Upgrade - 573: What a Bad Friend!

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

from relay this is upgrade episode 573 for July 21st 2025 my name is Mike Hurley I'm joined by Jason Snow hi Jason Snow hi Mike Hurley happy summer of fun to you summer of fun this episode is brought to you by Squarespace, Ecamm, and Delete Me, and Jason. I have a Snell Talk question for you. And it comes from David, who wants to know, there is an ice cream truck rolling down your street. What is your choice from the truck?

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. You can hear it coming now. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. We didn't have ice cream trucks. There was at one point an ice cream truck went down our block a couple of times when my kids were little.

So I have no, what do they have? Mike, what do they have in the truck? Ice cream. You know, like cones, they have like ice lollies, ice cream bars, all those kinds of things. What would you be? Ah. Imagine, imagine like if you were to go to like, I don't know, like a supermarket

and you're grabbing something out of the freezer case or something, it could be like a similar, similar. Okay, I would probably choose something that was like vanilla ice cream covered in a chocolate shell. Like a magnum. Like a, I don't know, or a Klondike bar or like on a stick. We used to have, we used to have things with a name that they don't, I think,ondike bar or like on a stick We used to have we used to have things with a name that they don't I think use anymore because it's

Impolite to a certain Racial group man. I don't even know what that could be. Don't tell me It was the old Yeah, anyway, the old Inuit pie that was not its name anyway You know what? I mean thinin chocolate covered shell over ice cream, particularly on a stick, would probably be what I'd pick. I'd take an ice cream sandwich, that would be fine too.

Or I'd take like a drumstick that's like a little cone with ice cream and a little chocolate covering on it. Any of those would do. I don't want your, you know, I don't want like a Batman popsicle or something. And they've got all those novelty. I'm not interested in that at all. I'm just going to throw a shout out to basically,

I think people of my age in the UK and say that my idea will be a zap bar. That's all I'm going to give you. Like, okay, I wish that would be amazing. Jambo in the discord has said a 99 flake, which is that is an, that was a thing from my childhood. It was essentially an ice cream cone, right? So like a, you know, like an ice cream cone with a Cadbury like flake, they were called.

It was like this ripply chocolate, really, really nice. And they were called 99s because they cost 99 pence. That is not the price anymore. No, much more expensive now. Now it's like a 325 flake. Yeah. Yeah. But that's, that's no now. Now it's like a 325. Yeah. Yeah. But that's that's no, I like I like it.

This is a very summary question, even though I have a no, I have no good answer here because I think what I think ideally you would have a fond memory of childhood here. And again, where I grew up, we didn't have ice cream trucks, or in fact, I did not grow up in a neighborhood. So incredible. I don't have ice cream trucks or in fact I did not grow up in a neighborhood so incredible I don't have that if you'd like to send in a question for us to open the show we like summary questions during the summer of fun just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send yours in summer they could be summary questions too if you want us to summarize something that would also be allowed yeah but I don't want to do that. Okay, we'll say that for the fall of summarization.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. We have some follow-up, Jason, now. Many people wrote in various forms to remind me that F1 TV, which is the F1 streaming subscription service, has their own commentary team, and Apple could just use that instead of

Sky. I thought we literally said that. I thought we said that they've got a totally different group where ESPN uses Sky. Yes. F1 TV has their own group. I thought we actually said that. Well, the thing is, is that we did not connect that they could or could not,

would or would not use those commentary teams. So here was my thinking. I didn't think to mention this because, in my mind at least, F1 TV doesn't continue if Apple does this. This is the question. And we, yeah, I had several people point this out that like, it seems unlikely that they would make F1 TV appears to be a supplement. And if Apple was doing a full on thing like F1 TV, they would just close F1 TV in America. It would no longer be available in America.

Instead, you would have Apple's thing, which makes me again, ask the question, why don't you make a deal with Apple for that and ESPN for some live events on cable and make it a broader deal than that and have Apple be your tech partner. But I don't, I don't know what they're thinking there. But yeah, that's what sort of is the thing that makes the most sense is not offering two separate streaming subscriptions for the same content. Because again, I think what I said last week

was why would you do that? Why in the world? But they already have, yeah, it's, I don't know. Now of course, F1 TV could continue to exist outside, like in the other markets. It would no longer be available in the United States. That's the, that would be it. I'm just not sure how,

I tried doing some research on this and couldn't find any numbers anywhere. Like I'm not sure how big the streaming service would be at that point. I just, for me, I feel like my gut says if Apple is going to partner with anyone rather than building their own, I think it would still be Sky

because they have the preeminent broadcasters, right? So like the people coming from ESPN to Apple are used to the Sky team, whether they like them or not, that's who they have, right? And the people that hear the F1 commentators, the F1 TV commentators, they sign up and get F1 TV so like they're doing what they're doing. I'll also just throw out there the possibility

that I wonder if at some point, the point of this deal with Apple might be for Apple to be F1 TV, basically, to be like Apple is the outlet for F1 TV, basically, to be like Apple is the outlet for F1 TV and F1 TV is available and it's like branded by Apple and all that, but I don't know the details. It's weird, because we are still, I was gonna walk away, F1 follow-up is like the last thing I wanna be involved with,

but since I'm here, I feel like it's apples and oranges here. There's a broadcast thing and then there's streaming product. And I don't, I know Apple fancies itself and some of these streamers fancy themselves basically like broadcast and they want the whole, all the rights. But I think the truth is that there are, there are hardcore people who want everything and they want it in detail and that's one product. And then there are the people who are just going they want it in detail and that's one product. And then there are the people who are just going to flip on a race and, and are not going to pay for a special service to do it. They just got it with their ESPN. And

those feel like different products to me. And if Apple wants to take over for F1 TV and have F1 TV in the U.S. basically be an Apple TV plus product, fine. Like that's, if you're F1, you do that deal because they're gonna pay you more than you can make doing it yourself, great. If Apple's priorities make that more valuable to Apple than they are direct to F1, then that's a deal you can make. But like, I don't see how that connects to having broad distribution on something like ESPN and ABC.

So that's the real question I've got about whatever this deal ends up being. I think the model for this working well is the WWE. They moved from broadcast television to Netflix mostly for most of their content. And I remember people talking about this at the time, people in entertainment talking about it. And it made sense.

The WWE has moved around a lot because they go to where the best money is because what they know is their audience is going to find them, right? Doesn't matter where they are, the audience is going to come. I know that there is an amount of the F1 audience that will do that.

I'm not confident that it would be the same amount of people that are watching ESPN. And the US is theoretically a market where they wanna grow market share. Exactly. They wanna grow awareness of F1. And this absolutely stops that. Like, you know, if, look, I mean, I said this last week,

if I were F1, and I'm not, but if I were F1 at our Liberty Media, what I would want is to get ESPN and ABC on board with, because they're the same company, it's all owned by Disney, with some high profile events that were going to be shown in the US on TV. And that means US events that have good times, like Las Vegas, right?

Like some good, good times in the US. I'd love to get an American F1 event on ABC, right? On the broadcast network. That's what I would want. And I'd have, I want a few other events that are high profile on ESPN. That's what I would be looking for if I were Liberty Media.

Even if that's not a lot of money, because you've got F1 TV for everyone else. And then if Apple wants to come in and spend money on what is now essentially F1 TV, let them. But say one of the conditions is these three, four key races are also gonna be on ESPN, but all the rest of them aren't. Apple may not be interested in that, and that's fine, but if I'm F1 as a business,

also you mentioned Netflix for WWE, Apple TV Plus isn't Netflix. Netflix is almost basically TV at this point. It's like Netflix and YouTube are TV. That was why it's easy for them to do. I mean, because the funny thing was like, prior to that, people were watching things on WWE's own proprietary subscription service, then went to Peacock and then went to Netflix. Exactly.

They were the like, you know, I worry that some sports leagues may look to the WWE and be like, oh, but we're real sports. We can do a better job than they did without understanding the context of like what that fan base has historically been through. And I just, I don't see, yeah, I think it would be to me as a strange decision if Liberty media are just all in on Apple and that's the only place in America that you can watch it with the overall plan being as we expect that over time it's all going to go to Apple. That would, I don't think that's the best thing for the sport, but we'll find out.

No, the best thing for most of these sports is to have high profile events that are available broadly and then the niche events, every other part of it available narrowly for the people who really, really care. And if you sign an exclusive deal with Apple, you, I mean, this is true actually of MLS. So there are some MLS matches that are on cable and out. And that's because they want that exposure. So again, that's not beyond the realm of possibility that you could have a deal where Apple has all the rights, but they sub license a certain set of events that will also be on ESPN or ABC.

And that may yet be, that seems like the most reasonable outcome here. So I guess we'll see what happens. Speaking of Apple and sports MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told CNBC that Apple is among the bidders for a Sunday night baseball package for 2026 to 2028. So the story here is that ESPN opted out of their contract to do Sunday night baseball, which they've been doing for decades. In part because Apple paid much less money

for Friday night baseball. And Roku paid almost nothing for a Sunday morning baseball game. Now, there's a long story there involving that was an experiment they were doing with NBC and Peacock for a game on Sunday morning. Now there's a long story there involving that was an experiment they were doing with NBC and Peacock for a game on Sunday morning and then they dropped it. And MLB decided to sell it to someone else,

which was Roku for almost nothing. And in hindsight, I'm sure MLB would tell you they should have just eaten it because ESPN pointed at Roku paying, you know, $10 million a year for Sunday morning, and they're like, you want us to pay $300 million for Sunday night? Are you kidding?

And so they said they'd walk away, and it was kind of acrimonious. Now, the truth is, ESPN and Major League Baseball are gonna continue to talk about this. And I believe NBC is also interested, as well as Apple. Yeah, there were like three three bitters apparently Yeah, yeah, well those those are the three it's NBC Apple and and yes, I am again I feel like I said this about f1

I'm gonna say it about this too apples are really convenient stalking horse because you're like, I don't know We got already got to do with Apple and they like this so if if I majorly baseball I and they like this. So if I major league baseball, I don't want Apple on this deal, because Sunday night baseball has been kind of a tradition and also it's fairly high profile. In fact, if I'm Apple, what I really, really want is the NBC deal because, and this is American sports stuff, so sorry about this, everybody, but NBC already has the rights to the NBA and the rights to the NFL. And they're going to do Sunday night basketball with the during NBA season. And they're going to do Sunday night football that they've been

doing. It's the highest rated program on American television. Sunday night NFL football. Well, those two sports don't play all summer. Yes, Sunday night MLB in the time slot on NBC. It's kind of a great idea. It's not, I mean, at the moment the football season starts, it's off, right? It's on peacock or wherever it's gone. But, uh, during the summer, it's not a bad deal. Uh, or get back in, in, uh, in, in bed with, uh, ESPN because ESPN, you've been

with them for so long and they're launching their streaming version this fall and it's a good partner to have. So it's interesting that Apple is around there, but I'm skeptical that that is a deal that Apple, like I think Apple is in there basically saying, look, if nobody else wants it, we'll buy it. Like we have a value, but we've also seen with EDQ

that they don't overpay for rights. So I think Apple will make them an offer to pick up Sunday Night Baseball as a showcase event and then MLB is going to look and see if they've got a better offer that's a combination of money and reach on ESPN or NBC and we'll go from there. But Apple, I think what we've learned about Eddie Q and sports rights is they are more than happy to kick the tires on stuff. They will sit in that room for anything. Yeah, they will kick the tires on stuff. They will check it out. I guess it's an F1 reference more. The kick the tires is the wrong metaphor here. They will smell the baseball. I don't know. And they're

open to it, but they're also not gonna overpay for your I would expect As well, basically every sports league will allow them in the room like as well because like Apple has the money they have money Yeah, so that they're always there may be even invited to to to come, you know into these conversations. I don't know how it works Last thing to close out this accidental upstream segment Apple TV plus secured a huge 81 Emmy nominations. Their biggest hits are 27 for Severance and 23 for the studio and they have a bunch of shows that have double or single digit nominations. Slow Horses also got nominated for best drama and Shrinking got nominated for best comedy.

So those are really high profile nominations as well. Are they a shoe in for best comedy and best drama this year with Severance and Studio? No, no. I mean, they've got, they're going to win some things because they've got all those nominations, including some in the same category, but it's a, it's, it's tough. I think the studio is a lock. That feels like a lock. I think the studio has a lot of strength because of what it's tough. I think the studio is a lock. That feels like a lock. I think the studio has a lot of strength because of what it's about. Yes, that's why I think it.

It's people in Hollywood voting for stuff about Hollywood. I'm not saying it's the best comedy. It was my favorite, but I'm not saying it's the best. I just think that it's going to win a lot of awards. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, I actually think that one of these two shows that's the most likely to win is Severance, okay, and I say that because this feels like Severance's year the 27 nominations

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and and this is so this is basically season two and like show prove me wrong like this is The moment for Severance and I feel like it may never ever sniff moment for Severance. And I feel like it may never ever sniff anything like this number of nominations ever again. But this is the buzz show of this moment. So I think that it's a tough category, but I think that Severance just captured people's imaginations. Because also Severance succeeded against all odds, right? Like the odds of it being the second season after a really good first season. Yeah, the second season and they had production problems and they had the strikes and all of that and they had to break through

A niche subscription service. Yes get to the mass audience, which they did But here's here's where where I think they my theory is that one of the nice things about Apple TV plus being so kind of small is with Severance, you didn't get the Netflix thing where something kind of comes and explodes out of the gate and then vanishes. Instead, because it was on Apple TV Plus and it was really good,

I think, and then there was like two years between seasons, I think word got around. I think it was a huge word of mouth success that built momentum so that when season two came, everybody was like primed for it, ready for it and excited about it. So in that way, I think it was actually kind of aided by all of that. Instead of it being something like squid game where it's like it explodes and it's everywhere and then it's kind of gone for a while A lot of netflix shows are like that

severance You know it is surprising. It's season two after season one didn't get a lot of notice But I think that word of mouth built for severance and it was a perfect you couldn't honestly you couldn't Craft a scenario like that, but I think that's what happened craft a scenario like that but I think that's what happened. All right now let's move on to follow up. So this is this is this is fantastic follow-up. An anonymous upgrading wrote in and said last week Jason was speculating about whether the Belkin over the head strap for the Vision Pro was actually designed by Apple. It was I'm friends with the person who designed it.

Okay, look, it's widely known, but not confirmed, but widely known, that there are certain products that come out from accessory vendors that are suspiciously like they were designed by Apple. And I think what happens is Apple has that moment where they're like, do we want to make this product? And sometimes the answer is no, like another, in fact, another Vision Pro strap, it's so weird, right? Because like, but they're selling, they put two in the box

and this one is better than both of them. So what sort of message does that send? So sometimes these things get shunted off to a preferred Parker partner like Belkin. Yep. And so I appreciate this anonymous feedback that just puts the little bow on the assumption. Like when these two products came out,

the strap and the case, I was like, these feel very much like Apple fixing its own problems, but from Belkin, because that case is so much better too. Great. Um, but the strap, I mean, that's, I, I store my vision pro in the Belkin case and I use the Belkin strap on it. Like it's yeah. And if they come out with a new vision pro revision and it doesn't have that

strap, I'll be very disappointed. But I have imagined it will have a strap very much like very much like much like the Belkin one. So yeah, it's good to know. Thank you, anonymous person and their friend. Apple has announced a multi-year deal with MP materials were $500 million to buy rare earth magnets in the USA. And these companies are Apple and MP materials will also work together to establish a magnet recycling facility in California. Yeah, I can tell you. So this is a place called Mountain Pass, California, which is literally just a wide spot

on the interstate that has a mine. It's not a town, nobody lives there. I think its population is like 30, and those people probably work at the plant. It's a mine, it's south of, uh, it's south of Las Vegas. It's in the California for those who don't know California geography. Sorry. It's California guy here.

California is not just a beach. Um, this is on the other side of the Sierra Nevada. So this is, this is, uh, really actually pretty close to Las Vegas, um, but on the California side out in the, out in the desert, the hot miserable desert, but you know, what's out there is a rich vein of rare earth minerals. And since the rare earths are primarily from China and are very important for building

lots of different devices, and there's a concern about China not wanting to give away their rare earths without concessions or maybe not at all. This is interesting because it's basically Apple saying we're gonna we're gonna invest in MP materials. We're gonna use their mine and we're going to work. I think that's really interesting work with them on the recycling because Apple has been collecting and reusing right like we've talked about the recycled Apple has been collecting and reusing, right? Like we've talked about the recycled aluminum

and recycled gold and like they're recycling a lot of items that's part of their kind of green message, but it's also a materials message because it allows them to put those things in other products without mining them. And I wonder, I don't know the details of rare earth recycling and rare earth mining, but reading this, it makes me think that they

go well together the idea of of taking the recycled stuff as well as what's coming out of the ground and being able to process it and maybe even combine it so it's you know it's it's 50% recycled materials or 80% recycled recycled materials and it allows MP materials to have, to be more efficient because they've got the stream of the influx of recycled rare earths plus the rare earths they're taking out of the ground in California. So interesting move.

So a couple of details. So the, on this, just from what you're saying, just to clarify if you'd lose sense, they're establishing the recycling line in Mountain Pass. They're building out together some technology at MP Materials facility in Texas, in Fultworth, Texas, to actually produce the magnets that will go in the devices. So Apple are going to work with them to be like, this is what we want our manufacturing line to be. So it will work for our devices. our manufacturing line to be so it will work for our devices. And today it says here at the end today Apple and nearly use today nearly all magnets across Apple devices are made with 100% recycled rare earth elements.

So they're doing 100% recycling. So that's pretty cool right? Yeah. So this is this is an ongoing and this is for yeah it's it's it's very interesting. It's also to talk about the politics for just a moment, a visible investment in American companies doing American resource extraction. This will be viewed positively by the administration. I'm gonna make a joke that I promised I wouldn't make, but I'm gonna make it anyway, because I think it's really funny. Would you say that these are magnets? How do they work? Nobody knows.

All right, sorry about that everyone. Moving on, a final piece of follow-up. Matthew says, I love Mondays because for some reason, my son falls asleep to upgrade super easily. Same age as Mike's child. All right, well, I was thinking,, you know, the upgrade baby is, is like 10. We get Mackenzie, the upgrade baby we get, there was a, uh, uh, we got a follow up about this recently because we're obviously we're around that age.

So we're watching this child grow. So wherever Matthew's baby is, there's another upgrade baby in my eyes. I guess, I guess, but a much younger upgrade baby than the, uh, the baby that was born like during the early days of the show that is now an old, who's collecting social security. It's amazing how long we've been doing this. Yeah, this is awesome, Matthew.

I'm not offended because your child doesn't understand what we're talking about, but I'm glad that we can provide some soothing. I imagine that when Mike made that joke about magnets that the baby woke up and cried a little bit. As it should be. As they should. I think our entire audience cried a little bit.

They knew that was wrong. Everyone cried a little bit. Even as a babe, they knew that was wrong. Yeah, everyone is just mad that they didn't think of it before me, Jason. Is the other thing, is the real thing that's going on here. Sure. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace,

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It helps me build what I want to build. That is squarespace.com slash upgrade and the offer code upgrade. You will get 10 percent of your first purchase and show your support for the show. A thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay. Room around up time. Yee-haw. In recent days, there have been a selection of reports from various outlets, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, Macworld, everyone talking about the

potential colors of the iPhone 17 line. I'm going to do my best to kind of summarize this scenario. Essentially the regular iPhone 17, there's a load of colors for that, in the kind of colors you'd expect. Then the iPhone 17 Air will get an actually slightly different set of colors. So it's like slimmed down, rather than like five or six, it'll get four, and one of them is a color that isn't on the original iPhone 17, which is a gold. But the real news is that the iPhone 17 Pro

is rumored to have both a blue and an orange option. What do you think? Dark blue, which is, originally they were like, oh, it's gonna be this light blue. And they're like, no, it's not. It's gonna be dark blue. The Macworld article, which is by Felipe Esposito, who has written before for nine to five,

and is writing for Macworld now, apparently, interesting. Felipe's report says the promo models are black, white, gray, similar to natural titanium, and then a dark blue and an orange. And the dark blue is going to be dark blue, right? It's not going to be like the blue we got a couple generations ago. But the orange looks, I mean, it looks coppery,

but it definitely looks orange, which is fun. Now, it's all in like how it looks in real light as a real product is going to be the question, but it's possible that there will be a somewhat fun color in a pro phone if you like orange. And that's exciting. I also enjoy the fact that the apparently the base model and the air are both getting a light blue. Their Pantone colors are slightly different. Yes, by one which why? Okay. And but but light blue, again, it's not sky blue, but it's light blue. And I, my feeling is, when like black, white, gray, green, purple, and light blue on the base model and black, white, light blue, light gold on the air. You know,

I want to believe. I want to believe that the light blue and light gold will be visible as blue and gold and not, you know, and not have it be almost imperceptible. However, based on the mock-ups that Macworld did, it won't be. Like, there are not going to be a lot of bright colors. Perhaps the green and purple in the regular models will be there. The airs seem, and maybe this is, I mean, I could see the design choice here is it's thin and light and we don't want them to be bright. We want them to be, you know, metallic and just a little touch of blue

or a touch of gold. But I am excited that the pro phone, you know, might have one that's a little more robust in color. That's great. In his power on newsletter, Mark Gurman is reporting that the M5 iPad Pro will get a second front facing camera. So there'll be one on the landscape side and one on the portrait side. Mark says this is because some customers found the move from portrait to landscape to be frustrating in use. Yeah, let me tell you, I FaceTime with my

mom every week and she uses her iPhone in portrait and I use my iPad Pro in portrait because, and this is a little note I'm gonna say to Apple, if I'm holding my iPad Pro in landscape talking to somebody in portrait, why do you show my image in landscape, in horizontal with black bars at the top and bottom? Why don't you just crop it? Crop it, yeah. Why? I don't understand. There's enough. It's so frustrating.

It seems like such an obvious thing. Anyway, moving on. Um, so I, I, I ended up flipping my iPad up vertical to match my mom's orientation. And now my finger is on it, or I have to be very careful and I'm not really looking in the right place because, and I love the camera where it is, but in that scenario, it's actually bad. So, okay, I don't mind this. It doesn't say that it's necessarily all the Face ID hardware, just a camera. And if they've got the space for it,

which I suspect they do, the iPad Pro, like whatever that camera costs, who cares? Cause it's the iPad Pro, the margins. The iPad Pro is already so expensive that they've gotta have room for a part like that. And it makes sense to me, it really does. I am absolutely in scenarios with my iPad Pro

where I wish that the camera was in the other perspective. So it's fine. It's talking about minor. It's like speed bump and a little camera change, but I get it. I get why you'd wanna do it. Although again, Apple, I implore you, just sync up the aspect ratios

between the sender and the receiver. Just do that. And according to Digitimes, Samsung is preparing to manufacture OLED displays for a foldable iPhone targeting a 2026 release. Mike, I think it's happening. I think it's happening. Yeah.

I think it's happening. I think it's happening. Yeah. I think it's happening. I think that new Samsung foldable is like the- The Fold 7? Yeah, I think it's like the, it's like the town crier, like walking down Main Street, ringing a bell and being like, it's coming, it's coming. You see this folding phone before you

the next shall be an iPhone like And and it's funny watching the coverage of this because like Mark German wrote about this. He's like, oh, it's fine You know, everybody always says that Apple waits And then comes into a market, but he's like, but they start they start markets too It's like I don't I don't entirely agree. I've watched Apple for a long time. And I feel like Apple has particular standards. Sometimes they're wrong. But they have particular standards where they'll say now, like, I know this is going to go way back, but like Bluetooth, I kid you not, there were several years where everybody was like, Why has Apple not done Bluetooth? And then Apple did Bluetooth. And Apple, when they rolled out Bluetooth, they said

And then Apple did Bluetooth and Apple when they rolled out Bluetooth, they said Bluetooth was was not good enough before it was just not good enough for our products and now it is and they've had it ever since. Sometimes Apple really does do that. They're not behind. They have set a standard and they're unhappy with what it is and they're just not willing to go down that route, especially when you consider volumes that are required for Apple products, right? Which we've talked about. Like when Apple does something, they don't sell a hundred of them. No matter what it is, they don't, not even the vision probe, but they don't. And on iPhone, they're going to sell a lot of them. And so Apple, like Apple's not behind on foldables. Apple was skeptical of foldables and the technology in those displays, but the reviews of that new Samsung Fold suggest that Samsung has gotten really close and that the reports are that Apple has actually worked with Samsung or perhaps on its own but has has made changes to the hinge and some other changes and Apple feels like they've reached the point where it's of an acceptable quality for an iPhone.

And based on those reviews of that Samsung Fold, it sounds like that's about right. Like people really, you are closer to this and have had some of these phones, but it feels to me like a lot of the skepticism about like this is really impractical is beginning to drop away. It doesn't really exist anymore.

Right, like this one, it seems like people are like, it's expensive, but if you want to fold, it's pretty great. And that is a far cry from the first generation that's been happening over time. And when I read these reviews of the, of the new Samsung phone, I kept thinking to myself, I see why Apple thinks it's time now. Like I feel like that whole product category has turned a corner where it's no longer a conversation about how weird or rickety or unpleasant it is to use it. It's just, because the reviews also all say when it's closed, it's kind of just a phone.

Just a regular phone. Yeah. And you put you put those two things together, which is what's the closed feel like and, and is the screen and the mechanics of it good enough and Apple's not concerned about the price it'll be expensive Apple doesn't care and people will buy it because it's an iPhone that folds so if as an outsider who has not used a folding phone it sure seems to me like we're there yep yeah absolutely I mean I've been using a pixel file for like four or five months, and the vast majority of the time, I just use the outside screen because it just feels and works

like a great phone. And then when I want a bit of extra space, I have that available to me. It's a great experience. And I would get a real kick out of an iPhone that did this. Oh, man, me too. I think I think it's really interesting too, because I do think part of Apple's bar here that they set was, does it feel good to use it closed? Right? Because people, right? It's like not an iPhone if it's gross to use until you open it up.

It's not an iPhone. I think it would not meet their quality standards. So we've gotten to that point with the latest generation of these things and it sounds like that Samsung on the inside is really really nice too and we also know that that iPhone Air is coming out which it's so clear is Apple's first step toward making the iPhone contents as thin as possible so that they can then do a two- one next year. That is a foldable

And so yeah after I mean this podcast has been going for almost 11 years now. I What more than half of that time? We've been talking about Apple foldables eventually happening. I Think I think we're there. I do think we're there I think next next fall not this fall but next fall this product feels like it's really gonna happen and I'm very excited about it as an iPad user who doesn't use my iPhone a whole lot. I look at this and I wonder, would this how would this fit my life? Could I become somebody who primarily just uses this one device in one mode or another to have an iPad, I'll be at a small one that I can like have my in my pocket as an iPhone and then just open it up and it's a little iPad. I don't know. That sounds pretty great. Yeah, it sounds pretty great. Yeah, it's very exciting. It's really interesting as well to be sitting here now and looking at the next two years and being like they're going to have weird, wonderful iPhones for the next two years potentially, right? Like that is exciting on its own. Just there being something significantly new,

two years in a row, if it does go like that, it's fun. After six or seven years where it's been fairly quiet. Yeah, yeah, very exciting. It would be, things are happening, yeah. Yeah, and I'll show you also, because we've been chronicling this, we know that Apple's been working toward this for a while now, It will expose once again,

the fallacy of people who build narratives around events that occur without taking into account the time it takes for them to occur, where people are going to be like, wow, Apple's really on a roll. They really got it together the last couple of years and they're putting out good iPhones. And it's like, this is probably a five plus year effort to get here. And they've known the whole time, but they, it hasn't been ready, but you know, that's just how it is.

Upgrade listeners. No upgrade listeners. Get it. That this is a whole process that has led to this point. a whole process that has led to this point. And Apple is suing content creator and leaker, John Prosser, over what they are calling an alleged theft of trade secrets related to his coverage of the iOS 26 redesign. Apple alleges that Prosser asked the roommate of Apple employee Ethan Lipnick to gain access to his test device, test iPhone, that was running what would be iOS 26. The roommate's name was Michael Remicchiotti,

and Apple claims that Prosler offered him quote, money or a future job opportunity in exchange for access to the device. It's said that Ramakirti learned the passcode of Lipnick's device and used location tracking, find my I assume, to assess when he would be away from home. Ramakirti then had a video call with John Prosser, which Prosser recorded to demo what was on the device. Prosser used this information and this video call to then create renders and imagery and

reporting that he then shared about the look of iOS 26, some of the app redesigns and stuff like the camera app. I'm going to read a quote from the Verge article. Apple says it found out the details of what happened in an email from April from an anonymous email from someone who claimed to have seen process recording of the call and recognized Lipnick's apartment. So it is said that Prussia was sharing the call of other people. And one of those people contacted kind of like cold contacted Apple to tell them what happened. Apple says that they also got access to a

voice note that Ramakirti sent to Lipnick after he was fired by Apple because of the incident. Lipnick was fired because of the leak of information and he, because he had failed essentially to follow Apple strict guidelines about how these devices are used and stored. Um, this is reminiscent to me of the story of the guy who got fired and went into the bathroom and deleted a bunch of his stuff from his phone, right? Yeah. Like the fact that he got this voice note would suggest that maybe it was sent to a

work device. John Prosser has taken to X to say, quote, this is not how the situation played out on my end. Luckily, I have receipts for that. I did not plot to access anyone's phone. I did not have any passwords I was unaware of how the information was obtained In the lawsuit Apple is essentially asking for damages and the ability to stop process from reporting on Apple in the future Yeah, so I don't I don't particularly like John Prosser or his shtick.

But at the same time, look, from time to time, Apple makes a big deal out of stuff like this because they want to frighten their employees into not leaking information. That's what's going on here. That's the primary thing that's going on here. I am not a lawyer. However, I am a journalist who did take some law classes about journalism in school, and also I live in a country that may or may not have court rulings that make sense anymore. I don't know. I will say this. My understanding is that a lot of this stuff is really about inducement.

The idea that if people come to you with information as a journalist, you can use it because that's your job. And that when you get as a journalist into trouble, a lot of times it has to do with inducement. It has to do with saying I will pay you or give you a job. Right. This is good because I was wondering like what makes this different from say like what Mark Gurman does. If you give me secret information, I will pay you. Now, this is also about trade secrets. And here's the thing, I don't know about trade secret law and how it conflicts with First Amendment law. But the way I was always taught was if somebody comes to you with secrets,

go for it. If somebody, if you know somebody who knows something and you pay them to tell you, you're in trouble. Right. That that, that's sort of the simple part of it is paying a source. So Apple's allegation here is that this guy, Ramasati or Ramakati. I'm sorry. I I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce that name. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Um, I It's funny, my high school girlfriend had a similar name too. I wonder if they're kind of related. Anyway.

Oh no, Jason's involved. Oh no, I might be. Well, I mean, I just don't know enough about how people's Italian names were changed in the US. But anyway, let's say Ramacotti. This is not an Apple employee, right? And Prosser, so then it becomes weirder because then it's like Prosser offered money to somebody who is not an Apple employee.

Okay, I'm not sure about that. But you could perceive it as being Apple offered a non-amble employee money to break in to someone else's device and steal trade secrets. Yeah. If this actually happened, to me it seems I see a logic in putting a court case against both of them because it's like a heist. This is bad. It's, it's, it's okay.

We got to back up further. Yeah. First off, what a bad friend this person is. Yes. To, to, to, cause this is the idea here is Ethan Lipnick had, had an iPhone at home running a pre-release of, of what is now iOS 26. Yep. That's common at Apple. People have got multiple devices, that they're going on different builds, plus they're ones that they can take out.

For all intents and purposes, it seemed like Lipnick was not a very senior member of the team. He was just in the photos team, right? So like it's very common, as you said. If you're working on stuff, you've got these devices and you've got them at home and you are supposed to keep them secure, right?

But like, it's not, he did not secret out an iPhone to his apartment. That didn't happen. This is just common, right? I would love to see how many safes got bought in Cupertino over the last week. Yeah, no kidding. And I would imagine that if there hasn't been, there will be a reminder to employees about hygiene for your stuff that contains secrets. But still, what a bad friend. The bad friend here looked at Ethan Lipnick's password, figured it out, and then

did and was at his house. So obviously a trust level there where he's staying at his house. I think they're roommates. I think they have roommates. I think roommates. Yeah. Well, Lipnick supposedly resides far away, but that might be a thing where he works remotely and then he comes in a couple of days a week and then drives back. It's possible that it's something like that and he's crashing there. I don't know. Where he is alleged in the lawsuit to live is far away.

It's like four, three and a half hours away from Cupertino. So, but what a bad friend. He waits for him to be gone and then puts in his, you know, ill-gotten ID and then, and then strikes up a FaceTime with Jon Prosser to detail all the secrets of the next OS. So Badfriend, who is apparently allegedly sold out his friend by John Prosser offering him money or a future job opportunity according to the lawsuit.

Will Barron Even if Prosser didn't offer him money, this is a real bad way to get this kind of information in my opinion. I agree in that you're manipulating, well look, I mean bottom line, I don't know what the criminal issues are here, but breaking into somebody's phone with their ID, especially for the reason that you are without their knowledge intentionally, also seems questionable in terms of legality. And then if you're encouraging that, and again, this is not the same as this guy taking video

of this phone and then anonymously sending it to Jon Prosser, different scenario here. The inducement is part of the argument here. The betrayal of the friendship is brutal and that guy got fired because of it. Sucks so bad, I feel so bad for this guy. Yeah, except- I feel so bad for them.

Except I do want to say this. Then there's the other piece of this, which is the anonymous tipster got shown this video and said, hey, that's Lipnick's apartment. And that's how this all fell apart. Yeah, I don't like the snitching either, right? Like- That's, I mean, look, I don't know why. Okay, I don't like the snitching either. Right? Like that's that's well, I mean, look,

I don't know why. Okay, I have questions. How does a person who john Prosser is showing the video to? How do they know what Lipnick's apartment looks like? That's a question I've got. I don't know. Because are they on Apple employee to who just talks to john Prosser and gets shown videos so that they can what maybe maybe just nod and say, yeah, that's right. That's not fake. Maybe it was a pass like that. But then whoever this person is then turns around and says, and sends an email to Apple saying, you know, Lipnick leaked this and process got it and, and Ramessiotti is involved in like, do we know that it went that way? Like, what if, what if process shared it with this person and separate came from? like as a way to kind of like

Show credentials to this to whoever it was because this this lawsuit alleges that they recognized Lipnick's apartment, okay, and that's how they know who I miss that part the sources they they recognized his Let's like does he have like an ugly couch or something where they're like, oh god lipnick We saw that it's lipnick. Oh, no, right like I don't know What's going on there? Maybe but maybe what is he? Has also dealt with Ramacathi in some way it also possible right and that he he disclosed That he stayed with a friend who worked for Apple and then this is the same place. We don't know that part. It's not, not detailed as far as I can tell. So I just

don't like this whole part. I don't, I really don't like, there's a lot of things I don't like about the story. I also, I really don't like this part because whoever this person is, it's really causing trouble for a couple of people. And I can't, I can't ascertain why you would do this. Yeah, because the only way to me that seems reasonable is you do this because you're an Apple employee who thinks that there's an Apple employee who's leaking stuff who's gone out of control. But if you're seeing video from Jon Prosser, are you not yourself an Apple employee who's gone out of control? I don't know.

Because this was an anonymous email, right? Like you would assume is sent to some kind of like tip line. Or it's another, it's another leaker reporter, whatever, in a circle who were prosters like, this is the thing that I got that I'm working on. And that person was also talking to one of these other guys and was like, Oh, I recognize that apartment. But then why do you burn his source, right? It's a little, it is a little bit baffling. So, so leaving this scenario aside, because it's bananas. And I'm not a lawyer, so I really can't say I don't love the fact that Apple is trying to destroy John Prosser's business. Um, I think Apple trying to scare its employees into recognizing that they are supposed to keep their stuff together and keep it all tight and keep it quiet. And you don't show it to your friends and you don't, and be aware that your friends might be able to do what this guy did and like know your ID and put it in and then

do something like this and it's a trade secret and you need to not do that. Like I think Apple has a strong interest in that, but Apple attacking people in the press for disseminating that information. I am, I don't like the idea that he potentially, again, he says this is not how it went down, but if he offered money to somebody for them to break into their friend's phone and show it to them, I'm troubled by that. But I'm gonna say more broadly,

I don't like the idea that Apple is just rolling in and saying, I wanna, hey, guy who reports secrets, I'm gonna ruin your career. And literally ask a court to make it so you can never write about Apple secrets again. Like I do not like that one bit. I think I think the ultimate right thing is you punish the people. One, you punish the people who work for Apple and broke the rules. And two, I say you'll punish the person who broke into an Apple employees phone and disseminated the results because that's bad. That's really bad. But I am I am not so sympathetic about the idea of the guy who took information

that somebody spirited out of Apple and built content around it and commissioned renders and reported about it. Even though I don't particularly like the guy and his shtick, the fact is I am not, I'm never gonna be a fan of Apple trying to ruin somebody in the media because they don't, because they reported on things that Apple is gonna do. Because I mean, they're not gonna do that to Mark Gurman

because he's got Bloomberg lawyers, but they can do it to Jon Prosser because he lives in upstate Pennsylvania out in the middle of nowhere and probably doesn't have any lawyers but his dad's friend or something like that. And that troubles me. But again, I am also troubled by the suggestion

that it's possible that he literally paid, offered to pay somebody to break into their friend's phone and show them the next iOS. That's not great. Yeah. I don't like it from the sense of like Apple kind of like sewing in a big briefcase around against this guy, right? Where it is just absolutely no world in which he can defend himself, um, would be my expectation, uh, cause it would be very hard and expensive to do.

I'm sure. But I, I struggle with if this is true, this needs to be not needs to be. If this is true about the way it went down, I don't disagree with the idea of making it that nobody would do this again. Like that you make an example out of it, which sucks, right? For Jon Prosser, big time. But if you did this, you made a mistake. You made a mistake legally and morally, in my opinion, in the way of doing this.

And so if you did it this way, I struggle to be like, Oh, Paul, you, I don't know. Number one is every, like I said, every Apple employee has gotten the message now. Yeah. And we'll probably get literally get a message, but they've gotten the message, which is secure your stuff, secure your stuff. We're not kidding. This is the stuff gets out this way. You'll be betrayed by your friends. Secure your stuff. We're not kidding. Um, the, you know, again, I'm, I'm never going to champion a member of the media being sued out of existence by Apple, but there are cases where it's happened where when you get into

the details, you're like, no, you shouldn't. And you know, where, where do I draw the line? I'm not sure. But again, I'll say it. If you offered to compensate someone to break into their friends phone and reveal secrets to you That's it's mmm not a fan of that not not a fan of that or even encouraged it like I just I just don't like it I really don't like it. I should say for people who are like, well, how is this different than what German does? I'll tell you why I I don't I'm not privy. We had him on the show at one point,

but like, I think Gurman has people who send him stuff on Signal and elsewhere secretly. That he confirms. The same thing that happens to me and you, right? Like people tell us stuff. I'm not going out there and asking anyone for anything. I could probably guarantee you that Mark Gurman is not paying people for information.

And if he was, I would say that that was morally wrong too. I would say that I think he would be on legal, not solid legal ground. Also, Bloomberg would not stand for it. His news organization is not gonna stand for paying sources. So it's not gonna happen. And that's the difference here is that it's a little more of the Wild West.

This is like the people bring up the think secret case that was a website that published secret stuff and got sued into oblivion. I mean, literally, they they settled the case and shut down the website. And that was the end of it forever. But again, when you're kind of on the Wild West, and you're like, you you maybe don't know all the law stuff, when you're kind of out in the wild west and you're like, you maybe don't know all the law stuff and you think whatever you get is fine and you don't have a corporate organization

with lawyers above you to advise you, sometimes you make bad decisions, sometimes you don't. I'm not, and again, we'll see what comes out because Prosser has denied at least some aspects of this and we only have apples allegations here. Absolutely, but there are What I can't say is that whatever the jerk It's like when we brought a puppy home and we had a cat and like the rule was everything the cat does is right Everything the dog does is wrong and that's how you teach the dog that just don't bug the cats and listen to the cats It's I don't want to say everything the journalist does is right and everything the source does is wrong. And that's how you teach the dog that just don't bug the cats and listen to the cats. I don't want to say everything the journalist does is right

and everything the source does is wrong. There are cases where the journalist does something wrong. And like there is a line beyond which the first amendment should not protect you. When you are aiding in the commission of crimes seems like a pretty good line. But again, I am not a lawyer and I encourage Jon Prosser to get a good one.

I can't believe he posted. I saw it and I was like, John, what are you doing? I can't believe it either. Just keep your mouth shut. And like, honestly, I say in his, you know, in his defense, if that's the word I'm trying to use, he hasn't posted on his YouTube video, on his YouTube channel about it, which I was convinced he was going to do. Oh God, yeah. Actually, as social media posts go, I deny this and I look forward to having my day, is not a bad thing to do, but yes, I think a lawyer would say just don't say anything. And don't post a screenshot of part of the conversation, dude.

Don't do it. Yeah, I don't post a screenshot of part of the conversation dude. Don't do it. Yeah, this doesn't, I don't think that this helps you in the way that you think it does. Who knows? I'm intrigued to see if or what comes of this, but I don't, you know, it's an interesting, quote unquote, interesting, right? It's an interesting story. I just, you know, and I would even say that like, you know, from my perspective, giving money for leaks is not, it's not great, but it's not like, like morally wrong in a way. Like from my, the way that I look at it, to me, it is the even knowledge of where this information is coming from. That's the problem. Right? Like if you knew where this was coming from at any point, you should have not the problem. Right? Like if you knew where this was coming from at

any point, you should have not used it. Right? She just stopped. I will. And maybe this is just my, all my years of training, but I do draw the line that at offering compensation, um, oh, I'm not saying it's good. And I don't think you should do it, but I just mean that like my biggest issue is actually the moral part of this, not the legal part of this. I mean, cause like if I, if I, if I'm in a, in a lawsuit and like, you're over at a friend's house and I am, uh, they're, they're getting a divorce. And I, I want some incriminating evidence and I pay you to break into your

friend's phone and send me the screenshots. Like, I kind of feel like we committed a crime, right? That's a crime. And this is not that different from that, honestly, because you're, that's the thing that got me is that they're not talking about criminal case here, but like, surely what this guy did is a crime to break into his friend's phone, especially given the motive, which is to essentially steal trade secrets. I don't know, there's a lot of bad behavior going on here, and somebody's gonna have to sort it all out. But I will say again, one of the reasons you do this

if you're Apple is just to scare people. Like that's what it's all about. It's a big corporation scaring its employees, scaring its employees' friends, and scaring people in the media who are trying to get secret Apple information. That's all part of what's going on here, regardless of the outcome.

All right, this episode is brought to you by our friends over at Ecamm. If you're looking to get into video, you need Ecamm. Ecamm Live is the leading video production and live streaming studio built for Mac. It's great for streaming, recording, podcasting and presenting. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need high quality video. With Ecamm, you can screen share, use multiple cameras and even direct the show in real time

with their live camera switcher. It's great for simplifying your workflow too because you can do everything with the Ecamm app. Get started quickly and have everything on hand to create whatever you need with video. Uh, Jason, Apple's quarterly results are coming up. And I know that you and Dan always jump on and do a video like I think a stream. Yeah. You do it as a stream, right? So the six colors YouTube channel, I was assuming you use Ecamm for this.

We do. We're not going to do it this time for reasons. Sorry. It's not, it's not every time we're not going to do it this time because I have to go to the airport. But when you're there, you do the wivy cam. But this is what we do is we hop on a stream and cam and this is what we use. I just use it over the weekend for total party kill. This is how we do all of that stuff because it's a great Mac app that gives you the ability to stream high quality and I can get the boxes and the graphics and everything to look exactly the way I want to. And yeah, it's great. So I pay for it. I am a subscriber to Ecamm Live for these reasons. Yes. You can add your own stamp to your videos with logos, titles, lower thirds, and those graphics. You can drop in video clips, bring in interview

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To get one month free today, just go to ecamm.com slash upgrade FM and use the code upgrade FM. That's a whole month free of Ecamm live at ecamm.com slash upgradefm with the code upgradefm. Go there now and check it out. Our thanks to Ecamm for their support of this show and Relay. Now, Jason, considering it's the summer of fun, we have had a distinct lack of games around here on Upgrade. So today, I wanna play a game with you.

Are you familiar with blind ranking? Does this come across your world in any way, Jason? I, oh yeah, I mean, we did it, Mike, we did it literally at the podcast-a-thon last year. We did do blind rankings at the podcast-a-thon. Yeah, I forgot about that. So in case you're unaware, what I'm gonna do with Jason today

is we're gonna do a blind ranking of iconic Apple products. So I have a list of 10, what I am calling iconic Apple products. I will give you each one at a time and you have to put them on a one to 10 list, not knowing what the rest of the answers will be. I will give you no indication of which is better than the other. And you can only put one product in each of the One to ten slots so I have ten items I will give them to you in an order and you have to try and guess where would they be on the one to ten? No, we have iconic products and we will construct from that a ridiculous list. That is no good. Well, it could be great

Yeah, fave in yourself. You might do a great job Sure Well, it could be great. Yeah, fave yourself, you might do a great job. Sure. The first item that you will be grading on your 1-10 list is the original iPod from 2001. Original iPod, 2001. I'm going to put it at number three. Number three? Yeah. You were at that event, right?

You were with us, so it was just in a couple of years. Yes, I was. Yes, I was. Somebody emails me about almost every month. You're featured very prominently in the video. I mean, yeah, I'm in the audience. There's no doubt about it. Okay.

Right between John Seth and Rick LaPage. My second item for you is the Macintosh from 1984. That is going to be... You know, look at it. Like I know, I understand why you did it, but putting iPod at number three is like really, that's really penned you in already. Like you've only got two spots above that. No, no. I mean, I know what I'm doing here. What are you talking about?

You got a great list. You got it on your head. Okay. Iconic Apple products. Yep. The original Mac. Yep. The original Mac. Yep. See, I just have to decide what what else might I consider as iconic as the original Mac. That's an interesting idea. And I'm going to put it, I'm going to put it number one. Wow. Okay. Why? Because it's the most iconic Apple product. Is it?

Yes. Okay. Well, I'm happy that you think so. I'm going to come to you. Whose list is this? Am I supposed to guess what your list is? Because this is my list. Oh, this is just a completely random set of things. You know? Okay. Then I'm'm gonna come in next with air pods from 2016 air pods mm-hmm pretty iconic seven okay why would you go so live for air pods I don't think they're that iconic they're fine I mean white ear buds and this could be maybe an exemplar of that but Apples done way more iconic products than that. So What do you think about I'm at pro in 2017

Ten Okay, all right why you don't like it It's not iconic Mmm, it's just an iMac. It looks like all the other iMacs It's got an eye in it You know, I got eyeball. Yeah, look at you. Sure creepy. All right next up from 2007 the iPhone The original iPhone.

The original iPhone. Good thing that I left some room, and I'm going to put it forth. Underneath the iPod? Yeah. Hmm. That's an interesting call, I think. Why would you say the iPhone is less iconic than the iPod? I think I, to me, the iPhone got so much better and that the original iPhone was a little bit weird.

That's also true of the iPod, but I'm not as, for whatever reason, I'm much more charitable to the original iPod than I am to the original iPhone. Okay. So I'm going to put it forth. I'm going to leave some room. I hope there's something else good coming to go at number two. I almost put it at number two. That's why I thought it was naturally going to go, right? It would be Macintosh, iPhone, iPod. I almost did. I'm holding out hope that there's another one that will slot into number two on your list Otherwise some garbage is gonna go up there and that's fine. Whatever. Mm-hmm All right next up from 1998 the iMac g3

Well, thanks Mike I Was saving the spot for it that goes to number two. Okay I figured this is gonna go pretty high for you. Yeah. I'm number seven. Yeah. The iPod Um, eight. Underneath the AirPods? Underneath the AirPods? Yeah. All right. iPod Nano is just one model that existed for space and time.

AirPods could theoretically represent all white Apple earbuds through all time. So you're only considering the one iPod Nano is like the iPod Nano? I guess I'm saying specifically the iPod Nano's. I mean, yeah, but the iPod Nano didn't last that long. It was nice. People liked it. But the they put white earbuds in starting at the beginning and they still do it. So yeah, sure.

That original iPod Nano though, man, that's unbeatable in my mind. The white plastic on one side, destroyed aluminum on the other side. Scratch the hell out of the plastic. But that looked so good though, when it was all scratched up like that, they knew what they were doing. Number eight. Yes. Number eight.

Apple Watch from 2015. Six. So above AirPods AirPods above AirPods. Okay. And I say that mostly because Apple has managed to keep the Apple Watch looking more or less the same for a decade now.

Yeah. And I feel it deserves some iconic credit for that. That even the I mean, the ultra looks a little different, but not that different. And the standard Apple Watch still looks exactly the same. So I would say Apple watch is pretty iconic

in its longevity. Maybe of all of the products on this list, it's the one that probably looks the most like the original, right? Like even more than the iPhone, I feel like. All right, number nine. So you have two spots left. You have spot five and spot nine for two products.

Then the next product for you is the iPhone six plus. Nine underneath the iPhone now above the yes, above the IMAQ Pro. OK, and your last one. I'm going to give you, by the way, if you want, the opportunity to recraft the list at the end. Sure. If there's anything you would like to change,

just so you know you have the opportunity to do that if you want. I mean, you may put the whammy on me here, because this one has to be slotted at five. Yeah. But thus far, with the first nine, I would say you have presented these to me in a very generous order. Do you think so? Yes, because before we get to what the 10th one is,

that'll be slotting in at number five, you gave me a lot of the really good ones early. And the trick to this game, in my opinion, is you either give the good ones sort of in the middle toward the end, and you also save some really bad ones and hoping that they will filter in. And I feel like you set me up fairly easily

with those top ones, but we'll see now. Bring it on. The thing is, I would say that I don't agree with the way that you believe that to me. Like, and I thought that I was giving you this. Like, I didn't expect you to rank them the way that you have. Your final one is the M2 MacBook Air from 2022, which goes in above the Apple Watch.

Yeah, that's not too bad. Not too bad. All right. So this is your list as you've ranked it. At number one is the Macintosh, the original. Number two is the iMac G3. And number three is the iPod. Number four is the iPhone. Number five is the M2 MacBook Air. Number six is the Apple Watch. Number seven is AirPods. Number

eight is iPod Nano. Number nine is iPhone 6 Plus. Number ten is iMac Pro. Now, if you're given the freedom to know your answers, what would you change if anything? Or is this actually, as you thought it might be, the perfect list? What would I change here? I would put the MacBook Air lower because it's not the iconic MacBook Air. I love it. I think it's really good, but it's not the iconic MacBook Air look. That would be an earlier model or even the M1.

If I had said the iconic one, like, sorry, the original one, like the original original, would you have maybe wanted, would you have put that higher, say? I mean, that's a, it's a tough, it's a tough list to be on. I don't think I would have put it higher. Yeah. What are you doing with our list now? I'm very confused.

In our document, I'm messing things up. I'm just trying to see if like you would move things around. If you move things around I want to see what they would look like from would put the iPhone above the iPod I Put the okay. I'm gonna do it. I'm doing a little rerank here Yeah so obviously in an ideal world you would put the iPhone above the iPod because you had that spot but you didn't want to Take up spot to like I said, I was I was concerned. I Was concerned about it. Okay, this is okay. Just taking a quick cut at it. Here's what I would change. I'd leave my top two.

I'd switch iPhone and iPod around, right? But I wanted to leave that space open. That's just how it out went that strategy there. I would move Apple Watch up to fifth. Okay. I would move iPhone 6 plus up to sixth. Wow from nine to six. Yeah, yeah. Again, there was some strategy thing. So my thought there is two iPhones on the list and it's the first large iPhone. Yeah. I, I mean, I'm fine with it lower down because it kind of doesn't matter, but let's say there, AirPods still at seven, so that's the M2 Air falls down to eight, Nano goes down another space to nine,

and iMac Pro stays at 10, but I'm pretty happy with my list. As embarrassing blind ranking lists go, I'm pretty happy with my blind ranking list, Mike. I think I strategically, I mean, you may not agree with my choices and my opinions, but I think strategically, I left going to do a list of just Apple products. And then I was like, no, I'm going to make good ones because I thought maybe I could also do a bad one in the future, like bad Apple products. And so I think I'm going to come back at another point in the summer of fun with

a blind ranking of bad Apple products. And I, I feel like I've learned a little bit about how you blind rank here that might help me later on. Cause I had arranged them in such a way that I thought would trip you up, but it actually worked in the opposite for you. You arranged them beautifully for me. Which, so I've learned a little bit

about how to arrange them for you. The moment where I knew I had you is that I specifically left number two and put the iPhone fourth because I wanted to leave a space for the iMac G3. When I put the iPod, when I put the iPod third, I wanted to leave space for maybe an iPhone or maybe it's the original Mac and the iMac G3. Well, I'm not going to tell you what I've learned specifically because I don't want to tip you off.

Don't do that. But I just, I left space for products that then you handed to me. So that's about as good as it can go Like number two. Why did you put iPhone number four and leave number two open? What I didn't say was because the I'm actually three is probably out there I'm believe and then it was and I put it where it needed to be and that you know is not my experience in most blind rankings So I I'm just saying you don't have to agree with my opinions, but I think I nailed it But the other opinion you're making is that I did a bad job with the blind ranking.

I think is implicitly what you're saying. I think you did me a favor with your sequencing. And if you had to do it all over again, you could put it in a different sequence. And if we're doing this again, you might want to consult with somebody about the right way to ruin somebody with blind ranking sequence. This is bullying. This is cyberbullying. I tried everyone, I'll be back. I'm just trying to be constructive here. I want you to do better next time. I'll try my best.

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The read it later service pocket shut down on July 8th. I'm looking for another option and there are a lot of them out there. Do the two of you have any recommendations? I think you have a recommendation. The only read it later service I used was Pocket because it integrated with Kobo, which meant I could send long articles to Pocket

and they would integrate with my Kobo and I could read them on my Kobo. I do have breaking news. Breaking news. Instapaper has announced as of four hours ago, as we record this, that Instapaper is going to integrate with Kobo. What a great day to put this question into the show notes. I went looking for the question thinking if we don't have it in there, I should put it in there and it was already in there. So that was perfect. I would have dragged it out of the pile and put it in here if not. So yes. So the answer is I guess I'm going to go back to Instapaper now because I really, again, I only I, I subscribe to the thing that Mike is about to talk about, and I'm trying it out. But I don't think it works the way I want it to. But, but to get long articles, especially onto my Kobo, so I can read them there. I use Pocket and I will now use Instapaper, I guess they say later this summer, they this summer, they're gonna launch their integration with Kobo because Kobo will have to make... My guess is Instapaper is emulating whatever API that Kobo used with Pocket and then Kobo will point at the

new API. My guess is this is like, how do we make this happen so that our readers are not broken anymore and that Instapaper and Kobo worked it out? But anyway, I'm excited about that. What do you use, Mike? I use Readwise Reader. I like it when I was looking for a Read It Later service, this one stuck out to me because it's cross-platform, which is good. It's available everywhere and the experience is relatively similar.

I like how easy it is to get articles in. I like how it does a good job of letting me tag articles. And then I also like obviously the way that the reader also integrates with read wise. So you can kind of save quotes and highlights and stuff and it will show up in your read wise account. And then read wise integrates with my terminal eink screen. So I can see things like quotes from articles that I find interesting or inspiring can show up on my terminal, which I really like that as like a little ecosystem there for me. So it's a nice product and I have been using it a little bit and I like it.

But again, I think in the end, I'm probably going to go to instapaper. It makes absolute sense for you because of having that Kobo integration. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I went, as soon as I saw this news, I was, I was like, Oh no, Jason's Jason's e-reader workflow. Oh yeah. It was very sad. Um, very sad. So, so I believe the people originally behind pocket have started a new thing called folio, um, which they're like trying to stand up like as it speaks, as we got, like as we speak, you know what I mean? Like they're really trying to build quick, but they don't seem to be talking about

any kind of read it later, sorry, any kind of e-reader integration. But I guess if you want to use something that's kind of like Pocket, Folio is probably a good bet. It looks nice and clean, I think that might just be because they haven't had a lot of time to build the app, but you can go and check that out. I also do really like that name a lot for a really late service, Folio. I think that's a great name.

I guess I need to try Instapaper again. Yeah, you're going to have to now. Yeah. You know what? That's a good follow-up for the future, Jason. I want to know what your experience is like trying out Instapaper now. Sure. Jonathan asks, I'm traveling to San Francisco in a couple of days and I'll have a few hours to do some sightseeing. Could you recommend some cool places to visit?

Well, I live here. Mike, you've been a visitor. Do you have any recommendations? I have a selection of recommendations. You will not be able to do all of them. So I will make the recommendations and then you can, you know, you can, you can do whatever one interests you. If you want to just have lunch, go to the ferry building. The ferry building has a bunch of really fun. And I will say these recommendations are all based on me being there two years ago. I don't know what's available or open anymore in San Francisco. Like when I was there last, they announced that that Westfield Mall was closing. It's like, oh boy, bad times.

But the ferry building, there's an empanada place that I've been to, I just love, and they have a really great ice cream shop there too. So there's a bunch of great food stuff to do at the ferry building. I recommend it. Um, if you want to do like a all day, not all day, but like, you know, like a big chunk of a sightseeing thing, go to Alcatraz. I don't know if you can fit Alcatraz in a few hours, like a, like safely cause you're going to get a fairy like little bow out there, but Alcatraz is my favorite, like San Francisco, like sightseeing touristy thing to do. It's just a good time.

Like Alcatraz is great for as much as a prison can be, but you know what I'm saying. There's a tour, like the tour is really interesting. Like the kind of like the audio tour and stuff. It's cool when you get to go out on a little boat, which is nice. You want to do, I think the most quintessential San Francisco thing, take the cable car from Market to Fisherman's Wharf. Then you can go see the sea lions too when you show up in

Fisherman's Wharf. Plus there's a bunch of things to go eat up there. And you don't have to take the cable car back. You can take a lift or whatever. Exactly. Or walk back along the, or walk back, if you've got the time, walk back along the Abarca D'Arro. You don't, you know, you cable car doesn't need to be both ways. It's not inaccessible by other means. Exactly. The problem with this is sometimes the line for the cable car can be really long. It's true. Um, and if you, if you are going to take the cable car, in my experience, you should do it from that terminal stop in market street because you have no

idea if we'll be able to get on one at any of the other stops that it stops at. And then you'll also end up being one of those people that hangs on the outside of it, which is terrifying to me. And I would do that. And then you'll also end up being one of those people that hangs on the outside of it, which is terrifying to me. And I would do that. Uh, go and see the Golden Gate bridge. Jason wrote Chrissy field in as the place to go see it from micro Golden Gate park, which you'd think would be the place, but it's not golden. The park is not near the Golden Gate bridge. Thank you. Uh, go to Chrissy field, which is a formerly, uh, I think, uh, airstrip that is now just a park that is amazing. And when you're there,

you get the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. And if you want, you can walk down and go and get up close to the Golden Gate Bridge. You can climb the stairs and go up and see the bridge. And Mike's advice is don't walk over the bridge, which I agree. Do not walk over the Golden Gate Bridge, don't. If we're broadening this out past Jonathan,

I will say one of the things that you could do that's really fun is you can rent a bicycle and you can bike over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and then take the ferry back or to Tiburon and take the ferry back. You get a ferry ride, you get a bike ride, you get to go over the Golden Gate Bridge. I also would say walking on, it's very far,

you gotta walk back and it's probably going to be really cold and windy when you're out there. So she's what happened to me and Steven. It was really hot in San Francisco. We were somewhere. I don't remember where we were or if we got, maybe we've got a lift there and we walked the bridge and it was freezing and horrible. Here's a San Francisco weather tip for you. No matter what the temperature is, wherever you are in San Francisco,

it's 55 degrees at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was horrible. It was scary. Like it's like the wind was picking up. Oh, it was a terrible time. Yeah. Yeah. And if there's enough fog, you can't see anything either, which is even better because you're like, Oh, look at this spectacular bridge. I can't see. So, you know, anyway, Chrissy field is really great and beautiful and just an amazing park. And there's now the Tunnel Tops Park. So you can actually walk from Chrissy Field up to the Presidio, which is an old army base that is now a national park.

And they put in these tunnels to cover the roadway that used to run and cut off Chrissy Field from the Presidio. So you can actually like walk over the old roadway and it's just a park now. So that's pretty great too. So there's a lot of there's a lot of related stuff over there in that part of San Francisco that's pretty awesome. And, and, and you get that view of the Golden Gate Bridge, which honestly going over the Golden Gate Bridge is an experience.

I used to do it every day. It's, it's fun. I used to do it every day and observe whether it was a good or a bad day. I'd be like, Oh, a foggy day. I'd see all the tourists and I'd be like, you poor people. And on a very clear day, I'd be like, oh, a foggy day. I'd see all the tourists and I'd be like, you poor people. And on a very clear day, I'd be like, yeah, you don't know how lucky you are. But you don't have to go over it to have that full on

experience of standing at Chrissy field and looking out at that spectacular bridge and that view. Yeah, that's a, but if you do have extra time, you could rent a bike and go over and then come back on a ferry. We just did a Giants game by a ferry, which we don't normally do, we usually drive, but it was a holiday and we decided Lauren

and I took the ferry. Beautiful. And again, it's like you had a baseball game, but also you get two scenic ferry rides and we don't do ferry rides that often. So I think that's a good recommendation. I'm well, speaking of Alcatraz, by the way, I'm gonna throw in, we just went to Angel Island

a couple of weeks ago, which we'd never been to before. I highly recommend that. You can take a ferry from San Francisco or Tiburon to Angel Island. Angel Island is much larger than Alcatraz. You can rent a bike and ride around. It's got an old immigration station. It's got an old army base.

It's got a Civil War army base in a different part of the island. It's a state park. It's got stupendous views of the Golden Gate and of San Francisco and of the East Bay and of Marin because it's this big island out in the middle of the bay. And nobody lives there except the park rangers and it's quite a deal. So Angel Island I would put, if you want a little more than Alcatraz, a little less, still got ruins though, a little more than Alcatraz in terms of activity,

you wanna walk around or ride a bike around, highly recommend Angel Island. And one last recommendation from you, Mike? The painted ladies. Yeah. A selection of houses that are really beautifully painted. That seemed like there'd be a nightmare to keep up. You're a Londoner, and this is the funny thing,

is like we don't have a lot of like nice architectural thingies in California, because it's not, we've only been here for 150 years. We don't know what we're doing. But the painted ladies are very pretty. You've seen them. You know that shot where there's like kind of a park and then there's that row of beautiful painted buildings?

That's them. Was there featured in a television show, right? The full house, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Or are they in Mrs. Doubtfire? I think maybe they're in Mrs. Doubtfire too. I don't know. I'll lose track. What was interesting that part of San Francisco, is it lower height and Alamo square? Hate that those kinds of areas. The architecture is very heavily inspired by Victorian and Edwardian style.

And it's so many old Victorians in San Francisco, very, very funny for us to see them because it's like Bizarro. It's like, I see what you were going for. It's like, if we see a crossman style house in England, which happens, right? You see them and you're like, no, I mean, I can see what you're trying to do, but you didn't get it. Right. Yeah. Well, this is ours. We have, yeah, there's lots of old Victorians in San Francisco, especially by the way, since we're, I mean, we filled up more than Jonathan could

ever do, but you know, for everybody out there who might come to San Francisco or who has been will also say San Francisco is so much more than Market Street and Moscone. Yes. And if you get the chance to come back, please explore the rest of San Francisco. We have a new park that's out on what used to be the great highway that is at the ocean,

that is in the Sunset District, a completely different part of San Francisco. It is very foggy out there, but there's a whole highway that has just been turned into a park that is at the beach. That that's spectacular. Chrissy field, which again, wasn't there when I moved here. It was, it was like fenced off and former landing strip, you know,

airport is spectacular now. Um, there, some of the neighborhoods, you know, are, there are so many different neighborhoods you go up to. You up to your Russian Hill, North Beach. Like there are so many things that are not the gray, you know, convention center and high rises and hotels of south of market or the high rises of the financial district. Yeah, that's like a nice little shopping area,

Hayes Street, I think. Yeah, sure. That's like really nice. Me and Adina have been there a few times. Yeah. And a friend who used to live over there. Yeah, absolutely. There's, it is, and I'll just say again, for those of you who've been told by the news media that San Francisco is a horrible wasteland, it's not. It's a beautiful city and maybe I'm ruining it by revealing that here, but it's a beautiful city with lots of really lively places. And the part that's dead and weird is the downtown core, which is slowly coming back. But just to throw out a really quick theory here, my quick theory is San Francisco downtown

financial district was structured as a place that everybody went to work Monday to Friday nine to five. Yep. And it got overbalanced like some others urban cores. It got overbalanced where there's literally no housing there. All the businesses are geared toward the daytime workers on the weekdays. And then every building is a hundred percent just a commercial real estate. And when COVID happened and post COVID, it exposed the fact that you really don't want to go all in on that. You want some mixture of people who live in the neighborhoods, businesses that serve people all the time, and not just nine to five Monday to Friday. And as a result, downtown San Francisco really kind of fell apart, and is putting itself back together. There are, but that's the downtown core. And just like other cities like New York is talking about how do we convert commercial real estate and can we do some residential? Because there's a housing crisis, and we need more places

for people to live. San Francisco also faces that. But outside of the downtown core, if you've been only to like WWDC or something, or Macworld Expo back in the day, like you have not, you got to, you got to break out of that because there's some amazing things. San Francisco is an amazing city. So that's the San Francisco visitors bureau appeal and go to, and go to angel Island. It's awesome. Finally, an anonymous question asked wrote in and said, if Mike Rockwell actually delivers on fixing Siri, could that catapult him to the SVP level, potentially head of design, or maybe in running for the next CEO? Seems like he has the right type of opinionated stance on product that could do well. I don't know enough about Apple internals. Do you think Mike Rockwell submitted this question? Is this you, Mike? This is what I will say. Based on everything we've heard, all the stories about Mike

Rockwell over the last few years, he sounds like a star. I don't know if he's an executive star. At one point in my career, I was asked by my boss, are you going to be a writer and make a name for yourself as a content creator, or are you willing to go into it, be a manager and an editor? And obviously I chose editor and then I left and became the other one instead. But so can not be both. I do wonder sometimes about Mike Rockwell, like is he is he a John Ternes kind of a leader of large

groups? I mean, he's obviously a leader, but like, is he that kind of a leader of large groups of people. I mean, he's obviously a leader, but like, is he that kind of executive leader? Or is he a little bit more like a Bob Bansfield type who strikes me as being more of a guy who gets things done? And I don't know. I mean, Mike Rockwell, I mean, say what you will about the vision pro, it sounds like vision pro exists because Mike Rockwell made it happen. And he seems to be a star for that reason. So if he delivers on this other stuff, like, is he going to be an SVP? Is he going to be the head of some other stuff? I mean, maybe, I think the question is, what does he want to do? And what's, what's the best place for him to be to debate on his skill level and that that I don't know maybe but maybe he's he's so great at execution that you don't actually want him up the SVP level you want him on whatever hot project you want next because if he got vision pro done and then comes in and gets Siri done well with their struggling with iPad fold maybe he goes in and does that. I mean, he seems from what limited access that we've all had to him. He seems really good, right?

Based on the reports, based on what we've seen of him, he seems really great. But I don't know, you know, beyond that, I mean, I love the fact that he, he got so mad at how bad Siri was because it feels like he speaks for all of us. Um, but where he goes from here in his career sort of depends on what he's the best at, how Apple wants to use him, what his relationship with the other people is at Apple, how they most value him, you know, where he wants his career trajectory to go. It's really hard to say about that. I mean, these aren't fictional characters.

These are real human beings, and who knows what they want to do, but he does seem like a star regardless. what they want to do, but he does seem like a star regardless. If you would like to send in your questions for us to answer in a future episode, just go to UpgradeFeedback.com. You can also send in your follow-up there as well. Thank you to our members who support us every week of Upgrade+. You can go to GetUpgradePlus.com and you'll get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week. I would also like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode, Delete Me, Ecamm, and Squarespace. If you would like to find us on YouTube, you can do that. Just search for the Upgrade podcast. We'll be back next week.

Till then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley. Music