Upgrade - 561: International Intrigue

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

from relay this is upgrade episode 561 for April 28 2025 today's show is brought to you by FitBard and vitally my name is Mike Hurley I'm joined by Jason Snell hi Jason Snell from my garage this is Jason Snell oh brought to Snell. From my garage, this is Jason Snell, brought to you this week by T. Life's like every week. I was trying to start off the show by saying thank you for the nice messages people who wrote in to tell me that they're happy that I'm back

and I thought that was very sweet. But we don't have time for all that. I have a Snell talk question for you and it comes from Patel who wants to know, have either of you used a Waymo before? If you haven't, would you be interested in it? Waymo for those who don't know is a self-driving taxi and they are everywhere in San Francisco. I'll tell you that they are everywhere in San Francisco. Or is that somebody else? No, no, I think they are in Phoenix too.

My mom lives so far outside their range that it's not an option there. And I don't live in San Francisco. And so when I drive in San Francisco, we just went to a Giants game on Saturday and you can't go through San Francisco without seeing a Waymo. It's funny, Lauren and I were talking about how obviously these Waymos are pretty good

because they have to deal with the worst. Uh, because in San Francisco, I mean, you've got people who don't know, not only is it just regular city driving, but you've got a lot of people who are not from San Francisco with like tourists or people from the outlying area who've come into the city and they don't know where they're going or what they're doing. We had people going across like multiple lanes to turn like, Oh, I'm in the far right lane, but I need to go to Fisherman's Wharf. So I need to be in the left lane. And then they're making this diagonal. And as we watch one of those bad drivers, Lauren said, well, you know, the way most

handle it and they, and they do the way most handle it. I feel like San Francisco is an interesting testbed because I think it might be like a relative an interesting rarity in a city of its like connectedness. I think people want to drive there because it's like exciting to drive in San Francisco in certain parts of it where the hills are where you might not otherwise drive if you're a tourist. I don't know. I don't know. I don't recommend it, but the answer is no.

I would love to try it sometime, but that would require me to be somewhere in the city, wanting to go somewhere else in the city. And generally, since I don't live in the city, I am not like that. I'm going to a Giants game midweek in a few weeks, and I wonder if I might get off the bus a little early or something and then take a-

You should do that. Take a waymo. You should do it for the show. Just to think about it. So I'll look at that. I've also thought about, I thought about in Phoenix, like taking a waymo as far as it'll go. And then like calling a lift

to take me the rest of the way or something. But haven't done that either. So, yeah, anyway, that's, I would be interested in it. I've seen them in action from the outside. They seem like they know what they're doing, right? Like they, they are, and honestly, they would be stuck at turns forever if they didn't like drive like a normal person. Like they can't be super tentative.

And I've seen them around the ballpark after a game and they seem to figure it out. So I don't know how they're doing it. Obviously, you know, please don't write in to tell me about the one time one got lost somewhere. Like, of course this happens. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But it does work.

There are things that have happened. It's a system that works. Generally, it has been a positive thing. Even the horror stories, there are very few of them. And most of them involve people, like standing in front of a Waymo. That was an infamous one to block, because somebody was asking somebody for a date.

It was really gross and very bad. But she pressed the button to alert Waymo that there was a problem. And there's the legendary story that I know I've mentioned probably on this podcast about the parking lot we used to use for Giants games that became the parking lot that was being live streamed and at two in the morning, the Waymos were all honking at each other.

I'm happy to report that it's a parking lot again. I parked there for Giants games again. So the Waymo parking experiment on second street in San Francisco in front of the webcam seems to be over. Yeah Yeah, they see already bad for them PL wise I think that was a bad place where there's an apartment building Looking down on them that can live stream the way most so they're they're out of there But anyway, I would love to try it sometime. I'm interested in it I think it's hard not to drive around San Francisco and think that maybe this is the future

That whether all cars get replaced by self-driving things, you know, is a debate that will play out over many years. But the idea that you could just have free roaming taxis that drive themselves. And it is something, you know, you pull up next one, there's nobody driving it. Like there's nobody in there except the passenger. Or if it doesn't have a passenger, there's literally nobody in the car. It's just doing things.

It's pretty wild, but it's becoming routine. And that's what I've heard from people who have taken the Waymo's is, the first time you do it, it's amazing. And you're like, whoa, this is so futuristic. The fifth time you do it, it's just a cab ride. That's it. Yeah, as somebody who relies on public transport

to the level that I do, I have no problem with the idea of getting in a car driven by a computer because why do I have faith in anything that drives me or moves me around from place to place? You know, like it is either a human or it's a system or like whatever. Yeah. I've never been in a way mode, but I would totally do it. I would totally do it. Yeah. If you would like to send in a question of your own to help us

open a future episode of the show, please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your own snow talk. I have a follow up item, Jason. We've spoken about Nest in the past. This is in the context of them not adding matter support to some of their older thermostats. They have announced this week that the first and second generation Nest thermostats are going to lose access to most of their connected features, including the app in October of this year. The thermostat will still act as a thermostat in your home, but you won't be able to do any of the smart stuff with it except anything you can do on the screen itself. I think they're doing a decent thing.

They're giving a really good discount to customers in the US to upgrade their thermostats to a newer model. The problem for me, which is why I'm mentioning this, they are no longer going to be bringing any products to Europe. So I have a second gen Nest thermostat in my home. It was there when we moved in. So I was like, great. Uh, we use the app. So this is really, I'm sure that you have some stuff to say in a minute, but I just want to say if listeners have recommendations for a smart thermostat in the people have an answer in the various forums and all that would be, I wonder what form this kind of bricking will take,

because if it's still on your local network, could you control it with HomeBridge or similar, right? Those tools that let you connect the Nest to HomeKit, will those still work? Or do those also require API access that's going away? That's a great question. Also, this just sucks. Google, you know, Google sucks. They cancel all these products that people rely on. They use their, I mean, we complain about Apple sort of being very lax-a-daisical about some of the products that they roll out, but this is the worst. They just roll things out. They buy things. They kill whole categories where people have to compete with this giant company, Google.

And then they just toss it off and say, forget it. By the way, you were incorrect in saying they weren't gonna do Matter Support on old products. They weren't gonna bring Matter Support to their currently shipping premium thermostat when they made that announcement. It was like, we're not going to bother, which is just amazing. They do have, I think some new stuff now.

It's not as good as the old stuff. They've kind of decontented the nest and it's just like a crappy round thermostat. There were other options. I'm sure that there will be something good in the UK. Uh, I used a nest for a long time, um, before I dumped it for an ecobee, which I had for like nine months and then got a new HVAC system that can't use third-party thermostats. So I'm out of this business now, but it just, I appreciate that they're giving people a discount, but like they're not, and they're not bricking the thermostat

really, right? It will still work as a thermostat and you could still presumably program it on the device. You can do that, it's not great. But it's really disappointing that they've done this. What really bugs me, and I think it's a really important note, is the attitude. I think the verge wrote a story about this where the attitude is very much like these thermostats have been around for 10, 12 years, which is a pretty good run for a tech product. And I thought, yeah, but not for a thermostat,

like not for a home product. Home product, you know, those tech products that are thermostats should last forever, right? And that's the problem is if you have to replace something that's in your home every five years because it becomes obsolete, the smart home thing is not going to work. There needs to be an expectation of more longevity for this stuff.

It's not like Google can't afford to keep the servers up. That's the other galling thing here is that they're not getting any more money out of those people, so they're just going to kiss them off. I mean, they could, I'm sure. They could charge for it. They could have a separate technology stack that is a legacy technology stack Right that is maintained that just operates the old stuff if they will to do obviously don't want to do that They don't want them. They could why should they bother right? They could what do they care? They work now

So like the obviously the reason they're not gonna work is they want to do something, right? Or they just they want to change something on their systems that would Necessitate the killing of these products. But that means that there is a system that exists that could support these products if they decided they wanted to do that. But look, I, I, I want to have a thermostat that integrates into the home app, and I'm hoping that this will be an opportunity for me to make that switch. And they're just going to push me to do it. There's a company called Hive in the UK, which is seemed to be backed by British gas. And I think that they do what I'm looking for, which is a decent enough thermostat that I believe they say has home kit access and support, but the documentation is a little

shaky. Like I can't really seem to verify it. So that's kind of why I'm I know if anybody out there knows It's gonna be the upgrade in so I want some recommendations. It's your heat like boiling boiler and radiator kind of stuff. Yeah Yeah, okay. So it's it's we have a combi boiler. Yeah, it's appreciably different from how most Americans heat their houses So it's an issue. But just if what? Look, here's what I'll say, though, about this, too. Right. Look, I just think that to me, this suggests that maybe this isn't a good product to invest

in in your home, no matter where you live, because Google's decided that they can't be bothered to support an entire continent of customers, which is quite a lot of people. And so it would suggest to me that they're not serious about this product category because they have done it. It's not impossible. They did it for many years. So they just don't want to do it anymore with their new products. And that would indicate to me a lack of seriousness. So my only hope is that there is going to be the right way to do this. If you're Google and you're killing these products, the right way to do this is to park it in a state. And I've heard about this from some other companies

that they've talked about this, that like, if the worst happens, it won't be a brick. If the worst happens, you can have it in a state where it doesn't need to phone home. Like my Lymetric Time, that is my little clock that I have under the TV. They finally put in a feature that is like a local, local plugin, local data source kind of thing. And that made me feel better. Because if those those people go out of business, their device now has a mode where basically I can feed it data from my server, and they don't need to be involved. So the right thing for Google to do is place those nests in

some sort of a state where they're on the network locally, and things like HomeBridge plugins and things like that will work with them. My fear is that everything is going through their authentication API, and once it's turned off they just won't work anymore. It doesn't matter. And that's a shame, right? Because you should be able to let people kind of like keep those things alive and functioning even if you're not using the actual Nest app anymore.

So yeah, it's a real bummer. By the way, as an aside, because I'm going to use the power of upgrade here, I still have my Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium. It's sitting in a drawer. If somebody would like to make a decent offer for me to send it to them, you won't just be using an Ecobee Thermostat Premium with two sensors. You'll be using mine.

Oh, Jason's starting a mission. I'm turning it into Marco here. I'll sign it for you if you want. Wow. I don't care. I realize I should probably sell that. And don't make me go to eBay people anyway. Find a way to get in contact with Jason directly. Do not send these requests to the feedback feedback. No, don't do that. No, don't send it to the feedback form. Find Jason and offer

it to him. I don't want 25 different requests to field in the feedback form. Uh, this is part of the, the, the, I don't know, the game here is you've got to find Jason and contact him. And then you can get the, what is it, Ecobee? Ecobee premium, yeah. It's good, it's a good thermostat. I just can't use it anymore. That's another company that does interest in products,

but they don't make versions outside of the US. But nevermind. Yeah, well, you know, Google, especially, it's like, it's not really an international company. Yeah, it's true. Very, very, very, just, just very small, local California company. It's time to lawyer up Jason Snell.

Clunk, clunk. Thank you. It's happened. The time has come. Apple and Meta are the first two companies to be hit with fines in relation to the DMA from the European Union, the Digital Markets Act. Meta has been fined 200 million euros. For as much as I can understand it, because it was all very confusing to me on a red ad, maybe I don't track Meta enough closely, but it seems like in Europe they offer a product,

I think, where you can pay Meta and you don't have to see ads in Facebook or Instagram. But the EU is unhappy about that. Like they want there to be a middle ground where you give more limited private information. Honestly, I can't see what the problem is here, but maybe. What bugs me about it is that it seems to be that they lay down some rules and Metta said, okay, we'll build this product we don't want to build.

And then the EC is like, actually, we want you to build it differently, which I'm sorry. This is one of the things that really does set me off about some of this EC regulation is they're basically telling companies, they're dictating products for companies to build in order to be compliant. Instead of saying, here, what the rules are, follow the rules. Because they're like, oh, we didn't mean it like that. Well, make your rules better then. But stop designing new versions of Facebook for Facebook to implement for you. It's bananas.

I think it's incredible that they built it. I think it's actually an interesting idea. I think it's also maybe not a bad business for matter if they can get it right. So many companies have like pay or get ads. But the idea that they're like, no, we actually meant, uh, we want you to make your advertising this effect. No, I don't agree with this, but anyway, it's amazing. Uh, they also find Apple 500 million euros and for Apple, we're back to anti-steering rules.

Uh, So the European Commission does not like the way that Apple has set up alternative app stores for all of the reasons that I guess we don't like how they set up alternative app stores. The core technology fee is being considered as a key sticking point of theirs because it makes developers it disincentivizes developers to go down this route because they're worried they could get, I don't know, like absolutely obliterated financially. And it also adds complexity or additional cost to customers because apps that could be free that have to charge to make sure

that they can cover the fees. This is, we see this in all sorts of spots. The EC also believes that the eligibility requirements for alternative distribution are too strict and the method of installing alternative app stores is considered too complicated and burdensome. I don't disagree with any of this, really. Like these points. There are many more, but these are kind of the key points. And these were all of the things that, that I mean me and you focused on for months seeing that's going to be a problem. So Apple's response to this, they did the typical I'm outraged outraged by this. I can't believe this. But one of the things that they mentioned and this is going to keep coming up and I remember when we hit on this a few years ago they're going to say the EC wants us to give things to people for free.

That's what they'll say. What they mean is Apple's defense of them keeping as much revenue as possible in their platform is that it's a proxy for paying for developer tools. Now, I would argue that that's a lie, that it's never been a proxy, and it's just a sort of a legal fig leaf that they're trying to put over this. But that's their argument is we provide APIs and developer tools for developers, and we should be compensated for that in some way. Now, I'm open to that argument, although I do not have a lot of patience for it. I feel like Apple's benefit is that they have a strong platform and they can sell a lot

of phones for a lot of money and make huge profits. And that taking, you know, charging for developer tools is not, you know, if they want to do that, I guess they could charge up front or something. But like, no, they benefit from having this model because it creates a rich ecosystem that benefits them when they sell all of their things. Also, the EC isn't saying don't compete. The EC is saying don't force all of your app developers to hide the existence of the web from users. And honestly, again, I am not a lawyer. I cannot go into the details of this,

but just as a person who understands how Apple works, I look at this and I would not accept their argument either. I would say, you can compete all you want, but you cannot make developers pretend the web doesn't exist and say, how dare you use anything? And then when they finally build it, they build it in such a limited way,

such a non-functional way, behind all of the scare alerts. Cause again, remember one of the key things here is, danger, danger, danger, You are going to a website. Oh, gasp, which is again, just, that's not how people are. That's not how the world works. It's bananas that Apple thinks that,

oh, iPhone users don't use like the internet or anything. They're just inside the warm embrace of Apple. It's, they make Safari, it's wild. So I have very little time for this. I understand Apple sort of saying, we wanna be compensated in some way. But even then, I kind of roll my eyes at that. And yeah, this is one of the,

the truth is, this is one of the easy ones. This is one of the easy ones, this anti-steering stuff. Like Apple is asking developers to say that the sky is green, essentially. It does not map to reality. It's such an easy one to say, no, you know, if you are an app developer

and you've got a website where people can log in and do things, you can tell people about that. And Apple's like, no, no, no, no, no. You can't, you can't. It's too dangerous to share that information with them because they might choose something outside of our control. It's like, well, they might, they might not, but like they might just deal with it. It's, it's, it's the like, um, it's like a pretend competition is what they create. It's like, we're going to allow you to compete with us, but we're going to draw the rules

of competition in such a way that it's incredibly hard for you to win. Right. Like it's just like very, very unfair rules. I mean, but we've been calling this for the whole time, right? Uh, yeah. The European commission that says that Apple has 60 days to comply with this new ruling. Uh, and I guess I just say, what now then? So this fine is large, right? 500 million euros is large, but it's not as big as it could have been. The European Commission has the ability, based on the rules, to levy fines of up to 10% of global revenue for a year. So I think it's something like 40 billion euros they could have asked for. They've asked for half a billion, which is still an incredible

amount of money, but it's nowhere near as much. So maybe they're leaving themselves some room. Maybe they're a little bit nervous now. I don't know what the situation is. This is the decision that they have made and they levied this fine. If Apple does not comply in those 60 days, my understanding is they can find them again and just keep doing it. I think the thing that potentially has changed is the US government now has an opinion, uh, under Joe Biden, there was zero opinion seemingly given about the DMA stuff. Um, it has been called an economic extortion that will not be tolerated. I don't know what that means.

Nobody knows what that means, but it has created a different scenario. Uh, I think then, then where we find ourselves before there is, it is a different scenario, I think, than where we find ourselves before. It is a different scenario. And there is more stuff about this later on in the show about kind of like Apple and the government. But for right now, I don't really know where we're going to sit. Yeah, it's a saber rattling going on there. What are they going to do? More tariffs? I mean, it's a saber rattling going on there. What are they gonna do more tariffs? I mean, it's I don't know it I think if if I were the EC, I'd be like, alright, let's see what you got Right, like cuz that's the kind of thing that gets that gets negotiated But what they're trying to do now is just get them to tone it down or stop it and I don't think they will so

I you know, we'll just have to keep our eye on it. But neither of us are surprised that they looked at what Apple did with their very limited implementation and said, no, that's not good enough because it does feel very much like Apple was trying to adhere to the minimum possible by the letter of the law, even though it didn't actually fulfill the letter of the law, even though it didn't actually fulfill the point of the law. And so of course the EC was like, no, that's not good enough. So here we are.

But I think it does on the pin of a point that we were talking about the whole time of like, there was a there was an easier way to do this. There was a better way to do this and nobody wanted to do it. Right? Like, we shouldn't have gotten this far that Apple built this whole system and then it's deemed to be illegal. Right. There should have been something between these two entities that got them to a point where they were happy with rather than this dance. Right. But I guess, I guess that is wishful thinking that it's not how the world works, but it's how I would like the world to work takes takes two to dance, right? and and I would say yes, we can be frustrated that what the Look if the EC puts down rules, you know and says follow these rules

They get criticized for not being not providing enough detail But if the EC gives all the detail they will get criticized for creating forcing people to create products, right? Which is what sort of happened with Meta. So, and the other side of it is there could be a give and take where Apple says, okay, we're thinking of doing it this way. What do you think? And, you know, clearly they don't like it, right? Clearly they don't like it. And yes, you're right. There should have been a back and forth where they said, if you implement this, you will be fine. And for all we know, there was, but they're like, you know what that probably was. go ahead and find us. Go

ahead and find us. They have no doubt. There's so much back channeling going on during a scenario. I, what I mean, I just wish that they could have been, I wish that everyone could have taken this. And this is again, it's unrealistic. I just wish that in this scenario everybody went into it with an open mind and like that everyone went into it and been like, we can do something here that will benefit our customers and us. But obviously they're not going to do that. But I just wished. Yeah, I just wish.

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I searched for this last week and I ended up with purveyor of apple rumors. Yeah. It's just like- I don't know what to say. It's hard to, like, I don't, this is just the word, right? So I think I just have to go for it, but I just, it feels derogatory to the person. But like, like, because why do we not call Mark Gurman a leaker? We don't do that. But like, I think leaker has become like this phrase, which is like used

in YouTube and stuff. It's like, cool anyway. But, uh, my Jimbo is reporting that iPad OS 19, the iPad will gain a menu bar when it is connected to a magic keyboard and also shared that stage manager improvements will be a big part of the iPadOS 19 update, saying that it will quote, make managing apps and windows smoother and more productive than ever. What do you make of all of this?

Well, this is the detail we did not get from Mark Gurman when he said, hey, it will be better at productivity, multitasking and window management. Like a Mac. Like a Mac. The people will be happy, I think is the other part he said. Those people will be happy. And that was all he got. But Majin Buu is here to say, yeah, it's going to be, you know, plug in and get a menu bar. I will just point out, because it made me laugh when I saw this story, because I thought, oh, I literally wrote this in 2021. I said, look, they got all the pieces.

Because if you hold down the command key when you're using an iPad with a keyboard, it brings up the menu shortcuts. And it's literally, in some apps, it's literally organized by the Mac menu because of Catalyst. You can build a whole menu bar in Catalyst and it also sort

of shows up in this one view. It is just a matter of will for Apple to put that in as a feature. And John Gruber wrote about this the other day and I agree wholeheartedly, one of the greatest innovations in the Mac and one of the things that still makes the Mac great is the menu bar, is the fact that all of your computer programs have unlike back when we had to like type in things in commands back in the day, like all of the features of your programs are in the menu bar. It lists them, you can get them from there. You can use that you can see the keyboard shortcuts that you can use instead. In the system,

you can assign keyboard shortcuts. There's so much richness there that you see any iPad app that is trying to be complicated, you know, complex, powerful, you see them struggle with like, how do I make sure that somewhere here in the UI, this feature is exposed? on a Mac you just say, put it in the menu bar. And the problem is it's actually appreciably worse because a lot of those contexts where it's in the UI are in very specific contexts where you would never, it's like, where is it? Whereas I can go up to the help menu and type a string on the Mac and find that menu bar

command and where it lives and even run it right from there. So I think this is a great idea. And on top of that, just more broadly, you know, we talk about stage manager, we talked about iPad multitasking, we've talked about how one of the huge problems that Apple faces is making an iPad OS that is friendly to people who just use it as a tablet.

And they don't wanna accidentally drag a tab out of Safari and suddenly end up in split view. They just wanna use it the way who just use it as a tablet. And they don't want to accidentally drag a tab out of Safari and suddenly end up in SplitView. They just want to use it the way they want to use it. And then there are the people who are like, well, no, I kind of want it to be Mac-like. And it's like, how in the world do we do both? Well, one of the ways is to detect when a keyboard or other device similar is attached to the iPad

and enter a different mode because then you've got a keyboard. So probably you want a different kind of interface. You've got a keyboard and a track pad. You probably want something different. It makes so much sense. And all I can say, so I wrote about that in 2021, all I can say is the only reason we haven't gotten this

is because of dogma within Apple, right? It's Apple saying, no, no, no, that's a bridge too far. And I would just say, I wrote that piece in 21 because in 2019, they started adding pointer support and then they shipped a keyboard with a track pad. And like the horses out of the barn, like all those arguments about like, oh, the iPad can't, it's not like that.

And it's like, they sell a thing that makes the iPad, a laptop now. So embrace it. Just, I mean, just, just do it and make it good. And I actually think this is great for people who don't ever buy iPad pros and don't buy keyboards and stuff, because it, it, it walls that stuff off. It's like, you want to use it like a laptop, go ahead. We've got a laptop mode now. Um, so I think it's a good idea.

Again, I thought it was a good idea four years ago too. I'd say it's baffling, but it's more entirely expected for the iPad that there's a weird tug of war inside Apple about what the iPad should be. And they lay all the groundwork and then they just don't do it for years afterward. So great. Sounds great. This would have been a great feature in 2022. It still might be, but like they could have done this three years ago or two years ago or last year. Why now? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, this kind of thing for me. I know that this is the problem with rumors, right? Where I'm just like, okay, let's see.

Cause I don't see realistically how this makes any material change to the iPad experience. Like, great, there's a menu bar now. Like I don't then imagine that the majority of iPad app developers are going to make significant changes that are applications that make them better. Like, I will, you know, I don't know, say Google, a Google going to put stuff in the menu bar.

Like, no, that's the worst example because Google's a terrible app developer. But that's the point though. In general. Yeah, well, this is this is the thing is it's all about execution. It's all about how developers respond to it. We haven't even mentioned like making managing apps and windows smoother and more productive. Like what is it? It's all about the details.

Cause we heard that about, how many times have we heard this story, right? That's what it comes down to is how many times have we heard this story? And of course, like I said, when German's thing came out, what goes in those windows that you're managing? What goes in them? Because that's the that's one of the big problems with the iPad is the functionality of apps isn't

there. I had somebody asked me last week. What based on this story is like, what do I personally consider an impediment to doing my work on an iPad? And I always just come to like, what would make me bring, not bring my MacBook Pro with me to Arizona to visit my mom? The answer is all the audio stuff we've talked about, the inability for multiple apps to, you know,

run at the same time and access the audio subsystem, recording all my podcast stuff. Stuff that, keyboard all my podcast stuff. Keyboard shortcuts that are global. So you could assign shortcuts anywhere and use them anywhere. It's a clipboard manager or support for apps to do things like that in the background. The ability for apps like audio and video editors

to run in the background and not be killed or other apps that you've got, like the whole like things that aren't killed in the background or not be killed, or other apps that you've got, like the whole like things that aren't killed in the background, or the ability to have multiple media streams playing at once, and they just overlap each other like on the Mac instead of pausing one thing while I'm doing another. There's nothing like watching a video

and scrolling through a webpage, and the webpage tries to play a video and the video you're watching pauses. And that happened to me last week. So there's a lot of things that are functional about iPad OS. So like they can, they, look, I think a menu bar, adding a menu bar is good. There are a lot of apps that will support it.

And then we'll in fact already support it. And that, that Apple can lead the way there and that it will add some usability. But there are, you know, it's not, it's not gonna cure it, right? There's a lot that needs to happen. And a lot of that is on Apple, because like, if the OS refuses to let apps behave in a Mac-like way, making the interface more Mac-like doesn't help. Like how far can you go interface wise

when it only becomes Mac like when you connect the Magic Keyboard? I think that is a question, right? Which is if you care about your app when it's just a touch app, then you have to still put all the UI everywhere when it's a touch app. But at least you could expose it in the menu bar afterward.

And again, it'll be like, I think more pro apps, maybe things that are targeted more at this kind of semi-mythical high-end iPad. But like Apple believes that that user exists because they make an iPad Pro and a keyboard, right? Like they act as if that user exists and they make Final Cut and Logic, right? Like I think there are some apps that will take advantage

of this, and we'll see how that goes. Yeah. There have been so many times where Apple has said, like, desktop class apps, right? Desktop class apps. And they just, they have features that can get you there, but I just, they're not used. No, and there's still fundamentals.

I mean, again, it comes down to the details, because like when this person asked me, you know, what was an impediment, I was trying to imagine working in stage manager on my iPad Pro. And a lot of it is things like window management. Window management isn't just moving a window around on screen, although it does really bug me that like on an iPad, you have to click multiple times in order to do something with a window on a Mac. You can just click the close box, but also like on the iPad, you, you can't just do like command in to open a new window in

an app because the apps don't think like Mac apps. They're like, Oh, a new window. Do you mean to replace this or add a tab or it's like They're like, Oh, a new window. Do you mean to replace this or add a tab or it's like, No, I just want a new window. I'm in multi window mode. And the apps like, Oh, I don't know, I can't, I can't really do that. And it gets so frustrating. And, you know, it's stuff like that, that it's just or expose or like there, there are so many of these details that the iPad just doesn't offer that get in your way. And that's it. Is this a revolutionary set of detailed changes or is it three new features that get tossed in the mix

and then they walk away again? And that's what we have to wait and see about is the details of how they do this. I'm just gonna be really annoying. I'm just gonna say it. I like my iPad as an iPad. When I connect it to a magic keyboard, just give me Mac OS.

Like I don't, I just, what I want, like just give me Mac OS. Like you don't need to do all this. Like just give me that. I'll have that. Right. And that would be amazing. Cause I know, I know these machines can run it.

I know it can. My, my iPad pro has a more powerful chip than my MacBook Air, but my MacBook Air is infinitely more capable than my iPad Pro. There's nothing stopping Apple from building a classic like virtualization layer that lets you run Mac apps in this mode in iPad OS, not reboot into Mac OS, but it's like Mac OS is back there or aspects of Mac OS are back there. They could try that too. I just think that's, I think this is the push and pull at Apple, which is some people are

like, let's make the iPad more Mac like, but not the Mac. And then other people are like, well, just do a Mac then or whatever. Because I think I've heard several people talk about this in this latest wave of iPad despair that we've all been going through, which is, you know, is the answer that what people really want is better and more flexible hardware on the Mac side. And, and, you know, the answer is yes to both like, one way or another, having a little tablet that you can also attach and make into a laptop is a pretty cool thing. And right now, Apple doesn't let you do both. You either get a tablet that runs a tablet OS that can sit in a laptop shape, or you have a laptop. But that's it. Like there's no in between. And I think that is probably at the core of Apple having this real ambivalence. Because what they you know what they really like is selling iPad pros and selling iPad pros with magic keyboards and showing them off. But what they don't seem to like is making it a little, you know, crossing that line and making it a little more like the Mac, which yeah, it would be, if I could take an

M three or M four iPad pro with me and know that I could do everything I could do on my Mac and the rest of the time it's just an iPad. So I don't need to bring two devices. That'd be great. That'd be great. And we know they could. Federico said this and I'll say it too. I will pay you the price of both machines.

I will do it. Give me an iPad that is a thousand dollars more, but has Mac OS, I'll pay it. Because then I only need one thing, right? Where currently I'm carrying both things because I love both things. This is what I'm saying. This is not me being down on the iPad.

This is me being more pro iPad than most people. I want it to do what it does and I love it. I don't own a magic keyboard for my iPad Pro because I don't want that. Like I just want the best iPad experience that I can have. And like, I don't want it to be confused and like further by being like, oh, and now there's a menu bar sometimes.

Like I don't want that. I just want the iPad to be the iPad because I think the iPad is amazing at that. But if you were going to say we need to make it more professional and more capable, then let me run Mac OS on it and just like forget iPad OS. Like just iPad OS is just like just make it this like in between thing. It's bigger than an iPhone. It's and you know, because it has a bigger screen, it can do some other stuff.

We don't need to try and like make it like a Mac. And you know what is why Apple proved me wrong, right? WWDC this year, please. I'm just I've been born too many times to assume that we're about to get the Mac on you know, again. I get it. But I also want to point out that what you said is I don't attach a keyboard to my iPad. I don't want that. And this whole thing is saying you wouldn't ever get that. But the people who choose to attach a keyboard to their iPad would get it. Yeah, yeah, but I just don't think it's,

one says I just don't think, I can't imagine a scenario where it's really gonna be that great. That's what I'm saying. It's like, and again, that's what I'm saying, prove me wrong. But like if all you're doing is taking the stuff that's behind keyboard shortcuts and putting them up in a menu bar,

like is that really worth doing? Like, is it really worth doing? Like, I don't know if it is. But if all you're doing is taking the stuff that's behind keyboard shortcuts and putting them up in a menu bar, is that really worth doing? Is it really worth doing? I don't know if it is, because what I'm saying is you can do all of that. But I just don't think most app developers are going to get on board with you and put this into their applications. And so I'm just saying, just give me the Mac on it instead.

Well, that attitude's a little bit defeatist, but I would say that I think the truth is. Jason, I've been defeated so many times. I know you've been defeated so many times. I was like, yeah, well, this is it. I think the core question here has always been what is the high-end use of the iPad? Really? And the problem is Apple has changed.

It seemingly has either changed its mind or can't decide. And I firmly believe in the mid 2010s, the idea was that the iPad would continue to evolve until it could replace the Mac. And they put in a Mac compatibility layer for legacy Mac apps, but that it would be like OS X replacing OS 9. That the iPad OS would eventually be a thing you could run

on desktops and on laptops and everything else and it would be able to support that plus it would run on tablets and convertibles and stuff like that and then the Mac was being put out to pasture and then they changed they changed their mind and they built these Apple silicon Macs and they sold a zillion of them and the Mac is doing better than it ever has and now you look at the iPad and you go huh what, um, what's this for again? And you're right. As, as much as I have enjoyed, cause I really love my iPad and it is the computing device I use the most. But the truth is that the iPad pro feature thing with the high

price tag and all that, like you could argue that it's really like the stuff with Apple pencil. Like there are some specific use cases that are up at the high end, but that most of what you're trying to do is kind of make a Mac that's not as good as a Mac. And so to your point, the question would be at that point, do you just give up and say, no, just use the Mac? And when a user says, well, yeah, but I want a convertible that's a tablet most of the time, and then sometimes it's a Mac. Right now, Apple, with all its hardware prowess that we talk about, is like, oh, we can't do that.

We can't make that. Well, they can make it. They have made it. They just don't want to allow it, because it would be too, you know, you're mixing your chocolate into your peanut butter or whatever. You know, you can't do that.

It's too weird to mix those two things. And so that, you know, this is what happens when a company hasn't decided what it wants to do and that there are different parts of that organization that are pulling it in different directions because there are, I get that it's complicated, but one of the reasons it's complicated is that Apple keeps building this amazing hardware and then erecting these very weird barriers between their operating systems while trying to ape one of their operating systems with the other one. I kind of agree with you. I'd be okay if an M3, M4 iPad Pro just turned into Mac mode when you snapped it on a Magic

keyboard. I think that would be okay. Also with all the rumors about touchscreen Macs coming down the pike, this gets even weirder. It's like, okay, what's that? Or that foldable laptop slash iPad that's supposedly in the works for the next couple of years.

How does that work? What is that product? And so my hope is that those products are being developed because they've figured out how to bridge the gap here and we just can't see it yet. And I hope that's the case. But as you said, we've been defeated so many times that it's hard to think optimistically about it. Again, really like I wanna, I want them to prove me wrong, right?

Like I want, I want to believe. Yes. Like I really want it, but I wrong, right? Like I want, I want to believe. Yes. Like I really want it, but I just won't get my hopes up because again, that's what I'm saying. Like I even think in a scenario where Apple really tries, it's becoming more and more complicated to get people to go along with them. However, Majin Buu also shared the iPhones of a USB-C port will also be able to show this new stage manager when connected to a monitor. Quote, while not a full desktop mode, it will allow users to extend their screen space,

great for presentations, editing or enhanced viewing. I don't know what this means. Like I think I know what this is, but the description that the boo gives does not help. Like to me, this is just, you plug your phone in and like it's basically a version of iPad iOS in a way that like iPad iOS shows, but, but not a full desktop mode. Like, isn't that I'm very confused by it, but all of this, you know, everyone's saying this and I agree. All of this feels like,

and potentially even everything we've just been speaking about, maybe they're doing all of this to prepare for the folding iPhone. Maybe that's what this is all for, like improvements to stage manager windowing, you know, it's all to prepare for the folding iPhone, which then brings a folding tablet in the future, potentially too, right? Like this is hopefully the beginning groundwork that is required to get to that next thing. You know, like the story we told before, but like, hey, you should build size classes into your iPhone app. What is a size class? What does that mean? And then, oh, because we have split screen multitasking on the iPad coming, right?

Yeah. And bigger phones are coming. Bigger phones are coming and all this kind of stuff. Like, Apple have done this multiple times where they ask you to do a thing, and the reason they're asking you to do it is because there's a product coming. Certainly a possibility that both of these stories are not as much about existing hardware as they are about hardware that is coming,

and we're gonna get the weird mode where it's like, well, this is good, but it's got all these limitations, and everybody at Apple's like, mm, mm, right, they know that they're actually there for the product that's coming next year or the year after, but they've got to start work. It's a little like that iPhone Air, which I firmly believe is going to be designed as a stepping stone to a folding iPhone.

And you got to make a thin plane of technology so that you can then make it foldable. So I could see that here too. Also I mean people have talked about this for a long time. I know that Apple has this well you know buy why buy one product when you can buy three from us but like our phones are the most important device that most of us have and they're the most popular Apple product right. The iPhone is the most popular device that most of us have, and they're the most popular Apple product, right? The iPhone is the most popular Apple product.

There are lots of people who have an iPhone and do not own another Apple product. Just do the math. There have to be. So, if the, if, and if Apple Silicon is so powerful and Apple's got a real advantage in Apple Silicon, and they've already built this operating system so that it can expand to larger screens. This is again, this is

one of those dogma things. It's like, why not let people plug their iPhone into a screen and a keyboard? Why not and let them have so many people around the world use their iPhone as their primary computer already? And like, what if what if you could could kind of lead them down the path a little bit and say the iPhone is, you can charge it and use it on a screen with a keyboard when you're at your desk and then unplug it

and take it in your pocket. And like, that's actually pretty cool, right? Like, why not see where it goes? And I think that for too long, when I talk about this kind of Apple dogma, it's very much like, no, this far, no further. We can't go, it's just an iPhone isn't that way. And the other way to approach it would be like, you know what? We don't think a lot of people are going to do this, but we're going to let them try

and we're going to learn from it. And they could do that because the truth is, not a lot of people are going to attach their iPhone to a monitor and a keyboard and a trackpad, right? That's not going to happen. But some people will try it, and Apple will learn things from it. And they'll learn and app developers will learn, and maybe we'll get something out of that that is a good lesson for whatever the future of computing is. And finally, Mark Gurman is reporting

that Apple's secret robotics unit will now be under John Ternes's organization, marking another area of responsibility taken from John G. and Andrea after the executive shifts under John Ternes's organization, marking another area of responsibility taken from John Gianandrea after the executive shifts from the Apple Intelligence fallout. It's being said that this will allow for Gianandrea to put more efforts into running Apple's AI efforts,

which is not Siri. This is actually the models. No, it's the foundational models and stuff. And the research and all that kind of stuff. The robotics team itself continues to be run day to day by Kevin Lynch, but now is in the John Turnis hardware group, AKA the John Turnis taking over the company group, which it increasingly feels like is going to happen.

Apple built these silos to work on stuff, and it's a very un-Apple thing to do, and they seem to have finally just decided We're not going to do it that anymore. We're not going to have these separate groups. Hardware group will work on hardware, software group will work on software We're not going to have a robotics team. We're not going to have a or like a robot group There's going to be a hardware group with robot people in it and We're going to have you know, we're not going to have a vision pro group We're going to have hardware people working on vision pro and we're going to have a Vision Pro group, we're gonna have hardware people working on Vision Pro

and we're gonna have software people working on Vision OS. And that is the Apple way of doing it. And I know you put those groups together when it's a Skunk Works project or when it's early days, but at some point, there are advantages. We'll just call it the way it is. I mean, this is like, when I was in second grade, there was a kid who didn't come with us to third grade

and what he told us is that the teacher asked him to stay behind and help her next year. Oh no. Well, I mean, that kid got held back, right? That kid got held back. That kid couldn't go to third grade. Yeah, look, Jan Andre has been pushed out or they're carving something for him or whatever. The argument is that what he's good at is this more academic and research into AI developments

and building AI models that are then turned into products by the software team, but they're at the higher level of research and experimentation. But as Gurman points out, the other reason you do all of this is that when John G. and Andrea reacts to having most of his responsibility taken away by looking for a new job, you have the ability then to, there will be fewer people that you need to move when he quits. So that's also true. But I think it's also true

that having a research group looking into foundational AI models, that's a very different job than what the OS group is doing, the software group is doing. So that's fine. It's fine to have a group that does that. That's good. If Apple wants to build its own model, it needs a group to do that, whether John G. and Andrea is in charge of it, or it ultimately is just Craig Federighi or something like that. So be it. But that group does need to exist. But yeah, they're also prepping for him to be held back. Well, maybe. Because there was that report in a couple of weeks ago, right, that Craig Federighi is like,

hey, just use open source models to train stuff. So... Yeah, maybe, maybe, but I mean, yeah, I mean, we'll see. I think there's too much pride at Apple to say we're just going to lift other people's stuff. But who knows? You never know what it is. I mean, maybe, but maybe they've just decided they don't need the foundation anymore

and they can build their own models on top and that they feel like they have the people for that. I don't know. I mean, if I were Tim Cook, I would still want to fund AI research, right? I'd still want to do that. I'd still want to have a team that funds AI research that is there monitoring what's going on

and trying to give us advantages or allowing us to keep pace. And they've got the money, they should do it. The situation is though, Jason, that if you're Tim Cook, you can fund everything. Like, you know, you can just keep funding all of it. I know, but you've been burned here. You gotta, I think you gotta keep going.

I think saying, oh, AI is so important that we're not gonna do it anymore. We're just gonna pick up the scraps that are on the ground is a bad decision. So I don't think he's going to make that decision. I agree. And I don't think Apple is capable of saying that, right? Saying, oh, we give up. They're not going to do that. But the guy, the big hire you brought in, who's now only in charge of that, yeah, I could see he thought he was building an empire. And in fact, he's just been put away on an island somewhere

doing this. So he seems not long for the company, but that work will continue. And then as for robotics, like, oh, Mark Gurman loves the word robotics, and he keeps talking about, he keeps talking about humanoid robots that Apple might be working on in the future. Look, there's research, speaking of research,

we saw that one video about the thing that was handy, you know, pushing the water cup on the desk and all of that. Like Apple is doing research because hardware, especially in the home, but in general, like having the ability to do things like pivot a thing that's on a tabletop, like maybe, right? And like you said, they've got all the money, like being really good at hardware and looking at how machine learning models and allow you to do things in the real world in terms of interaction as well, why not do that? Now we'll see. I am skeptical that much is going to come of this anytime soon, but you never know. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Vitaly. Vitaly is bringing in a new era

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and delivers best-in-class customer experiences. Vitali is offering a free pair of AirPods Pro for every upgrade listener who books a qualified meeting, so if you're a customer success decision maker, schedule your call by visiting vitalally.io.io.upgradefm as vitally.io.upgradefm for a free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule a qualified meeting. Our thanks to Vitally for their support of this show and rely. The Financial Times is reporting that Apple has set a goal to produce the entirety of their US iPhone production in India by the end of 2026, that is next year. This would be about 60 million

iPhones across the whole range if they were producing the US stock, but would probably be more than that, right? Because they obviously produce iPhones in India for many places around the world, so they would need to increase it significantly. This would be double the amount that they're currently producing if they were just producing net 60 million. In the short term, now you can take some short term thinking on it, this would be better for potential tariffs,

whatever they may end up being. And in the long term, this is a further diversification supply chain, which Apple have been kind of marching towards for a long time. Mark Gurman doesn't think this would be possible. Considering that the 2026 iPhone lineup could be quite radically new with a folding iPhone and a quote more glass centric pro model as the 20th anniversary iPhone.

Mark says Apple has never produced a major new product design outside China for the first go around. So basically, Mark thinks that it would be difficult and maybe Apple wouldn't feel comfortable with the work needed to get these products exactly right, trusting new supply chains and new factories. There are plants in India that are currently being built that would be necessary to increase volume of production that can meet this 60 million unit goal, let alone the new infrastructure required to produce say a folding iPhone. So first off I wanted to mention one of the ways you do this is the the places that India's India built iPhones are shipping to start getting China built iPhones

instead. So you can move the production around because they don't have necessarily the tariffs that the United States has. So you can move the production around because they don't have necessarily the tariffs that the United States has. So that's part of what you could do. So you don't necessarily need to, you can move that. There's a shell game there where you move those into China and then take the India phones and then you ship them to the US and you do it like that.

I appreciate that this seems like a big ramp up. So yeah, you've got to wonder how much of this is real, how much of this is sending messages to the US and China about what Apple's trying to do. China and India, by the way, are kind of adversaries, right? Like that's interesting. And there was that story, I think you've got a, do you have a link to this in there?

The idea that a lot of the equipment that is required to build these factories comes from China and that they're the information, right? Had that report that they set up somebody, Foxconn maybe, somebody set up like a fake company in Vietnam who took import of all of the manufacturing things and then just turned it around and sent it to the Foxconn Apple factory in India? So, quote, Foxconn has seen approval times from Chinese authorities for exporting iPhone

making equipment from its factories to those in India rise from two weeks to as long as four months. They're also rejecting some export applications without explanation. So they've been creating these fake companies to move the stuff around. Right, which is now the jig is up sort of on that and we'll see, but this is, the point here is that this is the first step of Chinese resistance to Apple manufacturing outside of China,

is that the parts that you need to build the factories also need to come from China at this point. And that's the, this is the story of all the tariffs and about supply chains and things like that, is you're like, oh, just build a factory in the US. But it's like way more complicated than this. And this is a great example is, oh, we need to get out of China.

Let's build a factory somewhere else. Okay, how do we build a factory somewhere else? Well, first you need all the equipment from China. Okay, then so, so, you know, this is, look, this is the Tim Cook thing, right? This is why Tim Cook is still the CEO of Apple, is this is his job. His job is how do you benefit Apple in,

and try to hedge against whatever is gonna happen in the future and get the US to do what you want, and get China to do what you want, get the US to do what you want and get China to do what you want and get India to do what you want and get China not to be mad at India and the US to make it impossible for you to get what you want. Like all of these things are in play. The good news for Apple, I guess, is that the tariffs and things like that allow it to have an excuse to try to expand where it produces. And what it's not trying to do is get out of China. And I think that that's

important. It's trying to supplement production elsewhere because of the issues between the US and China in terms of trade. But still, if you're China, you're like, yeah, but we like it better when it's all here. So you drag your feet, you slow it down, you make it difficult to, it's, I mean, yeah, this is international intrigue is what this is. Yeah, my conspiracy theory on this is that this is not real and that this is Apple trying to spook China on behalf of the US government to come to the table

and negotiate the post-terrorist stupidity that China and America are now in, because China's not backing down. America looks like it's kind of backing down a little bit now against the tariffs because China's kind of refusing to back down. And I have no doubt, I know the fact that Apple is trying to diversify, but this significant, this quickly and publicly suggests to me that something's going on here at a time when it's also being asked, Elizabeth Warren, right, has written to Tim Cook to say like, Hey, how'd you get that exemption? Which I don't know if like, it's just, I don't think it's just Tim Cook here, but nevertheless, like he is obviously,

we know when he's clear that he has been having conversations with the administration, I would not be surprised if this is a bit a part of a leverage that's being placed. It just seems to me to be very quick out of nowhere to like, well, to do this. When the only way, this is not the only way to deal with this the Key way for Apple to deal with this problem is to get the US to not do it, right?

That's actually where they maybe have the biggest leverage, right? to say don't do these tariffs in this way and What that rather than being like we're now going to make every single iPhone in India instead of China. It feels very significant, incredibly fast, and also, as we've just spoken about, unbelievably difficult to try and pull off. So I think, given that you have people

who follow Apple much more closely, like Mark Gurman and Wayne Ma saying, basically this can't happen. Like not the way it's described, right? And that was my initial reaction is like, there is no way that they can supplant all of that. And Gurman makes the good point too. A lot of their manufacturing is focused on kind of like the trailing models, models that we're fairly familiar with and not the cutting edge where they have to build whole new techniques.

And so like a folding phone, you know, is probably not gonna be built in India right away, right? But it's probably not gonna happen. Like the most complex iPhone maybe ever, like that you're just gonna be like, hey, we'll just use the new factory. Like, oh, okay. Yeah, exactly.

There's some real problems there. So you combine that with the fact that this was a Financial Times report. And Financial Times is a absolutely legitimate upstanding publication, known throughout the business world, kind of like the Wall Street Journal. And I would just say, a lot of reports about Apple

that come in those sorts of places are put there by Apple, right? I don't know that for sure, but like, I think we've seen it before that when Apple wants to set a story, this often is where they go to a respectable business source. And whether it's a very targeted leak or whether it's a kind of surreptitious like, it wouldn't be so bad if you just mentioned this to this person at the Financial Times. But like, that's certainly- No, this to me is too big a decision to be leaked. This kind of decision right now is happening at the absolute top of the company.

Nobody's leaking it up from up there. No, this is the kind of thing, if somebody probably was given permission to leak this, and especially since it seems a little outlandish, that's how we, I think, should probably read this, is Apple wants the world to know that Apple is willing to move all its iPhone production for the US to India for

a reason, right? And that reason probably has to do with China and the US. And then again, we're back to international intrigue. It's the same, like even to me and you and to everybody else that's writing about this that is not the Financial Times, this doesn't seem plausible, right? That if somebody came to you and said this, you would write it in such a way to be like, I heard this, but I don't know. But if someone of note tells you, right? If somebody, like, then you can write about it, right?

Like if you have Tim Cook, it's not Tim Cook, but like, I don't know who it would be, right? But like if you had someone of Craig Viderighi's level say, or say it was, um, what is this? Jeff Williams, Jeff Williams comes to you at the financial times and says, we're doing this. Then you write about it because Jeff Williams just told you it. Right. But if you've heard it from someone over signal, I don't know if I'm writing that story because it doesn't, it just seems impossible. But if it's come from the right source, you'll write it because they've told you it. And so if they're telling you it, they either believe it or they want you to write the story. And it's, you know,

it's, it's, I get it is what I'm saying. It's like, there are different levels that you would then write the story because it just doesn't pass the sniff test to me that this could happen in the way it's been described. That by the end of next year, where a factory is still being built, right? It is being built right now. That by the end of next year, every iPhone in America is made in this new facility. It just doesn't seem plausible to me. It's also possible that this is something that's going down in the production group at Apple, where they have, again, it's set a goal. It's set a goal. So you tell everybody, here's our goal. And then it's in the financial times. And like, you know, we can do like yada, yada, yada, it's in the financial times. But like, that is it. this. So we'll say, we don't know,

but I would say this report seems to serve a broader Apple interest in making this the context of, you know, not quite we'll take our ball and go home, but like we are all in on producing iPhones in India for the United States market, which again is not pulling out of China. It's pulling United States production out of China. And yes, that sends a message and changes the discussion that is presumably being had between China and the US about trade.

If this story was six months ago, I would feel differently about it to how I feel about it right now. Like the fact that this story is right now is what makes me so kind of like conspiratorial about it. Or if this was just a thing that happened uncoupled from big news cycles, then I would maybe be like, oh, maybe they are doing this. Maybe this has come from a project manager somewhere, but it just feels too perfect of a story to be happening right now for me not to think that there's something going on with it. You know, like that's, that's the whole thing about conspiracy theories. There has to be that like little thing in there that makes you think you could believe it. And for me, I saw this story and immediately my mind

went to political drama. Like that's where it went to. Yeah. Also, I would say, to political drama, like that's where I went to. Yeah, also I would say, I think it serves Apple. Like this moment, because what if, we don't know what's going to happen, but what if this tariff thing resolves in a way that's favorable for Apple in the end or not too unfavorable? Well, great, but you missed a moment. The moment now is it's a crisis moment. It's an oh no moment. And when we talk about Apple, like in our, in our member discord, there was just a comment about how, you know, Apple should have diversified years ago.

It's like, well, yeah, everybody knew that. But the financials make it hard. The supply chain makes it hard and the politics makes it hard because you're telling China where we, we, we love you, but not that much, and we're gonna build stuff elsewhere. And so Apple has used Brazil and India to build factories under the excuse of protectionism in those countries and that they need to diversify because of that.

I don't know whether China, how China buys this, if they buy it at all, but I would say, I think there's probably an advantage today to saying we have to build in India. It's not because we don't love you. It's because the US government is terrifying you. And if they wait until the storm maybe blows over, then they can't use that excuse. So use it now.

Just use it now and say, this is our stated reason for doing this is because we have to. It's not that we don't love you. And we will keep using you. But it's not you. It's not me either. It's that guy. But you've got to understand.

You've got to understand. We've got to do this for you know for reasons political reasons I just I'm just saying it's easier to it's easier to make that claim today than it might be if they resolve this if you would like to get longer ad free versions of this show each and every week you should subscribe to upgrade plus go to getupgradeplus.com you will get longer ad free episodes you will get access to the members discord that Jason mentioned a moment ago

that is for Relay FM members. There's tons of channels where people are hanging out and chatting every day. You will find like-minded people in the Relay members discord. But you also get tons of other bonus content. There are two monthly members on the Relay shows. There's a spotlight cross and backstage.

Backstage is where me and Stephen talk about what's going on behind the scenes at relay. And then there's also a spotlight. They're both in the crossover feeds, but spotlight is where Kathy Campbell interviews a relay host every month about their life, about their work. It's a really fun time. And we take those questions that Kathy asks from that discord. But really, you'll be supporting this show. You will get additional content every week. This week, I wanna ask Jason how he uses his terminal E Ink screen thing,

cause I just got one and I want some suggestions for how I could use it. I will tell you this, cause I think this is an interesting stat. So we work with our friends at Member 4 to produce all of our membership content. We have incredibly low churn, which means when people sign up to become Relay members,

they stay Relay members. So there is obviously value to the people that decide to sign up and support us. Go to getupgradeplus.com. You can sign up for $7 a month or $70 a year, and you'll get a ton of bonus content and you support the show and we'll really appreciate it. Let's finish out with some ask upgrade questions.

Imtiaz asks, Jason has mentioned a few times about his photo collection being backed up locally. Does he recommend any settings in particular for photos to do this or is it fairly straightforward? Like what do you do for local backup of your photos? I have a Mac with a big hard drive that's set to download all. And then I back that up using Backblaze and Time Machine.

Okay. That's it. There's nothing special there. You're doing it in the photos apps. In the photos app you're like download everything Don't just download all float stuff and then in I guess in find out you're you're you're Making sure that the photos library is Photos library is just a file

So I have that set, you know, that's in that backs up and it backs up to backblaze And also I have a couple of giant external drives that I plug in every so often and run a backup on that backs them backs all those files up onto the external hard drives so I've got it plus it's an iCloud so and you don't feel that need to I don't know somehow back up the files outside of the photo library container? Like I don't know why you would need to. They're all in the photo. They're all in the photo library container.

Yeah. I'm not, I don't have any, any desire to do that now. Yeah. I guess that's what I'm doing without the super duper part. I guess it just, it all goes. I have a time machine and I have backblaze and I have yeah that's how I back up mine and I also have all of my photos downloaded to my iPhone which is that's becoming more complicated I'm taking a lot more pictures yeah I've

taken thousands of pictures in the last couple of weeks but I bought the one terabyte iPhone this year for that reason, because I knew that my photos library was about to exponentially grow. Yep. An anonymous question Oscar wrote in and said, I am considering purchasing an M4 Max Max Studio by the end of the year. Is it anticipated that Apple will increase the prices of its recently launched Max? Should I make a purchase immediately? I think if you've made a decision, if you have the money available, I think, I

think I, I am still of the mind that the world is too complicated right now to assume what prices will be in two months. And that if you know what you want, if you can afford to do it now, I would do it now. I don't know why you would wait, honestly. I don't know what the reason would be to wait. I mean, easy for me to say. I think it's going to be less likely that Apple be less likely that Apple updates the prices of existing shipping products versus introduces new products at higher prices. But hard to predict anything in the world right now. So I think I agree with Mike. Also, that Mac Studio is brand new. It just came out. Now is the best time to buy it.

There's not going to be another one for at least a year and probably more. So if you have the, the wherewithal to do it now, instead of at the end of the year, I just go ahead and do it. Yeah. I, I mean, I'm also the mind of like, if you've made the decision, I don't know what you have just done already. It's not in the budget and they're waiting for next year. But if you're like, I get it. If you feel confident that you will be able to get there, if you're able to do something, maybe there's

some kind of financing option which is good for you or whatever, I mean, I would do it. Because I just, I know what you're saying about shipping products and I know that they would love to avoid it. But let's just imagine that the 140% tariff comes into play. They're not eating that. Now is a good time.

I mean, again, last fall, Mac Studio came out, which like I, it's, it's a great time to get it if you, if you can buy it. And if not now, then when you, as soon as you can afford it, I would probably buy it just because why not? Now is the good time for it. And we don't know what's going to happen. This is kind of related to what we're talking about earlier, but let's get a stake in the ground on it. Sean asks, do you believe we will one day see a touchscreen computer running Mac OS? I do because Mark Gurman said there's a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen in the

works. And I believe Mark Gurman sources I think that there is. And I think that the features that we're seeing and the design stuff that's going to happen is all probably going to point toward that product. It would seem unlikely that Apple would do design and development work now, not thinking of the fact that they were going to have a touchscreen enabled MacBook Pro in a year or two. I think the next MacBook Pro, like the next design change of the MacBook Pro is going to have a touchscreen OLED and it will have cellular support.

I think they're going to go big with it. I think that's a pretty good bet. I think that's what it will get. So yeah, I absolutely think that they will do this. I think it is way overdue. This doesn't have to be iPadOS. Like it's just nice to have a touchscreen, like in a laptop. Like it is actually a nice thing.

If you've never used it, I know why you could think, why would I do that? But I've used touchscreen laptops and I really liked that experience. But again, it's like if you've ever used an iPad in a keyboard case, it's a touchscreen laptop. So like, you know, it's nice to be able to sometimes reach up and swipe on the screen or tap something on the screen rather than move a mouse cursor. Like sometimes it's much faster to just go because you have direct motor control as opposed to like go down here and move the thing. So, you know that, you know, that, uh, that phrase every day, new children are born who don't, who've never seen the Flintstones.stones. You know that statement, the idea that time marches on?

Well, every day new children are born who think that touching a screen is the primary way you interact with technology. Every year, there are more and more adult iPhone users, iPhone buyers, who have, they love their iPhones, and then they get a computer and they expect, we already see this, but it's only going to be more that they expect that you could touch that screen.

And so, you know, you need to do it. And Apple not doing it to now, I mean, I think again, there's some dogma there, but yeah, I, cause we had a touchscreen Chromebook for a while. And like being able to reach up and just scroll because your hands aren't on the keyboard and you're just sitting there and you just scroll. I never used it as a primary interaction

but it was nice to have. And it also opens up the ability to do things like fold the keyboard back, go into a tablet mode, use an Apple pencil. There's lots of other things. I'm sure that they've, if Apple's gonna do this, Apple's gonna have some magic, you know, secret Apple stuff that they do as a part of it too. So that's a yes. I understand the

desire to want to do some work to macOS rather than just put a touchscreen on it. Like I understand the desire to do that, which might be one of the reasons that this project has not come to fruition yet, but I do think they'll do it, and I hope that it happens sooner rather than later, honestly. I think it would be really nice. Yeah. Do you want to ask me this question? Because it's directed at me.

Oh, sure. Jason, who is not me, wants to know, since you're such a fan of open-wheel racing in the form of Formula One, how do you feel about IndyCar and specifically the Indianapolis 500? I live in Indianapolis, see, I told you it wasn't me, and the race is getting ready to take over the city for the entire month with all of its activities. Do you watch or care about the race? I don't know much about IndyCar. In getting this question, I did some googling and

found out that something that I thought was the case was not the case, which is that all IndyCar tracks were ovals like NASCAR. And that is based on me knowing about the Indianapolis 500 because I know how big of a spectacle that is. And the Indianapolis motor speedway, raceway, I think it's just an oval. And I'm not interested in that personally, but it's not the case for any car that there are. There are some simple track layouts, but there are also more complicated track layouts, which may be a little more interested in it actually.

Cause I was wondering like, what are those races like from and how the cars are built to be able to be interesting and fast and competitive in kind of like very simple track layout but also tracks that are closer to Formula One tracks. All of this to say though I do not have time in my life for another sport because I spend quite a lot of time focused on Formula One. I'm more interested in it than I was before but I don't have the time for it right now. But this I was happy to get this question because I was happy to get this question because I was able to get rid of some preconceived notions

I had about IndyCar. There was a time when the Indianapolis 500 was the number one thing, like number one auto race in America, and NASCAR rose to eclipse it. As a kid, I always watched the Indy 500. And I still, if I'm around on Memorial Day weekend, I will make an effort to watch it.

It's literally, Mike, you found it. It's the one car race I will watch a year. It's the only one I will watch. And some of that is absolutely tradition. I watch it and it's fun. And I am also reminded that I don't actually want to ever watch more of it, of motor sports than that, but it is a thing that I enjoy watching. I think the Indy 500 is still gets the largest audience of any, like for a single

thing. I think it's like they get like 350,000 people go there to watch it? Oh yeah, certainly in person, that's a real thing. And yeah, I think it's fun. The technology is really, as you know from Formula One, the technology has really transformed that sport. It is, yeah, it's fallen, sort of, IndyCar's sort of fallen on hard times because yeah, NASCAR sort of eclipsed it and also I think there's this thing where F1

has become much more popular in America. It's a little bit like the challenge of- They're losing out to F1, I think. It's good for football or soccer that we can, Americans have access to, like I just watched Premier League games and it's not a problem. And the Buddhist league is on and like there are, there are, and Syria is on.

Like you can get European football leagues in America now and just watch those and that's good it does make it harder if you're MLS because MLS you know is trying to do American soccer but they have to compete on TV with the best soccer in the world and it's a little like that where the success of Formula One in America has been rough for IndyCar in America. So, you know, that, but anyway, I will, I will, I'll turn it on. It's a, it's a fun, it's a fun thing to have on on Memorial Day weekend if I'm not doing something else. Absolutely. If you would like to send in your questions, please go to upgradefeedback.com and you can also send us in your feedback and follow up there too. Thank you to our members and supporters of Upgrade Plus.

You can go to getupgradeplus.com to learn more. You can find us on YouTube by searching for the Upgrade podcast. Thank you to Vitaly and FitBard for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody.