Upgrade - 564: California CarPlay Road Trip

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

from relay this is upgrade episode 564 for may 19th 2025 today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and delete me my name is Mike Hurley I'm joined by Jason Snow hi Jason hi Mike how are you I'm good it It's Google I.O. week. Does that have any interest to you? You going to be tuning into Google I.O. tomorrow? Maybe. What I want to say is nope. But yeah, I mean, maybe. They did offer, because I usually do Mac Break weekly on Tuesday,

and they're pushing it back. And they said, you guys, you know, you can come early if you want and just talk about Google I.O. And to that, I gave a resounding nope. I'm not going to commentate on it, but I, I pay vague attention. I do that. I do that second level. It is a tech keynote that I get to enjoy through the reflection of people who are paying attention to it rather than having to pay attention to it myself.

I like that. It's not one I expect to watch live, but I will plan to watch it later. I would definitely watch one of the chopped up verge things that they do. Yeah. The verge edited down. That's the, those are the good ones. Cause Google IO, I mean, I watched the, they did their Android show thing, right? That where they, they just said stuff in Android.

I watched all of that. Cause that was like 15 minutes long, but Google IO is like three hours and it's like just full of every team. We'll find out. I mean, I don't know. It's obviously all Jem and I all the time is expectation. We'll find out what it's all about. Maybe we'll talk about it next week, but probably not.

We'll talk about it on Connected though. Anyway, I have a snow talk question for you. It comes from Colin who wants to know, Jason, do you ever fill out a scorecard when you go to the baseballs game? Like you guess the baseballs game when they roll the baseballs around. Open the gates for them.

This is happening like Mike is not a real baseball fan, but we know that Mike and Adina came to a Giants game. They buy Giants jerseys. They are full-blown Giants fans now. They're Giants maniacs. There's not a day that goes by that Mike isn't sending me a text saying, Jason, what's going on with the Giants? And then I say, let's go Giants maniacs. There's not a day that goes by that Mike isn't sending me a text saying Jason What's going on with the Giants? And then I say let's go Giants because baseball news doesn't isn't available It's blocked by the UK government for some reasons trying to protect cricket or something

I don't know. I mean most of these websites genuinely are GDP are blocked because it's like No one could ever be bothered to hire a consultant. So like like yes have Chronicle website I just can't go to and I've like never been able to go there so I can't get to hire a consultant. So like the SF Chronicle website, I just can't go to. I've like never been able to go there. So I can't get my Giants news. Yeah, that's true. That's true. What's funny about all of this is that there is a, they do a series, a Major League Baseball series

in London every year. The tickets are so hard to buy. They're so hard to buy those tickets. Oh my God. I've tried before. Yeah, cause they only do a couple of games there, which is as opposed to the NFL, which is doing like, I don't know, six games in London this year, something like that. It's

a lot. They're doing them absolutely every day. And Berlin and Madrid. Brazil I think. And Sao Paulo. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's the sign of the league that thinks that it can conquer the world and it might be able to it's got the money for it Anyway baseball so I was at the Giants game on Saturday night I sent Mike as I often do when I go to a baseball game I sent Mike a picture of the baseball field from the stands and This time since it was a night game. I knew that it would be brightening Mike's Sunday morning

Definitely he replied with go Giants. Let's go Giants And this time, since it was a night game, I knew that it would be brightening Mike's Sunday morning. Definitely. And he replied with, go Giants. Let's go Giants. So answer your question, Colin, do I ever fill out a scorecard while you're at a baseball game? Well, Colin, this is one of those things where I'm going to top you and say, actually, no, I don't fill out a scorecard at a baseball game

because I own my own scorebook that I bring to every baseball game I attend. And this is going to lead to the inevitable podcast follow-up question, which is, Jason, what scorebook do you bring? Which I think I have covered on at least one podcast recently, but I'll just mention it again. It is the EFAS Half Liner. We'll put a link in the show notes. This is really good looking. It's great. It's really well done. Yes, you would appreciate it from a standpoint of it being very carefully designed.

The paper is good. The heavier cover board is really good. Needed, just on your lap, right? Really, really well made. Previously I used the What's the Score? scoreboard scorecard that I got a couple of copies at Cody's Books in Berkeley, which is out of business. And when I got through those two book cards that I bought books that I bought,

I thought, what am I going to do? And some, one of the sports writers I follow on, uh, on back then it was Twitter actually recommended the half liner and I love it. It's very good. And it's got some cute touches like what's the current weather conditions. And, uh, one of them is it's on television, which I like if you're scoring a game on TV instead, you can just put it's on television. And, uh, it's also got, who are you rooting for?

Which I also find just kind of adorable, like home or visitor. And, uh, and yeah, it's, it's great. So I do, I do take score, keep score at baseball games. I really enjoy it. It, uh, not only sort of focuses and gives you something to do that also makes you pay attention to the game. It leads to amusing moments where I need to go to the bathroom and I tell Lauren to preserve statistical integrity, which is not I mean, I actually told her on Saturday,

I'm like, don't don't worry about it. Like it's on the scoreboard. What happened? I can just fill it in later. It's not a big deal. But I like it. And it does become a souvenir. I was just looking through we were we were wondering if have they won every game we've gone to this year. I can answer that question. I've got my visits to Arizona where we go to the Diamondbacks games with my mom. I've got those in there. I was just looking the other day. John Oliver did a piece about minor league baseball teams with silly promotional names. And I've got the Eugene Exploding Whales promotional game that he talked about, we were there.

I've got that in there. And then I actually noticed that there's a current San Francisco giant who played in one of those games and they're written down in the score book too. So there are a lot of reasons why I do it and it's fun. So that's my long Snelltalk answer. Yes, indeed. I keep scoring every single game. And I use

Brad Doughty's spoke pen. Mm-hmm. His Kickstarter collab. I use that spoke pen in Orange, Giant's Orange, to do the scoring because it rides along. It's got the neat little magnetic top and it rides along perfectly fits in the little rings of the Scorebook, which is nice so I don't lose my pen and have nothing to write with

Very good If you'd like to send in a snow talk question for us to open a future episode of the show Please go to upgrade feedback calm and send in your snow talk as you You can also send in follow up to which some people do. One of those people was Joey, who wrote into saying Mike said something about the final episode of this season at the studio on last week's show, but there were two more episodes left. I was very happy to get this feedback. I don't know. I don't know why I thought that was the end. It did feel like the end episode 10. But then last week's episode, episode 11, another banger. Just, oh my god, the show continues to absolutely crush it.

Great cameo from Matt Bellany in the episode, which is wonderful for listeners of the town. Just a, oh my god, I love this show so much. I think it's my show of the year. I think I'm two episodes back now, but it's great. I love it. I just there's been so much and then I was traveling and when I'm traveling we sort of don't watch the shows that we watch together and so We're like way behind now, but we did just watch episode I don't know seven or eight right eight maybe last night. So we'll get there. We'll get there. I said it before

I'll say again though, like what's one of the things that's so great about this show is the pacing. They cram so much stuff into 30 minutes. It's truly astounding. The show feels so much longer each episode than it is, but not in a bad way. It just feels like so much happens. And I think a lot of that is just because of the production. It's all as many one shots as they can do, they're doing. And so you're kind of like in the moments for longer than you would normally in a TV show. Like there's actually quite a lot of just watching characters walk places like, and like get ready for a moment, which you would not normally say.

It's very, it's a very, very, very good show. If you have not watched the studio, you should watch the studio. Like don't just think like, oh, it's just for people that love movies, like you say, or people who really care about the film business. It really rewards people who do, but otherwise it is also just a very funny show, like kind of like a situation comedy kind of show. So I recommend it. Last week, President Trump said to the media, and I'm gonna read this, so I'm quoting here, alright? So you know, it can be a bit.

I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday. He's building all over India. I don't want you building in India, I said to Tim. I said, Tim, look, we treated you really good. We put up with all the plants you build in China for years. Now you got to build US. We're not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves.

We want you to build US. We're not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves. We want you to build here. Trump also said Apple were quote, upping their production in the United States. That last part doesn't mean anything, but the first part is like, whoops, there goes the tariff dodging plan. Whoopsie. Does it?

Does it though? Maybe. Does it? I mean, I think the game Apple's playing, and this is the game that everybody's playing right now, which is there's reality and then there's Trump reality. And Trump reality isn't, it's related to, but not actually anchored to reality.

And so what they wanna do is find a way to allow the president to declare success in getting Apple to do what he wants, while also being able to manage their business and be a decent business. There will be pirouettes, there will be smoke screens, there will be a hall of mirrors, they will make declarations of things. And the you know, the goal is for Apple to be able to, one, execute its business like it wants, and two, not get the president to, uh, make their business harder and give him,

give him opportunities to declare victory. And in fact, like, as much as that's like, I got a little problem with Tim Cook, but then, then he says, but Apple's upping their production in the United States. And I think this is the game they're playing. And I think behind the scenes, this is the message that they're sending, especially to the people, you know, underneath him who they talk to probably more often, which is, you know, we're weak, it's impossible for us to just open an iPhone plant in the US. So we have to be, find ways to ship the products now while we're also building for the future. And you want to be able to kind of steer it.

But the problem is that the guy at the top is just going to do whatever he is going to do and say whatever he's going to say. And if the eye of Sauron comes on you, in that moment, you're like, yeah, we are building plants in India, but we love you and we're building 500,000 billion, billion, whatever's in the US and it's great. And just hope that the eye moves elsewhere and then you can just sort of sigh of relief. That's life for businesses in the United States right now.

That's it, so we'll see. I think my point, I just, the Apple had a plan, right? Which was just, oh, we'll just go to India. We're still paying tariffs, which we'll do in India. I don't think that they expected him to be like, you know? I don't think this was part of the plan. I mean, he says it, but does that mean he's actually raising tariffs in India?

You know, are they gonna strategically increase tariffs wherever Apple is just to spite Apple? Or is he just expressing off the top of his mind his dissatisfaction with this thing, which is probably there's somebody inside the administration who said, sir, we've already told you, they can't do it right now, but they are working on it and 500 billion and et cetera, et cetera, but they also need to ship iPhones this year and they can't do that there. And then maybe he hears that and maybe some of that plants in his brain and other stuff doesn't. And that's just, that's, that's, that's the deal. That's the deal. The thing that I'm, I'm wondering here, like in the long term, like is, is what plays out

because I am unsure if I'm unsure of what the Trump administration actually thinks tech companies are capable of or willing to do, or like any kind of manufacturing. Do they actually believe at any level that say, let's say Apple could manufacture iPhones in America? Like, I genuinely don't know the answer to that question because we all say they can't I mean technically Technically they could but you wouldn't right? like they could try but it's not going to work right or they could pour in the trillions of dollars to make the

$4,000 iPhone right like you could in theory with Absolute brute- forcing, you could do it in some period of time, say, right? And I just wonder, like, what is the end game, like to all of these tech companies saying they're going to do this? Like, is the expectation ever at any point that any company is going to increase their U.S. manufacturing? I think, I mean, the, the cost to do it in the US is so great that I don't think that there's a tariff regime possible that would make it worth it, honestly.

No, for sure. There isn't. It would take the cutting off of all supplies or something. You would laugh at the 145% tariff at that point, right, for what the cost of the iPhone would be. If you had an assembly plant ready to go, you would have to import all the parts. Yeah.

Right? Almost all the parts, maybe not all, but many of them. So I think we've seen it with the Mac Pro. I think there are going to be gestures toward assembling some lower volume products in the U.S. I think there will be some gestures toward propping up suppliers that are based in the U.S., which already exist. And that's been going on for 10 years, at least, if not longer.

And it's Apple boasting about corning, building, doing Gorilla Glass in the U.S. It's now, despite the fact that Trump is against it, I guess, cause it's a Joe Biden thing, like the chips act and the fact that they're building TSMC plants that are legacy nodes, right. But they are, they are TSMC chip plants in the U S that is going to allow them to source those chips from the U S. Uh, so, you know, you may, it's going to be a combination of some, I would guess, low volume products that can be built in the US and also the game Apple's been playing for a while now, which is, look at all of the,

this is an international business, but there are so many parts of it that are from the US that we can, you know, we're creating jobs in the US because I Think the truth is Apple can't play the game of we're just gonna assemble the iPhone in the US. It's not possible so instead they are playing this other game and you know, you risk Trump's wrath, but they're playing the game which is look at all of the Jobs we create in the US that are great jobs That are because of our product that we create and even US that are great jobs that are because of our product that we create.

And even though it is assembled in China, we take it our use like that's not even a great job. Don't worry about it. Like, but look at this, these chips and look at this, this glass and look at the, you know, and of course all the app developers and all the people who work at Apple.

And that like Apple is, is an international company, but it's also got a huge amount of jobs that it's creating in the US. However, if the president of the United States becomes focused entirely on that the iPhones are coming in on boats from China or India, then I mean, I don't know what you do at that point.

Like there's nothing they can do really. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what you do at that point. Like there's nothing they can do really. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, and I just wonder if at any point the chickens are coming home to roost, right? Like every, all of these companies are talking about the investment, the, oh, we're going to invest in America. We're investing in American manufacturing.

But like no one's really doing it in the way that anyone wants it to be done, right? And I just wonder what is the long game on that? If and if there is one, maybe there isn't one, I don't know. I say, think of it like you're filling up a glass of water or just basically like a gradient, you know, at the bottom is the easy stuff to do. And that starts with, actually that starts with the stuff

that's already here. That's Corning, right? Corning is like, we make our glass here. You just pay more money for the thing you're already doing. Corning decided, I don't know the history of Corning, but like Corning decided that at least some portion of their glass manufactory, if not all of it, is here.

And my uncle used to work for a glass and plastic manufacturer and they had lots and lots of plants in the United States and I think they still do. So you start with those and then you're like, all right, definitely people want stuff built in America, we're an American company, we feel the pressure. And I would say probably legitimately the responsibility. I think that they do feel some level of responsibility

as an American company. Now I'd say Apple very much is like, what do you mean? The best jobs that we create in America are the people who work at Apple in America. And there are lots of them, right? Like they'll say that, but okay. So you start to fill up that glass of water. You start to go up that gradient.

And what you're doing is it's stuff that is less low-hanging fruit. It's a little more difficult. It's an old plant you've got to reactivate. It's a new plant you have to build. The margins aren't as good, but you can kind of get away with it. And, or to throw in another metaphor,

you could say it's like boiling the frog, but either way, right? Like as you go up that line, as you fill that glass of water, you are, every step you make is harder. As you move up that gradient, as you fill that glass of water, you are, every step you make is harder. As you move up that gradient, every step is harder. And so I feel like what's happening is all these companies are pushing further up, right? This is a harder decision.

The return on investment is less, but we need to do it. At some point, there has to be a break, right? Like at some point, you can't go further up because going further up will either destroy your business or can't possibly be better than the alternative, right? And that's the point at which like, there's probably no tariff, short of breaking Chinese imports entirely, right? And that's that that's the point at which like, there's probably no tariff short of breaking Chinese imports entirely, right? Like, there's no tariff that is going

to make it more likely that you'll build an iPhone in the assemble an iPhone in the US than in China, probably right, not not for the next 15 years, maybe in the long run, because standards, a thing that has been pointed out in a few different places that I think it's worth talking about, like, standards in China are rising, work standards are rising, pay standards are rising, the economy, in some ways is improving in ways in China that changed the dynamic. And I read a piece I can't I don't know who

it was, was it Ben Thompson? Was it linked to from him? I read a piece that said, it's a mistake to think that things are cheaper to make in China and that people make them in China because everybody's paid badly and they're mistreated and all of that. A lot of it is that China has built sophisticated, automated assembly facilities

and the jobs are sophisticated and hard to come, hard to come by and you need to educate people to do them. And that that's hard to replicate in the US. We just don't have those kinds of factories here. So like, there's a scenario there where over the course of 10 or 20 years, as economies change that if the US has a really concerted effort to build up some stuff in America, you could get it so, probably not so that it's your first choice, but that it's not at the top of the glass of water. That you could actually go, all right, we could do it, and we could assemble some things here, and you could do it.

But I don't think we're there yet. So I don't know. I mean, this is the fundamentally Mike, I think the problem here is that the president of the United States wants something to be real that is impossible, not the first time. And we'll see how companies that are in his site react to that. I think the idea there is you're trying to manage up, you're trying to show them what you can do

and how those are wins. And that the thing that he thinks is the ultimate win for him is not. And that there's something, some other way to declare victory and say, look at what Apple did. They brought this thing back and they did this thing there. But you know what, if he refuses to believe that, then Apple's just going to have to deal with it because at some point they're not going to be able to succeed with whatever he wants them to do.

So you just got to manage it. That's why diplomacy and trying to be close to Trump and explain the business to him. Because like, he doesn't understand Apple's business really, but he does fancy himself a businessman. So I think that that's the most important thing about I talked to Tim last week is Tim can like, let him in on the business secrets and the tough business decisions and make him feel like, Oh, yes, I understand what Apple's going through here. And those are the decisions I would make too. And get him on your side. And you know, what happens is he's on your side for a while, and then he goes offside. And Tim has to come back to the White House and be like,

let's talk about this some more. And, you know, that's Tim's next four years. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Squarespace, the all in one website platform that is designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling a business, Squarespace gives you everything that you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings of a professional website, grow your brand and get paid all in one place. I've been using Squarespace for 15 years

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of upgrade and all of Relay. So I think on last week's episode we were talking about if we thought that Fortnite would be accepted or rejected into the App Store. We kind of put bets on that. You said rejected. I said accepted. It's kind of nothing. The answer is it isn't. Is the answer is it? It isn't in there. No, it's what is it like? What? What's the shorting?

Yeah, it's like Schrodinger's app is where we are at the moment. I'm going to try and abridge this because the problem with the Fortnite story really is Tim Sweeney in that he just says things and then people report it that way. And so like, a thing is reported and then it takes like 24 hours for the situation to actually make sense. So I'm gonna try my best to give an abridged version

of what happened. So they submit the app last week, late last week, I think like Friday. Then they were super unhappy that it hadn't been approved by Monday. It's like, okay, late last week, Friday. Then they were super unhappy that it hadn't been approved by Monday. It's like, okay, dudes, they submitted it. Apple hadn't approved it. Fortnite is now unavailable worldwide because it has not been approved, even in Europe, even on the Alt Store and on the Epic Games Store because Epic tied the submissions together.

I found out from Riley Tester of Alt Store, he's posted about this on Masalan. You cannot submit an app for both App Store and Notarization. You kind of have to choose. And what Epic wanted to do was they wanted to have one app rather than what they could have done, which was a European version of Fortnite and an American slash worldwide version of Fortnite but Epic decided not to do this. They submitted one app and this is kind of frozen it in place and Epic I think have also taken down Fortnite worldwide. They're saying and I understand this to a point that they're saying that if this app includes the information

that's needed for the current season of Fortnite, and so the one that is currently existing can't support that. I don't know if that's true, but I know they're saying it. And I could also imagine a world in which that was true. But epics say that they just want to submit one, they have to just submit one version of every market that they're in if it's going to be available. So essentially at the moment, it's stuck. Apple gave a statement and said,

we asked Epic Sweden resubmit the app update without including the US storefront on the app store so as not to impact Fortnite and other geographies. We did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces. It's a big signal to the European Union there from Apple. Apple have also since sent a letter to Epic, which is I think Epic published, stating that they're not willing to review the app until the litigation is over.

I think Apple referenced that they've told Epic this. So as you would imagine, Epic have now gone to ask George Yvonne Gonzalez-Rodgers to force Apple to approve them worldwide. Epic say that Apple in court have said they would welcome Fortnite back to the store if they complied with Apple's guidelines. Epic say they're complying with the guidelines. Not having the transcript. Yeah. Not having the transcript and not really wanting to take Epic at its word because Tim Sweeney says a lot of things. As you pointed out, there's a lot of credulous reporting of things Tim Sweeney says because

I understand why. He says exciting things and people who are paying very little to write on blogs are like, oh man, this is sweet And then they take it on face value instead of saying the epic guy said another crazy thing about Apple They say Apple's gonna do the epic guy says Apple is doing this thing and it's like well he says a lot of things so it is like if they stood in court and said We will welcome you back

Because remember they're banned because they broke the rules. Mm-hmm They misled Apple and Apple basically says well, we're the law and if you break the rules will kick you out of the app store That's what they said and there are only the Swedish Subsidiary is only in there because the EU basically protected them and said you have to let them in so you can side load and all of that like okay okay so I mean on one level you could argue that they can they can ban them forever because Apple is the law and they control everything we've seen how that's gone for them but they could try. I think if they did say in court,

oh no, no, no, when this is all said and done, we'll let them back in when they comply with all of our guidelines. Then if they said that, then they kind of need to do that, right? Like that's the bottom line here. And if the version of Fortnite that's in the US follows the US rule

and the places it's elsewhere follow the rules elsewhere. They could do that, but I will also say, is that what's going on here? Or are they trying to have this thing go everywhere? Right, like, or is it just in the EU and in the US? Are they trying, are they doing in-app purchases everywhere else? Are they not releasing it everywhere else?

I don't know those details. And again, they're sneaky. Are they trying? Are they doing in-app purchases everywhere else? Are they not releasing it everywhere else? I don't know those details. And again, they're sneaky. Epic said that it was US. It was for the US. And then they said that they would then roll it out. This is originally when when the thing happened, that they encouraged Apple to do this worldwide so that they could release Fortnite. Oh, sure, sure, sure.

Apple changed its policy everywhere to the US policy. That's what they want, which is I believe they should do that, too. But nevertheless, honestly, if they said it in the I would go if they said it in court, I would go to the judge and say they said they would do this. We're complying. Why are they not allowing it and see take a flyer and see if she'll say, yeah, I ordered them to put it back in the store because it's it's another case where Apple is being kind of petulant here.

But from Apple's standpoint, it's very much like, look. A post on Derren Firewall from September 2021, which references an Apple statement to the website protocol, which now no longer exists, but we're just going to take it as John did the copy paste correctly. As we said all along, we would welcome Epic's return to the App Store if they agree to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Epic has admitted to breach of contract and as of now there's no legitimate basis for the reinstatement of their developer account. So like, I have some vague memory of them saying something in court that was what Epic is saying. I actually can't find it, but I'm going to take that as a like, this is the kind of thing they're referring to. Yeah, but this is very much, this is very much Apple's like, we can't do this because our rules that we control and define preclude us from doing this is very much their argument there, right? We just like, well, you know, our hands are tied by ourselves and you know, we're handcuffed, but we own the keys and the keys are in our hands and we can unlock the handcuffs. But look, we're in handcuffs. That's a little bit of what's going on here too. So yeah, they can let them back in. Of course they

could. I think that they're just being, their argument right now is, look, we're trying to overturn this rule. So what we don't want to do is let Epic in and then have the rule be overturned and then we kick Epic back out. But the fact is, if Epic wants in and then have the rule be overturned. And then we kick out Epic back out. But the fact is if Epic wants in and they said they'd let them in, the judge is probably going to say, well, no, let them in. And if in the, because you can't, what the judge would probably say is my guess is you can't delay. Like my, my thing, my ruling is immediate. You can't delay behavior on the hope that you will eventually get a reversal somewhere.

Because legally, we passed that point, and I ruled, and I restricted your behavior, and that's the rule in the US right now. So you gotta let them in. It wouldn't surprise me if that ends up happening. This is like one of these things where I don't even know where I stand on it anymore. Cause it's like, I understand where Apple's coming from, which is like, look, we told you not to do this.

Like you did it, right? We told you don't do it. And the reason we told you don't do it is because we're not gonna have your app come back only for us to be back in this situation again, because Apple, you would assume, believes they can win the appeal, right? I guess. Otherwise, why file the appeal?

I don't know. Well, maybe you just do it for grandstand and gesture. At least they want to win, right? They're trying to win. And so I understand from a point of like, well, we, you know, we're not going to let the app back in on the grounds of this litigation, while we're still going through this litigation.

Yeah, yeah, that would be my argument. If I was Apple's lawyer in responding to epic's request to the judge would be, while this is still being litigated, we would rather not. And then the question is, does she say, let's just wait and see the result. Or does she say, look, I ruled it's over. Just as with my ruling, you can change your, your behavior about this. If you win an appeal, but in the meantime, it's settled. This is a done deal and make it happen.

And if Epic wants to, and, and if I were the judge, I'd probably say something like, if Epic wants to take the risk that on appeal, this model will be removed, and they're going to have to remove their app from the App Store, then they should be allowed in. But they should be aware that that is, you know, this is still being contended, at least, even though it's the rule right now. And, you know, you could see that. I think ultimately I understand that Apple kicked them out because they broke the rules. I think the challenge now is that the rules have changed. Not on Apple's choice, but they've changed.

And what Epic wanted in this very specific case is the law right now. And so you probably need to let them in. I do think personally they should just let it go and just let them back in and tell them. Isn't that the whole story in a nutshell though Mike? I know. Personally I think they need to let it go. Yes, yes.

I mean yeah, we can apply that across the board to this. I think it is perfectly valid for Apple to say fine, but if we change these rules, you're changing it immediately. Like, we're going to get you to agree to that because that is the rules, right? Because like you're in, you cannot break the rules anymore. You broke the rules and we kicked you out. We'll let you back in, but unlike other apps, okay. Other apps that are doing this Kindle, right? You can go to the Kindle book. I bought a Kobo book from the iOS app and it's using the old rules still.

It's using, I got a scare screen and then I was put to a generic page. Although I admire the way they got around Apple's thing. I got to a generic page, but the generic page, because I'm logged in, has here are books that you've looked at recently. And so of course, the page I just came from is the number one book and then I can tap and I can buy it. But Amazon has already implemented this in the US. So you can tap and you go to the book page and you say buy and then you close

the or you switch back to Kindle app and it's there. It's it's, it's, it's great. I mean, it could be better because it could be an app, but it's great. Um, but that's just in the U S and so everywhere else in the world where this rule does not apply Kindle app doesn't do that. It's written in the code. It's like, if you're in the U S you can do this. Otherwise do that. The problem with. Fortnite is Fortnite doesn't have a fallback mode for this, right? They don't. They're not in any other store. They're just in their alternative EU marketplace.

And that means there isn't a version of Fortnite right now. I mean, there was back in the day, but like, do we think that that they have built Fortnite so that there's a switch they can easily flip to go from the thing that they've fought all this time for to the thing that they hate and tried to get around. I don't believe so. And that is a quandary for Apple, right? Because everybody else, if, if the day comes where they say, uh, some, some courts and where overturns or stays this ruling, Amazon can just flip the switch

in the U S and it'll go back to the old behavior. But Epic can't do that. Epic doesn't have a prior mode to go back to is my guess. And so what happens then, right? Like what is Apple's assurance? And that goes to what your point is, which is Apple would basically need to say, the moment this rule is not in effect, you either switch it to comply or we remove you from the store.

That's it. You have to understand that that's what's going to happen because there's no trust between these two companies. So maybe Epic will be willing to do it because they certainly certainly being in the US App Store with the new rules would be the clearest victory Epic has ever gotten in this case. We will see. CarPlay Ultra is a thing that now exists.

So, next generation of CarPlay,, which was unbelievably at WWDC 2022, which I cannot believe was that long ago, but it was, this was the version of carplay where essentially carplay was going to take over every screen in the car. So that would not just be the entertainment, but would also include the navigation cluster, like the dial cluster, showing your speed and stuff like that. Everything kind of software that you could see in the car would be provided by Apple. When they announced this, it was like, hey, here's a bunch of things that's happening, it's coming soon, and it's taking this amount of time.

And it seems to have been some tumult in the middle. Next Generation CarPlay is now CarPlay Ultra. And it's taken this amount of time and it seems to have been some tumult in the middle It is next generation car plays now carplay ultra ultra is finally launched in a shipping car the Aston Martin DBX has it and previous Aston Martin's within the last few years Owners can go to a dealer and have carplay ultra put into their car. I love that. It's like a firmware update I'm expecting that has to happen. Yeah, bring your Aston Martin to your Aston Martin. I mean, who are we kidding? You're probably driving it there to be serviced at some point in the next week anyway. So just go ahead and do that. Doesn't seem like this is a product that launched the way that Apple wanted it to. So I think it's closer because remember they were so light on specifics back then. And

I remember, I don't know if you remember this, you were, maybe this was when you were traveling or maybe I just did this for the summer of fun, but we did the verticals. And I did a segment with Sam Abu El-Samid, who's a car journalist about this three years ago, almost. And at the time, if you go back and listen to that interview, at the time, we're like, how is this going to work? Because he said, like, the low-level stuff that is like your tachometer and your speedometer and stuff, like, legally, that has to be running on a real-time operating system. And Apple's not building a real-time operating system and loading it in partner cars, right? Like, that's not happening. They have their own systems on there.

And I think if you go back to that conversation, one of the things that we speculate it is, is this gonna be theming where the car firmware can accept a theme from the iPhone and say, okay, now we're using red or whatever, and now we're using this, you know, like, and sophisticated theming of like, here's what the needle looks like

and here's what the dial looks like and here's how you wanna do it. And that was actually one of the theories back then because Apple's announcement was so broad and it was like, oh, look, everything is CarPlay. And Sam was like, they can't do that. Like how, how would they do that? So this, to me, this, it feels like this Aston Martin demo that we got.

And there's a great top gear video that everybody should watch. We were so good. It gives you all the details about it. As you watch a man, a British man sweat in a car that's in Palm Springs with the AC off because he's recording a video. Just a little side note. I thought that was amazing. He's like, I can't turn on the AC right now. And he's dying. But it's great video. But like, this feels like that high falutin next generation carplay announcement of three years ago meeting reality. And what's

happened over the last three years is Apple's ambitions meeting reality. And it is things like what Sam said, it's, it's theming where you're, you're not able to take complete control. So you're, you're, some of the screens look like CarPlay and may actually have some CarPlay in them, but the other parts of it legally have to be supplied by the car's operating system. So they're like, there's an example on the Top Gear video where he's got the speedometer and the tachometer and in the middle is Apple Maps. It's like that's clearly something where there's a cutout where this stuff is coming from the car and this stuff is coming from CarPlay directly. Whereas in other places you get a setting for for what is it? The sound settings and or the backup camera is a good example of this where

there's what they call punch through where Apple basically says, uh, we're not going to do that. You know, your car interface goes here. Right. Like we're not doing this. You do it too specialized. Yeah. So it looks like what, what Apple and Aston Martin have done is like it's bringing down Apple down to reality of like what they're what they're kind of doing is it's a little more bespoke with a car manufacturer, which I think Sam Abu Al-Samid would probably have said that that was always going to have to be the case where, you know, you can change the themes, but like, I don't know if you notice in the Top Gear video, he's like, well, first time you connect a car to your phone,

it takes a little while. And what it's apparently doing is it's like saying, okay, this is an Aston Martin, here are the theme files, send the theme files into the Aston Martin so that we're all on the same page. And then he switches themes and the look, like there's that one that looks very, very appley where all of the needles are replaced

with like little progress bars. Cause what you want is progress bars. We love a progress bar when we're driving. Sure, great. Instead of like the circular radial kind of interface, there's a like a speedometer that's more like a progress bar. Okay. But it's still like, they've still had to come

to Aston Martin and work on the themes together. And the look is a combination. I mean, the way, look, I saw somebody comment on that video and said, that video is a pitch to car makers is what that video is saying. And they talk to the guy from Aston Martin, the designer, who's like, oh, it was such a great opportunity to work with Apple because we have so much respect for Apple and having them work with our brand to make beautiful things in our car is something that we really valued. We have so much respect for Apple and having them work with our brand to make beautiful things in

our car is something that we really valued. And I could see like, it's totally the message is, come on, Apple will work with you. They're your partner. They're making your thing more awesome. And you still have some degree of control. And it's just like three years later, I know that the car industry moves slowly and that's part of it. but it also feels like we're getting down to the nitty gritty details of reality, which is like some of the stuff Apple kind of dreamed about doing, it can't do. It has to work. It has to get down and dirty with the people who build the cars. I think that's the difference between what Apple showed in 2022 and what we have now is I genuinely believe that what Apple thought they were going to do was just download their chosen UI onto cars.

And that was that. But what they've had to actually end up doing is work independently and directly with car makers to work independently and directly with carmakers to design something that feels good for the brand and include co-brand even on the startup screen between the car manufacturer and Apple. And you know what? That is exactly how it should be. That is exactly how it should be because the hubris to assume that the car makers would just be like, go for it, you know, and this is like a thing like, uh, uh, Neil, I, Patel has been very focused on this with, uh, executives. He gets car executives in his podcast, Dakota, and he asked them point blanket, they'll do it. And I think it was Mercedes who said, why would we have another company take over our offerings? Like, you know,

our visuals, like why would we give that to another company? And that is the case. And so you're right. I think they were able to work with, um, like to work directly with Aston Martin for whatever reason it could get Aston Martin and board, uh, to do it first. And they have decided that they're working with Aston to market this to other companies, essentially, to be like how good this was. I suspect some of it is that they were willing and that they're pretty low volume, right? And probably nimble in a way, right?

Just because they're so low volume that there's not a scope. Like these big car manufacturers, the scope is ridiculous. But Aston Martin was like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it. We'll be your pilot program. And, you know, like these big car manufacturers, the scope is ridiculous, but Aston Martin was like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it, we'll be your pilot program and we'll take advantage of, I mean, what the designer said, we take advantage of Apple being really hands-on with us and Apple probably learned a lot of stuff too

and they're very clearly marketing this to everybody else. It does seem reasonable, like again, if I'm a car manufacturer, the question is, do I want this? And strangely enough, I think the answer is, it depends on how much you fancy yourself an interface design company as a car maker, right? Like, obviously GM, don't get me started, GM has decided that they want complete control, and that their stuff is going to be better than Android phones or iPhones, and that people aren't going to want to connect CarPlay or Android Auto because they're going to make this amazing thing that you're going to have to pay a monthly on-star fee for, and that

they're not going to put those other things in their cars. Okay. I think there are a lot I suspect strongly that there are a lot of car manufacturers who are like, Yeah, we have to do it. But we don't like it. And we don't really care. And we don't really think that our customers are buying our cars for our infotainment system. So like if Apple wants to come and make a spiffy infotainment system that we can show off that all iPhone users are going to be blown away by. And like great, like, and we can use their designers so we don't have to just lean on our designers because we, you know, we do it, but we don't love it. Like there are, because today car interfaces are full of touchscreens and screens, right?

I think there are a lot of car makers who are like, they do it, but they don't like it. And they don't feel a point of pride and it's not what they focus on. That's where Apple will have sway, right? And an example, so they listed a whole bunch of partners back in the day. They have not relisted them.

They said, and I've seen this misreported where people are like, oh, well, they listed Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. So I guess that's all that's left. But the press release is very clear. They're like, those are new partners in addition to partners previously announced. So yeah, but the problem is, the partners previously announced

list includes companies that are definitely not doing it. That are definitely not doing it, right? And that's why Apple's not releasing that list. They won't give us the list. That's why, right? That's why. But what I would say is the Korean manufacturer is there and you know, Hyundai and is Genesis is the luxury Hyundai line and Kia is like 35% owned by Hyundai.

But those, so it's kind of like, they're obviously kind of of a thought about this. They're of a kind. They seem to be one of these companies. I mean, I've seen some of those those Hyundai's and Kia's like they went all in on screens, but having driven some of them as rental cars, I can tell you the interfaces on them, you know, they're car interfaces. They're from a car manufacturer. They're not great. They're fine, but they're not great. I don't think they're a point of pride for Hyundai and Kia. So if you're Hyundai and Kia and you say,

oh, Apple wants to roll in and make our experience on iPhones like super awesome and appley for everybody who owns an iPhone, you say yes. Maybe, especially if you get the guy from Aston Martin's like, no, no, it's good. It's good. We worked on them. They know the score now.

They've learned what we control and what they control. So that's where I think this is, is that you're going to see car companies that. Find value in partnering with Apple, probably because they don't find a lot of value in spinning up a giant team to design, you know, world class, like GM fancies itself capable of doing saying, well, why would we not work with Apple like the Aston Martin guys? Like, why would we not work with Apple? People love their products and people love, you know, are familiar with their interfaces and why don't we just work with them and they want to work with us. So great,

let's do it. And iPhone users get a better interface. I think the problem though is you still have to those the problem, though, is you still have to, though, as the car company. You still have to. And so you've got to do all the work. And then you've also got to hand over it to Apple if you want to. Now, I, as a customer, I would want this.

Because I watched the Top Gear video. It's like, yeah, that's what I want. I want the car UI to look like that because I like that UI. I mean, I use Apple's products because I like the way that their software looks that looks like good software It looks well thought out like the way they I really liked the screen that they had or it was like all map with Like a bunch of overlays like that you could see through it's like that looks really good plastic for the like The screen that's above the steering wheel Like just all of it looked really good to me. And they're adding a bunch of things in.

It looks like standby widgets are in CarPlay Ultra. They're not in regular CarPlay, I don't think. And yeah, so it looked really nice. Like I would want this, but it is, I understand why some car companies are a bit hesitant to it because like, well, we've got to do this anyway. Why do we then just give it all over? And I think this was a much better showing of this product

than anything Apple has done previously on their own. Like being able to show, like have this product shown in an Aston Martin, show the co-branding and get Aston Martin to talk about it. This would have been a really good WWDC session, you know, like to have a car company come out and be like, Hey, look, this is what this is. We're, why are we doing this? We think it looks really good, et cetera, et cetera. Like, yeah. And it goes down to, we spoke about the punch punch through your wire for some stuff, but like Apple have designed and are designing like bespoke climate control screens. Like they are doing as much they're doing a lot.

It's not just like, you know, speedos and carplay stuff. Like they're trying, it seems, to do as much as they can. And even still, like if you have like a show at the Aston Martin, right? You have a physical dial that you turn and Apple UI comes up on the screen and shows the say the volume going down or whatever. Like it's, it's well integrated. Yeah. All the stuff that doesn't require legally to be instantaneous from the car, like climate control and volume and stuff like that. Apple's built a UI for it. My favorite thing when I was

watching that video is you're looking at a CarPlay screen that's got the temperature, that video is you're looking at a car play screen that's got the temperature, the setting in the little sidebar. And I'm like, Oh, car play now knows what the temp like it's like, ah, good, right? Like all that stuff is in there in this car play and it's good. So, I mean, you're right, like Kia has to still Hyundai still has to build their own UI, but is it a point of pride for them? Yeah, of course. Right. I think that that's, think that that's it. I think a lot of those car makers, having been in those cars, they're doing it because they have to. I think Kia and Hyundai, their point of pride

is that they're putting big screens in a bunch of these cars and it looks awesome. But the software is not their thing. And Apple comes in and says, we'll help you make it look even more awesome for all of our, pointed all the research, all of our wealthier drivers who are much more inclined to buy a car with CarPlay than not. I think a bunch of car makers will be like, yes, let's do it. And a bunch won't. And that's where we'll be. And you're going to end

up with three things. You're going to end up with CarPlay Ultra cars, you're going to end up with CarPlay cars, and you're going to end up with no CarPlay cars, you're gonna end up with CarPlay cars, and you're gonna end up with no CarPlay cars. And that's where we're gonna be. And, you know, but I looked at this and I, look, Joe Steele, our friend pointed out like, there's still a bunch of really bad CarPlay screens, just in general, like the settings app, where it's like just a horizontal bar,

where like on the far right is on or off and on the far left is what it is and it's like, yeah, CarPlay needs a refresh in general. A lot of those controls are like just ported in from the iPhone and they're not good and they're not great on a car touchscreen and they should be better. Absolutely grant you that. But with that said, I'll say I looked at this and thought this looks pretty cool. I like the idea of having my iPhone be a key participant

in what my car interface looks like. Even if it's not controlling at all, it's a key player in it because my iPhone is very important to my life and I have lots of apps on it that I care about. And GM saying, forget it, you're gonna use our software and you're gonna like it. It's like, well, no, because you don't have overcast

and you're never gonna get overcast. And like, I just don't want that. I want my iPhone matters more to me than your software. But, you know, a lot of car companies are going to do this. And as an iPhone person, I look at it and I think that's pretty cool. I like it. I mean, I, could it be better? Yes. But I like it. It looks good. It's a nice proof of concept. I don't know because of the internal politics, how this will play at other car Yes, but I like it. It looks good. It's a nice proof of concept. I don't know because of the internal politics how this will play at other carmakers, but I'm interested in the fact that that Top Gear video lets Apple and Aston Martin make their case about

why it's actually pretty nice and is not. It's not a complete abdication of your role. Like they put the design by Aston Martin like on the speedometer and they've got the dual branding when CarPlay connects and like that is clearly a message sent to automakers that like, we want to work with you. We want to build the themes based on your design specs. So there are some Apple-y themes, but there are also some very Aston Martin-y themes. Like I bet they make those designers feel so good.

They're like, come out to Apple park. Like, we'll spend some time together. And you can scale it. There aren't that many car makers, right? So that is a, we don't see, oh, app developers are out there going, go, these guys. But it's true, like there are so few car makers. There's like 20, you know, like that are realistically

going to do this. So like literally come out to the coast. We'll get together, have a few laughs. Like we'll drive together. We'll go. Yeah. Send your whole team to Cupertino and we'll work on or wherever they want to do this and we'll work on this together. And then, and then we will go for a drive or we will send our people to you. We'll, we'll send our people to Germany, to Volkswagen or BMW. That's not as enticing, surely, right? Whatever they like.

Whatever they like. You want to come to California and then do a California carplay road trip? Let's do it. We're going to go down the coast. We're going to go on Highway 1. We're going to go out to Palm Springs where, you know, turn off the AC and you'll die in the car. So keep it on.

This is where Apple can play. This is where, you know, the stuff that we'd hoped they would do more, right? Play to your strengths, which are every designer in the world looks to you as of interest, right? And that you are able to say to designers, just why don't you want to come hang out with us for a week, two weeks, three weeks? And it's like, yeah, they do. Like that is a thing, right? Like the designers will want to come to Apple Park. Yes.

And it will be an ongoing relationship that you have with Apple designers. Cause Apple so often is viewed as like you do our work for us, right? By developers in general, right? It's like you're lucky and they do stuff they have, they go out and they do outreach and all that, but it's very much generally not thought of as Apple courting you. In this case, Apple is gonna

court car makers and they're gonna make them feel wanted and it's, if I have one thing that I walked away with from that top gear video, it's the guy, the designer from Aston Martin saying, it was such a privilege to work with all the brilliant people at Apple who are thinking a lot about car design like we are. And we got to collaborate on something that used Apple's incredible design skills, his words, but it was a sales pitch. Apple's incredible legacy of user experience design, and us who know exactly what our car brand is

and what it stands for and who our users are, our customers, and we work together to make this thing happen and it's beautiful. Like that is, I would say, a powerful sales pitch to those who want to hear it. Right? Like it is, we'll see how it works. But like I thought that it was a pretty great sales pitch because it honors the expertise of the car maker, but it also sells the most popular, you know, highest profile consumer brand in the world that's packed with fairly wealthy

users who care about carplay. It is a pretty good pitch, right? Which is like, we're not asking you to throw your stuff away, but work with us. And we're going to make an awesome experience in your cars that you're going to love and be happy with and be proud of. It's not just going to be what Apple does. And I think if there's one thing that we could, we could contrast with 2022, right? Mike is that was sort of like, Apple's going to solve your car by throwing it away and replacing it with Apple. And although Sam that summer was like, I don't know how they could do that. Um, I think that's what's changed is the pitch is not Apple's going to throw out your car and turn it into an apple car now

it's apple is Amazing and wants to work with you to make a team up a collab where we make the most awesome thing That is your brand plus Apple this beloved brand working together. That's the sales pitch like X Apple, you know like asked him by Apple. That's what we're doing here. Do you not think, I mean, that's what I thought of when that boot screen, it was like Aston Martin plus Apple. Yeah, that's it. That's what they're doing. And that's what they're trying to do.

So I think, you know, I think although some companies have probably fallen off that list as they got the details or as their priorities changed, their strategy changed. I think them adding Hyundai, Kia and Genesis to the list is interesting because that's, that suggests to me that that's a done deal, that they have a, they have a software update coming that a platform update for their cars. Gone through the same treatment that Aston has gone through. Like these are, these are companies that have actually done it rather than it just be the existing list of

car-playing companies, which is not all. One thing. No. And we don't even know. It's an old list, and we don't even know who's still on it. But that would be, if you can get. And here's the bottom line. I hear a lot of people really like the Ionic EV line.

Well, throw in there that now it's going to also do CarPlay Ultra and those giant wide screens that are on there, which are not on the Aston Martin, right? The Aston Martin's a little more conservative than that, but like, and that all gets like taken over by CarPlay. And for as a driver, it doesn't get taken over by CarPlay in like a weird way where Apple doesn't really understand your car.

Every car is going to be laid out by Apple and Kia or Hyundai or Genesis to be like right for that screen configuration and all that. I think that's really appealing to like take an, to elevate the existing experience with this extra experience. I think that that could be really interesting. So it's been a joke for the last three years, but CarPlay Ultra, I think it's got some real potential, but I think it's not gonna be as big as Apple hoped it would be, and that Apple has had to probably scale back their objectives. Or potentially the people who are working on this

always knew this is how it was gonna be, but the marketers went a little overboard. That also is a thing that Apple has been doing lately. We have some real-time follow-up on Apple and Epic. Thanks to Jack in Discord, Judge Ivan Gonzalez-Rodgers has issued a letter, I don't know what they call them, a brief, I don't know, saying, Apple is fully capable of resolving this issue without further briefing or hearing. However, if the parties do not file a joint notice that this issue is resolved and this court's intervention is required, the Apple official who is constantly responsible for ensuring compliance shall personally appear at the hearing hereby set for Tuesday, May 27th at 9am.

You know, I'm just going to say gonna say that somebody's gonna show up for that hearing and they're gonna say yeah the reason we're doing this is not your ruling it's because of their prior behavior in the store yeah and that they they violated agreements and we don't have trust with them I hope they don't because I think they should probably just like we said let it go but their behavior currently suggests that they're going to show up. And let me tell you, that judge is going to be real mean to them. Eat your Wheaties that day, Apple guy.

Eat your Wheaties. Get ready. If somebody responsible at Apple is listening to this show, I think it'd be a good idea. Look what's already happened. Do you want more things entered into the legal system? Don't, don't do this. Just say, fine, okay, it can come back. The risk is maybe if you let them in,

if you're ordered to put them in, maybe you can't kick them out later, right? I mean, if the judge, this is the lesson that Apple didn't learn for this last thing, which is if, if the judge, this is the lesson that Apple didn't learn from this last thing, which is if you fight it, you were given the opportunity to set more reasonable guidelines. And when you refused, the judge just turned off all your guidelines. Do you want that to happen again? Basically six months later, App Store review is destroyed. It doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah. Do you want that? That seems like a, about, so yeah, step one, it would be just let this go because you'll still be able, if you win your appeal, you'll still be able to deal with it. Why are you dragging your feet on this? Just let it go. What's the harm? And if you get, if you, you know, if on appeal, this gets stayed or overturned, you get to just say to Epic, turn it off in the next 24 hours or you're out, right? Like you get to do that. If you fight this,

you could be making it even worse for yourself. And the tone of this judge's letter is very clear. Don't. She does not want any of you more of your BS. She's done, you know she's done with you. She is tired of your BS. You know she's done with you. So like it really is in your best interest now to just find a way, get, write a piece of paper to everybody signs, right? That

like you're fine. As long as the rules are this way, if they change, you need to change. Cause this, I just, I think it boohoo's Apple to not ever go back into a room with that judge. Yeah. You don't make her more angry. She already is. Yeah. She is.

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slash upgrade 20 with the code upgrade 20 our thanks to delete me for their support of this show and relay Room around up time this show and relay. Room around up time. Yee-haw. Mark Gurman is reporting that Vision OS 3 could see a feature that allows users to scroll content with their eyes. I have no idea how this works when eye tracking is a thing.

My eyes! Oh, god, my eyes! It sounds uncomfortable, too. What am I, like, flicking with my eyes? Like, no. I don't know what this is. I'm intrigued to see what it is. I have some degree of faith in Apple's designers,

interface designers on Vision OS too, cause I think they've done a pretty good job. That this is probably better than the description would make it appear. Because I saw this and I mean, Mike, I literally rolled my eyes and then was worried that it would scroll the web page. You'd go up, down, back and forward, I guess, in that scenario. Like you're moving in. So my guess, my guess is it has something to do with like a scroll region.

Like you know how you got like scroll bars and like little scroll arrows back in the day before you had like a two, like a scroll wheel or trackpad scrolling. That's my guess is that there is a scroll target somewhere. And if you look at it, it scrolls. And that's what it is. Cause what I do not want is some weird gesture where I'm reading a webpage and I'm going, just move my eyes up while I'm touching. I don't want that. I don't want that. So that's my guess off the top of my head here is that there'll be like a little set

of arrows somewhere or, you know, on the, on the scrollable item where you'll be able to look and it'll like light up and, and, and scroll like a little set of arrows somewhere or on the scrollable item where you'll be able to look and it'll like light up and scroll it a little bit. Maybe it's even like page down or maybe it's attention-based where you look at it and it starts to scroll and then you look. Although the problem there is that you don't know too much to scroll if you're not looking at the content.

I don't know. Or, right, because the way it should be is like it is on the Mac and the iPad, right? It's like on the Mac with the track pad. I should be able to do something or make a gesture while I'm looking at content and go, you know, and just kind of like move it and scroll it. That's the way to do that.

So I struggle with this one, like moving my eyes to move content, just, brr, brr. I'd wondered if maybe there was like some kind of hand movement that you make and then the eyes are in control, but I don't even know if that makes any sense. Like I, I, I can't conceive of it. I, I know what you're, I agree with what you're saying. That's a way to do it. I just don't know if that's the way they're going to do it. And like, and I just can't get it in my head.

I don't like the idea of my eyes picking up something and my eyes picking up something and moving it somewhere else. Like I, hmm. Yeah. I don't know. Well, okay, again, but again, a thing that I've learned is that sometimes

the descriptions are not doing justice to the feature. And I would like to have a little more faith. I mean, and that's just a vision OS problem in general, right, that like it is a hard operating system to explain. Yes, that's right. And I can't to have a little more faith. I mean, and that's just a Vision OS problem in general, right? That like it is a hard operating system to explain. Yes, that's right. And I can't imagine that the people who design Vision OS, which is a pretty impressive piece of work, would build something that requires bizarre eye movements,

right? I have a hard time believing that. Over the weekend, Mark Gurman and Drake Bennett of Bloomberg published a huge story that details kind of the history of Apple Intelligence and how we ended up where we are. I want to get some key details from the article, but I recommend reading it. There's a lot going on in there that is just, it's like interesting, kind of like soap opera-y kind of feel.

Feature-y. It's a business week feature. So it's a lot of details that we've already heard Mark Gurman report, but it's being put in a kind of a feature story context. And then there's more kind of soapy individual, right? Like a lot of what Mark reports generally is like, this feature is being worked on and this thing is going to be built and revealed next year and all of that, the people said. Whether stuff like John, Jim and Andrea didn't get on with the rest of the

executives, right? Which is like, I believe that that's true, but like it's not really a thing that he talks about other ones. Right. The personal stuff is, is less forward in his normal reporting, but it comes out in this feature. But I'll break down a few things. A lot of this is like, yeah, of course, right. But it's in here. So it's interesting that it's in here in some form of record. Apple Intelligence wasn't even an idea before chat.gbt launched.

And Junji and Andrea believed that customers were not looking for chat bots. I feel like that alone, like that could have been his downfall of like, oh, you really didn't see this, right? Like, you know, you are our guy and like you and I'm expecting was advocating inside of Apple that they shouldn't build something, right? And like he's absolutely wrong.

This story makes it clear that he looked at chatbots and listed all the negatives, right? He said they're dumb. They get it wrong. There there's questionable value, like, and you can list them all off because they're still true. Like all the liabilities of chatbots are still true. There are lots of things that are wrong with chatbots, but the fatal mistake was

there was no anticipation of the upside. And I think it goes back to if you worked in machine learning for a long time and you see these chatbots, when you've been working on these bespoke models that do various things and somebody else is just like, yeah, you just typed to it and it gives you responses, you probably look down on it. You're probably like, come on, we're doing all this highfalutin stuff over here and you're just building a chatbot that is wrong a bunch of the time. That seems stupid. And was like, we're not interested in that. That's not a thing we want to pursue.

And that was the mistake because as true as it is that all of those things about chatbots are bad, people still were like, oh, this is really interesting. And they did dumb stuff with them, but they also did great stuff with them. And the right approach at that moment, easy for us to say with hindsight, but the right approach was to say, how do we use this technology, which is interesting? Are there ways we could apply this in what we do? And like, it could, somebody could, somebody probably did, say, this would actually really be great for, for Swift programming, for Xcode. Because people were, that's one of the things that, that LLMs are actually really great for. You know,

vibe coding, et cetera. But like, they just poo-pooed it. But then they go, oh, it's not good enough for Siri. It's not good enough for Siri. It makes mistakes. It's not good enough for Siri. Well, the good enough for Siri. It makes mistakes. It's not good enough for Siri. What, the system that's so reliable? You know? I know. Yeah, but it required the illusion, organizationally, that Siri was not terrible, right?

Yeah. They were busy swimming to Hawaii or whatever. Anyway, I'll give a quick article. According to employees, the chatbot that the company has been testing internally has made significant strides over the past six months to the point that some executives see it on par with recent versions of chat GBT. Don't know if I necessarily buy that, but I'm happy to hear that they are advancing

it. I've got to think, I mean, one of the things that I'm skeptical of is people who have bought into the, into the narrative that Apple, because Apple is behind on AI, Apple doesn't get it and can't get it. Because everything that I see is that it's actually, there are so many players in AI because you can spin up a group and build and, you know, I keep bringing up DeepSeek, but like, I feel like DeepSeek really showed that the bar is not high, that there's not a big barrier here to entry. And that if Apple has the will and the money, and the people, which is, those are ifs, that I think that them building pretty good models is not an impossibility. It's not like, oh, well, Apple missed it, and

they're never going to be able to get there. Now, this story suggests that there are lots of other cultural problems that there are people who don't really believe in it. And that people that you know, hiring people who want to do this is is is a challenge. And there are lots of issues culturally, which we could all guess, right? It's, we could all guess that from observing what has been happening on the outside. But I am not willing to write off Apple's ability to say, we actually need a really good LLM and put a lot of effort into building a good LLM. I think it's possible. Like, I think it's possible

they could do a good image generator. It's not what's in image playgrounds. Yeah, I think it's possible. I just don't know if I buy the speed. I just don't know if I buy the speed. I just don't know if I buy the speed. Oh yeah. Is it like it now? And also on par with recent versions of ChatB2BT,

that's one of the problems, right? Is that all of these LLMs are moving so quickly. Like is that recent version like six months ago or a year ago or is it today? And also like if you are building something internally that is of that quality, you are not taking into account what OpenAI is building internally. Exactly.

Which is superior to what is currently shipping. So you're still. Yeah, I would say, I like that line about it being better. Because one of the things that I think is not being talked about enough is, about it being better. Because one of the things that I think is not being talked about enough is, one of the things Apple needs to talk about at WWDC is that their models are better, right?

Everybody's so focused on Apple announcing new features. And I know that this is weird because we haven't been in an Apple intelligence world before, but like one of the ways Apple intelligence gets better is that they use new models that are better, right? Like, that's part of this is standing up on stage and saying, Look at how much better our model is now. And maybe even making a commitment that we're going to ship, you know, we're going to ship a new updated model every three months or every six months, like you're going to keep on seeing the benefit of this. That would go a long way to at

least expressing that you're you're on the case here, right? Because right now, we're, I think, on iPhone still using a model that was built last summer, right? So there's some hope there, but I think the truth is it's going to take... Look, I wrote a piece on Six Colors last week where I likened it, and I know I've done this on a podcast, maybe even this podcast, that scene in Apollo 13, where they're dealing with the explosion on the spaceship and to get a handle on it, Ed Harris's character says, okay, let's look about this,

let's consider this from a perspective of status. What do we have on the spacecraft that's good? Which is like a real shocker moment because it's like, look, we need to stop behaving as if this is a normal situation. This is a potential disaster. Let's list our assets, right? Let's what do we have that's working? And that's, I wrote that piece because like, that's what's happened when, you know, Craig Federighi walks in when they reorg when they put Rockwell in charge of Siri like their first step is to be like well what can we even announce at WWDC and and some of the stuff that

they're doing it is gonna take a year or two they have to do they have to reorg they have to change culture it's not all gonna be there WWDC It's not. And if Apple ever even has a chance of catching up in AI, it's going to take a year or two at least, right? It is. That's just it. But they can show some positive developments. And one of them really is like, is your model better? Have you made improvements on your model? Are you committed to making more improvements on your model? Because the problem with Apple sort of announcing a feature in June and then shipping it in September and then it stays unchanged for a year is AI models are moving too fast for that. You need to be able to say we're committed to improving our models. So we'll see what they say about that because I

think that that could be a big thing. It's not just like we have new features of Apple intelligence. It's also our models are better now We we have spent a year making our models much better and will also let you use other people's models, right? That that that's what I want to see them say I want them to be like our model is better and you can now use Gemini and chat GBT and Claude or what you know, whatever whatever well this report says that the focus of wwc this year is to show upgrades to the existing currently shipping set of features adding in some smaller new features like an ai optimized battery management tool and a virtual health coach into

the fitness app it is not expected that we see pretty much anything of the delayed features, even though they continue to work on them. Because as Bloomberg are saying, Apple is shifting focus internally now to only really talk about and show our features that they're confident will ship within a few months. Okay, this is to me the most important sentence in this entire feature. Because what this says is, this is the fallout from Apple Intelligence being over-promised. And this is the argument I think I would have probably made internally as well, which is we're Apple, we can announce things whenever. So why are we shooting ourselves in the foot. Like, announce a bunch of stuff that you're confident you can ship by the end of the year, or by September or October. And then, if you've got that snazzy new feature ready to go in your 0.3 update or

whatever, you know what? You do a press release, you make a big thing, people talk about it. You know, the day you drop the developer beta, everybody's talking about it. Show it off in September, when the iPhone comes out. Yeah, show it off at the iPhone event. Shipping in December. Like you've got to give yourself more time. And say this is coming in December.

And then in January, say, here's an amazing thing we're doing in March, or whatever. Especially if you start shipping, having two different iPhone events, it gives you an opportunity to do that as well. So, like, you don't need to, you don't need, if you've got something that's not going to come until March, just don't talk about it. You can talk about it later. People pay attention when Apple announces new features. They do. It's okay to do it

that way and it won't blow up in your face like it did last year. Yeah I mean and you know you can you consider and be like this is how it always goes right? That Apple show off in June and it ships in September. Well, increasingly over the years, less and less actually ships in September. Um, and, and I think, as you say, this is the, I mean, we're all wondering it, right? All of us that pay any attention to this, especially those of us in the media are wondering like what is, what is the result of Apple essentially lying to the media? Right? Like in some form or like deceiving or misleading. At least some people did. Well, the result is we can't be caught doing that again because every, you know, everyone's expecting it. Everyone is going into WWDC this year and every briefing

there will be at least one person that says can you show me that? Right everything that happens sure Can you show me? You may see them say this will ship this year Which is not something that they did before. They'll say this will ship later this year. This will ship in the fall and That's a that's I'm sending a message saying we have confidence. this is gonna ship. Whereas before it was sort of like, like that series section, remember, even as I'm watching it,

I'm like, wow, there's a lot of future tense here, right? Like, oh, we will do this in the future. And I was like, well, when, when, when? So if they're more specific about when they're planning to ship stuff, which they do that all the time. They say later, you know, later this later this year or this fall or this winter, they can be specific and then they also need to show things. But I think it's the right thing to do,

especially with something where you're not clear. I mean, AI already is really uncertain. And then on top of that, you've got the uncertainty of Apple's AI group going through dramatic changes and new management and making new decisions with different policies and all of that. So like it's not the right time to have great confidence in what you're going to be doing next spring. So maybe just be a little more constrained. That's it's okay. People will be disappointed that there isn't a giant vision

of the future at WWDC for Apple intelligence. But I think everybody would understand if you stand on stage and say, we launched it last year, we learned a lot. There was some stuff we couldn't ship. We're working on it. We've got confidence in the stuff we are shipping. We improved our model.

We've got some new deals with third party providers. Like, I think people will understand that. And then it lets you, if you have some amazing feature that's gonna blow people away for next spring, you announce it next spring. That's fine. It's okay. I think it could be interesting to hear them say,

like, you know, like they go through a bunch of things, like, and we're gonna have another AI event later in the year. Right, like're going to have another AI event later in the year. Right? Like an Appliance event later in the year. You know, like set it up. And I think they will, they will find some way to set up the fact that they are continuing to work on this stuff without showing us what they're working on because they can't show us what they're

working on because they'll get into that trap again. So they have to kind of like signify that there's more than just we've made image playgrounds a little bit better. We've made notification summaries a bit better, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Like German eyes here now, you know, that kind of thing. So going back to this report, uh, going back to the begin, kind of the beginning of this pre last year, Apple had immediately tried to fit generative AI features into Siri, but it wasn't working. The old infrastructure did not play well with the new stuff, which

is like, Oh, cause a lot of the things that we're seeing there are kind of like outside right? Like image playgrounds is outside. You don't ask for that. It's its own thing where like, if you think about it, shouldn't it all be in the thing? And then similarly, I find this interesting. Apple is now trying to separate Apple Intelligence and Siri in their marketing. Now, the way that Bloomberg sets it up is that like Siri is about market Apple Intelligence. I think it works both ways at the moment. Works both ways. Like they're both, both brands are undermining the other thing. Apple has an AI infrastructure team based in Zurich that are working on a new LLM to

power Syria. I don't know if the result of that is the thing that we mentioned earlier, right? The chatbot thing. I don't know about that. I don't know. And then I think maybe the biggest little piece of information, I think they've got the biggest play is that it is possible that in the EU customers will be able to have a choice of voice assistant, which is interesting, but that feels rough. I think that is the thing that could genuinely have the bigger impact of customers

actually doing it. If you think of the, let's say, tens of millions of people that are using ChatGPT, that you open the app, and it prompts you, hey, would you like to be able to access ChatGPT by just asking your iPhone? That is a compelling thing that I could imagine people doing. And I also wonder what the implementation of that is. Well, I mean, I can't imagine this is the case, but would these systems be able to do things that are on the iPhone? Probably not, right? You just

be like, what is that? So be interested to see if or what that is. Yeah. If they can build the model a little bit better, one of the things that this describes is that there's sort of two parts of Siri. There's like the information content part, and then there's like the basic tasks on the device part. That's your timers and volume and stuff like that. I wonder, because you can already, it already is trying to judge

whether it should send that to chat GPT or not. If you have that setting turned on, you actually, and have it, it'll either ask you or you can just say, don't even ask me. And I've definitely I've set that up. And sometimes it just chooses really badly about what it thinks it can handle. But like, if you partner with more third parties and you improve the or really like reduce the scope of what Siri thinks it can do. the, or really like reduce the scope of what Siri thinks it can do.

You're kind of there. It's not quite the same as just running the chat GPT app or whatever, but it would allow Apple to sort of let the third party AIs handle the world knowledge and give it a chance, then as it improves Siri, it could like take more of that stuff over. I don't know, it's a tough question. And yeah, and it's not great for Apple if you can just throw it out completely. But also it's not great for customers

depending on how it's implemented because you do also wanna just set a timer and have it be the timer in the clock app, right? You don't want it to be like, I don't know, a chat GPT timer. Like you don't, you don't really want that. So I don't know. That's, that's the, one of the challenges of this is that voice assistants are used for lots of different things. Yep. And yeah, yeah. I can imagine a company like perplexity doing a decent job of it. If they, cause you know, they just did that thing where they're tying into A bunch of like yeah device stuff, right? Yeah, maybe everybody does it that way and and honestly the Siri

intense stuff app intense The whole idea is that assistance can control your apps, right? Like so in the long run This might be less of an issue. But yeah, even in the short run, there are things that the Perplexity app can do on your system. Should we finish up with an Ask Upgrade question? We've run a bit long again today. So much stuff going on. So let's finish out with an Ask Upgrade question, but we've got to get some lasers if we're going to do that. Because this one felt somewhat related, and I thought it was an interesting thing to touch on. It comes from John, who says, with all

of the tumult happening with Siri, AI, and the constant failure in Apple software across all of its platforms, with holding back the travelizing hardware, which we spoke about last time, why does nobody question Craig Federighi's culpability and leadership at the company? Tim deserves a lot of blame for company priorities and issues, but shouldn't Craig, a potential future CEO, also feel the heat for the years of misfires related to the operating system and app development

organizations such as slow underdeveloped features, bugginess, and delays? All right, not to question the questioner, but first off, I'm not sure Craig Federighi is seen as a possible future CEO. I mean, you could make an argument in that he's been there for a long time and he's important, right? So they're getting everyone kind of everyone in the C-suite falls into the bucket, potentially, I guess. And then, and then second, I know what John is getting at here, but why does no one question Craig Federighi's? Like no one?

It happens. It happens a lot. I feel like we've answered this question before, by the way, but I'm just going to say it again. It does happen. People do bring it up. Nobody really knows what is his responsibility and not. For example, some of the AI stuff, it turns out maybe it was John G and Andrea's issue and not really Craig's issue after all.

And I think a broader issue is that in our community, people like Craig Fittery because he's perceived as being one of us in a lot of ways. That he is kind of nerdy. He understands computers and computer programming at a level that many other Apple executives do not. and computer programming at a level that many other Apple executives do not. He can speak the same language as a lot of the people who are listening to this podcast and who read Apple blogs and all of that. He's sort of one of us in that way. And he also has a gift of bonding with the people at events. You see lots of pictures with him. He's very charismatic. He's charismatic. He comes charismatic, he's also,

he comes across as being kind of aw shucks and modest, like he's just a regular guy. There are lots of those things that make, I think our community predisposed to give him a pass and assume that it's other stuff. Also, it's a black box and we don't really know. He could be terrible at his job or he could be great at his job

or he could be simply doing his best at a difficult job, that there's really nobody else to do it. And he's stepped up and done it. And he's done okay, even though he's got his strengths and weaknesses. Right? There are lots of different ways it could be true inside. I think if he was a disaster, we would have heard about it from the inside. And I think that that's part of it, too. But I do think he gets a shield, because he's he's perceived as being kind of like somebody who gets us or who's kind of like us. And also, when we first met him, he was terrified on stage. And I think people were rooting for him. And I think as he's gotten better on stage, I think there's like a factor of it that's I knew that guy when he was nervous on stage, I think that's a little bit of it too. So but but definitely, he needs to be part of the criticism. The challenge is, like with the AI thing, you don't actually know like, how what's he trying to do? What's he allowed to do?

I think given how the software is behind the hardware, he he deserves some criticism criticism because he's ultimately responsible for the software. I just, I come back to the fact of like, it's the question, it's the, it's the Luca Meistery and the GPUs question, which is how much of this is Craig make doing the best with what he's given to work with? Like if you ask Craig Federighi, could you really hire more people so that your software is less buggy? He might say, no, we like who we've got. He might privately say, yeah, it kills me that I can't hire more people. We don't know.

We don't know. But, uh, so I think we're predisposed to like him and it's hard to tell details about any, everybody wants to single out people and say like you fire that guy But as stories like that Bloomberg story show you We don't know the details on the inside and I I do legitimately believe that if somebody was a nightmare Especially somewhere on the software side It would have gotten back through the grapevine and I don't think it has So my my kind of feeling on this is going back to what I said a couple weeks ago

like I never get into that like fire this person fire that person because I think Ultimately, it's it's kind of a silly thing to to suggest from the outside There's soap opera. You don't know you don't know the details I don't know the details with the soap opera. It's really hard to do this stuff. Like it's really hard. Software is really hard. Hardware is really difficult. It's all difficult because anyone that makes things knows how delays occur, knows how things can go wrong. Like it's just anybody that makes anything. Like this is a very, this is a thing that happens a lot. My current thing on questioning Tim Cook is essentially. Crimes is the, is the problem.

Yeah. Well, it's high level leadership stuff that we can see. Yeah. Right. That is visible. It's when a company gets to the point of all of that stuff spilling out in court and like it's the, the cultural shift that I feel like Apple has been on comes from one person,

right? Like again, it's like the one person thing of like, you know, you never know really know what any of these people want to do and the CEO has to be the, like the person who makes the ultimate, we're going this way're going that way you've got this you've got that like it does kind of go back and comes from the CEO but like my feeling is just that it just appears to me from the documents that came out in the court case that like there is a cultural leadership problem leadership problem that is at Apple and it takes huge cultural change to fix that. That kind of change is most felt if the actual leader of the business changed. Like that, that would see the biggest change. I am not really suggesting that Tim Cook should be fired. I just now have

my own personal case for, and we went through it I think in really good detail, like, oh it might be a good idea to start making public shifts and like suggestions that somebody else is coming and like we're gonna work, like kind of what Bob Iger's doing really, of like,, I'm leaving at some point and so I'm bringing up my person and you know, I go out there and he's stirring these three people left, right and center and they're having bake-offs and seeing who wins. Right. But like that might be the right move for Apple now if they're going to attempt to try and culturally change things. But that's where I come from anyway. But I just think that all of that stuff that

came out in the court case was just too ugly for me to suggest that the company isn't going through some kind of like crisis right now. If you would like to send us in a question of your own for us to answer in a few trips to the show, please do go to upgradefeedback.com. We always want your questions. We haven't been doing so many of them recently, but hey, summer's coming, so we're going to have more, we have less stuff going on and more time to answer your questions. So we do keep them.

I keep them in our documents. So please go to upgradefeedback.com send us in your questions. You could also send us in your feedback and your follow up there. We read everything. we really appreciate it. Thank you to everybody that does this each and every week. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade. Plus, you can get longer ad free versions of the show each and every week, access to the members' Discord.

This week, we're gonna talk about Formula One, Monaco, and Apple Maps, which is a really interesting, weird thing to occur in the world of Apple. If you want to watch this show, you can do that. Every week we publish a video version of the show to YouTube. You can search for the Upgrade podcast and you'll find us there. Thank you to our sponsors this week, the fine people over at Delete Me and Squarespace. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.

Until then, say goodbye, Jesus now. Goodbye, Mike hurly.