Upgrade - 577: Apple's Own Tier List

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 577 for August 18th, 2025. This episode is brought to you by Steam Clock, Squarespace, P, the hydration app, and delete me. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Mike Hurley. Good to hear your voice. How you doing? I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing good. I'm very excited for today's episode. Having some, you know, it's just nice to have these summer days in the summer of fun. Summer of fun! I realize we've got like two more of these, maybe. I know, we're running out. We're running that quick.

Incredible. I have a sound talk question for you. Comes from Dan, who asks, Jason, have you ever approached a celebrity and introduced yourself or asked for an autograph or a selfie? If so, what was the result? Not as an adult Because I think I have a policy

I mean I okay At at Comic-Con They have people who sign things for money That's different But that's not approach out in the world Because I do have a signed 8 by 10 On my It's actually I'm looking at it right now

From Morgan Shepard The character actor who is in like Every sci-fi series ever And I've got his Max Headroom Headshot It's great He was Blank Reg in Max Hedrum. Also great interaction there because he was like, which one do you want?

He's like, you want the Klingon? You want the Soul Hunter from Babylon 5? And I'm like, I want Blank Reg from Max Hedrum. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's passed away since then, so I extra treasured that that I got to meet that guy. But anyway, when I was a kid, I lived so far out in the countryside in rural California, that that's where, at the time, that is where TV shows went to show. shoot the old frontier

because we had like rolling hills with nothing on them that you could shoot. So Little House on the Prairie, I don't know if you ever heard a Little House on the Prairie. It's a TV show based on a popular series of books. They shot that there. And my dad,

so the girl in that playing Laura whose name was, oh God, what was her name? She was married to, it's a celebrity They're divorced now, but there was a celebrity couple. It was Bruce Boxleitner, and his wife was,

it'll come to me. Anyway, she was there, and she had braces, but they had to be removable because she was acting in an old frontier time show, but she was also an actress in Hollywood. So it's Sarah Gilbert. No, it's not Sarah Gilbert. Did she play the character, Laura? She played Laura, yeah. Laura Ingalls.

Is that Melissa Gilbert? Melissa Gilbert, not Sarah Gilbert. they might be sisters actually I don't know anyway Melissa Gilbert Anyway so my dad was the orthodontist in town So she Had like

Broke or whatever this removable appliance That was the removable braces So that she could act But also get her teeth straightened So she came into my dad's office And he fixed them And she and her parents Presumably invited him to

Come to watch the filming of their show So I got her autograph on a copy Of one of the Little House and the Prairie books I still have it somewhere Melissa Gilbert. Sorry for forgetting your name. Sarah Gilbert is on half-sister, by the way. Half-sister.

Yeah, they are related. This is really good stuff here. Sarah Gilbert was on Roseanne, for those who are giving the score. TV shows. History TV shows. Somebody out there is. There's an upgrade historian out there

who's noting all this down saying, this is good stuff. This is good stuff. This is the stuff we pay for. Complete list of TV shows referenced by upgrade. Anyway, so I got her autograph. I was super nervous. she was literally like sitting

with her back against a tree trunk just hanging out this is when I learned that making television is incredibly boring and not exciting because we were there for what seemed like hours and they were doing a single shot it was a crane shot it was a fancy shot

where there's a girl running through the the field shot and paw paw and there was a crane shot so it's going up and all that but like they did that for hours and it was just super boring and then we left but I got her autograph and then they did a

charity. They also was another Old West show that was related to that, which was Father Murphy starring Merlin Olson,

who was a football player and they did they shot that in my hometown as well. They did like a charity softball game or something.

And after the game, I got his autograph. But that's it because as an adult, I decided that I am not going to approach famous people. Not only do I

not particularly value autographs, but I also do not want to interrupt famous people because they don't deserve that. So that's my answer is Melissa Gilbert is the greatest answer,

and I still do have that book somewhere. If you would like to send in a snow talk question of your own to help us open a future episode of the show, just go to UpgradeFeedback.com and send it in. We mentioned just a couple more weeks of the summer of fun, most likely so if you have a summer-themed question, now's the time to get it in. Thank you to Dan for that question.

I would like to just mention Upgrade Plus at this moment. So I think this would be a particularly... Sorry, those are the upgrade lasers. There you go. Those are bonus lasers right there. Yeah, exactly. That's a plus. I think this would be a great week to sign up and check it out if you haven't for two reasons.

One, we have four ads this week, so you would get even more bang for your buck, right? You'd have no advertisements in your show. But also, Jason came up with a great idea for an Upgrade Plus segment, which I've already decided is going to be an all-timer. The segment is going to be called The Phona. and it's quote from Jason from a text message from me sent over the weekend a stupid exercise where we reimagine every Apple app as being named in the style as finder and chooser so I have a list a long list of apps that like Apple first party apps and we're going to try and rename them now the thing is it's not as you may think would

be my expectation right how would you name we're not going to do this yet but how would you name Final Cut Pro in the form of finder we're going to have to work that out and that's going to be his Upgradeplus. If you go to Get Upgradeplus.com, you can sign up and you'll get longer, ad-free episodes of the show every week and a ton of bonus content every month from Relay overall, as well as access to our Discord where people listen live and talk and chat while we record the shows,

but also it's just a fun community of people, like-minded people. Go and check it out at getupgrayplus.com. Follow-up time. Relay turns up to 11 today because we turn 11 years old today as we record this show. That's right. Relay started on my son's 10th birthday

and that means yes, it is also my son's 21st birthday today. That is a more like horrifying thing in a way, like to imagine that kind of age gap. I guess all my legal obligations have been fulfilled as of today. So congratulations to me.

Congratulations to you. I actually think we maybe have more congratulations to you right now than to Relay, but nevertheless. I mean, he's still, he's sleeping in the house for another month before he goes back to school, but still. Well, okay, at least he's leaving again, right? It's not like he's just like come back again. I will put a link in the show notes to two things, which is one, a little piece that I wrote on my blog, talking about my feelings, reflections on this company being around for 11 years.

I'll also put a link in the show notes to a podcast feed called Departures here at Relay, where we put various and sundry live events and such. Stephen and I just recorded before Upgrade today We're here with Jason as you know I was going to call this show Jason Which is a Hi I don't know what that says about me

We recorded Annual Q&A that we do every year We actually do it as part of backstage Which is a member show But we're releasing it for everyone In the Partches feed today So if you want to check that out That will be there too

But thank you all for continuing to support us And I look forward to Upgrades 11th birthday next month Yes So I'm saying we're going to be talking about The Finder again and Upgrade Plus today, but we have some questions and thoughts on Finder. The Finder, the follow up. Alexis wrote in and said, Finder wasn't the Finder wasn't only a colloquial name. It was also there in the Apple menu in Classic Mac. It delightfully says, quote, about the finder was the first item in the Apple menu, I believe, until System 6. And then starting in System 7, it became a about this Macintosh. Unless I think you held down

like the option key and then clicked it and then I think you might have gotten about the finder still. But yeah, yeah, that's true. It's true. It was in there. It was not completely made up by us.

It was led by Apple. This is good. This is very good feedback about why me calling it the finder is not my fault. Tim wrote in and said regarding finder. I find it interest to contrast it

of an app like preview. I read preview as a verb versus a noun for finder there's an inconsistency there it could be called previewer some might call it the previewer going the other way around feels uncomfortable the finder could be called find yeah but we know it would be called files right because that's what they did is they made finder the finder uh for iOS and they called it files or filer i guess fine anyway stay tuned to Upgrade Plus for more of this

whatever this is. We had an anonymous informant wrote in to says Mike said a few weeks ago that he thinks the new Vision Pro headband will be like the one he used at WWDC. Incorrect!

The new knitted headband with top and rear sections will have built in whites in the rear knitting. I just want to say like this is still the point that I'm making. Like I didn't mean

that like we would get the exact one that we used during the demos at WWDC. just that I believe that Apple's next headband for the Vision Pro will have an integrated top piece as well as a back piece and that there will be some kind of more comfort options there. I don't know what I think about weights being in the band, though. I don't know what I think about that.

In theory, it makes sense, right? So, like, counterweight the front, but the front's really heavy. So, like, counterweighting that, I don't know how I feel about that. And it just weighs it all down. Yeah. Yeah, so we'll find out about that. Yeah, I've got some anonymous follow-up as well.

I'm making it anonymous. We were talking last week about, there was a question about, like, how does Apple know that half of the Apple Watch sales in the last quarter were new to Apple Watch? And you speculated about Apple IDs, and I speculated that it might just be surveys. We heard from a few people who said surveys are a thing that does happen. And they said, I got one, a post-sale survey. and they asked if I'd ever had a product of this kind before. I asked somebody I know who used to work at Apple

who said most likely they get it from post-purchase surveys along with a bit of estimation and extrapolation, which is why there's no specific number given. So that's the answer is when they're quoting these numbers, it's because they do a bunch of post-purchase surveys. And that's where they get that information, apparently. Interesting. Speaking of things that we spoke about last week,

blood oxygen on the Apple Watch. So Upgrading and Rob wrote in to ask what we thought was going on with Apple and blood oxygen sensors on the Apple Watch. And then on Thursday of last week, the functionality returned to US customers. Thank you, Rob.

Thank you, Rob. So you kicked someone in customs, I think, into gear. Rob's the chairman of the USPTO or something. I don't know. Essentially, Apple has been working with the U.S. Customs and probably the U.S. Trade, International Trade Commission, a patent trade organization, whatever it is, yes. And they have gotten a ruling of some kind that basically allows Apple to implement a convoluted

but functional system for getting blood oxygen readings for U.S. customers. Now, this is only needed, it's only applicable. If you're in America, and you have either some Apple Watch Series 9 models, the Apple Watch Series 10, and the Ultra 2. Yeah, it's Apple Watch is sold after January. something of 2024 in the U.S. Yeah. But it is, yeah, so basically what they've, this ruling says there are things the patent

covers that they're going to enforce and there are things that the patent does not cover. And that gives Apple the ability in the background, right? Because they built this as a feature. So this is a ruling that probably happened a while ago or that they, that was proposed by Apple a while ago, says if they use the oxygen sensor, but then they take the sensor data and pass it to the iPhone. and all the Apple Watch is being used as is as an oxygen reader and then the iPhone processes the sensor data and puts it in Apple Health, that gets around the Massimo patent.

And so that's what they've done. So there's a software update that came out. So basically if you're in one of these models that had no oxygen data, you will now get oxygen data, but it will not appear on your Apple Watch. It will appear in the health app on your iPhone. And this can be like the periodic stuff, like overnight. stuff and also manual reading so you can request a manual reading on your Apple Watch. Yeah.

But you don't see the result. You get the result. But look, the thing is this now solves quote and quote solves the problem, right? I could imagine Apple just they just forget about it now really with Massimo. Well, and somebody, I think it was Gruber pointed out that like this patent

expires in a couple years. So, you know, it may be that Apple's just decided we, you know, we're going to defy massimo we're just not going to pay these guys and we'll wait them out if we have to it increases their leverage of making a deal with them i'm not sure apple is willing to pay them a penny at this point but i genuinely don't think they need to now like the problem is essentially solved like the functionality is back on the apple watch and it's back on the apple watch in the ways

that it is helpful because as we said before like apple's system for blood oxygen it's like not really that helpful of like let me just take a reading right now if you need instant blood oxygen readings, you should buy one of those clip-on oxymeters because they're going to be better than the Apple watches. But it's better for like taking the things overnight for vitals and stuff like that and using that and your vitals tracking. Yeah, using it, yeah, using in your data overnight, uh, yeah, your data collection. It's just a, I mean, that's the point of it. It's, it's a data collection device and then you can look it up later on your iPhone or iPad and get all that information. And that's great. So yeah, it's all, and remember, this is US only and it's

for certain models only and they're going to be able to get through this. And yeah, I, I, not ideal, but solves the problem of having that sensor be completely turned off. And I bet the person in Apple Watch Logistics who made the argument, which I'm sure there was an argument that had to be made, about we're still going to ship these sensors in these devices, even though they're essentially, they do nothing, is very happy that maybe they want a debate they might have had to have with someone. Right, you know what I mean?

Because there's a scenario where they were just like, hey, we might as well save a little bit of money on this stuff and just not ship these sensors. I think that shows Apple's confidence that they're like, nope, we're not going to do it because one way or another this will all come back and we're not going to spend a dime making a lightweight version of this for the US market. So good for them. Just to kind of stretch that a little further, just Apple's general confidence that they can win any legal battle that they're put in, right? Because it's just like by might or right, we will win. And they've done what they needed to do. We spoke about kayaking a little bit in Snolte. talk last week. You referenced that Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Rang wrote an entire blog post about foldable kayaking. He did. He wrote two posts that were completely based on my things last week. And he said, look, it's not just, it's not just Jason, but it is this time. We love Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Rang, leancru.com slash all dash this for more. I got a lot of feedback from people about kayaks.

I appreciate that. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Rang has great wisdom, and so does my wife. And they both said the same thing to me, which is Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Rang put it as well, he's retired. He said, a non-retired person should probably not buy a kayak because you have things to do. And if you're going to buy a kayak, you should probably use it a lot. And he did a great post where he's going through canals. It's like, it's really awesome. But when I mentioned that I have a place that rents kayaks, it's like two miles from my house. He was like, just do that. And they have a, because, because they rent to tourists um they have like a volume discount where you can just buy you know a hundred dollars or whatever worth of rentals it's like or 20 hours worth of rentals for a big discount and just do that and he's right that's what i should totally do um and so i will do that i appreciate i got a lot of helpful people really trying to help me about uh how best for me to do a kayak and it's just it's funny because they make assumptions like i had somebody who said um just store it at the dock and it's like with the dock's in a park there's no there's no storage or to it's like I can't put my bike somewhere when I get like none of I believe me I've thought of all of these options I've thought about wheeling it there but it's a mile away and I know about myself that I'm not going to walk a mile dragging a kayak twice a week it's not going to happen right I need this to be as straightforward as possible I can get there fast in a car so you know anyway I appreciate all the kayak feedback but I think for now the

of my wife and the wisdom of Dr. Dr. Dr. Rang as a kayak owner and retired person to say, you have a job, just rent the kayaks and have fun. We're going to focus on that for a while. And you know what? If I rent the kayaks and have so much fun that I'm like, you know what, kayaking is for me. It's like I'm going to do curling and kayaking and that's what I'm going to be doing. Then great, I will do it then. But until then, I'm just going to go back to running a kayak when I feel the need. And that'll be fine. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough

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upgrade 20. Our thanks to Delete Me for their support of this show and Relay. We have a summer of fun topic this week. Oh yeah, we do. Listener Ryan, upgrading and Ryan wrote in and said During your leave, by the way. This is one of those things that I processed.

We have had since your leave, I compiled all the feedback. because I had to do all the feedback back then. And there were some really good ideas that came in during your leave that I ended up leaving at the bottom of our show document is, I think the header is something like good ideas. And this was one. So thank you, Ryan.

They wrote in and said, I have had a segment idea where you make a tier list of Apple products, but in terms of how much you think Apple cares about them, this is the key. So I have a list of what is pretty much every product that Apple makes, piece of hardware. We're going to tier list them. The way that tier lists work, there are six categories, starting at S going to A, B, C, D, F, that is the way that tier lists work. We're going to go through every product and we're going to assign it in that grade of S being the highest, F being the

lowest, of where we think Apple cares about this product. Make sense? Makes sense to me. Let's start with the overall S-tier category, which is iPhones. But we're going to break it down into each one. The regular iPhone plus Pro Pro Max and E. Should we start with a regular iPhone? Sure. This is interesting. I think this is already beginning at an interesting point. So the regular iPhone, right? So this is the standard iPhone with the name iPhone and then the number. What would be your opening on the tier list of where you think that this would live? Well, I was for comedy and also reality reasons. I was going to place every iPhone in S-tier, but that's not true.

Correct. And in fact, so a thing, breaking rumor that we're not going to talk about this week, but I'm going to mention it here because it's relevant is, and it harkens back to a theory of yours. You've been talking for a while about how Apple should ultimately do what Samsung does, which is have multiple product rollouts a year for the iPhone. And this goes with, you know, what I've been saying about how I wrote a piece last week on Mac World about this.

about how, like, Apple is so big now, it was all keying off of the discussions we had about the results. Apple's so huge right now that a lot of the tenants we hold about, like, well, Apple will never do that. Once you're this huge, Apple might do a lot of things that you don't expect. And one of them would be, what if they didn't release all the new iPhones in the fall, right? And you said this for a while. What if you spread that out a little bit?

And we've seen them prioritize models that are the more cutting edge models and all of that. And so it's possible that the iPhone will, at some point here, the non-pro iPhone will go in the spring instead of the fall, like that iPhone E model that came out this year. Yeah. Because of that, I kind of want to say A tier. Yeah, I think so. I feel like the iPhone Pro is the most important product, not the base iPhone. It's not the S-tier product because they don't put the most effort into this one. Like, they put a lot of effort.

They put more of effort into the regular iPhone. than some of the other iPhones, which will get to. But I feel like, yeah, that exemplifies it of if they're going to split the strategy, what do they start with, like what gets to September launch? And it's going to be the expensive phones, the pro phones. And so that would suggest that they consider those to be more important, right? Like that's, I think that's good. So, yeah, I think A tier.

I mean, well, I was going to say, let me get to it. iPhone Plus. I mean, this one. What do you think? Like a C tier? Yeah, this is. is, I mean, it's going away, right? It's going away, but also they didn't do anything.

They haven't done anything for it. Like, this phone does not benefit from the fact that it is what it is in any way, right? It is overshadowed by the Pro Max completely. It's the awkward tier. Like, realistically, like, I understand why they did the Plus, right, when they got rid of the Mini. But the Mini at least had a reason, like a reason that it was here. the plus the plus's reason is we need another iPhone it's not a great thing you want a pro max but don't want to spend

$1,100 great we got a thing that's not the pro max that costs less the air right which we're expecting to come this year that in theory would be a higher tier on the tier list because they're they're actually going to do for that of like not only is it a bigger screen it's like got other stuff like it's a phone all of its own what I was going to say is I think C is a good place for this. Really, the way to think about this is this is F tier for iPhones.

Absolutely. Yes. Well, yeah. I mean, it might be D tier for iPhones. I don't know. Actually, you know, I think I might write at the lowest, actually, like looking at the list. I think you might be right there. We'll get to that.

We'll jump in ahead. iPhone Pro, S tier, right? S tier. It's the most important product they make. Yeah. iPhone Pro Max? It's not as important. It's also S to it, though, right?

I mean, we can put it there. I'm not going to object to that. I know you have a soft spot in your heart for it, but I imagine they make a lot of money on the Pro Max. Yeah. A lot of money. I know that they don't necessarily do anything specific for the Pro Max, but they just put so much effort into the pro phones.

It's the big one, and sometimes they do, right? They used it for the bigger camera. They had that there first. It's their biggest. I bet that it's probably their most profitable, like, unit of, iPhone, right? Like, it's got the biggest margins. It's setting the bar. They want to push that price of like what people spend for iPhones higher and higher and higher. And one way you do is make this available. I would love to know how many they sell between these two and like if it changes

over time. Like that would be, man, I wish they reported that kind of stuff. Here's the interesting iPhone when we're tearing. I think the iPhone E model. So the 16E. I mean, actually be quite a lot of work into this phone this year, right? Like, if we, this was the SE, like if we did this just before, it'd be like, well, the SE is an FTF phone, so they just don't do anything for it.

Right. But they've done it, and they're probably going to keep doing it, and then they're going to move the other iPhones to release with it, possibly. Like, it's a, it's a, I think strategically it's a more important phone than the iPhone Plus. I'm not sure whether a reused, you know, mostly kind of

recycled set of, features is enough to raise it above the iPhone plus, but it's certainly not below it. I think for this particular year, it would be a B because it's new. They put effort into it, and they're actually using it as their testing ground for future innovations, right? Yeah. And so I feel like as time goes on, that may come down, but for this particular year, it feels like it would be a B phone.

All right, so that's the iPhones, all done. Great. Now we're on to the Mac. Yeah. Now, let me ask you a quick question, actually. So for the iPads, I broke them out into sizes, because I do think that's important, like the Air and the Pro, for reasons I'll get to. Okay. For the Macs, I did not do that.

I don't have any objection to that. Do you just think we just do the Macs all in one? I do think for the iPads, it does make sense with the Air and the Pro to actually talk about them separately. I mean, it was also that I had forgotten about the fact that there were the two MacBookers. It's fine. There's two MacBook Pros, too. Yeah. It's fine.

We're not going to break it down by specs, right? And I would argue that at that point, those screens are just specs. That's a good point. Yeah. All right, MacBook Air. It's S tier, right? Like, I mean, come on. Okay.

Right? Here's, it's the S tier of Max. Okay. Oh, okay. But, like, can any Macs? B, S tier? Is that the question you're asking? This is going to be my argument is there is no non-Iphone that is S-tier.

We could argue about A-tier. There is no non-Iphone that is S-tier in Apple's, in terms of how Apple cares about them. I might say that the A-Mac tier is a B, but it's certainly not higher than an A. That is a great point that I had not considered. Like, in my mind, I'm coming at it from the way that you have realized, which is like, oh, I'm looking at each product and ranking them. But no, we're doing the entire product line in relation to each other, right?

Yes, we are. Yes, and I think, I actually think there is one, there is at least one more S-tier product, but we'll get to it later. Okay. But I think that, yes, it would be hard to argue

any Mac as being up on that top, top tier. It's not, I mean, I could make the argument that there is no non-Iphone higher than B-tier in Apple's estimation. Look, the iPhone is half of Apple's revenue. Yeah. The Mac is 10%. The Mac is one-fifth of Apple's revenue. But. Or of the iPhone revenue.

We are coming at this of like how much do we think Apple care about them? And it's not necessarily a revenue thing. I agree. I agree. And that's why I think you can't have a non-Iphone in S-tier. You can't have a Mac in S-tier. But I'm okay with saying the MacBook Air is a-tier. And I think that that, I think the MacBook Air is an A-tier product for two reasons. One is just Apple Silicon in general and clearly how much effort they have put into that. And then also like the amount of work they put into the redesign of the MacBook Air, which they did not need to go so. hard on. Sure. It's the best-selling computer in the world. It's the best-selling computer in the world. Period. Period. Yeah. And it's... Too bad.

It's just a computer and not a phone, but yes. It is the best computer of all time. The M2 and onwards MacBook Air, absolutely rules. Now, this is an interesting one. Macbook Pro. I would say it's either A or B.

I think the current MacBook Pro has fallen behind a little bit. in a couple of areas, right? Like, it should be an OLED screen, but it isn't. Like, the screen's great, but it should be OLED.

I think it should have a touchscreen, and I think it should have, say, cellular or whatever, right? Like, I think it should have these features. And so I, and I feel like the MacBook Air will obviously get some of this stuff, but I don't expect it to have, like what I would consider the absolute top. that it could have spec-wise.

So your argument is basically that although the MacBook Pro is great and it's important to Apple, it's obviously not so high in their priority list that they're pushing it to the cutting edge at a faster pace than they are. Well, I feel like they pushed the MacBook Air kind of faster maybe. What do you think? Let's put it a B tier. I could see A tier or B-tier. I think it's not as important as the MacBook Air, period.

However, it is important. It spans three of their four chip levels for Apple Silicon. It is the, look, almost all the Macs that are sold their laptops. So you've got your pro laptop and your general interest laptop. And the pro laptop is profitable. It's important. It's not as high volume as the air. So, again, I can make the argument for A tier that, like, the air and the pro, that's the Mac done.

I'm willing to put a B tier because of what you said. But, you know, the danger there is that they're obviously working on it. They're going to have an OLED, you know, touchscreen cellular. We just happen to be at this point in the cycle. I don't think it necessarily means that Apple thinks less of the MacBook Pro. But also, I know, we've got a higher percentage. Let's put it this way. We have a higher percentage of listeners who are MacBook Pro users than the world has, right?

The world uses MacBook Air. yeah but um but i appreciate that our audience i mean i'm using a macbook pro right now right like i get it but um so i i i'm on the fence about it i'm willing to say you know i'm willing to say b um but i could also say a i think i could i could go between b and a i i think too so maybe we'll reshuffle that one and i don't know if i'm i just feel like maybe maybe they're holding on to some features that they could put into that product because they're waiting for a bigger redesign. They're not being as aggressive as that maybe they could be. I also think that the downward pressure of the iPhone, pushing the Mac, a Mac that could be A or B, that means it could be, it should

be B. Yeah. Because of the iPhone, just exerting its force from above. IMAQ. Okay. IMac. Well, you know, they tell us it's important. I mean, okay, look, I love the IMAQ. What a great product. they do not do what they should be doing with this product, right? They did a lot with it, right? With the M1, fantastic. Yeah. But there should be another size.

There should be another size. There should be another size. It should have target display mode. Yeah. There's a lot of things that could be better about it. They could, yeah. I would say D tier. I would say, I think D tier is good.

Because it's still a really good computer and they've given it a refresh, but like, there's just, a lot left on the table. Like stuff that we want, right? It's not, and it's not its fault. And it's not, I mean, Apple's right in a certain degree. It's a desktop computer.

Like, it has a niche, which is very nice. But like, it's a desktop computer. People don't buy desktop computers anymore. I'm sorry, those of you who do. I know you exist, but I'm just saying, at least three quarters, more than three quarters probably of Macs sold. You know, I guess it's probably more like 80 plus percent of Macs sold. are laptops.

Yeah. So even the most important desktop computer would not be that high. Talking about desktops, Mac Mini. Mac Mini. Well, it gets updated

once every 10 years in terms of its physical design, but it did just get it. It did just get a killer update. It did, but how much does Apple care about it?

Yeah. I mean, they cared about it. it's like the iMac right they cared about it in the time of which is recent but like when are they going to do it more you know like when are they going to when are they going to give it more um hmm well here's the question right to apple now today is the mac mini or the iMac more important i would say the mac minnie is maybe more important i think the mac minnie is more important but let's bring in another one here okay i also

could make the case for the Mac Studio because the Mac Studio is where Apple chose to unload their highest end chips. And that I think that's interesting too. I think that that shows that Apple has some degree of care over the Mac Studio because they've loaded the best chips

into the Mac Studio. And in fact, they allowed the Mac Studio to meet and then surpass the Mac Pro. Yeah. Do they like, do they care more about the Mac Studio than the Mac Mini? I get that the Mac Mini just got a great redesign but the old Mac Mini

was there for 10 or 15 years Well let's decide where the Mac Studio is going to go And then we'll look at the Mac Mini Yeah I mean I don't think they can go where the laptops are This is my argument is I think the Mac Studio is a C tier I would agree with that So then where does the Mac Mini go

This is the thing I don't I mean I would lean to see For the Mac Mini Let's see we love the Mac Mini But does Apple love the Mac Mini? Or does Apple just kind of keep it as a product in its lineup?

And we're just so hot on the latest redesign. But they did so much to that. Like that they, again, like, all they needed to do was just put enough Apple Silicon Chip in the existing case. But they were like, here you go. Here's like the most perfect little computer you've ever imagined. You know, like here it is. Like, you can throw this thing in a backpack.

You take a desktop Mac in a backpack. Let's put it at C. I think it's below the studio in my opinion but I think it's above the iMac so we'll just stick it in there if we were ranking them within the tiers which is a conversation later maybe or another time

like yeah the Mac Mini is less important than the Mac Studio but all right it is the last Mac Mac Pro F get it in F tier doesn't matter what they do they have just let this product go get it in there

put the lid on so it doesn't smell up your house It's that this product could not scream more end of life. You know what I mean? Like they don't care. They do not care about this thing. I think they super regret. Here's the thing is I think we talk about that that Mac Pro roundtable.

Remember that? Yeah. After all the failure that they had with the trash can. Yep. And they committed to a new Mac Pro with expansion. I bet you money that they have regretted that. for years because in hindsight

as they've tracked Apple Silicon the Mac Studio is what makes sense Yes, it's the Mac Pro it is the Mac Pro yes and there's no I mean there's basically

no argument even for internal expansion because you can do external expansion with Thunderbolt and there may be some very niche cases but if I'm Apple and I'm looking at cold hard reality

the Mac Pro does not have to exist it has not have to have to exist for years any, most of the users got pushed out by the trash can anyway, right? Like, I think they regret the product's existence. And I honestly think that if they keep updating the MacPro in that case, it's mostly they're just, it's a sunk cost. And they just keep on like, well, we designed the case.

Let's keep it around. It would be embarrassing if we just did this and then we killed it. But I'm telling you, I think Apple would rather the Mac Pro stop existing. Yeah. There are a few products that are like down at the very bottom and I'm excited to get to them. The Mac Pro is like down at the very bottom and there is definitely one product which is good friends of the Mac Pro that is like right down at the bottom with it. You know, you get you want to put it down and say there's something that was announced at the same time as this Mac Pro, which very much is from a different era essentially but they're still selling it and yeah, FTA at MacPro. All right. iPad. Sorry, John.

No, John knows. You know, no one knows one in John Syracuse are at this point. We don't hate the Mac Pro. We're saying Apple hates the Mac Pro, just to be clear. Sometimes I hate it a little bit, like, just, you know, like just because, that's fine. That's you. Because, like, it doesn't make sense. All right, iPad.

Let's start with iPad and just run-in-the-mill iPad. Run-of-the-mill iPad. Yeah. I try not to call it the cheap iPad or the base iPad, you know, like, because it sounds like I'm kind of talking down on it, which I'm not, you know, it just, it is, it just continues to be currently running an A-16 chip.

Here's my challenge here. Oh, I have a, okay, I have an argument for this. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Colin. Here's my challenge, though. Follow me here. Yeah. Ryan says, in terms of how much you think Apple cares about them. That's what Ryan said.

Yeah. Here's the problem. Apple contains multitudes. Apple, there are the product people at Apple, and there are the sales and revenues the new people at Apple. And what I would say is, I don't think the product people care about the base iPad at all. It's just kind of a cheap thing that they make out of other parts of other iPads. I think the strategy and money people care about it a great deal because it allows them

to set a low price for the iPad. It gets them into schools. They probably sell a lot of them because people are like, well, I want an iPad, but I'm not going to spend any kind of money on an iPad. And So you want to try to set a low price. So my question is, where do we see it in terms of how much Apple cares about it? Because I think Apple cares that this product exists at a price that's not, and isn't embarrassing. But I'm not sure how much they care beyond that. There's a piece of information that is helpful. They revised this product in March of 2025, and they put the A16 chip in it, which cannot support Apple Intelligence.

Now, you can argue whether Apple intelligence needs to be here, but you've got to say that Apple cares about Apple intelligence, but they didn't feel that it was worth putting. In every other product. Every product that could support Apple intelligence has gotten a revision to support Apple intelligence if it hadn't already. They revised this product and did not put a chip in it that could support Apple intelligence. That, I think, put.

puts it low. That puts it low. I agree. I agree. So where do we put it? F tier, D tier? I think it's financial. I would say from a product perspective,

it's F tier. From a financial perspective, it's probably C tier or B tier. So I would be comfortable putting it in like D tier. Yeah. I think I, so like, okay, is that if we've got the Mac Pro in the F tier,

I feel like that's starting to color the F tier in my mind and I don't think this is an F tier product let's put it in D but put an asterisk next to it because whenever I do tier lists I like to give the opportunity at the end to do a reshuffle and I think that this could be a reshuffle product

depending on where we're at the end because I could make an argument that this is an F tier for the chip that they've gone in it, you know? Yeah. iPad Air 11 inch. Okay. Talk to me about 11 and 13 and what you're thinking here, because this is a lot. Okay, so they have a 13-inch iPad Air, a thing I never remember.

Yeah. Now, I don't know what that says. I just know, for whatever reason, and I feel like I am someone who pays a lot of attention. Okay. That I can never remember that the 13-inch iPad Air exists. what I'm going to say is I don't think these need to be broken out because I don't think a skew that is not that interesting when it's down is not necessary so let's just say iPad Air iPad Pro iPad Mini cool iPad Air then it's great product like great iPad iPad

and I think they have put a perplexing amount of effort into the iPad air over the years when you compare it to the iPad Pro, right? My theory is you have to have the iPad Air in order to have the iPad Pro. Because the iPad Pro is where they are building the future of the iPad product line by using expensive components and really pushing what an iPad can be.

But they came to the realization, because we're coming up, November, I think, or October, is going to be the 10th anniversary of the iPad Pro. Oh, wow. It was 2015. It was September.

was in the announcement the reason I know this the original iPad Pro is this was actually

the beginning of Mike was right because I made an argument that they would announce

the iPad Pro alongside the iPhone because they wanted people to care about it and I

had an argument with Steven and I got E.com connected about this and then

it didn't ship until November didn't ship until November but it was announced with the iPhone so we can

use any anniversary but let's just say this fall is 10 years of the iPad So I think the iPad Pro is what Apple cares about technically.

I think that is where they are building the platform. I think that that is when people at Apple think about the iPad, they think about the iPad Pro. The iPad Air is a very Tim Cook's Apple product. It is essentially an old iPad Pro that is cheaper, but they're not going to keep selling the iPad Pro from four years ago. So instead, they cycle it into a new iPad air for a lower price, which is great because have you seen what the iPad Pro costs? It really is an extreme product with a, I would say, its audience is people who don't care that it's expensive because they've got enough money that it doesn't matter or people

who love, love, love, love their iPads. And even then you could love, you could love, love the iPad and do an iPad air. So I think the iPad Air, like, I think it matters. in terms of Apple's strategy, but at the same time, I think that it is not that interesting technically because Apple care is more about maintaining a price point with technology that's a little bit older

than what's on the cutting edge with the pro. That's my theory there. Okay. So it's a good product. It's a great product. In fact, it's probably the iPad that I would recommend most people buy. Yes. Does Apple care about it in a way, again,

in a way beyond the place that it holds down in the market. I don't know. Let's decide where the iPad Pro is going to go. I would argue a tier. The iPad Pro is so good. It's so good.

It is. It's very expensive. So? That means they probably care about it a lot. Yeah. Because it makes them a lot of money. Like the iPad Pro, you get the iPad, you get the keyboard,

and you get the pencil, right, that's what you're selling to your customers. The OLED screen is unbelievable. It's the best display I own. I use one every day. I get it. I think the iPad Pro is an A-tier product. So part of me wants to say there's no iPad that reaches the A-tier.

What? But you're happy with the MacBook Air? Only barely. Also, I think that the MacBook Air is probably a better selling product than the iPad Pro. Yeah, probably. But how much money do they make? So here's my counter about iPad Pro, which is if it's about them caring, not only do they care in terms of engineering that thing, like it would be very easy to say. We're not going to even make a $1,000 plus iPad because why?

Who wants it? But they do it. They do it all the time. And they pour their heart and soul into it. We made it thinner. We got a different pencil. We got this wild OLED, you know, double. O-led thing, right?

Like, we are pushing this to the limits. On top of that, we are coming off of, or we're in the midst of iPadOS 26, which is a culmination of a multi-year engineering process to rethink windowing on the iPad, which is a feature that is available everywhere, but I would say shows that Apple cares about pro uses of the iPad.

Yes. So that would be the thing that would tip me into A-tier. I think it's A or B. I think it's A because they continue to put, as you rightly say, so much effort into it for a product that surely isn't as popular as the effort would suggest, right? So, yeah, I feel like A tier. So then Air is obviously not going to be A tier. I don't think it's a B tier.

I feel like maybe the iPad Air is a C-tier product. What do you think? I don't know. It's even B or C. I'm just not sure where... I made the case against, right? Which is that it is kind of there to hold down a price point. Again, I just want to say we are trying to put ourselves in Apple's shoes in terms of how much Apple cares as we observe it versus our feelings about it.

Because I'm going to put the iPad air low, but it's probably the iPad that's right for most people. You don't want just the base model. It's a great value. it's a great mix of features and price. So that leads to a great value. That said, it's always felt like an outlier. It exists to fill a price point. I think C tier is fine.

We can't have too many iPads too high on this to your list, honestly. I agree with you. They do, I mean, they put a lot of effort into it from the accessories too, right? like they give it the best accessories. Every iPad gets accessories. Yeah, but a lot of its accessories are just recycled iPad Pro accessories. Yeah, I think C-tier feels right. Which is, you say, that's pretty good for any iPad.

For an iPad. Realistically. But I think, see, the things the iPad Pro, to restate it, well, I think there is a big difference is they put an oversized amount of effort into that product for what it brings in to them, I think. Like, the engineering that goes into the iPad Pro is way more than they see back from it, I think. So that feels good to me. I agree, because they care.

There is one more iPad left, which is the iPad Mini. Mm-hmm. The D or an F, Mike. It's not an F. It's not an F. It is, I mean, and they have updated. Boy, the F is really just the Mac Pro is stunk up that category, right? I think it's a D because I think as cool as that product is, and you're,

You're somebody who's used iPad Mini. Apple doesn't really prioritize it. It gets updated every few years, and that's it. Yeah, I feel like the iPad Mini and the Mac Mini are kind of in like a similar spot right now, or it's like maybe every now and again now we're going to get a big jump, you know? Like when they redesigned that iPad Mini to the current generation, it was like, whoa, look what they've done. You know, and we've had that in the past with the iPad Mini. But that feels good.

D-tier for iPad Mini. D-tier. That feels good. Not that it isn't great. It's that Apple doesn't. care. I'm still got my eye on iPad, though, as to whether it stays there. I don't know how I feel about that yet. We'll see. This episode is also brought to you by P, a different kind of water app. Feel better every day by adopting one simple habit. Most hydration apps ask you to

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And we'll start with Apple Watch series. So this would be like 10, 11, that kind of thing. How much does Apple care about Apple Watch? For some reason, in all of the conversation about iPad, I haven't really considered that the Apple Watch is here as like a thing for us to talk

you know what I mean? It's like I just kind of left my brain Mm-hmm And I'm not A low priority for us then I mean maybe All right

So we've got series Ultra and Essie Right And I I feel very confident About Essie Okay where does it go F

Okay It's just a It was a bad product When it was introduced Yeah Right It was too expensive And it was just

not what we wanted it to be, right? And for the people that this product is for, it doesn't do a very good job of serving them. And I think, have they ever updated it? I don't think so. Or maybe once? But again, I still don't feel like this product

has gotten to where it should have ever been for what they're trying. It is the second generation Apple Watchers C. I think when they went from the series three screen to the series like four style screen right where it got a little bit bigger I just think that there is a really interesting product

for a cheaper Apple watch that Apple have not met right like there is something you could do here where essentially this is an Apple watch for kids this thing should be made of plastic right like or something it should be in more colors then midnight, starlight, and silver. You know what I mean? Like, this is a product that I think should, they should have done more with

and they've never lived up to what the potential of this product could have been, which could have been a really fun entry level product. It was too expensive when it started, all that kind of stuff. So I would say the SE is an F tier product. I'm willing to go along with that. That's fine.

Now, the Ultra in the series. So the Ultra, they've obviously put a lot of effort into, but then they've kind of stalled on it, right? Where like from the one to the two was barely any change. Yeah, and then nothing the next year. And then they were like, hey, we've got a new one. It's blackmail. It's like, I'm not sure that you've really done what we were hoping for.

Yeah, remember we went to the Apple store in Tennessee so that we could see the black ultra two because it was not. I'm not going to buy it. No new Ultra. I got my Apple Watch there then. That was great. But mine is a series. I think Ultra is lower than series.

I think Apple Watch is probably low to begin with. So I don't know, C&D. I think, yeah, I think so. It is an interesting thing of like, how much do they care about it? Like, I do feel like they do care about this product a lot. Well, sure. They care about the iPhone Plus and the Mac Mini and the iPad.

too but how much compared to like in the great scheme of caring yeah okay yes all right so the apple watch series goes at c the ultra at d and scef that feels yeah that feels good sure all right big big category here home and accessories yeah all right i want to just jump ahead real quick in our list okay well maybe not i i i think airports are airports pro okay one of those maybe could be an

S-tier product I okay I agree I think the AirPods Pro is an S-tier product I think it's an S-tier product I agree

there that's it's so good right and I mean yes we've sat with this version for a little bit of time maybe longer than we would want

but realistically I don't have anything I wanted to do you know like and they're still rolling out they rolled out the hearing aids to the AirPods Pro 2? I'm like, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. To roll it in there, throw it in there. It's a, it is a, uh, stealth, uh, continues to be a dominant hit product for Apple, I think. There is no world in which a pair of Bluetooth headphones should have the impact that it, that it has. You know what I mean? Like, and it has a huge impact. AirPods regular, just got an update. I think it's good. I think, I don't know. I'd say kind of A or B, B?

You know what? No, I'd say A because they put noise cancellation in it. Yeah, it's true. They do care. They did not need to do that. Like, they could have just left that as it was. But by putting the active noise cancellation in the AirPods, that was a big surprise. Yeah. Okay. I will put it at A. Mike, I have done you the convenience of placing the AirPods Macs max in the F tier. This product, God damn it. Like, what are you doing? It is to you what the Mac Pro is to John Syracusa.

Yes. It is. We should have a t-shirt that shows the AirPods Max and says, believe. We should do that t-shirt. No one will buy it. Again, they launched it and it was like, oh, you missed the mark. Right. But like, this is a good product. I can't wait to see what you do with it. And they did nothing with it. No, they did something and it was all wrong. Right. They revised it. They fixed nothing. They put USBC on it. then it didn't have all the features that even the previous model had.

And then six months later they shipped a thing that was like, oh, now here's the adapter that we couldn't be bothered. Nothing says F tier like we shipped a product before the adapter was ready. And then six months later, the adapter showed up. It's like because we don't care. And then they didn't do the one thing that they needed to do, which was to put the right chip in it so it could even compare on functionality to the AirPods pro. Too much effort, too much effort required.

Unbelievable. Like, do you leave it on the H1 chip? Like, what is, what is going on here? Do you know what has the H2 chip? Airpods 4? Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

I know. Mike's hot about this. Oh, it drives me mad. It drives me mad. Dunk. It's in the bin. It's an F tier. Absolute F tier.

Okay. Apple Vision Pro. Apple cares about it a lot. They care about it way more. Then they probably should, sure. I mean... I don't know what that means. B.

I mean, they care about it a lot. They've sold none of them, but it's a, it is an important part of their future. So in terms of how they care about it, they have a whole OS group, you know, I think that they still care about it, but the problem is that it's just not there. All right.

Let me... Let's go back. I don't know, B, C, something like that. We put iPad Pro in A. because it's like a product that they put a lot of effort into and they an iPad OS 26 was made around it.

Yeah. They built a whole operating system for the Vision Pro. And they have all this content. There's not enough of it, but they're doing it. Like, they are committed to this. Yeah.

Well, let's put an A tier. I love it because if people are going to lose their minds, because I think in Apple's mind it is A tier. I think it is a flagship of a platform for the future. Don't do this, but for Tim Cook, this might be an S-tier product because it's like, yeah, they absolutely believe that this is the beginning of a future. And Apple very rarely has a product like this, which is why I keep coming back to when people are like, oh, Vision Pro, nobody cares. It's like very rarely does Apple ship a product and say, look, we know that nobody's going to want this for five years or 10 years, but we don't care because it's the future and we're going to get started now.

just keeping it in the lab. So, yeah, I think it matters to them. I do. Honestly, I'm excited about the feedback of us putting the Apple Watch in C and the Vision Pro in A. Like, for that reason alone, I like this. Yeah. Yeah, well, what are the stars of wearables home and accessories, friends?

What are the stars of that category, AirPods and Vision Pro? That's what we're saying. Tear lists. Speaking of which. This is what they are. Mike, I'm feeling like I need to open the bin again. for the Apple TV. No.

You don't think so? No, the remote. I don't know what you're saying. The OS is completely abandoned. Yeah, but like... And they haven't updated the hardware in a zillion years, and when they do,

maybe this fall, it'll be a chip update. You know? I don't think it's an F-Tip. I do not think the Apple TV is an F-Tor product. In its category, it's so much better.

You went down this whole road, right? it is it is but does apple care i i i the tvOS tvOS is an embarrassment yes i agree with that it's an embarrassment they have made what changes they make are irrelevant and the changes they need to make they refuse to do and they clearly there's nobody working on it they need to change the whole business model and they won't do it right like that's the so they can get i don't even care if they change the business model i don't mind that it's a premium box that is better because there's Look, having tried all of these, there's very little competition in the TV streaming box category. Most TV interfaces are full of ads and trackers and garbage.

They're Roku or Amazon. The Amazon experience is so terrible. Although it's got features that Apple doesn't. But everything, they're trying to sell something to you. It's so, again, if you don't care, you don't care. But like, there is room for Apple to come in and say, look, here, everything's a little bit quieter. We are not aggressively trying to, you know, push ads. in your face. They do some marketing of their own stuff, but it's nothing like on the other

platforms. The only one that comes close to it is Google. Google for Pete's sake. And Google is apparently phasing out their boxes. So I think Apple being in this space is great, but the problem is I don't think they care. I think they're like, it's good enough, whatever, and it's not good enough. So, you know, strategically. Put it in F. Because I feel like I've got a bunch of my hobby horses in F. Okay. You know? And so I think, I think you deserve to have one. I mean, I would love to be proven wrong, but the last five years of TVOS have proven me right. Yeah.

Wait to you hear about, if we get the room around up today, wait to you hear what I got for you. You're going to be so excited. Oh, man. Yehaw. HomePod, F tier. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a misfire. Yeah.

And they're just keeping it around because they've got something else coming that they think matters, but I think the home pod is a, it was a misfire and a failure, yeah. HomePod Mini? D-tier, yeah. I don't think it's a, I don't think it's an F-Tor product. I think they've sold way more of those and that it's a more appropriate product, even though I think they also don't care so much.

Here's an interesting category for peripherals. Here's a bunch of peripherals. Sure, let's do it. Apple Pencil. And which is going to lump all these together? Apple Pencil. A-tier. Yeah.

Apple Pencil Pro is brilliant. They care a lot about that It's a huge differentiator for the iPad They care a lot about it Magic keyboard for iPad I think it's A or B I mean they re-engineer it I think it's a B-tier

Because it's really good But it brings a bunch of its own problems To the iPad experience right Like It's not I mean and I don't know If they'll ever do But it's not as lappable as you'd want it to be

Right But they care But they care about it They absolutely do care And I think B-tier Is a great area for it I think that's fine. Regular magic keyboard.

Well, the IMAX at D, so... I feel like it's a D2 product, yeah. Yeah. Magic mouse? F2, yeah, mouse sucks. Magic trackpad? I'm going to say, okay, hear me out. It could go where the keyboard goes, but what I will say is Apple's track pads,

people don't pay attention to this, Mac users don't understand unless you use Windows and have used a trackpad on Windows you don't understand how much better Apple's trackpads are than everybody else's. Apple's track pads, Apple's been working

on track pads for like 35 years. They are the software, the multi-touch, everything that they're doing there, it is the best. And I think they take great pride in it. And I think This is why I would say that it's C tier and not D tier is magic keyboard matters because they need to make a keyboard that they can ship and sell and stuff, but you can use other keyboards and many of us do with a Mac.

I'm never going to use another pointing device than a magic keyboard. Never, ever, ever. It's that good. And I think it's that important that like basically it's a must have Mac accessory in a way that the magic keyboard is not. Let me offer one point, which is touch ID. Sure. Touch ID on the keyboard. I wish they would have put it on the trackpad, too. I understand, well, I understand why they don't because they live in a world where the magic keyboard just comes along with the magic trackpad. But the rest of us don't live in that world, and that's their fantasy. But I'm not going to hold it against the trackpad too much, I think.

I would advocate C just because I feel like it's, you know, everybody needs one. Yes. Yeah, okay. I mean, I love it. And they put a lot of effort into it being good. Yep. Air tag. When did the air tag come out, Mike?

A long time ago. But it's great, though. I love the air tag. Here's what I'll say about the air tag. Air tag caused Apple a lot of problems with publicity. Yeah, it did. Because even though all our devices track us and that there were many other devices, this goes back to, us talking about the scale of Apple.

There are many other devices out there that do what the air tag does, but the air tag got a lot of press. Why? Because the scale of Apple, because Apple sells so much more of these things than tile or whatever. And so I bring that up to say, Apple still keep it on with the air tag.

I think that means that Apple thinks it's an important part of the Find My ecosystem, even if it gives them the occasional story about how I was stocked with an air tag. Yeah. So I think it matters to them. Yeah. See?

I think C is a good spot because they could have abandoned it, couldn't they? That's my point is you could just say, well, forget it. We're going to make this a third-party opportunity, and they haven't done that. This product is the privacy advocates, there is nothing you're going to be able to do to make some privacy advocates feel like this is a good product ever, like no matter what they do. But again, I'll say. I'll say focusing on this product is misleading because it's the highest profile product in the category. There are many other products. And in fact, what you want is the high profile products to have a company behind them that is actually trying to solve the problems.

Whereas if Apple's not in this category, whatever the market leader is going to be, I'm telling you, they're not going to be as committed to privacy as Apple. Yeah. I mean, arguably, Apple making the air tag made the entire product category better. that's right because it created the criticism and Apple's worked with Google on a bunch of things regarding the fine my network and like because they legitimately don't want this thing used for evil but at the same time all of us have devices that track us yep and pretending that the air tag is the thing that creates danger and surveillance I think is misguided because there are lots of other places where we are being surveilled or could be surveilled yep all right final two

studio display and the pro display xDR now the pro display xDR is an f tier product yes right because come on they released it for years and they abandoned it completely and if they redo a new one you know so be it but like they've abandoned that product there's not another one of these there's just going to be a rid of a studio display yeah i think so studio display i don't think they actually care that much about it and i would put it in the detail i mean i have two but i don't think they care about an external display. I mean, they saw a lot of laptops, so maybe they care about it a little bit. I mean, I could see an argument for C-tier, but it's also been so long than they haven't

updated it. No, the panel's not good enough to call it. The panel is ancient. So I think they, I like mine a lot, but I think D is the amount of effort that Apple puts into it. All right. So looking at this, how do you feel? Do you want to make any changes? I don't.

Okay. We can leave it as it is. I think it's pretty good. is where we are. F tier. Mac Pro, Apple Watch, S.E, AirPods, AirPods, Macs, Apple TV, HomePod, Magic Mouse, Pro Display, XDR. Again, this is not what we think. This is what we think Apple thinks. D tier. IMac, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch Ultra, HomePod Mini, Magic Keyboard Studio Display. Yep.

C tier. iPhone Plus, Mac Studio, Mac Mini, iPad, Air, Apple Watch Series, Magic Trackpad, Air Tag. B tier iPhone E Macbook Pro Magic keyboard for iPad Great A tier

iPhone Macbook Air iPad Pro AirPods Vision Pro Apple Pencil Yeah Great We just the troll

The troll symbol of the Vision Pro there But I think that they care I think they care Yeah I agree S tier iPhone Pro iPhone Pro Max

Airpods Pro I love that That is analysis happening right there That is wisdom I want to thank Ryan for this excellent suggestion for a summer of fun topic. I was very happy when it came in in the depths of the Mike paternity leave, and I said this might be a summer of fun topic.

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to get 10% of your first purchase and show you support for this show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of upgrade and relay. It's time for a room around up. E-ha. Mark German has shared a report. where he is kind of giving some more information and doubling down on some previous stuff

around some product areas that Apple is exploring. We're going to start with Jason's favorite, the tabletop robot, which is... It's a robot. For those that need to remember, it is essentially an iPad mounted on a movable limb, therefore robot. It's a few things about this.

So this robot, you know, it's like it sits on your counter or whatever and it looks at you when you're speaking, so you speak to the computer and it would turn around and look at you. I want to give a quote, Apple imagines placing it on a desk or a kitchen counter and using it to get work done, consume media and manage your day. I do think, if this was a good product, it would be super cool to have a computer that has this level of animation and movement to it.

Yeah, this is skewomorphism, I guess, but it's in the real world. So it's, look, there was that scientific paper that they did that showed that video, demo video. And the whole idea there was like it was an arm that was like helping you looking for stuff and picking things up and stuff like that. We'll call it E-L-E-G-N-T. And I will say in this report, internally there are people referring to this product, like the actual, the home product, as the Luxo Lamp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what they were emulating with this. Yeah, think, imagine, honestly, imagine the G4I Mac, right?

It's got a base, and he describes it as like a half a ball. I mean, it's like a G4I Mac, and then there's an arm, and then there's a screen at the end. And if you can imagine an animated version of that that can turn and move and follow you around, okay, first off, if I'm in the kitchen and I'm working on stuff, having the screen facing me when I'm trying to look at something on the screen, that's nice. If you're doing it with FaceTime, again, you can use the camera to do that thing, But you could also, I use an Insta 360 camera for my stuff now. And you know what is good is if you have a good camera and it moves where you want

instead of it just panning around a distorted widescreen image. Like actual moving, it's better. It is better. So adding personality to it, I feel like you're going to need to dial that in. I felt like this when I was watching those videos. There are moments where I thought, just do it. Stop pretending to be a cartoon animal. Just do it.

So I think you want to dial in sort of like the personality or give people the option of dialing in the personality. But that said, as you pointed out, if they do this right, because again, this is a thing that I have arguments with people online about all the time when things get announced, but they haven't been produced yet,

is ideas don't matter. It's execution that matter. So if this is a good product, if Apple can do this right and bring an Apple level of like detail, but also kind of like personality, dare I say, whimsy to it, where this thing, where people, I would much rather people personify a little digital assistant

that lives on their table and moves around than a chatbot, honestly, because this thing exists in the real world. And if it's like moving and doing stuff for you and all that, and you think, oh, it's adorable. It's like my little friend. I think that that could be really great. I think it also could be really bad. And so I hope they do a good job with it.

It's not a robot, but I like, I think it could be very interesting if this was a, I understand why they're investigating this, right? The idea that you improve usability and connection with the product by adding this level of intelligence and movement and flexibility. I think that's very interesting. This isn't of a product that relies on. on the new Siri for intelligence. That makes me nervous. I have more about this in a minute. This is an LLM-powered Siri,

but it's like how many products are going to be reliant on this technology that Apple have yet to build? The previous product relies on it too. And that's why they haven't released it because the one that's just a screen, because it also is going to rely on this. I mean, I don't think they're wrong.

On one level, I think a screen that has no intelligence in it is no good at this point. You really do need some level of it, but it needs to work. And so for me, that's the question here is they're not wrong and relying on it, but they got to get it. It's another product line that just completely is dependent on them succeeding with their voice assistant stuff. Especially when you hear about things like this. Now, I always say this is, you know, this isn't an actual feature that Apple have announced. So just like, well, I'll read you this quote.

The idea is that the device would act like a person in a room. It could interrupt a conversation between friends about dinner plans, say, and suggest nearby restaurants or relevant recipes. This is an incredibly fine line to make work. Now, look, if you can do this, right? And it works, awesome. But it ain't gone. I can't.

I don't have faith that this would be something that people would like. If you could get 99% of the way there, it would work. You know what I mean? What I would say is, interrupt a conversation between friends should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happen. That's what I would say. I would say, if I've got a smart assistant in the room

and I know it's listening to me, what it should be listening for is a cue for me to see. say, a robot, uh, what do you think? Yeah. What do you think about that? And if it can read my tone of voice and it knows I'm talking to it and then it's like, oh, uh, and it knows the context and it can say, oh, well, they were talking about this. It's like, yeah, well, there are some reservations out there for this. I might be open to the idea of like the equivalent of a ringtone optionally, like a little chime. Like, I can help you with that. But even then I'm, I'm, I'm kind of skeptical because then I'm going about my day and this thing is chiming at me. And I would find that

annoying that would be like an annoying notification so personally i look at this description and think this is this is wrong and i don't know whether this is mark or whether it's the person mark's talking to or it's people trying to find use cases that seem cool but like i don't mind the idea i know some people do i don't mind the idea of having an assistant so smart that it can listen to the context in the room it identifies all the speakers it knows what we're talking about and in that moment where I say, why don't we do that robot? Or robot, what do you think? Robot, do you have any suggestions for us? That it immediately knows the context of the conversation. Yeah, I like that too, right? Where I don't need to invoke it and ask the question again. I invoke it and say,

what do you think, knowing that it could have heard me. But I do not want to be talking to my wife in my living room or my kitchen and say, well, you know, we could make dinner tonight or we could go out, what do you think, and have it go, hey, everybody, why don't I make a reservation at the Mexican place? Want to go to Olive Garden? When you're there, your family like me, a member of your family, the robot who lives on the counter. Will you take me with you? I agree with you. I have a battery pack available from Apple for $100 that will allow me to come with you to the Olive Garden.

Because look, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'm going to give, I actually think you ended up getting to a point where I think is good for what I'm going to say, which is like, we are. Look, I'm not saying this is the right way to be, but we're going to keep our minds open. We are moving towards a world where a bunch of technology companies are going to offer you a product that we'll be listening to at the time. And that is the point of it. Now, I don't know yet if that's good or not. I could have imagined a scenario where if we didn't have any voice assistants, the idea that you could ever ask, like, might be, oh, I don't know about that. You know what I mean?

we've hit these points in technology where sometimes it feels like I don't know if we should do that and then we do that and we're like oh hang on you know what that was actually pretty good like another example of this is all of the meta smart glass products

right where like we tried this once with cameras and glasses and nobody liked it until it was actually good and like there is a scenario where again I agree with you interrupting that's not version one right

that like I'd say that I'd say that is uh I mean personally I never want that I never want that if there's a question hanging in the air and it knows that this is a pregnant pause in the conversation that it and it can go I could help I might be open to that yeah yeah but yeah yeah but in general you know I I agree with you I would also say if there's a product that is in my house that's listening to me all the time in and not for a wake-up word it is literally listening all the time to everything that gets said in the house because it can understand context I can't think of a company I would rather make that product than Apple yeah and I think Apple is smart to see an opportunity there yeah also you know everybody's doing chatbots

like this is one of those areas if we're talking about Apple and AI and Apple trying to find specific focused areas where they can do AI that are serving needs and are product focused and are not general, they're not trying to do general intelligence or even general world knowledge. This is, if they could figure out stuff like this and combine it with their hardware and their capability building hardware, it's a place for them to differentiate themselves on top of the fact that they would have some level of privacy differentiation. Again, if it all works out, who knows, good or bad, other than, like I feel very strongly that

interrupting a conversation between friends is a, is always bad unless there is a specific contextual request for help because it's not a person, it's not in the conversation, unless you invite it to

the conversation, but that's what I'm saying is I don't, I think that's a, I think that's a real mistake and it turns this from a kind of a fun scenario into a nightmare scenario. But I do love the idea Look, Siri can't even remember what you said the last time, right? But I love the idea that eventually this tech could get to the point where it can interpret whole conversations with multiple speakers, get the context of it, so that when you can ask, it knows or can retroactively process what the context of the conversation was and know exactly what you were talking about.

Oh, they were talking about making a dinner reservation. I can help with that. That would be great because I don't want to compose a, hey, robot, we've been. talking about, right? It would be better to say, robot, what do you think? And give it to give, oh, I can, you know, there are some places we could get, or you just went to this one place. How about this other place? Like, there are things that it could do that would be really awesome in that scenario, but it better not interrupt me or it's going in the garbage. You know, we've been doing this, you know, we're at this stage, we're doing it a while where like, we're used to asking it and we know that it's listening. And then there's a future version where you've had a conversation and you hear, bing. And you're like, oh, well, what do you think? You know what I mean? Like the interruption is just a, just a noise. Yeah. It's the ringtone. And I don't love that idea, but I think that some people would find that acceptable. It's like the idea. Well, I mean, if we're sold on it, you know, that's what I mean. Like, we've been doing it for a while and like everyone's like this, this technology is fantastic, that then we get to the point where it may be able to indicate more to us that it's got suggestions rather than us always feeling like we should ask, you know? Yeah. I mean, if it's got a screen.

right? It could, something could be displayed on the screen that indicates that it's listening to you. It might turn to you, right? If it's a robot or whatever. It might turn to you as like it has a suggestion. You could be like, oh, do you have a suggestion? Jason, imagine it turns to you and it shakes a little bit. It's like, ooh. They see you'd like that, right? You know what I mean? Like that, that. I can help. Here's the thing. Again, we're taking this as red. I do believe we're talking, Apple is talking more about what we're saying than how this sounds of like I agree. I agree. I think this is

a, I think it's probably marked either inventing this himself or talking to an engineer who's like, yeah, you could do this thing or that thing. But it's like, I imagine that at higher levels at Apple, they're like, no, no, no, no, no. It's not going to interrupt. Plus, we're also talking years out because I don't believe that there's an AI system today that could do this

capability. I don't think it exists yet. To properly you know, properly record multiple audio in the room and understand that context in the moment and be asked. I think that would be a very difficult thing. But it is a thing to work toward. I think it's a great idea. And it would be, I see why Mark might call this a robot. Because what it is, it's like, it's like Hal 9,000 on a, on a table with a little bit of physical personality to it. It's, you know, John Syracusa would not call this a robot. robot because it's kind of like not moving around independently. It's just sitting somewhere. But I would say an AI kind of extrusion into the real world where it's got a little real world physicality. I actually kind of like that better. Me too. And honestly, I think the argument at Apple might be the fact that it doesn't move around is a feature, right? Because this robot's not going to come and get you. It's just going to stay on the table. And what you want is this AI thing to be like I've been saying a cartoon animal, like cute. You want it to be cute. You want it to be cute.

Let's get to that. And not scary. And an AI thing that moves around your house is scary. One that sits on the table and can't really do much except shrug is funny and fine. So this device will run a new operating system, which is being dubbed charismatic internally, is like the name of the OS. And it's centered around types of this device. Apple are considering a characterization of the version of Siri that would run on it.

They have played around with Memoji, but have also considered. a talking finder face now this is I agree with you here create a mascot for this and people will feel differently about it or multiple personalities did you see sunny the Apple TV Plus show with Rashida Jones? I haven't seen that yet no

it's not great we watched it all it was okay it wasn't great I didn't know much about the show but it felt sad to me in a way that I wasn't really into at a time I mean the premise is sad and then the show is very weird but what I would say is

there's a robot on that show and it's got a face screen it's like a it doesn't look like a person it's not an Android it's got like wheels but it's got arms and a head and it's got a face screen

and one of the things that it does is it's sort of like it will smile or be angry or whatever and you know I was thinking about something like that having this thing have some personality again here's the challenge one is not everybody's going to want that personality, so you need to be able to dial that back

or offer different personalities. This is how I feel about chat GPT, right? I wanted to just get to the point, and I'm not looking for a friend. However, a device living in my kitchen, maybe you want a little more personality there. So I like the idea of playing around with this. Yeah.

This operating system will also power the home pod of a screen device, which is still coming in first. It may or may not feature the new LOM powered series, but is still relying on Apple intelligence features that have yet to ship like intents. This operating system will be designed at its core to work with multiple people. Very important.

Very, very important. Yeah, right? This is that thing about like, you can say your iPhone is your personal device. They've struggled with this with HomePod where you can have multiple, and I know Amazon and Google have tried this too. Like you can have multiple people and it tries to recognize your voice and use the right iPhone and all of that. But like a device in the home needs to know who's giving it instructions and it needs to

needs to be able to disambiguate between different iCloud accounts that are linked or whatever like you have to do that as we were talking about this with the with that home pot with the screen is like if it's doing widgets and it's got like calendar information and all of that i mean it has to know who it's talking to who it's showing information to and then customized based on that like this is a thing that apple has not really done in the ios side and they have to do it for this clocks and widgets will be key to this operating system and it is considered to be like a mixture of watchOS and TVOS. Yeah, it feels to me

like the primary use of this is going to be with Apple software and that if there are third-party apps pushing into here, it's going to be what we speculated about, which it's probably going to be like Mac widget sharing where iPhone widgets show up can be placed on the Mac. Oh, like, Carboy. I'll be, yeah, or like, yeah, more like that where it's not running those apps, but it will show you information from those apps on the screen,

which means they don't have to build an app store and all of that stuff for it. Yep. LLM Siri work is continuing. Apple is now expecting to give this new version of Siri another visual redesign, which was a thing that I remember us talking about. when the new design for Siri shipped was like, why did you do this when you didn't have the Siri ready? Right?

The new colors around the screen thing, like they should not have done that, but they did that, which was not a great idea. And they, and also Mark had previously reported that Apple was working on two versions of the LLM powered Siri,

so where you've got The one built on Apple's models and one built on a third-party model, which is an anthropic model. And it feels like a decision is yet to be made on this, even though they're hoping to ship in spring next year. Well, I mean, AI moves fast and they're trying. And I mean, I think they, I assume what they're doing is basically saying is that is our model going to be good enough? Or do we need to use a third-party model? Yeah. And we'll find out what they think of that.

but letting that go and giving them the opportunity to figure it out. I think that's, at this point, that's fine. This episode is brought to you in part by SteamClock. SteamClock software is a design and development studio that ships great mobile apps. They work with growing tech companies to level up their customer-facing experiences on iOS and Android. Often, SteamClock's clients know they need a great mobile app to grow their business, but they don't have the capacity to build one themselves. or if they take a first crack at the problem, they often wind up with an app. It's kind of janky.

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It is time for some Ask Upgrade questions. First comes from Hackon who asks, do you delete apps regularly or do you only delete apps when you're running out storage? neither I just keep it in bigger phones yeah I'll tell you

I tend to delete apps when I do a search for an app and I see an app and I think why is this here I don't use this app yes

and then I delete it that's basically when I delete apps is when I see them I'm reminded that they exist and are not on my home screen because I have very few apps on my home screen

and I do a search or I'm in a setting somewhere and I'll see an app and I'll be like why is that and I'll delete it then but that's it

That is absolutely insane. I wish, I'll tell you, a feature that I wish Apple would do is a bulk delete. I wish there was some place where I could go tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, delete all. Or like you haven't used these apps, this set of apps in five years. Would you like to delete them? That's true. There's offload and then you could just expire them out. I just want them to go.

I just want them to go away, you know? I don't want them to just like steal big ghosts. Yeah. Like in the storage area of settings, if there was a way to, purge old unused apps or to multi-select a bunch of apps and delete them. I would love to do that. And I love to get a list that was sortable by like last launched. Yeah. And then just go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, I got to keep this one around. No, no, no, no, no. Delete and have them have them have them. And then say, would you like to offload them or just remove them

entirely and be like, remove them, get them out? That would be nice. Because I have enough storage that that's not the issue. But then these apps that I downloaded for a single use and then and they just stay there forever. Get rid of that. That light bulb that burned out three years ago and I still have its app. That happened to me where I was like, why do it?

It's like, wow, I haven't had one of those light bulbs in a long time, but the app is still here. Delete. Get it out of there. Steve asks, do you think Apple might release an inexpensive desktop after they release an inexpensive laptop? Something between a $150 Apple TV and a $600 Mac Mini could be very attractive.

Nope. The Mac Mini is this. That's it. That's it. If you don't like it, that's it. That's it. I'm sorry. The Mac Mini is the inexpensive desktop. It is a great computer for $600. It's value. It's not necessarily price. And you're getting really good value for that computer. And that is as much as you're going to get. They have, look back to the tier list. It makes honestly kind of zero sense for Apple to make a cheaper Mac than the Mac Mini. And it's incredible they still make the Mac Mini. Yep. I have another question from previous. Ask a hack-on, a two-fah today. They wrote them with good questions. You just put a Steve in the middle there. It's like a Steve sandwich with hack-on bread.

Indeed. Could Apple release the low-cost MacBook with just 8 gigabytes of RAM, or do you believe that they would have to bump it up to 16? It may not be very future-proofed if they kept it at 8 gigabytes. My answer for this is just Apple Intelligence, I think, 8 gigabytes wouldn't be enough, right?

For the models, I think it would have to put it at 16 or 12 as David or 12 that's what I was going to say is maybe there's a way where they they kind of sneak it in there at 12 which would be fine too I think like genuinely but like I don't think I don't think RAM is a place that Apple can skimp right now just because it doesn't meet with the overall kind of like way that the company is moving so I think I kind of have to do it. Brantz asks is there a specific smart lock you recommend for a front door I have currently, so I would say I have a schlagg, we already said, we already said this, is schlaga and German, but schleg in American, front door lock that uses NFC that allows me to tap my Apple watch on the door or your iPhone, but I use my watch to open it, which is great.

Dan Moran has written about the level lock plus which he uses which is like super stealthy like it's all inside it just looks like a regular lock on the outside but then you can tap it with home key as well and that one's interesting too so those are two options but what I'm really excited about and I looked for this earlier is there are new locks coming out with ultra-wideband support.

And the idea of ultra-wideband is it knows that you're coming to the front door, it knows your pinpoint positioning, and it will unlock as you get to the front door, and you don't have to touch anything. And you can't do that with Bluetooth because it would unlock when you approach the front door from the other side.

But UWB knows exactly where you are in space and can have the right action when you walk to the front door, from outside. This is a product called the Schleg Sense Pro. It was announced January 6th at CES. And a quick Googling this morning, eight months later,

suggests that although they said it would arrive this year, and this year's not over, I can say that eight months into this year, it has not arrived and is not available anywhere. But I will look at that when it comes out because I love the idea that it could be even easy, to get in my front door than tapping my watch

on the door. But anyway, I like mine. It's got a keypad. Dan likes his. It's got a traditional lock and that's all. And you really, for most of these, you need a deadbolt. So it depends on the lock and the door style that you have.

But I like smart locks. I am a fan. Even if you can just get one with a fingerprint reader. But I really love that they auto lock and I really love that I don't have to carry a key with me. I think that the if Brants is seeming like they're going to buy on

I put a link in the show notes to my favorite home kit YouTuber Shane Watley has like all playlist about smart locks so you can go take a look at what's out there but I think if you're wanting to buy one now you should wait until the ultra wide band ones come out because it's just a better way to do this kind of technology

and I think it's man this sounds amazing right? It would have way more smarts than Bluetooth can provide and provide you with essentially just never having to think about locking, unlocking the door. No, it sounds pretty great.

And Ben wrote in and said, I just accidentally ran my MX Master 3 mouse through the wash after getting back from a grueling travel shoot. They say, don't mix diet, laundry, and technology no matter how tired you are. Would you recommend replacing it with the same again or is there something else I should consider?

I find it hilarious to put your mouse in the washing machine. Like, people put technology in the washing machine all the time because in like a pocket or whatever and I just think this is very funny I would recommend the MX Master 3S

it's the same mouse but they made the click silent and I love it like it's a brilliant mouse it's just a silent click mouse and like if you do things like if you're a podcaster you can say hey click your mouse

nobody even knows that you're clicking your mouse that's what I recommend the Logite MX Master 3S the Logitec is amazing apparently there's an MX Master 4 coming at some point I don't know like do your own thing but like this one's going to be great

you're going to have a great time of it I love this mouse and I love the silent one so I recommend that hilarious though sorry sorry upgrading and Ben I just think it's hilarious that you put your mouse on the washing machine if you'd like to send us in your questions or any feedback or follow up you have about the show unless you want to just

agree with a tier list, don't send it. Go to Upgrave Feedback.com. Yeah, go to Apple. It's not us. Thank you to our members to support us of Upgrade Plus. This week, we're going to be doing the phoner, which I can't wait to do. Go to GetUpgradeplus.com and sign up if you haven't already. You can find us on YouTube by searching for Upgrade Podcast. I'd like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode.

That is Steam Clock, Squarespace, P, and Delete Me. They help support the show. But most of all, I want to thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, my curly.