both me and Idina are working on journaling the moments quite specifically, to be spending time reflecting on how this whole process makes us feel.

I have been doing that for the last year anyway like separately to my usual journaling and like journaling a lot about what this process has been like and we're both gonna try and do that going forward as well which I think will be nice for us and then maybe I don't know maybe nice to reflect on as a family later on in life. I was definitely one of those people who the walking was a big milestone. Yeah. You know, kids talk at different ages and there's all sorts of different things that happen with that. I will I'm going to give you some unsolicited advice right now, which is as your as your baby, you know, the first few months we can do this when you're back because the first

few months the baby really doesn't do anything. Um, but, um, children can communicate before they can talk. And we had a great success teaching our babies some hand signs, some baby signs, um, because that's the truth of it is their brains are developed enough to communicate via hand signals way before they're able to speak. Um, and mostly they go away and they don't use them after they can talk because talking is way more efficient but it was really great because our babies could say I need to I want a nurse now or I'm hungry now way before they could talk by doing a hand gesture. It's pretty cool.

I'll look into this. I like this idea. That's really good. Like, even if you just understand hungry. Yeah. Yeah. Or up or, and we ended up with up and cat and, you know, and all sorts of, yeah, sign, baby signs are fun. Very nice. All right. And finally, oh, Mike, finally, in so many ways, last up, this is Gabe.

Last episode, Mike mentioned he has smart radiator valves. Hey, look, if you got the things you need to know from me, right, you gotta know them now. Get it out now. I recently moved into my first house, which dates from the 1930s and has old radiators with old painted over valve knobs. I was interested in any kind of smart radiator valves,

but could only find sketchy looking ones from Alibaba. Can Mike talk more about what he is using in the studio? The soon to be very cold and abandoned studio. Cold and abandoned, yeah. I'm interested about the paint it overvalves. No, that sounds rough. I mean, I'm assuming it is adjustable. I use a product from Eve called the Eve Thermo.

It's a very clever thing where you essentially remove the radiator control, which is just a dial that you turn. It's a numeric dial on these like old radiators. You've got like one to 10 or whatever, and that just increases and decreases the amount of heat. So you can unscrew those. And when you unscrew them, it's very scary for a second because the radiator goes from zero to 100%, right? It's because you've unscrewed the valve. But then you just screw these back on and it is essentially like a little motor

and you request a temperature through a smart home app. And I said, it has a thermometer inside, which I think is problematic as the way to judge the temperature. You can put a- Because it's right can put it there because it's right there. You can, and you can adjust them. You could put, you could have it set by an automation, by a temperature controller in the, in the room.

You know, like maybe you put like in the middle of the room, you have a temperature sensor and you can say like, you know, go turn off and turn on that kind of thing. But this is a product that I've used these for five years. I have found them to be very reliable. The only reliability issues I've had are home kit reliability issues, not reliability issues with the product. And it is a very simple kind of idea of like all it's doing is operating the valve for you. But it is it's really good because you can make old technology smart again by

by basically putting one of these on a radiator valve. It's a very good product. I really recommend it if you have kind of more old school radiators, you know, that are not electric or whatever. So very cool. That's it. That's it. All right. If you want to send in feedback, follow up and questions, go to upgradefeedback.com. So long suckers. You can say whatever you like. I'm not going to read it. Thank you to our members, the supporters of Upgrade Plus. Go to getupgradeplus.com.

If you want to buy a gift for my baby, get yourself an Upgrade Plus membership. That's what I'll say. That will help support me and my family. If you wanna find this show on YouTube, you wanna watch us along, you can go to find us this Upgrade podcast, and you just go search for us. Thank you to our sponsors this week,

Delete Me, Google Gemini, FitBot, and Squarespace. I'm getting a little bit emotional right now. I'm gonna be gone for a long time, probably like two months, because I really want to focus on this part of my life. And I want to thank Jason in front of everybody, because Jason was incredibly encouraging for me to take a long leave, which I really appreciated because it made me feel confident that I could do it, because this is something that I wanted

to do. So Jason, thank you for holding down the fault for me and for us. And I'm very excited to be listening to the show for a couple of months. But I have things that I need to go and attend to. So please miss me and I'll be back sometime in April. Until next time. Say goodbye, Jason Stone. Goodbye, Mike Hurley. Thank you.