Upgrade - 570: The Spite Tier

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

from relay this is upgrade episode 570 for June 30th 2025 today's show is brought to you by ecam and century we are halfway through the year which is wild to consider my name is Mike early I'm joined by Jason snow hi Jason snow hello Mike early how is Mike Hurley. I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hello, Mike Hurley. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I have a snow tool question for you.

Oh, of course you do. Comes in from Sims who wants to know, the viewers on YouTube know that you both wear sunglasses, eyeglasses day to day. What is your strategy for sunglasses when you're out on the summer of fun? Oh, interesting. Yes.

On YouTube, you can see we wear glasses because we wear glasses. The, you know, the glasses I wear on YouTube are not the glasses I wear in regular life. These are my computer glasses. Oh, they are, uh, the, cause they're, they're like, they're less powerful cause I don't need to see far. I need to see near. So they're, they're like several steps. I don't know, I'm not an optometrist, less powerful. I have a pair of prescription

sunglasses that I wear when I'm out having the summer of fun. They're actually from Enchroma, which is, so I have to say I'm an influencer and they sent me a pair of their sunglasses for this moment, I guess. But they make sunglasses that, and glasses, I think, but sunglasses for sure, that are color enhancing for people who are colorblind. And so I wear the Enchroma sunglasses out in the world and oh, those greens, they're so green.

It's what like, and occasionally I'll be like, oh, look at that, those are purple flowers, those red, those little red trees over, things that I would never say without those. So I have them and they're really great. I have seen this happen in person. I've been with you where you have remarked on the color

of something because you're wearing your sunglasses. It really, I mean, I'm not gonna, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor. I'm not gonna tell you how they do it and whether what they do is real or fake or anything like that other than to say that I feel like I notice color more. If you think about it, Jason,

you're already wearing AR glasses, right? They are in fact augmenting my reality. In a way, they are augmenting my reality in a way. That is true. I do. My sunglasses are AR glasses. I wear the Meta Ray Balance. They're my actual sunglasses.

They're the first sunglasses I've ever had with transition lenses, because obviously I need eyeglasses. And I like them. It's interesting really. So I went with the transition lenses because I don't like having to carry sunglasses and regular glasses when I go somewhere. But the problem is the Ray-Ban frames

are not the frames style that I would like to wear. Like my eyeglasses are very thin metal frames. So I'm still kind of like, sometimes I decide to not take my sunglasses somewhere because I don't want to sit in a restaurant wearing the Ray-Ban frames. But I still am happy with whatever sunglasses I get, prescription sunglasses, right? I think having transition is the right call for me I assume I'm happy with whatever sunglasses I get,

prescription sunglasses, right? I think having transition is the right call for me because I get the option of like, if I'm going on holiday or I'm going out for the day, like I don't have to carry a glasses case with me. I do, I like that, I like that, that barb. They're my sunglasses now. Yeah, I don't do that. I actually have a pair of clips for my regular prescription

glasses that I will also wear if I'm going to be going in and out. And I prefer to wear the Enchroma sunglasses. But if I'm going inside and outside and inside and outside, I'm not going to be like for an extended period of time out in the sun. I will bring the clips that just clip right onto my regular glasses and do it that way.

If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question for us to open a future episode of the show, summer related questions are very welcome during the summer of fun. Go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send them in. Jason, we'll start with the b-tails today. Yes, let's do it. Because it's kind of follow up and but I thought this to the details. Beta 2 is out now, and there's a smattering of tweaks and features, but by and large, it feels like across the platforms,

the majority of changes in the second developer betas are for readability. So clearing up some stuff with liquid glass to make it a little more readable. Notably Control Center, Notification Center, and the Menu Bar on the Mac, which while there isn't Liquid Glass as part of the new design, you can kind of put a bit of translucency behind it. Do you have any particular thoughts on Beta 2? No, I'm running... I updated to all of them. They still seem fairly stable to me. They have their little quirks, but they're usable. One of the funny things about some of these tweaks, like the putting the translucency behind the menu bar is, since I'm going to

preview and then ultimately review Mac OS, part of my job is to try it the way it is, not put it back to the way it was. So like, my menu bar is still transparent because I need to experience that and have an opinion about it and not just go back, right? Like if, how do I review a new version of Mac OS if the first thing I do is toggle all the new features off? Yeah.

Like, it's nonsense. So, um, so that's where I am. Right? Like that would be, that would be, I mean, I think this is why John Syracuse are retired from reviewing that. Yeah. He couldn't, he couldn't break from his like urges of wanting to change things. Right.

I mean, they feed to be sure they feed into what he wrote, right? Like, oh, is's doing it this way. But I have to subject myself to whatever they do, because I have to write about it, even if I say it's bad. When you started this train of thought, I thought you were going to say something that I heard Federico and Juan Trujón say, which is in a beta cycle like this, when you're reviewing them, you have to leave your screenshots to the absolute end. Oh, for sure. Because things keep changing.

Well, like some years you can kind of get away with it. Yeah. But like if you've got a visual change, because Federico was talking about like that, as if iOS 15 where they changed all the Safari stuff. And like they changed the design in like the final right. It's true. I did a bunch of screens because I in late summer, I start to work on the photos book and take control of photos. And I will sometimes start taking some screenshots then of things I know. But I have absolutely been bitten with

that, where I've taken the screenshots and then they there things I know, but I have absolutely been bitten with that, where I've taken the screenshots and then there's a new beta. I'm like, oh God, they moved that thing. Okay, well, yeah, you gotta leave them to the end. That's true, but you also have to live with it. If you're gonna write about a new thing, you can't just turn it off and say,

it's bad, I turned it off. You need to live with it. And even if you come to hate it, you need to live with it. So I'm doing that and I've started writing my macOS preview, which will drop with, you know, around when the public data is, whenever that is, I don't know, July, which is tomorrow, but probably not tomorrow. Tomorrow, I hope not. It won't be right when if it's tomorrow.

I'll put it that way. Because unless you want to read a review that's entirely a thousand words about the menu bar, because I've written that part, but that's it. I'll be releasing my preview in segments because if they release the beta on July 1st, they might. You haven't written a thousand words about the menu bar, have you? I have. On Saturday, I wrote a thousand words about the menu bar. You wrote a thousand words about the Tahoe menu bar? A thousand words about the menu bar in Tahoe, yes.

Did John Syracuse die in like his ghost flying this way into you? What happened? No, no, no, no, no. John would have written 4,000 words about the Menu Bar. I only wrote a thousand words about the Menu Bar because I keep it succinct, folks. There's a lot to say about the Menu Bar.

There's a lot going on in the Menu Bar. I mean, I don't want to get, I mean, this is the details, I guess I could say. This is the place. I'll give you my little thesis about the Menu Bar. There's a little don't wanna get, I mean, this is the details, I guess I could say. This is the place. I'll give you my little thesis about the menu bar. There's a little preview of what I'm gonna write about. But upgrade, I mean, this is the cycle, right? You hear people talk about it,

they write about it, whatever. Apple has a vision for the menu bar on the Mac, a new vision for the menu bar on the Mac, leaving the transparency aside. Apple, so for years, we've had these things called menu extras that apps can put up there. And if you've ever, you know, used had to use bartender or hidden bars, something like that, it's because all of these apps kind of poop their little icons up into the menu bar. And you're like, why are there I'm looking right now, because bartender kind of

doesn't work right in Tahoe. I'm looking right now. It's like 1234567, eight, eight just sort of random app icons in my menu bar before it gets to the stuff that I actually care about. Those are generally, I think they're called menu extras or menu bar items. But anyway, they're the Mac OS 10, you can put an icon in the menu bar and do stuff with it kind of thing. And four years ago, five years ago, something like that, they

introduced Control Center on the Mac, right? But it was like a hardwired kind of like simple Control Center. The Control Center in Tahoe is like a full blown Control Center, kind of like what they've done on iOS and iPad OS. It's fully editable. There's a an API for apps to write their own controls. So all these apps that currently write menu extras, they can write controls. And controls can be in Control Center. Controls can be in the menu bar.

Every item that's in Control Center, you can say, put this in the menu bar, or you can take it out of the menu bar, and it still lives in Control Center. So I could put a little shortcut up there and just hit it, and it will do its thing? I don't know if you can put a shortcut or if it's just showing shortcuts. I don't know. I haven't tried that yet.

Okay. The menu bar section just got longer, Mike. Good job. One thousand and twenty words. No, it's a thousand probably twelve hundred words now. Thanks. Good job. Good job. Now my goal is by the time you're finished talking about this, can I get you to four thousand words? So yeah, you can do the full Syracuse.

All right. You know how last year they introduced pages for Control Center, right? You can have like multiple pages full of controls in Control Center. On the Mac and Tahoe, there aren't pages. Instead, you can literally add more menu bar drop downs with more controls in them. So basically

what Apple is doing is it's building a completely like extensible framework for controls in the menu bar that can live in the menu bar, or they can live in sub menus. They're basically I don't want to say they're Sherlocking bartender, but they're're a Sherlocking bartender, but they're kind of Sherlocking bartender. But they're doing it in a different way, right? Where it's like, hey, instead of this just going across,

it's coming down now. It's, well, you can do, either, right? You can put them, you can say, put this in the menu bar, or you can say, I'm gonna add this control to this, and you give them, you can't choose any icon, but those additional pages of Control Center that are icons in the menu bar you can choose from like 12 custom icons that they provide. So like I could grab all of my iStat menu items that I have and I could collect them up and put them in a

drop-down on their own? Only if they're a control. See and this is the thing why it's a transition right is that Is that menu extras, things, menu bar apps, things that run in the menu bar using the old APIs don't go in control center, but controls can. So, I stat menus is an example where they might not want that. I mean, you can probably set I stat menus to be, yeah. You can set I stat menus to be what it wants,

but they're probably, they probably don't wanna be a control because they do so many kind of weird things. But like, I've got so many of these things that it's just like, we're just being present in your menu bar to remind you that we're running. I'm like, I don't need that, right? Like that could be a control, you could put that. So to my knowledge, you can't add non-control items,

menu bar items to to Control Center. I don't think you can go that far. So this is a long range plan by Apple, but I would say that with Tahoe, it's very clear what Apple wants to do with the menu bar going forward on the Mac. And it's Controls API and Control Center, and multiple pages if you want them in Control Center

in the menu bar, and items on the menu bar from Control Center if you want them in Control Center in the Menu Bar and items on the Menu Bar from Control Center if you want them. That's a fully functional, understandable concept for how the Mac Menu Bar can work. And that multi-page thing is great because you don't want a gigantic Control Center with everything in it, but at the same time,

if you've got a relatively small laptop screen with a notch and then an app with lots of menu items, you're going to run out of space really fast. So having the ability to say, you know what, don't put wifi in the menu bar. But now my control center is a little cluttered. So I'm going to create a now playing or a connectivity page of control center. That's a separate icon, you know, in the menu bar for that stuff. Like all of that is out there.

So it's a really interesting, um, I, like, again, there are some details that have to be worked out and, and, and it's, it feels like a very much a transition because everybody's already got like menu extras, but I think you can just look at it and say, Oh, this is what Apple wants the future of the menu bar on the Mac to be. And I think that's pretty cool. That's the equivalent of like a thousand words right there. So congratulations everybody.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, like the tweaks that they've made fine. The, the, really the only issues that I have with readability with iPadOS is notification center. Um, and it's still, they've made changes to it, but the notifications are still just too hard to read. And this might be a wallpaper problem,

but their system needs to be better at working around edge case wallpapers. It's funny too, because like, I don't actually have a problem with the menu bar transparency. Maybe it's the wallpapers I tried, but in the Mac menu bar, it reads okay. It's not glass, right?

It's not a glass menu bar. It's like just not there. But yes, on iPhone and iPad, you get into these weird situations where it's this light glass and they're not doing like, I expected them to be doing more to put, like, to, to add a blur effect around the edges of the text so that the text edges are more defined so that they're more readable, or to add a little, like all the things that we do when we're trying to work in like Photoshop

to do visibility issues, like, do you put a stroke around the text? Do you put a shadow around the text? Maybe like a sharp drop shadow around the text. What do you do to, do you have an algorithm that like, I have seen this, I think Apple in some places is noting a lack of contrast between the text and what's behind it.

And it does some very limited local dimming of what's behind it. It gets a little, hey, it's like a little shadow is cast from nowhere behind it. And you almost go, are my eyes playing tricks on me? Because it's that subtle, but I think they are in some places actually doing that. So I'm surprised on one level

that it's in places as unreadable as it is, but on another level, I feel like this is a solvable problem. And it may be that Apple knew that this wasn't quite right yet, but they haven't come up with their official solution. I absolutely believe it's a solvable problem, but I think it's just gonna take time and testing and feedback to get it to, you know, where it needs to be. Because you mentioned, right? Like, anyone that's ever made any kind of visual stuff knows

there is always a problem in this kind of thing and there are so many solutions for it. So like, I'm confident they'll get there. And I'll say again, and part of this is Apple's fault because they come out with their announcements and they're like super confident because why would they not be there Apple? It's great, it's all gonna be amazing. Truth is somebody designed this design

and then somebody else had to implement it. And you know what? I know you want, I know that some people are like, well, they should have implemented the entire thing for developer beta one. It's like, well, they did, they didn't, they didn't. What we have now is not, I would argue is not even entirely what the designers want it to be, let alone what they're going to get feedback on and realize that they've made some mistakes and they need to change. Part of what's going on this summer clearly is stuff, like it's hard, it's very hard to look at macOS

and not think that stuff just hasn't been implemented yet because it doesn't look right, it's very weird. And like, it's an ongoing process. And I'm willing to give them some slack now because it's not shipping, but you need to ship, you need to implement the design and get all your changes covered by the time you ship it to regular people in the fall. But right now, I like, right now I have to do things like say, okay, this probably isn't how they intended it. And I can, even I can see some ways forward for them to address this. So let's file a feedback. Let's talk about those issues and hopefully they're on it.

I think that's all we can do. I know that these kinds of like personal anecdote-y things don't really mean anything, but it was just interesting to me. So I thought I would share a couple of days ago, Deanna was using my iPad, like that has the beta on it. And she was just like, oh, is this that liquid glass? I was like, yeah, she's like, it's pretty fun. And I was like, I agree with you. Like she'd like the way that things were lighting up, like, you know, like the luminance thing. And so I went to show

her, I said, I want to show you the thing that I think is the most fun, which is the text selector, you know, that if you, you know, move your finger around, it's like this water droplet that's, she's like, oh, that's really cool. And I was like, I agree. It is really, that's what they're going for. Yeah. And, and I, I do believe that I do believe I have believed this and I now believe it even more just based on one interaction, uh, that, that the majority of people will think this is cool and it's not going to be the disaster that people think it's going to be. That's where I put my money down on. I think the challenge when you're talking about this stuff,

especially trying to be critical about it, and whether it's during when it's shipped or when it hasn't shipped yet, is there are two things going on here. One of them is, does it look cool? And the other is, is it frustrating to use? And that's our challenge. Our challenge is to talk about the usability issues

where they exist and ways that it should probably be better. But also I would say, not fail to acknowledge the fact that part of the reason, if not mostly the reason Apple's doing this is because they wanna have a new look on their devices I just don't know why people are upset about that that like that like You can't just want to redesign because it will look cool. That is a great reason. Yeah. Yeah to do a reason The last few weeks on accidental tech podcast, we've already talked about John Syracuse of minus one mention the whole podcast

you know Marco Marco Armit is accidental tech podcast. We've already talked about John Syracuse, so we might as well mention the whole podcast. You know, Marco, Marco Armit is extremely critical of so much of what Apple does in terms of design. And he has some very sharp criticism for some of the details and the implementation of this design. But I think it's telling that even somebody who is coming at it from that perspective, a spectacularly skeptical person about Apple's design people says, look, it's cool, don't be afraid.

And his issue is that Apple is like trying to dress it up as we really did this because we wanted to send important, you know, guidelines for whatever in that PR thing they did during the video. It's okay to just say we did this because we wanted it to be cool. Yeah. And, and he's, and he's right. And it is, it is a fun thing.

The challenge of this summer and the challenge of the designers going forward with this design is how do you make it cool, but not frustrating for users? That's the important thing, right? It's like that droplet effect is amazing, but if you can't read your texts, it's bad. So you just have to like, and that's, I think, where we come from, but I'm okay saying, I think it's cool. I think there's, I don't think there's a right design.

I think I do get the vibe from some people and you may have seen this too, that some people have the opinion like, well, this is just the wrong design. I don't think there's a right design. There are lots of designs you could do. And again, I will say I think you can make a very functional, easy to use design that was ugly. And I don't think that's good. I don't think that's acceptable. I think that you need to try to do both. And Apple is starting with cool, but we can't let them off the hook for usable. I do think it's fun and cool. Not so much on the Mac yet, although I occasionally find a thing on the Mac that I'm like, oh, that is fun. But it's harder to find those things because I think it's not all there. And maybe it was never really meant to be super fun on the Mac. And so it's not but but I don't know I think

it's important to keep those two impulses in mind that part of the goal here is for this to be fun and cool and so that people react positively this fall and right now part of what's going on is we all need to be putting a critical eye to the usability of this because we don't need to take away the fun but we need to make need to take away the fun. But we need to make sure that we put the fun and functional. Is that a thing I can say? Anyway, I said it. There it is.

This episode is brought to you by Ecamm. Ecamm Live is the leading video production and live streaming studio built for the Mac. And it is a Mac app. But it doesn't stop there because Ecamm is great at simplifying your workflow. You can do it all with Ecamm. Get started quickly and have everything on hand to create whatever you need with video. It's great for streaming, recording, podcasting and presenting. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you want high quality video and with Ecamm you can screen share, you can use multiple cameras and even direct the show in real time with their live camera switcher. You can add logos,

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For Six Colors and for Total Part of Kill on the incomparable, we use Ecam Live. And I love it because it's a Mac app and I used a bunch of the open source apps that are okay, but on the Mac they're kind of slow and they're kind of weird interfaces and Ecamm Live is just such a pure Mac app. It just, everything about it feels like

it does it the Mac way. And you might not notice that if you hadn't waded through two or three different open source cross-platform apps, which are great because, you know, they're functional, but like, they're not. You feel like you have to learn everything from scratch, not just how to do the live streaming, but also like how on earth do these apps work?

Yeah, every time you click on something, you're like, well, what will this do? And on Ecamm Live, I never had that feeling. Like on Ecamm Live, like it's using all the Mac metaphors we know. And so if your brain understands how Mac apps work, you will understand everything about how Ecamm Live works. And I can stream 4K live to YouTube or actually to multiple and I can pull in Zoom people

and make them their own cameras so that I can control them so I don't have to like screen capture a zoom window and carve it into little pieces, which is what I used to have to do. It's just, yeah, it's really great. Yep. If you're on the pro level plan, you can enjoy Ecamm for zoom where you can automatically send Ecamm's live audio and video output

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FM. Go there now and check it out. Thanks to Ecamm for the support of this show and relay. Rumor roundup time. Yeehaw. This first rumor. It's a returning rumor. It's a rumor rebound.

It's a rumor rang. Rumor rang. I don't understand it. And I want to talk to you about it. I've been excited to talk to you about it because I'm kind of at a loss with it. So Ming-Chi Kuo... I understand it. I understand it. This is, I mean, again, we've been here before.

He's taken like, he pulled open a drawer and moths flew out and then this rumor came out. Maybe. That's what happened. There's a detail that's weird. All right. Ming-Chi Kuo is reporting that Apple is working on a new entry level MacBook. I was like, OK, yeah. Powered by the A18 Pro. Excuse me.

So Kuo is saying that this is set to go into production around the end of this year with a 13 inch screen, the same that's on the MacBook Air, potentially with colorful cases. Now, the same that's on the MacBook Air, potentially with colorful cases. Now the colorful cases part on a MacBook, we've been here before, right? We thought we were gonna get that. We didn't get that. It just never happened.

It just never happened, right? It's like, it was the obvious thing. It's like, hey, look, iMac. Imagine, imagine the message being sent to people who want a colorful Mac laptop that you can get it, but only if you use an iPhone chip in your Mac. All right. So here's the thing. I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand what this product is.

I don't know. Like, I mean, it's the Mac book, right? Yeah. Right. But like this this why is it 13 inches? This is this is the rumor that this is the rumor that started with Apples making a Chromebook remember that was what the rumor started and I think what we all decided is that If this is true in any way what Apple is doing I would say at this point again We could say Apple seems to be What Apple is doing, and I would say at this point, again, we can say Apple seems to be, Ming-Chi Kuo knows enough that I'm willing to say Apple seems to be exploring what they need to do to make a cheaper laptop.

Yeah. Right? How do they get below the 999 MacBook Air? Now, one, do they want to do that? Two, is this an opportunity, especially in the current economic environment, to slide a new computer in at 999 or 899 when the MacBook Air may be going up in price. Interesting.

Right, if everything goes up in price. Yeah, this might not be cheaper. It might not be, or it might only be slightly cheaper. But like, how do you do that? Also, I gotta say, given that Apple took the MacBook Pro and did like a totally weird other MacBook Pro at the low end, which now resembles the regular MacBook Pro, but for several years, they did that low end MacBook Pro

that was basically like not a MacBook Pro, but they called it that. I wouldn't put it past them that this could actually be a MacBook Air. Just not as good. But they'd still call it a MacBook Air and it would have an A18 Pro in it. But if they did it in a bunch of like iMac colors, wouldn't that be like really weird? It would be, although it's possible that they could have those colors on the MacBook Air

too, right? Like it's possible that they could do that. But another possibility is this is a MacBook and it's gonna be whatever, 799 or future equivalent of a couple hundred dollars under the MacBook Air. And I don't think it's unreasonable. I think the MacBook Air is Apple's most popular laptop. And I think the fear is if you offer people a cheaper laptop,

they'll buy that one instead, and you've just lost $200 on every sale that you would have gotten otherwise. I think that's a possibility here. But again, we don't know what the environment is gonna be, the sales environment, and they may feel like there's a product to be put under the M5 MacBook Air, which would seem, or even the M4,

which would seem like overpowered in a lot of ways, that would be usable. And I'm sure that the A18 Pro would be usable as a low end Mac chip. Part of the problem with Apple Silicon right now is that even their lowest end computer is incredibly powerful. And that suggests to me that you could make a slower chip version and it would still be fine for a lot of uses. So this seems to be, to me, this seems to be a, how cheap could we make a Mac book that

would still be decent? Because we know, look, the M1 MacBook Air is still decent and at Walmart, right? And like we've said before, we said when we talked about this rumor before, it can't stay around forever, right? It's an M1. It can't stay around forever. Well, maybe this is the replacement for that. It is like, how do we make something really cheap that we can sell at Walmart and elsewhere, but like really cheap. And so that's like a 13 inch screen, but not a great one, you know, although the MacBook Air one isn't great, it's fine, but it's not great. And, uh, you know, other ways that they would probably reduce, does it have Thunderbolt at all, or does it have old Thunderbolt?

And maybe it's just USB-C. I mean, there are lots of things they could do to decontent what we think of as a MacBook Air. And like, I mean, honestly, I could make the argument that the base model 999 MacBook Air is too good. Like that's why it's such a great deal is that is 999 and it's a pretty great computer But if you're Apple you could basically say we are our computers are so good now That we could make a much cheaper

Model and it would still be it would still meet our quality bar to coin a phrase. Yep. And I wonder if that's all what's going on here. I think the thing that I just am stuck on, and obviously they know they wouldn't do it. I just don't understand why not an M1 or an M2? Like is the A18 cheaper? Like is this the pro chip? If Coral's correct. Well, I think some of it has to do with how many of those chips are they making anymore, process-wise, and if the A18 Pro is in volume

and works fine and is faster than an M1 or an M2, which they're not making anymore. And they're putting the A18 Pro into other products, right? Doesn't the iPad Mini have the A18 Pro? I think it does. As A17 Pro, so about like a similar thing, right? Like, cause I remember there was like, maybe like the A14,

like that chip stuck around forever cause they're putting it in the Apple TV and they're like putting it everywhere. So maybe they're trying to find like an iPhone chip that can go into a bunch of products to help them out. I think it just, I don't know. Do they need to do like a ton of work to get Mac OS running on that? Or is it just like not matter? Like I don't know. I suspect not. We should say also that

today MacRumors reported that they saw backend code that suggests that Apple is developing a MacBook with an A18 Pro chip. So it's not just for Macs anymore. Oh wait, what did you just say? Oh sorry, sorry, I thought you said MacBook Pro. I was like, wait, what? No, MacBook with A18 Pro. Yeah, no, it's very confusing.

It's Macs, but not Macs, but Macs with A18 Pro, but not Pro, but MacBook. See, that is, I mean, I know they're already doing this, but it is weird that Pro chips are going in non-Pro products. Like that's a naming problem you've got there. It is a problem. But so my guess is, what are the impulses here? Potentially trying to hedge against

raising rising prices pressure from education success may be down market of something like the the Walmart MacBook Air a feeling like their lowest like they could lower the bar that their bar is set too high I guess I'd put it that way that the base model MacBook Air now is so good that there's probably room for a product below that And what is that product and the older and because of and this would be my next issue chip issues, right? Because of chip issues. I think there are some Previous chips that are not available to them anymore, right? Because of the transitions with the three nanometer process

and older legacy nodes going offline, that they may have some issues around, simply around that. And we don't have a lot of visibility into that, but I do think that to a certain degree, Apple makes decisions based on how, you know, how many chips they've got, what their profiles are, and where they're coming from.

And so you put all of that together and this investigation makes sense. Now, does this product make sense? I don't know. I mean, this report from Mingshi Quo suggests that maybe they've decided it is something that makes sense. I don't know.

Again, we can make an assumption that this is just gonna be called MacBook and it's gonna be cheaper than the MacBook Air and it's gonna be not as good because it's got not as good a processor. I think that is the most likely scenario. But again, it's also possible that this is just gonna be the new low end MacBook Air

because they did this with the MacBook Pro, right? They had that weird MacBook Pro. So I just, I wanna put that out there too. I like the idea. I do wonder, I imagine the argument inside Apple was we sell so many of base model 999 MacBook Airs that are we going to undercut ourselves? But I think the counter argument would be, yeah, but we also sell a what 699 M1 Air in Walmart, and it's fine. Like it's reaching an audience we can't reach. And maybe our education partners will be really happy about it too. And if they can make it with similar margins, it doesn't really matter, right? Like

if you're, if you've got a 999 product and a 799 product, but the margins are closer together, then maybe it doesn't matter. Yeah. I think, you know, I think you've come around on a point that I wanted to make too, which is that I don't think they have a problem with cannibalization too, which is that I don't think they have a problem with cannibalization because they have that cheap. There is, there is a cheap Mac that exists out in the world in a very easy to get place, right? In Walmart. And so I think that maybe they've seen such success with that. I've seen enough success with that where they're like, why are we giving Walmart any of this money? We'll make a computer that is that price or fits that area and we'll sell it and we'll make all the margin.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I've got another one for you. Yep. I don't know enough about this. This is a shot in the dark, but I'll throw this in there too, which is they might be able to make a lot of this product in the USA. You know, I had this thought and I wanted to make it as a joke, but yeah, maybe, right? I don't know about the A18 Pro, but if you can get, I'll just say that the reason I thought this is I know that TSMC in Phoenix, Arizona is not going to be on a cutting edge node,

right? But it's going to make older chips that Apple can use in some of its products. And I thought, well, so maybe not the A18 Pro. Maybe that is premature, because that is on a cutting edge node, I think. At least it's cutting edge right now. But like, I could see that this, products made on older chip technologies

are more likely to source chips from the US than they are to source chips on the cutting edge from TSMC. And you might be able to build them, at least in part for the US market in the US. So I'll throw that out there. That's just a wild idea. I don't know if that's actually borne out by anything. But there's a lot of weird stuff going on. And, and, and I do think it all comes back to the fact that Apple's, Apple's lowest bar for the Mac is probably, there's probably inefficiency there, right? Like it's too much computer, even at 999, it's kinda, I mean, it's not too much computer for computer nerds

and pros and stuff like that, but like for regular people who need a laptop, it's an overkill. I mean, it is the M4, that's why it's such a great deal. So maybe if you're Apple, you're like, maybe we could make a lower end computer than the low end MacBook Air. I mean, it is the M4. That's why it's such a great deal. So maybe if you're Apple, you're like, maybe we could make a lower end computer than the low end MacBook Air.

Maybe that bar is set a little too high, and we could lower it, and it would still meet our standards. I think if they do this, it should be a MacBook. I know that saying the MacBook Air is the most popular. There's a reason for that, right? It's a great computer. And the MacBook that they tried to make, the 12-inch MacBookbook was a failure for a bunch of reasons. It was not enough. There's nothing wrong with the brand. Macbook is a good brand. And so I think that they could do

this. It could be called the Macbook. People would understand what that means, right? It's not like, oh, well, I don't want the Macbook. I want the Macbook. Like, no, I don't think that that would be a thing. I think people would be like, people like Apple laptops. Apple laptops are great. This one is a good price. It comes in pink. Like, I'll go for that. Exactly. Because the problem with the MacBook wasn't the brand. It was that it was like $1,300 or something starting price. And under-powered. And not good. But like the under-powered and not good but like the underpowered

part meant something to us but the price was what would have price was also bad no I mean it was a double whammy right the price was bad and the quality was bad even though even though the the shape of it was cool and that's what we all like dream of I don't think this would be the 12 inch right the rumor is the 13 inch I don't think this would be a super thin light I don't think this would be the 12 inch, right? The rumor is the 13 inch. I don't think this would be a super thin light. I don't think they wanna do that. Maybe eventually they wanna do that with the Air again, but not with this. I think you would purposefully make this

not as thin and light as the MacBook Air so the MacBook Air still makes sense. It might even look more like the M1 MacBook Air. Who knows? Yeah, maybe. Although, or it might, I mean, honestly, it might look a lot like the MacBook Air, but maybe it's a little thicker, you know, who knows, who knows what they would do?

Because that's the new design language. But these are all the decisions. I think one of the probably least exciting decision-making processes at Apple would be what technologies did we consider base for the Mac that we now are going to rip out of this thing to get it down in price. That would be kind of a soul crushing kind of thing. But that's the argument of like, we can lose Thunderbolt. And people are like, oh, lose Thunderbolt. And you're like, you know what, if you want Thunderbolt, don't don't buy a computer for 699. And fair enough.

People be like, but you could get a PC laptop with Thunderbolt for 699 or whatever. And it's like, so what? You can't do it on the Mac. If you want that, pay $999, get a MacBook Air. I got to tell you that this customer doesn't care about Thunderbolt. They want USB-C. They want USB-C and it will have USB-C and they'll get everything they need from USB-C. And maybe not MagSafe. Maybe it just does regular charging with USB-C. And it'll be just, you know, basic.

But the fact is a lot of people, that'll be enough. Meichi Kuo also published what he sees as the timeline for Apple's various AR and VR products. I'm gonna list all this off. Some of this seems way too far out into the future where I feel like Kuo's really got a good handle on it. I'm inclined to think that he's reporting is correct on this MacBook, even though it seems weird to me

because he's saying it will go into production soon. But there's stuff in here multiple years away. So M5 Vision Pro spec bump for 2025. Okay. Vision Air, lower spec, entering production in Q3 of 2027. 40% less weight using plastic and magnesium instead of titanium and glass. It will have fewer sensors and be powered by a pro iPhone chip. Maybe the A18 Pro, you know, sure.

Why not? Yeah. Second generation Vision Pro in production in the second half of 2028 with a new design. It will have a quote Mac class processor. I think they currently do anyway, cheaper and significantly lighter. Then smart glasses first set in production in Q2 2027. Bad news. Yeah, I know, right. That was supposed to be late. Yes, Bad. Multiple

frame options, voice control, gestures, but the cameras and cameras and audio that if that is true, that's not good. Uh, cause then, and then I don't understand this. Smart glasses with a display 2028. Now I don't know how we get all the way out to 2027 before anything and then we have a display the next year. Like that. I don't understand. It does seem weird to do that way. I feel like at that point, don't even release them in 2027. Just don't do it. Don't even bother. I like, so what I like about this is the gestures thing,

cause that suggests that Apple's going to do even with, with glasses that don't have displays, Apple's going to import some of the gesture recognition technology that it's got from Vision Pro, and I kind of like that. I like that idea that you could actually like tap your fingers together or you know whatever it is, things you could do that would allow you to control those devices without talking to it or tapping on the side of your head or something, that's interesting.

I don't know. I, yes, I agree. The most disappointing thing here is get your AirPods glasses out sooner. You know, I feel like they should have had them out, I mean, already, but then like by the end of the year, but then the rumors from Mark Erman were like more like the end of next year. And now, Ming-Chi Kuo is like, no, how about the middle of the following year? So disappointing. And on the Vision Pro front, I mean, all I can do is continue to nod at the Vision Pro stuff. It's

like you just look, everybody's impatient, but you just got to work through it. It's hard. The software is progressing. The hardware is really cutting edge and it's hard to it's hard to improve it. So taking that M two version out of production and putting an M five in fine, great. But like what you need is the two things that they are apparently according to quote working on, which is a cheaper, lighter, lower spec version, and a second gen version that will also be cheaper and lighter, right? Because that's, that's what you really want is you want in 25, later this year, whatever, like, yeah, well, we just swapped in the M5 for the M2 and the Vision Pro, sorry, okay, whatever. But like, if in 27, they're like, here's the Vision Air, it's $1,000. And it's not as good as the Vision Pro, but it's way cheaper and lighter. And then in the next year, they're like, and here's Vision

Pro 2. And it's $1,500 or something, $1,750, whatever it is, and also lighter, then they're headed in the right direction, right? That's all I want to see with the vision products is make them cheaper, make them lighter, and ideally make them better or keep them as good as they are now, but for way cheaper and lighter, like find a good mix there. So that's all good. It's just on the smart glasses front, I'm just disappointed that they got so,

it's like with Chad GBT, it's like they got so flat-footed at the success of the Ray-Bans, I think because they were scoffing about the meta specs or the snap specs, that they're like, ha ha, those are dumb. And then meta did theirs and oh, they're not dumb. And that maybe they had to overcome that and now they're way behind and again

It's not a mission critical product The frustration is they have all the pieces to make that product already and they just haven't made it. Yep And then now they got the Oakleys too like, you know, yeah matter just keeps Pushing it out there. Mm-hmm This episode is brought to you by Sentry. Okay, founders, it's time to be honest. How much time is your team wasting on debugging? If you're like most startups, could be too much.

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I'm so sad. Summer ofunk. I'm so sad. Fun. I'm so sad that we're back here, but here we are. It's DNA time everyone. You can't spell summer without EU. This is a great point. That's a really, really great point. This may be, I'm going to start off by saying this may be the most complicated set of rules that

Apple has produced in relation to the DMA, which is truly saying something. Apple issued a post on their developer site that includes at the end links to several PDFs, including lengthy legal terms. And then the last link is, if you would like to talk to Apple for 30 minutes about some about how this affects your business, click here to schedule it. And I thought anything that ends with the offer of a 30 minute long consultant with Apple about talk about what it all means is complicated. So what I start by saying, we are undoubtedly going to get some details

wrong because this is the best we can understand it right now. It's developing and changing and there I did a lot of work today, like two hours work going through articles and links and finding FAQs. And honestly, I changed the show document multiple times because it was like, I thought I found a thing that said it was this way, and then I found another thing that said it was a complete opposite thing. So we're going to try our best, and we'll touch on this later on when we have more details. So last week, Apple announced

another complete new set of rules for European developers. There will now be tiers of App Store fees available to developers in the EU. And like this is point one. Is this just for developers in the EU or is it if you distribute in the EU? Good question. I think it's specifically for app distribution in the EU. So can an American developer, yes I think this is the same with last EMA, an American developer can opt into their EU distribution, yes so this will count that way too I assume. Developers using the App Store as it is today start off by paying 13% to Apple instead of 30 or 10% on the small business program.

That's just the starting point. More comes later. Or you can opt in to something called tier one, which sees Apple. Sounds great. Just 5%. Fantastic. Right. I just give that one 5% little 25% back

But if you do this you lose a lot of App Store features, I think things we didn't necessarily think were features Of the App Store, but here they are you lose for example Automatic app updates. Yep App Store promotion course, which it wasn't a thing you could guarantee anyway. So placement in search. Yeah. Ratings and reviews. Yeah. Ratings and reviews. This is a bit of a mixed bag. I think some developers wouldn't mind to get rid of their So tier one, tier one, I immediately thought, oh, it's the spite tier. Yeah. And the spite. Why is it the spite tier? It's the spite tier because Apple has argued forever

that the 30%, now 13%, whatever, that the cut it takes of app revenue is not, don't think of it as just credit card processing and server fees, it's an array of services that Apple provides to developers and that it has value. That has always been their argument. So tier one is Apple basically saying, here's what we mean,

because here's your cut rate bargain basement app store where we don't help you. And you wanna go down from 13 or 10 to five, great. You'll lose all of this stuff. And we look at it and think, well, wait a second, like automatic app updates, right? I mean, I understand like promotion maybe of apps and having them, you know, a ratings and reviews

or a service that goes into your, you know, a big chunk of money that you kick back to Apple. I'm sure it has costs, but like, it's hard not to view this as being Apple sort of like showing the argument that they've been making all along Which is that oh the app store fee that 30% that's increasingly dwindling here is actually Covering so much that we do for you. You don't even understand how much we do for you And so now they're showing it and saying alright. Here's your cheap plan if you want it to be totally crappy

and like no nobody's gonna use this tier, although I would argue maybe like super high level apps that are that are not their users aren't coming from the app store. They're coming from where they are to the app store to get the app, possibly even by a direct link from the, from the, the company could do could do this. They're like, we don't have an audience in the app store. We don't care if we have reviews in the app store. We don't care about app store promotion. People aren't discovering us through the app store. They're discovering us because of us. And they have this ability to go down to 5%. But I just, I want to point out that tier one,, it strikes me as being something that is done one, because they feel like the EU is pressuring them to do something like this. And two, though, very importantly, because Apple's trying to make a point about the value, incumbent in App Store features, that is where they've been taking all that revenue from. Now, my argument would be, I see what you mean, but I don't think it adds up to the classical 30%.

Right? Well, it actually adds up to eight. Eight, yeah. Right? It does. So where's the rest of the justification? Yeah. Right?

I know. But that's what they're trying to do here. And that's like my first thought when I saw it was, oh. Absolutely. Oh, they're just trying to reinforce the case they've been making all along about the fundamental value of these App Store features. Well, they're actually now trying to make the case. It is a case they have not even attempted to make.

No, they just say it. They just say it. And now, these are the things. And like I said, there are certain types of apps. This is fine. And even the automatic app updates thing, that is like just, that one is the funniest one to me. My assumption is you can still update your app, but you would as a developer prompt people to go to the app store and some apps do this anyway. Yeah. You push, you do, you do maybe even a push notification, but you have a notification

in the app that says, oh, it's like on the Mac, oh, this needs to be updated. Tap here to go to the app store to update. And then you'd tap there and then you do update. And that's, that's what you would do. Yeah. All right. Moving on. The core technology fee is being replaced by the core technology commission.

All developers selling goods via external payment will pay 5% of sales. Now that is the line that I have changed multiple times today because some readings of this suggest all developers will pay this, but I don't think that's accurate. It's all developers selling goods via external payments. Whether in or out of the app store. Whether in or out of the app store is I think how I read it too. Of course, if you're a nonprofit or whatever,

you're not charging and so you aren't covered by any of this. But this is the old rule was 50 euro cents per install above a million per year. And what they've done is they've taken that court-taxed- that core technology fee tax away. And that's for everybody because January 1st, people who are on the core technology fee

will go through this calendar year on it, but as of January 1st, they will be moved to this new commission program, which honestly, just from a top level, actually looks more fair. This makes way more sense. It's no longer a tax on volume, it's a tax on revenue.

And even there, it's a tax on external and internal revenue based on like, it's based on the money you generate in your app or outside of your app. We're back to now, we're undermining the previous argument. The argument of the core technology fee is you were paying for access to Apple's work. It's it's a right.

But if you're a free app. You get it for free now. So so what? I mean, yes, I think I think Apple has been. Not not has been inconsistent about this, but I think they've had it both ways, because I think Apple has also said from the very beginning, if your app is free, we don't care. They don't charge people in the rest of the world for a free app that gets a zillion downloads.

But then they wanted to. I know, I know. I know, well, I mean, over a million, and so the argument there is that that's kind of like a proxy. This feels to me like the EU basically said the core technology fee is untenable. It does not meet our requirements, right? They said that this illegal basically is that you can't do it.

So they're like, okay, it's out. And the core technology commission, which is based on revenue and not on downloads is in. Now there I have found nothing in my research about exactly how this is calculated and reported. Are we back to you self-report and Apple can audit you? Yes. One of those things linked to, one of those agreement documents linked in the Apple Developer Post says, you will report and pay this and Apple has, and you must retain all of your

books for three years and Apple has the right to to you. You will report and pay this and Apple has, and you must retain all of your books for three years and Apple has the right to audit you. So there is this overlap period. The overlap period is again making it hard to work out the numbers in all of this because some documents still refer to these new terms and the core technology fee because it hasn't been implemented. So that like that's complicated, but yes, because it'll be, it'll be, um, grandfathered for the next six months.

And then it's a sunset. Oh my God, stop with these words. They kill. So basically everybody's going to be on the CTC, but if you're on the CTF, now you can stay on it for six months. And then, but January 1st, you're on this new thing. I think there are some weird things going on here. So one of the things that you pointed out in our notes is one of the real limitations to free apps leaving the App Store and opting into the new EU standards was the core technology fee could kill them. And now that won't be the case. Which is great. Which means that, yeah, you can put your free apps in app marketplaces. Also it's the suggestion here, and I'm not 100% on this, but it seems like what everybody's

reporting is, that this is doing the thing that we thought that they would do all along and that they didn't because they wanted to erect this kind of barrier, because all of this is about Apple erecting barriers so people don't bother. One of the barriers was you gotta have an app marketplace. That app marketplace has to have a bank account with a million euro available and all these things, right? It seems like now you can also just put your app on the web.

I think you still have to show that you're a business in good standing who's been on the app store for a while. Yeah, and I think you still have to have the line of credit thing. And you have to have the line of credit, but what it does mean is you don't have to create a cockamamie app marketplace in order to directly sell or distribute your app in the EU. That is dropped. You don't need to do that, which you used to have to do.

It used to be literally the solution to an app store monopoly was an app store duopoly. Basically it was like, well now you don't have to be in our app store, but you still have to be in an app store. And that seems to be wiped away now as well, which I think is great. Good riddance. This is from OJMAC Stories. Developers in the EU will be able to offer their apps not only through app marketplaces, but also their websites.

You have to be a developer in good standing for two consecutive years and obtain a 1 million euro standby letter of credit and have an app that has more than 1 million first annual installs on iOS and on iPadOS in the prior calendar year. Yeah, which is basically, look, I don't love all of those rules, but one of the things it's trying to do

is prevent fly-by-night scam apps from being available for direct download because that's scary. And so they're like, we need to verify that these companies are legit. And I think most legitimate companies will be able to handle that. All right. Developers need to pay a 2% fee for digital goods and services purchased by new users

for the first six months after a user downloads an app. I don't understand this part either. So like, this is everyone? I think it is. And like, so some language that I found suggests that some of these fees star over if somebody deletes and reinstalls your application. And again, some of it seems to... But like I'm not 100% sure if that is the Core Technology Commission and this or one or the other or if it differs. But the first six months, fine.

This is Apple. So this one is Apple saying, if we helped you, you know, our presence with our technology and our App Store and all of that, if we helped you acquire a customer, we want a cut of digital sales, but not forever, just for the first six months, because we consider that part of your acquisition fee. I think this is instead of the, you will track every transaction,

and I think it's a slightly different attempt to claw back some money that they feel that they're owed. This feels very, I mean, I'm sure they're trying to plug what they view as a loophole here, but this feels very petty to me. The idea that like, oh, well, we're going to charge you because your presence around our aura granted you money and we want 2% of it back. Yep. Okay.

But all of this means if you are a developer in the App Store, right? Just in the App Store, and you want all of the things the App Store can give you, by my math, you are now paying Apple between 18 to 20% per transaction, depending on where that transaction is in the flow. So somebody becomes an In-App Purchase subscriber, you'll pay 20% on that for the first six months and then 18% on that thereafter

I can't find the the last 10% it doesn't seem to exist to me. Here's what I would say is If you are I believe and again, we're trying to parse this too And I would I would love to know more about this and we will eventually yeah I didn't get a briefing on this from Apple so I'm kind of groping around for information now but if you are a developer who's got an app in the EU that uses Apple's in-app purchase system, I think it's 13%. I think. What about the 2% fee for digital goods or services purchase? Oh, it's new users. For new users and the it's all developers selling goods via external payment will pay 5% of sales.

So, okay, it's between 13 to 20%. It's somewhere in there. It's all over the place. But I think, yeah, basically what they're trying to do is say, we have set a level that is based on the services we provide. And then above that, we have a set of optional services you can choose or choose not to use. And the calculations are different, which reads to me again, very much like, this seems to be more in the spirit of what the EU is trying to get them to do all along, which is to say, you could choose 5%, you can choose 20%. It depends on how you wanna go.

We're not gonna make you choose. If you want to stay with Apple, we'll have these terms. If you want to sell somewhere else, the terms are different. You choose, which is I think one of the key arguments that the EU is trying to make is giving developers choice about what business model they want to use, about what payment system they want to use, while allowing Apple at least some leeway in terms of the value provided by their product and their services. Now, whether that will work or not, and whether the EU is like,

no, you're still playing a real weird game here, I don't know, but as complex as all of this is, I'm not sure it's any more complex than the regulations it's trying to match, right? I feel like this is the complexity that is kind of also inherent in the DMA. But if we are reading it correctly, there is no situation where you get back to 30%. I don't think so. I think this is, I, I'm hesitant because I, I, I,

it seems hard to believe, but when I first saw all of this, I thought, Oh, this boils down to it's a, it's a, it's a cut in Apple's cut. And it varies, but it's not what it was like for everybody. I think is also the way I read this is for everybody, whether you're in or out of the store. Cause I think that was one of the things was that they said that like, I think it's like in January or something, like these new rules get applied to everyone. Like, yeah, apply to everyone. I think so, which means that I think that was one of the issues was Apple was holding your, your Apple account developer account in the EU hostage

your Apple account, developer account in the EU hostage by saying you keep the existing terms unless you opt into these new terms which have a lot of issues with them. And it seems like, again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like now there's just one set of terms for everybody in the EU when they sell apps there. There's no like mortal sin you have to commit in order to then sell your app. Like now it's just like, these are the terms, whether you're in or out of the app store,

these are the terms. And if you want to be out, there are some other terms. By January 1st, 2026, Apple plans to move to a single business model in the EU for all developers. For all developers all developers and then it goes on to talk about When we do that we get rid of the CTF Which is why you wouldn't have wanted it before because that was what happened to you if you took it We get rid of that or in the CTC the CTC applies to Goods or services sold by apps distributed from the App Store web distribution and or alternative marketplaces, right?

So the CTC is where Apple has a sliding scale based on in-app purchases essentially, right? Or digital goods or services. So basically what it also means is your app price, if you're selling an app is cut a lot if you're selling an app direct. And then if you're doing digital unlocks, even if you're in an app is cut a lot. If you're selling an app direct. And then if you're doing digital unlocks, even if you're in the app store,

like that's where Apple adds on. So, which again, I think is part of the regulations is basically like, if you wanna use Apple's transaction engine, you pay a fee. If you don't wanna use Apple's transaction engine, you pay a fee. So we'll see how that goes.

So let me see if this question and answer helps or, I don't know if it will, but we're just trying to give as much as we can here. Zoom the FAQs on this. Will I need to pay an acquisition fee, an initial acquisition fee or store services fee on subscriptions that began before I added the entitlement to my app?

Alter, no, alter renewals the subscriptions that began before you included. If any notice isn't helpful, I'm just gonna stop. No, I mean, there is some of that, that things, the existing customer relationships count and aren't taxed. You know, if you've got an app already installed, you don't, the clock doesn't start again.

They're not considered a new install. They are an existing install. There's a lot of detail here that I don't really the clock doesn't start again. They're not considered a new install. They are an existing install. There's a lot of detail here that I don't really wanna get down in. It's complicated. It looks like at a high level, it looks like the terms are better for everybody in the EU now.

And then there is a complexity that is gonna have to be picked through in terms of, is it, cause to be picked through in terms of is it because at the end what the EU wants is they want developers to be able to choose how they sell stuff in their apps and Apple offering a deal for using Apple is fine but Apple can't make it so tilted toward Apple's deal, that there's no reason not to use Apple's deal, that Apple's deal is the only one that pencils out. So that's going to be the question is, as app developers look through this, the real question is, does it make sense to use an external payment processor in your app in the EU? Or does it not?

Yeah, but you might not need to anymore because you're going to get the haircut on, like, to use an external payment processor in your app in the EU? Or does it not? Because- You might not need to anymore because you're gonna get the haircut on, like, you know what? Like if you're gonna be paying less, which we think they are, forget it. You just got yourself a bonus, you know? Well, I think that's why that, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. I think that's the question. And then the other question I'd ask, which came up in our Discord as well, which is the the spite tier is like, are there apps that would just say, Yeah, that's what we want is the spite tier? Like, does Netflix want the spite tier? Does Spotify want the spite tier? Because they're like, Look, we just don't want to be involved with you. We you provide no value to us other than we want our apps on your platform. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. But that because I feel like beyond what we've already outlined here, it really is going to come down to individual developers, wondering about

how it affects them and and seeing how they react to it. It's an interesting idea. It feels more in the spirit of the DMA than the old one, even though it's incredibly complex. The DMA is incredibly complex, too. It leads to more complex behavior. Beyond that, I can't tell right now, whether an average developer of an app in the EU would say, Oh, great, we should say say something that I don't think we mentioned is all of those steering things that happened in the US seem to basically be baked in here too.

Like links aren't like one link with a scare sheet that doesn't impart any data. You can have tracking parameters, you can have more than one URL, like all that stuff is in there too. So that means that they could use that same thing in the EU that they have to use now in the US. I don't know, though, if the Core Technology Commission

applies to linking out. I think it does. So that's not exactly the same as America, right? Because currently in the States, there's nothing. Yeah. You have to pay them anything. Right. So it's not exactly the same, but they've

made that part better that if you do choose to use alternative payments, so you can actually do it in a way that makes sense, which you kind of couldn't under the previous DMA rules. So I see the argument that this is very complex and confusing. It is. What I would say is the important thing is how it works in practice for users.

Like business is complex and confusing. Multinational, international markets, business is complex and confusing. I don't think, and because of the EU regulations, the EU regulations don't say, hey, Apple, just lower your rates. That's not what they say. They say you need to create an environment where you are treated fairly, but you also allow other players to give you competition. It's actually quite complicated. And Apple's first

first pass at this, I would argue, and I think a lot of us would argue, was a little disingenuous. They were really trying to sort of like, be spiteful and say, we're gonna follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. And the EC said, sorry, that's not, you know what we actually are asking you to do, you need to do that. And this seems to be much closer, if not that, it's closer to that.

So what, in the long run, I'm not concerned so much about developers dealing with the complexities of this, because that's like cost of doing business stuff. It's not great, but it happens. My question is, in the end, does this make the user have better outcomes, better choice? Is that part of this better? And part of that is also like, does this help the developer's business model by creating competition or does it not? And these are things I think we have to wait and see. And I don't know how long we need to wait.

I don't know. I don't know what we're waiting for. Next year, I don't know. There's a lot- Are we gonna get more guidance? I don't know. Do we have to wait for someone to cross their fingers and walk into this? Like I have no idea.

I mean, I think people are gonna do that and I think we'll get some stories out of it and then we'll start to understand this. Cause I think you really need to see an array of developers of different sizes making decisions to see what's going on here. And again, the complexity of the rules isn't what concerns me.

It's the outcome of the decision making. Because if all developers say, nope, it still doesn't make sense, we're going to just stay with Apple, then I think Apple failed. Apple actually needs to craft this in a way where there is competition and that Apple is competing on things like its feature set and the features that it provides and that I don't know if that's the case or not. We'll have to watch and see.

And the thing that I have mentioned a bunch of times is the thing that I'm most interested about is like, if my calculations are correct, and the maximum amount that they're charging is like 20%, well then what? Right? What about everywhere else? Yeah. So this is like, if Apple have been asked to put a value on their services and they have come to that number, then what?

We'll find out. I don't know. Or maybe we won't, I have no idea anymore. I don't know. Here is a recurring theme of the Lawyer Up segment that is a great way to end for this is, never forget that every other region, every other country, every other regulator in the world is extremely aware

of what Apple has built for various laws or court rulings in the case of the US. Everybody else is extremely aware of that. And although the EU is sort of pioneering this, another thing to say, like Apple may not ever do this voluntarily, but it would be fairly easy for other countries to say, yeah, do that here. Right now that there's a model, because one of Apple's arguments was always, oh, it's like, it's complicated and technical, and it's going to take us a year and please give us time. And now they can point at the EU and say, I want that. It's also true that they can point at what's going to happen over the next year in the EU and say, well, actually, I don't want that. That's confusing. And we'll see, but like never forget

that this is a pilot program in a lot of ways for what other regulation could be. And so like if you're Apple, you just leave it at 30% right now, knowing that eventually you've got that as a fallback. And as well as regulators now, because of the way they're doing this, their other constituents, their developers, they're going to see how much money they could make under these rules

in the EU. It's true. And say, well, I would like that everywhere now. I would like that everywhere. Yeah, it's a possibility. It's a possibility. We'll see. You know, one question I would have for developers as well is,

we talk a lot about like, oh, the onerous, that percentage and all that, but the developers we know, a lot of them are like, I just wanna stick with Apple, it's just easy. I know they take 30% or 15% depending on the size of their business, but it's just easy. Their stuff is all integrated with the platform,

I don't have to deal with anything separately, they handle the taxes, they handle all these things Like it's just easier to stay with them. So I think that's part of this too is like who wants more complexity and who would prefer not to have, who would prefer to pay Apple in exchange for not having it be complicated. And I think ultimately that's the competition we want is we want competition where like apples is better and easier, or you can opt out of apples, go to somebody else's save some money, but it'll also be more complicated and harder. But it's your choice.

And then everybody can decide what they want. And depending on your business and depending on your needs and depending, I mean, honestly on your feeling about whether you as a business want to handle that additional overhead and complexity, you can decide we're going to go with the hard way because we want more money or we're going to go with the easy way and pay Apple what it wants because it's just easier that way because that's value. When Apple makes it easy for you, that's not empty. That's value. When somebody says, I just want to use Apple's payment system because I just don't want to be bothered

going through the complexity of implementing something else and in certain markets, et cetera. Like, I just don't want to be bothered. Like that's not a phantom. That is value, actual value that Apple is adding because they built this thing up and they've taken care of all of these details and it's easy. And so some developers are probably going to opt for that, but we'll see in the EU how it makes them feel. If you would like to get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week, it's incredibly easy. Just go to getupgradeplus.com.

You will hear no more advertisements in the show. The show will just be one beautiful set of content. Just goes the whole time, carries on from topic to topic. It's beautiful. You wouldn't even know. We just continue. The show just goes on. No ads, no interruptions.

You don't have to listen to us. Hey, you don't have to skip them. I know some of you are skipping them, but you don't have to do anything. You have to grab your phone out your pocket anymore. And you will get to feel good because then you are giving money directly to me and Jason. And isn't that nice? You like us, right? Would you like to give us some money every month or once a year even? And if you do it once a year, you get year, you get it cheaper. We give you, you help us, we help you. You know what I mean?

You give us some money once a year, you get a little bit of a discount on it, it's lovely. And we do extra stuff, extra stuff. Extra stuff. Every week there's a whole segment that only UpgradePlus members get. Yep, it's very easy. Get UpgradePlus.com, you get a ton of other benefits

of being a Relay member, but the biggest thing that you get to do is support this show and get more content for yourself. Getupgradeplus.com. We're gonna finish out today with something fun, because it is the summer of fun. Despite all... I will not have it any other way. It is a summer of fun. It is. I went to the movies. I went to the movies. Yeah. This show spoiler free thoughts and

reviews of F1 the movie. I just want to talk about it. I wrote a little review on the train home after going to see the movie. I saw it in the IMAX in London, which is just one of those absolutely behemoth sized screens. It's one of the cinemas where they can show the 70 millimeter prints. I saw Oppenheimer there. I will see the Odyssey there when that comes, right? Because it's what one I prefer there's a cinema chain here called every man which is the closest we have to the Alamo experience this is not a great like cinematics like the concessions in the seats and stuff are not great at this IMAX but the screen the sound system is

incredible and seeing this movie huge screen huge loud sound system is incredible. And seeing this movie, huge screen, huge loud sound system, that's the way to see this movie. If you're going to go see it, I would say try and go to the biggest, loudest screen that you can. You will appreciate it because this is just straight up action movie, right? It is like action movies that they don't make anymore. You know what I mean? Well, and that's made by Tom Cruise. That's who makes these movies. Like this is not your big, heady Oscar contender. This is straight up

action star in a fast car, going fast, sometimes crashing them. And that's what you're getting. And you know what, Jason? It's just what I wanted. This movie, I loved it. I loved it. I will start off by saying,

you may say to me, Mike, I'm not a fan of F1. I don't understand it. You don't need to. They do a really great job of giving you everything you need. You get all of the context, right? Like, do you understand how, if you've watched Top Gun, you don't need to know how fighter planes work. You don't need to know

that. Before you see the movie, you don't need that for F1. Like they do a really good job of explaining in dialogue and in commentary and in like TV reports, right, of what is happening. It's very well done. They learned this from Drive to Survive, I think, where like Drive to Survive gives people enough context to learn how the sport works. And they brought some of that mentality into this movie. What you get is fast cars shot with great cameras. It's incredible. The story, so simple, it's ham-fisted. It doesn't do a great job of representing everyone.

It does a bad job of representing some people, but it gets the job done. Like, for what they're attempting to do with a story, it gets the job done. The performances from everyone are good. You know, everyone does a good job. There are, of course, things that if you're an F1 fan that just aren't correct or like they stretch reality, but I expected that. But what I got

as a fan of the sport is they treat you with respect. Like the sport is revered and treated with respect and that I really appreciate it. I love this movie. I really recommend you go see it because it's just a good time and it's performing well so far. I had $144 million open in weekend. So it's a big open. So it's doing well, right? Which is great. Now all of the, you know, you'll see lots of reports, right? That like, okay, but it's still going to make like $700 million to break even. Like when you, with the way that they think about these things, you take your budget, which is anywhere between 250 and 300, depending on who you're asking, and you double it and then some for the marketing and Apple have done a lot of marketing. But

I've seen some other point, which makes perfect sense to me of like, well, you're judging Apple with the pre with like the existing film model, which is not you can't write, they don't need it. Right? Like, if if if universal will put an out this movie If it didn't do 700 million, they'll be in trouble That would be bad for them because that they put it would have been a huge investment this movie right massive investment huge budget This isn't so important to Apple I think if this movie makes back its budget just like its production budget great because it goes on a service they've done their thing that marketing is also marketing for Apple TV eventually as well right so like this multi-channel it's making

Apple look cool as a bunch of pictures of the Lewis Hamilton and Brad Pitt standing with Tim Cook like everyone's having a good time this opening to 144 million is great because there was a real concern that this was going to bomb All the experts say this is a good opening and they also suspect that it'll have legs and the reason for that is it's a spectacle And it was very busy in week one But that means that some people couldn't get a good seat couldn't get a ticket to IMAX couldn't get a ticket to 70 millimeter And it decided they'll wait Because they want the experience. So the feeling, the perception at least among analysts

of box offices that this will probably have legs because like there are other movies that have performed like this. I think Oppenheimer is a good example of that. Yes, it's a great example. There are, when you pack them in at IMAX, what ends up happening is you don't lose that viewer. They just get a ticket for the next week or whatever, because they want to see it in the spectacle and they're willing to wait to see

it in a good theater. And so I think that'll be part of the effect here. And I think people that are talking about it, like me right now, talk about it in those terms of like, go to a premium format theater and see it like the best that you can get. Like I have friends like Stephen, for example, he is not seeing it until this week because he wanted to get to a good theater and he couldn't get to it. So like I think that is like the way that people are treating this movie. Again, like you say, just like Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer made a ton, it's not going to make Oppenheimer money, but like it's, it made a lot of money over a long period of time because people wanted to see it in the best screen that they could see it in. And this film warrants that.

I think it's, you go into it wanting to see a fun kind of dumb action movie with a lot of like heart racing adrenaline pumping moments is exactly what you like. This movie delivers on the exact premise set up, right? You took the director of Top Gun Maverick, you put him with Brad Pitt, and actually filmed cars going round tracks. It delivers on all of that. It's a great movie.

I loved it. I was very happy. Awesome. Thank you for the report. I recommend people go see it. Let's finish out with a couple of last upgrade questions before we finish today's show. Matt wants to know,

what would be your use case for the iPad mini, and is it a goodbye, Let's finish out with a couple of last upgrade questions before we finish today's show. Matt wants to know, what would be your use case for the iPad mini and is it a good buy in 2025? I'm struggling with whoever they get, the 13 inch iPad Pro, with its display technology and everything good, but I primarily use it docked in the Magic Keyboard. You're the iPad mini user, you tell me. Yeah, so okay, what Matt's

saying, and I think I did a very good job reading that question, is that Matt uses the 13 inch iPad Pro and loves it, but uses it in the Magic Keyboard all the time. And so I have this problem too, right? Like now I ended up, I got the Magic Keyboard for my iPad, and now it's in the Magic Keyboard all the time, because you don't want to keep, I don't Magic Keyboard for my iPad and now it's in the Magic Keyboard all the time because you don't want to keep, I don't want to keep switching cases all the time. I know you do that, Jason, but I find that annoying. And so then you've kind of like made your iPad a laptop. What would be the case for the iPad mini? The iPad mini is like the best iPad just for what an iPad is that I think exists in the sense of content consumption device.

Like, it is fantastic for reading and watching because the screen is nice. It's like, what, seven, eight inches is big enough for all of those things for like personal use, and it's tiny. So I think like for reading books, for watching video, all that stuff, like if you just want an iPad to consume media, I think it is a great pick. Then anything bigger, you may want to do a bit more of it. Like, you know, you could even say like the iPad Air would work, it's like, yeah, sure, but it's a bit bigger, which might be good, but also becomes awkward, right?

Like if you want to read a lot on your iPad, I feel like the iPad mini is probably the best one because it's the easy, you can hold it in one hand, like really easily, where the other iPads, not as comfortable, right? Like it's the size of a Kindle basically, right? So like, I think if you just want an iPad, purely for media, this is the one.

So I have an iPad mini and we're now using ours on a stand in the nursery and it's perfect. So like you're sitting in the nursery, sitting on the nursing chair in the nursery, but like, you know, as you know, might be nursing, I'm trying to get the baby go to sleep or might be contact napping. And I can watch things on the iPad. We use it as a white noise machine. Like it's just like a very simple device, but because it's small, it's easy to move around. It's like a great iPad I don't think you could work on an iPad mini

I'm sure about some people do but I don't think it'd be a very comfortable experience I think this is purely like if you just want an iPad just to watch read that kind of stuff This one's like it's perfect. I think That's not about right. I mean I do all those things on an iPad Pro. Yeah. Not in a keyboard case. I don't switch all the time, I should say, between the cases. I leave it in the cover. And if I want to enter typing,

which is basically writing mode for me, then I put it in the Magic Keyboard. And then I'm in laptop mode for a while. And then when I'm done, I take it back out. It doesn't live in there, generally. And that's how I've chosen to do it. And that means that I get that thin and light iPad. And even though it's the 13, it's pretty great doing that.

But I totally understand if you're getting a second one. The media consumption angle is the best angle. It's just little. And it's the size. Yeah, it is. It's the size of a Kindle. And it'll do whatever an iPad can do that's pretty cool and Greg asks I'm traveling from London to Denmark soon and curious what power adapters or converters you use I'm traveling my family so we will have

iPhones a MacBook Air iPads and a couple of battery banks. Do you have travel charging? Do you have like travel charging recommendations? So most of the chargers you've got in your house are, and you can look and see, but they handle international power. And that's so that they only have to make one. The plug might be, if this is, if Greg's in the US, the plug might be a US plug, but they make that same charger or, you know,

charging block for the whole world and then there's just a different cord on the end for whatever you're in. So if your charger supports international power, just get some plug adapters. That's all you need to do. And so when I travel internationally, I bring our chargers that we have with plug adapters. And that's it. Because it used to be that there were lots,

and there's still a few out there. Like remember the Apple made the little teeny tiny, the teeny tiny charging plug for the iPhone with the U S plugs on it. That just the two sticks like that doesn't work anywhere else in the world. Right. That old one, because it was made to be teeny tiny and only work in the US on the U S plugs, but mo and check before you do this, but almost any modern tech products charger is going to be international.

And all you need to do is like go on Amazon and buy a three pack of little plastic plug adapters for wherever you're going. And it all works fine. That's the beauty of modern stuff is it all just works fine. And once it's like a USB charger, it's just USB at that point and it's all fine. So we bring a couple of, of USB based chargers. I've got one that I can't even remember the name of it now, but it's like, it comes, it comes with a little suction cup block too, because the last one we had, you plug it into an outlet and plug all your cables in and then it would fall out of the outlet, especially if it's on a plug adapter sticking out, hanging in space.

So there's stuff like that, but like basically I'm a real believer in plug adapters for international travel and beyond that, like if your home setup isn't conducive to travel, think about upgrading, you know, you can get something just for travel, or you could get something that upgrades your current use at home. And then you could use it when you travel, and then bring it back to home. And that might be nice too, because then you've upgraded your home charging and it's appropriate for travel. But like we literally, I charged I travel with one, maybe two chargers, really depending on if I'm bringing my laptop or not. And Lauren travels with one.

And if we're traveling internationally, I bring the plug adapters and I keep those in a drawer. I've got the Europe plug adapters, I got the UK plug adapters, I got the New Zealand plug adapters. It's fine, it's all good. Because almost everything out there is gonna handle international, you know, electrical standards. I'm gonna make a specific set of recommendations for like

a travel kit but I do want to add on what you're saying. One thing that I will suggest to people traveling to the US is if your country has larger plugs like we do here in the UK, using like the adapters that you can buy in the airport sometimes doesn't work for you because the plug is going to fall out the wall because it becomes too heavy. Right. So in that scenario, you want to try and get one of the charger type things that Jason's mentioned where you can pop the heads off.

Because if you take say like the UK plug and put it into like one of the like international converters that you might get in an airport and then plug that into the wall, often they will fall out. They'll fall right out, yeah. Because they become too heavy and they get unweighted. So I recommend. You get something with like a suction cup thing

or you can get, what really would be useful is a little cord that was a plug adapter but I don't know if they make those. Some companies do where you just you change the cord but my recommendation is two-fold. It starts with a charger from a company called Minix or Mini-X. They make a tiny 100 watt charger, like a power adapter. It comes in the box with a selection of international plugs. It just comes with it.

When you get three USB-C ports, two that can do up to 100 watt, one that does up to 20, and a USB-A port. You take one of the USB-C ports and you plug into it something like the Mophie 3-in-1 travel charger. The Mophie 3-in-1 travel charger will charge your iPhone, your Apple Watch, and your AirPods. Then you have another three USB ports available to you to charge other devices. So when I travel, I take this one thing and I can charge everything because you can have this one little bedside thing where you put your three main devices. Then

you've got two other USB-C ports that you could have to charge an iPad, to charge a laptop, and then you also have a USB-A port to charge something else. These two products are my recommendation for any travel, so you should check them out, because I think they're good. All right. If you would like to send in your question

for us to answer in a future episode of the show, or you also want to send in some feedback or follow up, go to upgradefeedback.com. Thank you to our members who support us about Grade Plus. We're going to talk about the F1 push notifications, I think. I think so. A little bit more in Upgrade Plus today. Go to getupgradeplus.com.

If you want to find us on video, you want to see what eyeglasses we're wearing, just go to YouTube and search for the Upgrade podcast. I would like to thank Ecamm and Sentry for their support of this week's episode, but most of all thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye Jason Snow. Goodbye Mike Hurley. you