Upgrade - 582: First Chance to Make One Impression

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 5882 for September 22, 2025. Today's show is brought to you by Steam Clock, Interconnected, Squarespace, and FitBud. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason Snow. Hi, Mike Hurley. Hi, hi, five. Here we are. A person in a hotel room.

Yeah. It's taken us a lot of times. time to get set up today. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But we are on location in Memphis, Tennessee. And I have a Snelltold question for you. Okay. This question comes from Gavin, who wants to know, what is your favorite line to heckle rival players at a sporting event? Gavin, I don't heckle. I know I knew you were going to say that. Yeah, I don't do it. I don't do it. Do you ever like... I mean, the worst I get is something like you play for Stanford. okay

do you what are you how rowdy do you get like you I know you sing your songs well I mean there are songs that are sung

and I'll sing along but you're never like boo well that's a referee most of the songs are being sung while the band is playing them

I mean it's not yeah so no I think I don't heckle people I mostly brought this up take off that red shirt but that's not

the players that's to the people the fans yeah I mostly brought this up because we went to a sporting match I figured

together yesterday. Yes, we did. We went to the Memphis Tigers hosting the Arkansas Razorbacks. And how did that go? Really good for the Memphis Tigers. For us, it was very, very hot and we left. Yes, we left at what, like half time? Yeah. And it looked like the tigers were going to lose, but they poured it out. They did. They did. We watched the end of the game from Central Barbecue, and I think we made good life choices. That was perfect. So I'll just say, because I can't look through the conversion. It was like 33 degrees Celsius. It was like 90. It was supposed to be 40 degrees. That was the... It was going to be 105.

And I don't know if I would have been able to watch any of it. No, I was really, I was actually concerned for our health and all that. But anyway, it was fine. It was 92 and humid but light breeze. Every time the breeze came, everyone would go. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like a good noise. That was really good.

But then we all came back here and decided we would all like rinse off. And then meet half an hour later and go over to the barbecue place because, uh, yeah, we were all very moist. I couldn't wear any of those clothes again. Oh, no, I had to change clothes. Just the, my shirt, I came back after the, we went to the barbecue place, and the shirt was still, like, visibly damp. Yeah. It was. I had one of those moments, which we're just in it.

And I buckle up. We're talking about sweat. I had one of those moments where it was just all of a sudden, I just felt like four beads of sweat on my back. You know, it just like happened. I know, it's like, I'm warm. I'm warm. Oh, we passed. Wherever the room.

I had that, I had that, we're going to talk about it, I suppose. But I had that at the podcastathon where we, there was a certain. item of clothing we were forced to wear that was completely impermeable to all liquid every possible element and what that you're thinking oh it's like a raincoat but it was more like you're sweating and the sweat has nowhere to go and that was the one where I put that on

and within like 30 seconds I could feel sweat coming on my brow and I was not good I am not claustrophobic but I felt it being blindfolded and wearing an impermeable trench coat was not great. No, thank you. Thank you to Gavin for that question. If you'd like to send in a question of your own, please go to UpgradeFeedback.com and you can send one in. Let's talk about it. So we're here. We're here in Memphis because just a couple of days ago as we're

recording this, we participated in the seventh podcastathon for the kids of St. Jude. Go to st.jude.org slash relay and you can learn more about donating. And we have raised over $476,000 is where we're at right now and I'm expecting it will be a little bit more by the time that you're hearing this I just today in lieu of talking at length about St. Jude as we will again do next week because this campaign runs all through September

I just wanted to talk a little bit about the podcast at the time it's on YouTube the entire thing is available on YouTube for you to go and watch every year I feel like the event gets better and I feel like this is just another of those years I had such a great time I think this is the most fun I've had with the least trauma, maybe. I don't know the word I'm looking for.

I know it sounds strange, but hosting a show for 12 hours is an endurance event. Yeah, for sure. To keep your energy up and your sharpness and your skills going for that period of time, it's really, really exhausting. And especially where, like, you're just kind of, at least for me, I'm just putting increasing amounts of caffeine into my body. Yes. Which doesn't feel good.

No. But I need it. Yes. Because also, so like my day started at 6 a.m. We started at 11. And then we went all the way to 11. 11. So that's a long old day.

And then they don't tell you this because you're off the stream, but like, then we clean up because it's St. Jude. it's we don't have like there's a team there but like we all help clean up you could leave I guess so but it would be in plain yeah I think like yeah you should shoot a bunch of streamers off all over a whole TV studio and you throw a bunch of ball pit balls everywhere and then you just like later dudes and you walk out that's not nice yeah I think maybe let's say lesser content creators would maybe leave you know I don't know who they are but not not our people not us we stick around because that's the kind of people that we are. I will admit that when that cleanup was

going on, I was trying to figure out what to do kind of like a zombie. Yeah, I, you know what I'll say, and it's just the same for me every time. I am there and I am moving things around. I do not think I am the most effective at the cleaning up. No, no. Stephen is very good at the cleaning up, as you would imagine. He also brings stuff from home and has little tote, little bit. I bring stuff and it takes me as long to find like my iPhone charger as it is for him to like pack a whack and into the back of his truck yeah exactly but that's just

that's just Stephen Hacker and that man he's a he's a marvel if anybody saw the end of the podcastathon if you've not seen the podcastathon which you should go and skip around it's a great time just treat yourself to the last 10 minutes is one of the greatest feats

known to humankind yes where Stephen he's a regular John Henry with his hammer unbelievable the man The man can do things of a sledgehammer, which you would just never believe. You wouldn't believe, no. It's one of the greatest moments of my life. Losing the championship was one of the best things that's ever happened.

If you're going to lose it, lose it like that. Exactly. If you're going to, and that was it. So, spoilers, we're playing Jenga. Stephen was going to lose Jenga, and I was beating him handily, we'll say. I would say physical domination up to that point. Oh, yeah, complete domination. Absolutely.

Just, I started over 100 points behind, and it was just a... We built a, we built a market. marshmallow spaghetti tower. And it was incredible. We came from way behind to win our sweat-soaked spy challenge. I don't know how we did that. I watched the tape and I still don't know. Yeah, we are basically, I am a Marvel 2 in my own line.

We destroyed it. And so you gentlemanly said, if you can perform a mythical feat, you can win. Basically, Stephen had to remove a, the challenge wills remove one jangle block with a sledgehammer. And I said if you do this, I will grant you 160 points. A jingo block at the very bottom of an incredibly rickety tower by hitting... A tower, he could not remove my hand without it falling over. Yes. And so hit it with a sledgehammer in a particular place.

And if somehow the tower remains standing, you win the challenge. Yes. And friends, he did it. And we have multiple camera angles. It's incredible. It's just unbelievable. I will also put a link in the show notes to a post that Stephen put on Instagram, which is Erin Liss, she got it from another angle, which was amazing, and you get to see

there are two reactions. It feels like one of those films that, like, historical, where you have to watch it multiple times to see the various reactions. And I would like to point people to two reactions. One, Stephen's wife, Mary, running towards him as if he has, I don't know, won the the Super Bowl. On the Super Bowl. Yeah. And also me, jumping out of the ball pit like a mere cat. I am sitting down and then I am standing up and I'm not sure how the propelling occurred and it was, I made so much noise

just an ungodly amount of noise I think I was just at one point just actually screaming like there was nothing to be said it was just a noise there was a lot of that it was just such a good time and we raised

I believe I'm maybe speaking out of school we raised more money during this podcastathon than any podcastathon before. I think that is accurate. Which is incredible. And we're so thankful for everybody that tuned in. We're so thankful for everybody that will donate, has donate through this campaign. We'll donate through this campaign. We're so grateful.

We know giving your money can be difficult. There are times where it is harder than others. And I think that this is one of those times where it is harder than others. and I just wanted to let everybody know that we're so grateful if you give any money so please continue to do so if you can go to statured.org slash relay and you can donate until the end of September

and next week we talk a little bit more about the St. Tube mission. Nice. I have a couple of items of follow up for you, Jason Snell. Scott wrote in and said, I've got this a couple of times so I wanted to write in because you may know about it already

but I want to let all the listeners know about it too. Yeah. Quick follow-up regarding the keyboard shortcuts to access directly the four new modes of spotlight on Tahoe. I discovered accidentally that you don't need to hit command space and then command four as an example, and I think that opens to clipboard. Yeah, clipboard manager. In one motion, it is possible to hit command space and four with the fingers still on the command space, and it jumps right to the clipboard manager. So it is effectively a direct three-key shortcut of command space four. smoothly for me with all four modes. I did not find any documentation for this.

This is accurate, but I would, so it's great. It means you still have to press command and then press space and then press four in that sequence. And I would really rather you not need three keys to do that. I agree. But yes, if you leave command down and hit space, and you can even leave space down if you want to. And I believe that will work. So that's great. It doesn't satisfy me, but it's true. Yep. And a four in space are way apart. And like, it's fine.

It's a little like Command Shift 3 for a screenshot. Like, you can do it if you do it in the right sequence, but I'd much rather just hit Command something and have it happen automatically. But yeah, it's a nice little, I'm not even sure if Apple played that. This might just be something. It's a side effect. It was just we have multiple upgrading and to say this. And each one of them was like, I think I found this.

I don't know if it's supposed to work like this. I can't find anyone that's written about it. But I guess it does, which is very strange. Ava wrote him regarding the crossbody strap, which I have next to me we talk about a little later on in the episode, Ava says, I think one of the major reasons people use phone lanyard is because they frequently drop their phones. A friend of mine has dropped and shattered her phone at least a dozen times

to the point that she was threading a string through her case through the chargeboard hole. It got to the point that she gave up repairing the screen. I wrote in the document something that is now true so I would say instead of an imagination I'll say it as an actuality it is incredibly convenient after I was playing with this earlier to just use your phone or let go of it

yeah sure you just like go with the phone I'm done with the phone I'll let go with the phone it's like prints dropping of the guitar and have to fly into space it's just you know a magic thing where the phone goes I don't know and when I want it it's right

I'll just say that once you get used to that and if you're not in that mode it's bad bad news bad news best you just walking around like Oh, the phone's gone. Get out of here. That's how you end up breaking more phones.

Yeah. So don't do that. But yeah. A couple of other items where I'm catching us up now on news from the past couple of weeks. Got it. Google and Apple are keeping the search deal in place. Yes. So I'm going to read from Judge Amit Meta's conclusion, I guess we'll call it.

Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading of placement of Google search Chrome or it's just. Gen AI products. So this is essentially Google can continue to pay the $20 billion a year or whatever it is to Apple to get their placement.

I've listened to podcasts about this and I've read stuff about the way that the, a way about Judge Emmett Mehta's conclusion has kind of like come out on the result of the case where I think it's kind of unfortunate in a way where it's essentially

we don't think that they should be able to do all those things. But if we stop Google from giving companies this money, a bunch of companies will suffer. Not Apple, but Mozilla opera. Well, yeah. I mean, you're punishing them by having them not have to pay money, which is bizarre and has lots of other harm. But it locks them into their position. And that's the argument is that they have become powerful because they've basically spent money to build a whole ecosystem that's grown up around them.

to the point where now if you rip that out, you're ruining the rest of that ecosystem. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I understand it. Yeah. I understand it intellectually,

but I think there's a problem in that. Yeah. Right. Like, Google is not a utility. Right. There should be the potential of a competition. And that still may come, but it's not going to come through the court.

So, but then it's like, okay, that's great. Like, opera and Mozilla, they can continue. to make the money they need, Apple gets $20 billion. They don't need it, but they get it. That's the problem.

But you would be getting way too granular to be like, you can't pay Apple. Right, because the argument would be if Apple weren't getting all the billions of dollars from Google, they probably would have built their own search product, which would compete with Google. Which I think is a good thing. Yeah, for competition, sure. Here we are.

Yeah. Speaking of Google, I thought this is really interesting. The Chrome iOS app has received the Liquid Glass update. what? They did a software update, not like in prompt fashion? They actually did it. Chrome. That's unusual for them. Chrome gets more updates than the docs products.

Of course. And I do kind of understand it to a way the docs products are complicated with the collaboration and stuff, and it's a lot of web views. And so I put a link in the show notes to a 9 to 5 Google article where they show some screenshots side by side. This is not groundbreaking, but there are elements that look like iOS 26 elements. there are glassy elements, the buttons are what they are expected to be looked like in the human interface guidelines. I mentioned this only because there has been concerned that, or like thought that, oh, hey, the big companies are just not going to adopt liquid glass. They're going to want to keep their own style. And that is definitely going to be the case in some instances. I just thought

it was interesting that Google has updated probably one of their most popular iOS apps pretty much immediately with some ios 26 fashion and i think that that is potentially an indication that this might be a little bit more prevalent than we think over the long term that the companies are going to implement things that fit with the system and still keep their house style where they want to we'll see the new apple watch umaz watch face features clarista dog cow stephen has to buy an MES, I think. I guess so. So this is the M.S phase, which essentially looks like a kind of a take on the like Swiss clock kind of idea. I think it's Swiss, right? Like the cuckoo clocks, the big cuckoo clocks. One of the hours, the animations that happens on the hours is Claris, I think, jumping out of a window. So that's, you've got that going for you. I don't understand this watch face. It's very weird. It's very strange. I think it's too much for a watch face. I think it's, would work great as like an Apple TV screen saver. But a watch face, not for me. But it's there. If you really want Clarus on your wrist, there's now a way to get it. If retro pixel art was not already dead,

it's embraced by a luxury brand would kill it. That's very true. And Final Cut Camera 2.0 has been released. It has a bunch of new features. There's a reason I'm mentioning this is because today we are using Final Cut Camera to record the video version of this podcast possibly. The set up process was complicated. We currently... Actually, it was very easy for two phones and then one phone refused to connect. We are using two iPhones and an iPad Pro to record this. We wanted to use three iPhones, but one of the iPhones just wouldn't.

So our two shot is my iPad on my suitcase on your bed. Then we have your iPhone. 16 on a tripod. My iPhone, my new iPhone air in a bumper case on a flimsy tripod. They're both flimsy tripods. I mean, they would be. They're travel tripod. Mike, I'll have you know that that that so-called flimsy tripod is the tripod I use for upgrade every week. It's true story. Okay. We expected to have more phones here today than we do. That is something we'll get to in a minute.

It's going to be interesting to see how this comes together. So the idea is we have a multi-camera set up in final cut camera, which you will then do a final cut, final cut edit on iPad? Worst case scenario, since I'm recording the two-shot on the iPad, presumably we have a two-shot unless the iPad, which we can't see, has failed and crashed. In which case, there's no YouTube video this week. I didn't think about this. We should have set another iPhone with a front-facing camera on a tripod and in front

of the iPad so we could see the iPad screen. That's what we should have done. Well, FaceTime to it. Why didn't we think of that? Because we're not smart, clearly. I think a lot of things that we have done today is because we're not smart. I agree with you. Also, including we have rearranged basically every piece of furniture in this hotel room.

I recommend you leave all the furniture where it is. I'm not going to do that. As a exercise to the staff. As people have who watched a podcastathon will know, I have already obliterated this hotel room of a bottle. That's true. That's true. Which happened just over there, by the way, because you want to see the historical site where I dropped a glass bottle. It's right over there in the corner.

Right, I'm glad I'm wearing shoes. This episode is brought to you by SteamClock. SteamClock software is a designer development studio that ships great mobile apps. They work with growing tech companies to level up their customer-facing experiences. Jason, this is staying in. For some reason, at this moment, during the ad read for our wonderful friends at SteamClock, we know the people at SteamClock. Jason decided to crack open a cold one, Mountain Dew.

I'm doing a, it's not that cold, actually. I'm doing a Stuart Wellington in the classic clubhouse. As if there was a way in which him doing that would not be a distraction from me as he does it while grinning at me out of the corner of a line. Almost as good as the software made by Steam Clock. They are 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 that they need a great mobile app to grow their. business, but they don't have the capacity to build one themselves. Or if to take a first crack at

the problem, they often wind up with an app. It's kind of janky. What all of SteamClock's clients have in common is that they care about great customer experiences. While SteamClock can build apps using React Native and other cross-platform tools, they also have deep expertise with building excellent native apps in Swift and Kotlin. They also are great at helping companies weigh the trade-offs of these different approaches. They are the experts, right? You'll go to them and they will help you. If this sounds like you, if you're a business is growing and you want your customers to have a great app experience, visit steamclock.com slash upgrade and get in touch with SteamClock. That is SteamClock, S-T-E-A-M-C-E-A-M-C-C-L-C-C-E-A-M-C-C-T-C-C-E-C-C-T-C-E-C-C-S. Get in touch with them to

see how they can help. Our thanks to SteamClock for their support of this show and all of Relay. Cheers to SteamClock. Cheers to Steam Clock. This is the thing we can do now. Okay, so... It's iPhone week. It's iPhone week. This iPhone week has been a little bit tumultuous, I would say. So it started with us trying to order the iPhones. We usually get them on Friday, me and Stephen.

He orders for me, and then this time I wanted to order another one for myself, the iPhone air. We could not get a pickup time early enough on Friday that somebody could actually go and do that, because the Apple at the Apple store and St. Judehood are nowhere near each other. Yeah. It's very far away. Yeah. And we weren't going to send someone to go do it. So we're like, oh, we're doing it on Saturday.

But then we're going to the football game. Right. And so it's like, okay. Saturday night. We'll go pick him up. So we'll go pick him up a Saturday night. Great. And also, but you know what?

Doesn't matter. Jason will have his phones from Apple. Right. Where are they? Being delivered to my house today, apparently. And where are you? I'm not there in the house. I'm in Tennessee.

So, we have in this room an iPhone 17 Pro in orange. Yes. And over there. Yes, being used for this podcast. An iPhone Air. An iPhone Air. Only I have had any experience with them. That's not true because I hand, while you were picking up your phones at the Saddle Creek Apple Store, I did an intensive hands-on experience with them at the Apple Store.

just at a table. Well, okay. I'm the only one... Our listeners may... Most of our listeners probably have spent more time with these products than we have. Which is strange.

It is a little weird. Yeah. So, but we have some impressions and then next week we'll be able to talk more about them. I also have some fun stories. Also, send in your impressions, upgradefeedback.com.

And we'll talk about it in more detail next week. So let's start with the iPhone Pro. So my immediate thing that I noticed was not, about how much I love the orangeer to do. It is that this phone is thicker and heavier. I would say quite significantly in the hand than the phone it replaces.

To me, like I picked it up and I was like, oh, that's heavier. And I have it in my hand and I can tell it's thicker. Now, I am, I would say, I don't know if I have like a special sense for this kind of thing, but I am, I think this comes from the paper products that I make. I'm very sensitive to millimeter differences.

so like I can and as this happened I can pick up one of our products and I know I can I am able to sense if it's like two millimeters different and I think that that somehow translates itself to the phone because I could immediately tell it was thicker and it's not that much thicker but I can just tell I don't know how I feel about that yet the I will get used to it but it is kind of for me the the worst case feeling that I expected, which was this phone is getting heavier, and I didn't want that to happen. Also, you can see Apple's product design trick here, which is they've gone back to softer edges. And one of the reasons to do that is actually to trick your perception into feeling that it is thinner than it is. And I would say the thing that I like about the build is the software edges. I think it feels nice to hold, and that's why they're doing it. I also noticed that it's cold. The phone is cold to touch. Now, it may just be because I have not wrapped this thing up. I would say my phone is currently installing a bunch of stuff and it's cold. Yeah. My iPhone 16

pro installing an app from the app store, it feels like it's going to catch on fire. Yes. Like yesterday, when we were at that football game, my phone, I took a picture. My phone was so hot because it was also hot. I put it at my pocket and it was burning my leg. There is a problem with the iPhone 16. Maybe mine is more of a problem, but there is absolutely a reason that they move to this new vapor chamber system. And I think it's because they have gotten themselves into an overheating problem. Was it the 16 that when it came out, Apple was like, oh, it's Instagram's fault? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's been that conversation about like it's it's an app or it's just indexing and all of that.

But they've run hot and this, I mean, part of it is that it's aluminum. Yep. And then there's the cooling system. And we'll see how it goes in the long run. But that's part of what's going on there. The material is cool. With a lot of these things, it's like Apple will say a thing and then they will do a thing. And usually you understand what they would like to say by what they do.

So they'd be like, hey, it's fine. but also we've changed the cooling system. We've completely redesigned the thermals of this. Why do we do this? Don't even ask about it. Yeah, it's better now. It's not for you to know. It's nice. We did it.

All right, we just did it. I also like the plateau. Nice resting point for the hand. Oh yeah, yeah. I think people are going to really dig this. So like I have had that experience with my pop socket. Most of the time, the pop socket on my iPhone is closed. I don't extend it.

And I'm using the pop socket as like a ridge. for my hand. That's kind of just a comfortable way for me to hold the phone. I think people are going to enjoy that about this fun. I really like the curve. I talk about the curve on the edges. The curve around the plateau is also a really nice. Like it feels really nice. Yeah. They did a good job in the one piece aluminum is really nice. Like there are advantages to doing the one piece of aluminum. The two tone is really interesting as well. There's also the glass in the two tone section. Yes. has a very nice texture, and it's not, it's kind of matte in a way. And it's, and it's interesting, it's like design-wise they're leaning into the entire concept

of MagSafe attachments. Yes. Because it looks, I carry around a MagSafe wallet on my phone currently, and the new phone looks like a space saying you can put your MagSafe attachment here. Please attach your wallet to this location. It is very much, like we're sponsored by, open case last week and it essentially looks like this phone has one of their cases because their case has the big hole in the in the in the center for the magsafe attachments to go in and it's funny because it really does just look like that um i yeah i really like the way it looks i like the way it feels the i was i was kind of getting lost in looking at the screen and like seeing the orange around the outside which i like but it's like this feels odd like it's not it just doesn't look

like what I'm used to seeing on my iPhone. It's going to be really interesting. I've seen a lot of people already saying like a couple of days in. I've seen this on Mastodon and Blue Sky saying like, I like the orange, but I'm getting tired of the orange already. That like for some people, it's like, oh, this is a lot. And it is a lot. And I remain very intrigued about why, because the blue also lovely, much more understated.

Yes. Like, the bright orange like this, I would love to know why they've done it. It's fascinating to me to go this extreme with it, but I am happy that I have it. I think it's very fun. You know what I mean? I'm like, I get orange. So I get gold iPhones. You know, like I always go for the most outlandish one.

This is definitely it. And I think it looks great. I agree. It looks beautiful. So I'll talk about my iPhone transfer. This is part of the issue. So, I like to do the direct transfer, so from one iPhone to the other one, it moves the most amount of stuff over, and for me, tends to be done quicker because I keep all my photos on

my device, for example, downloading all that stuff from the cloud is going to take forever, especially on what is admittedly pretty poor hotel Wi-Fi that we have here at the hotel that we're in. The thing about direct transfer, so this is part of the... quick start system, it's called direct transfer. The thing about the system, I have done it maybe three or four times now. It never works the first try. And like it gets stuck or it fails. And whenever you redo it, it always takes a couple of attempts to actually get it to start again. There seems to be this weird scenario that like if they've begun the handshake, trying to get

them to redo that, kind of similar to how we were trying to get that iPhone to connect your iPad for the final cut camera. It's like they know that each other exists but they don't, they're not communicating. What I also wanted to do this time because you mentioned it,

I looked it up, is to use a thunderbolt cable to transfer between the two. So I bought an overpriced thunderbolt cable from Apple, plugged it into both of them, and it was doing its thing. I had an issue.

The battery life. Ah, yes. I don't know how you're supposed to do this to make it, everyone, I guess maybe very fast wireless chargers. Maybe. Because I have my iPhone on my travel charger, which is a, it's a slower wattage.

It's not a super fast wattage. And then the thunderbolt cable into the new phone, which was then being powered is like daisy chaining. The battery was just going down, down, down, down, down, down, down. I couldn't do anything about it. We were getting towards 20%. And I was like, well, this isn't going to work. at a 20% battery light. It started at like 70. We're two hours in, got 20% battery life, and it says like six hours remaining. So this isn't going to work as well. So I was like,

well, at this point, let me just see what happens. So I pulled out the cable and it was like, need to connect. And then it just reconnected. So it found itself up for Wi-Fi. So it said at that point, said like seven hours remaining, plugged them in, went to sleep. Woke up in the morning. So this is like 11, I woke up at 445, 17 hours remaining. It's like, what has happened overnight? And the battery life on both of them, 30%. Now, they are both charging by cable in the wall. Oh, man. Something happened. Something bad happened. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't great. So I then, I just cancelled the transfer and started an iCloud transfer, like an iCloud backup, which again, it's like, could take about 15 minutes to get started, four hours go by, and my iPhone is now

ready to use, and it's very slowly downloading stuff. What I am going to do when I get, like, now, you can see, my iPhone is just full of just blank widgets, because it's downloading these apps very slowly. But I wanted to at least have it boot, and so I could, like, open the camera app or whatever. My plan is most likely when I get home, I'm just going to start again and do a direct transfer. Yeah. I don't know why it went the way that it did. It just did go that way.

And this is kind of the scenarios. I know you've mentioned about doing ICloud. And ICloud is the most reliable at getting the thing to happen. And it gets you up and running fast. Because it keeps loading them in the background. But for me, it's like it is the one that then will take the longest to be done. Yes. Because even if I was at home, to download the hundreds of

gigabytes of phone we're days in you know and like also i open my messages at there's like three threads in there yep it's like all of this stuff will eventually find its way but what i have the phone running now that's great i didn't transfer my sim or anything like that and it's on and working i will let it do its thing because i'm leaving today i'll let it do its thing i'll play around with it and then when i get home tomorrow i will maybe plug them in again i'll just set it next to each other both charging, and it will be done in a few hours or whatever. So I often wonder, is it like, I know it's creating its own network, but maybe if it doesn't have good Wi-Fi, maybe that makes it go a bit weird.

I don't know what the problem is, but it just goes a bit strange. I do have a cup. I have two notes about the process of setting up an iPhone again now, because we go through this every year. One, Face ID, they have gotten so good. good at that scanning. That you can be done in one face scan now. And it's super quick. And they're like, hey, do you want to do it with a mask? You know, you can do the face. I do the most say yes, you just do one more scan and it's completely done. That was, that's very impressive. Camera control

by default with setting up a new iPhone, default to no swiping just and you have to turn it on. That's interesting. I think that shows the future of that button that. it will just be a button that doesn't have the swipes swipes on it. And I think the thing that was most interesting to me, and I don't know the ramifications of this are yet, even when you're restoring from an I-Cloud backup, the phone prompts you to set up Apple intelligence again and asks you, like, what

notifications do you want to be grouped and all that kind of stuff? Do you want prior notifications? So is it going to forget all of the preferences I have for Apple intelligence from phone to phone? like if I have said hey don't summarize this app is it going to do it again I found that interesting like why is that setting not coming over from phone to phone right so I don't know what's going on there and I did have a thought about transfers before we have a story to tell it would be so great if when your iPhone arrived it was already ready for you like how Amazon does for the Kindle yeah I know this is a big request right but it's

feels like a very Apple thing to do. I realize that there's a lot going on here. I don't know what the security ramifications are. Sure. But the idea, they've already got the system where they can lay these phones down inbox and they get a software update. But the idea that your phone comes to you

if you choose, because Amazon lets you choose, already sort of like attached to your Apple ID. that it's as simple as that they don't have that that's not secure because they can't unlock or whatever but like it's an interesting idea to like could they prepare your phone in some way so that when it comes out of the box because the goal is always to make getting a new iPhone delightful yeah and the start-up process is bad even though it's better it's just not a good experience. And I don't think there's anything that they can do with the way that it is currently working to ever make it a good experience. Because ultimately, it always requires an element

of data download. And that is just not fun. You're waiting for something. And if any of it could be made easier. Basically, what I want is to open the box, turn it on and use my new iPhone. Yeah, the problem is going to be any method where they're loading data from your iCloud account, even if it's encrypted, is a security hole. Oh, for sure. But this is like a lot of things.

The desire is what I have. The problem is not mine. Yeah, yeah. How do you improve? I'm sure there's a whole team at Apple that this is all they do is talking about how they improve. We talk about it every year. Yes.

And there are still quirks in this system. like what I've experienced. But when it works, which it does eventually work, it's great. And also just all of the ways in which over time, they ask you fewer questions. They ask a lot of questions now, but they used to ask, re-ask every preference. Just maddening. And they also have choice now about how you'll do it. Like, do you want to do an eye club backup to restore?

Do you want to do it from another phone? Do you want to do it from a computer? I probably should have tried that. wrote in and said like backing up to a Mac and downloading from a Mac is actually still a good experience and upgrading them to say that interesting I don't know but they say it worked for them but you have options and even when you go into like hey I want to download I want to do say the iCloud restore you can have some preference about what parts you want to restore and all that kind of stuff it's better it's still not a good experience it's an okay experience

a good experience is when people are excited to get in a new iPhone you can just start using it even if it's like the most simple experience that's why I think the iCloud backup is the best one because you can just start using it because you can just start using it and the rest of it just sort of fills in and that's gotten better over time again i mean the problem that i have

you have an enormous number of photos but that also makes your wired transfer or your device device transfer that's one of the things that makes it so long so long i have half a terabyte of local storage used on my iPhone at some point I'm going to break

but this is why I choose the direct the reason I choose the direct transfer is for me just because of the way that my life has been I'm always getting

your iPhone in America like when I'm in a hotel and hotel Wi-Fi is so bad always for this kind of stuff so I figured the direct transfer would get me what I want

quickest but it doesn't always work I wasn't the only one that tried to do this and I didn't have the worst experience so our friend Casey Liss who we loved so much

Casey was very excited to get his new iPhone we got in the car on our way back to the hotel Casey has already started to do a direct transfer bold yeah bold

bold move he brought a battery with him yeah he had a cable yep he was doing it he's showing us screens he's like look camera control stuff and what are you doing it's like I'm standing up

my iPhone's like, that is bold. The context for this, we've got our phone at 7 p.m. Casey is leaving the hotel to catch a flight of 4 in the morning. Yeah. So we're on a real tight, we have less than 12 hours to go. We have a real tight clock for old Casey this. Nine hours, right? 7 p.m. 4 a.m.

Yeah. Yeah. Pushing. He's pushing it. I don't know how much stuff he has on his iPhone, but that's pushing it. Also, his wife's not happy about this. No. So Aaron's with us.

Aaron's been great this week. She puts up a lot with that man. Yeah. She wasn't suffering this. No. So we're in the hotel bar. Casey's phone still doing its thing. All of a sudden, canceled.

Says, not Casey. I don't know, maybe. It's canceled. His iPhone. Big red triangle. Yeah. Gone. Failure.

Casey's freaking out. He dropped one phone on top of the other phone. He's having a whole time. Yeah. Best part of this, by the way, is that the transfer is canceled, but his SIM card has succeeded in being transferred. So he has a non... He's a e-sim.

You don't need to do this, right? Like, they ask you if you want to do this. I do it after. Yeah. Because now Casey is in a scenario where he has two iPhones. Yeah. One with all his stuff. One of all his stuff.

And a broken one that's also his cell phone. Because the one of all his stuff has no data connection anymore. Right. It was at this moment that he went red. Because he is realizing what is going on. Yeah. It is now... 8, 9 p.m. around that kind of time. So he has two iPhones, neither of them do what he want.

Yeah. And Aaron says to him, you better have your boarding pass because Casey's boarding pass is on his iPhone. Yeah. Along with everything else he might need. I think what Aaron said was, well, I'm getting on that plane tomorrow morning. That's actually a good point. One of the worst parts of this for Casey is he has an audience of about seven people. All of us who are hanging out in the hotel watching him. This would be the highest stress for me is I don't want an audience. When I'm troubleshooting something and like my and I've got like family members around watching me struggle with something that is the worst feeling in the world to me I just I'm working the problem here I'm not what I will say to them because in that moment I'm not very nice yes I'll

say this is not a performance that's a great go go somewhere else yes I'm working on it you know what I agree with you because I I also I get really flustered and I get frustrated as he was and I don't need people to see me no and also make fun of me but case old boy will we make him part of it? Oh, boy. And Casey is so nice, and I did feel for him behind the laughter. I also felt for him because he was in a bad... But then again, he also got himself into that situation by making bad decisions. And this is the thing. We are all, before it failed, we all said, Casey, what are you doing? Just do it at home. Just do it at home. Play, turn it on and don't set it up and just play with it to play with it, but leave your functional phone functional until you

get home. Yeah. Now, also, I did it too, but I had all night. So my expectation was it will work. If it doesn't, I'll cancel it. And I had, like, a whole backup plan. I also had a whole separate phone, the iPhone air, which is just sitting there doing nothing. Yep.

That started from zero, the iPhone air. His issue was he was leaving the hotel so soon. That was the problem. That, like, even if it worked, you were pushing it. Yeah, yeah. Now, it turned out, he canceled it, started again. and it did the transfer, although he said send me a message this morning. I think it was to our group chat and said, I have no iMessages.

Right. My eyemiss history is gone. And maybe that will come back to him. Perhaps. Because that might sink from the cloud. Yeah. I don't know what's going on there. Also, we heard from him.

We heard from him. So that's a good sign. That's a good point. That's a very good point. Some device was able to send a message. But one of the things that I love about the podcastathon in this time in Memphis, It's just a lot of hanging out, hanging out with friends. Yeah.

One of my favorite things to do with my friends, like everyone, is we all take the make out of each other. We give each other a hard time. It's a great time. My thing for Casey was, I said to, I turned to him at one point and said, not only you struggling with this, you've got a story, but I'm telling your story on my podcast before you tell it on yours. Yeah, Casey can tell it on ATP, but everybody's, everybody who listens to both upgrade in ATP, it'll be like, I've already heard Casey's. So not only did he go through it. We'll get Casey's version. Yeah. Which will be more.

there's more detail that we don't have. Right, and now he'll be cursing us. Yes, which is great. Now, we get to take his moment from him. Yeah. And I just think that's delicious. What a great time. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Love you, Casey. This episode is brought to you by Interconnected. Today's biggest tech trends wouldn't be possible about the digital infrastructure that powers them. From the edge compute to cloud systems, ultra-reliable networks and everything in between. That's why you should check out the new podcast Interconnected, a new video and podcast series from Equinex that offers a rare look at the technology driving the innovations of tomorrow. Through candid conversations of industry experts and visionary

thinkers, Interconnected hosts guide you through emerging megatrends in tech, the infrastructure making them possible, and the connected future they're shaping. The first episode of Interconnected covers the AI Renaissance in the medical field. You'll hear about world-changing breakthroughs in healthcare, including rapid diagnostics, personalized medicine, optimized clinic research, and supercharged drug discovery, all promising developments are only made possible by the infrastructure that supports the computational models that power them. Without the near instantaneous network of interconnected data systems, we would not be on the verge of an AI-assisted medical renaissance. I listened to this episode, because I think it's kind of sponsoring, so I want to check

it out. And as you would hope from a podcast like this, and they do, they have some great subject matter experts on the show to dig into the subjects that they're covering. And it was fascinating to hear about the beginnings of a new kind of preventative care that the analysis of huge data sets can enable. This is actually something we were talking about with some people at St. Jude, too. Discovered the digital infrastructure powering today's biggest tech trends for Interconnected. Follow Interconnected on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to Interconnected for their support of this show and all of Relay. So let's talk about the iPhone Air.

Yeah. The little one. I recommend holding it between two fingers down toward the bottom. Nobody's done that. Personal balance thing. Just try that. Nobody's done that. Try it. It's so good.

It feels so good. Obviously, immediate, how thin of light is. Yeah. It is... Does what it says on the tin. Yeah. Kind of impossibly so. When you pick it up,

first time I picked it up, I was like, oh. Because I wait until I got opened mine. I didn't pick up at the Apple Store. and that is incredibly thin and I told you a fun fact about a show of our listeners to my friend Austin Evans

he's a YouTuber and he made a funny short where he got some calipers at the thickest point the iPhone air is thicker than the iPhone 17 so the camera area and he he kind of pontificated

if I think is correct the camera sticks out further because there's stuff behind it because they're putting so much stuff in the plato at the top that it actually makes that bump at its thickest point thicker than the 17.

It does not matter for this phone but that is just a fun trivia point because I feel like that could come up one day because this isn't actually at its thickest point the thinest phone even though it's thinest everywhere else. It is so thin it's like the buttons look weird

because it's like the buttons are basically the entire edge of the rail it's beautiful and it's so clearly the future. Yeah. One way or another, whatever is there hoping to build with this technology, this is different to the mini and the plus and everything else that came before it. This is a lot of effort and a lot of work to create something new. This isn't just, hey, here is a bigger version of the regular iPhone, or here's a smaller version of the regular iPhone.

This is a technical leap to create something so thin and so durable. There's been lots of bend tests now. This thing doesn't bend under any sort of regular circumstances. The glass is incredibly strong. All that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I mentioned last time when we talked about the announcement that this has an iPhone 10 feel to me, which is they are experimenting with a new wave of technologies in order

to achieve what they won't think the future of the phone is. And I hear people when they say, I don't need my phone to be ultra-thin and ultra-light. But at the same time, I feel like ultra-thin and ultra-light is a direction. I don't think if you imagine the smartphone of 10 years from now, it's going to be thicker than today's smartphones, right? That's not going to happen. The directions are clear. and Apple's vision anyway, we'll see where it actually goes,

but Apple's vision I think now that they're trying out is we want to make the thinnest part of the phone as thin as possible and we want to build a pod for the stuff that requires more and we'll place that at an appropriate point like the top. And then they're going to go down this path. They're going to have, you know,

because the miniaturization of all the other components means that you're left with, if all of the other components go somewhere else, all you're left with is the screen. And because the screen has such amazing, you know, width and height compared to the little pod, every, even a thin battery across that width and the height is a lot of battery. And the air shows that. But that also points to the future, which is you could envision Apple thinking about a design language for its products where they are impossibly thin and light. It's just, it feels like it's just a screen.

It's actually just a screen with a battery behind it. Because even a thin battery spread over the entire width and height of a screen is a lot of battery. If you start to think of it that way and then Apple says, oh, that iconic plateau that we've built into all these phones now, that's going to be the outboard motor of our devices. It's going to be a little blob at the top.

You could imagine this for an iPad as well, like thinner and thinner and thinner because I think from a design standpoint, the ideal, you know, ideal, and I mean that, ideal product is something that is essentially just a screen. Yeah, which is because even when you have the pod, you're not whole, they put it in a place where you don't hold it.

Exactly. So when you hold it. it, you don't notice that. Yes. When we were at the football game, I was paying attention to people and their devices. And I was watching so many people stuff phones into pockets that were too small for them. Men, women, and everybody else, you know, like everyone. Yeah, people and tiger mascot costumes.

Exactly. They were trying to. Razor back mascots, yes. They had phones too big. Huge, furry, fluffy phones. Suey pig, your phone's too big. too big. And I found it to be interesting to see. And it made me think about the fact that it is kind of ridiculous in a way that we all carry this thing around with us. It actually kind of comes

to the crossbody straps in a way. It's like, we just all have these things with us and we have to put them somewhere and they don't always fit. Like I saw a guy he had like, I don't know, a pack of gum in his pocket like a plastic pack of gum or it might be something else people choose stuff I don't know what it is I heard zins

I don't know what this means Oh yeah Those are like nicotine Pouches So he had some of those In a pocket That you then tried to put His like big iPhone into

And he did it But he's It looked ridiculous And like I just put some Nuchinos And they've already got The mark on them From my iPhone

Yeah You know It's like this is silly What we're doing here So trying to make these things better less obtrusive or fit better

in how we live our lives now the other side of this though is I think that the air a little bigger than I want screen size wise it's something that I forgot about that it's actually I don't think it's the plus size

but it's like a little bit in between if I'm just doing it off my dome I can check this in a second and I will but it is a little bit bigger it does feel nicer to use because it's thinner so like it's kind of easier to grass but that is something that I'm kind of getting used to and using this phone as well.

But it's beautiful and it's clearly in the future. I would say that the one camera would be an issue for me, I think. So you kind of can't really take pictures of anything close. I was wondering if they were going to, because of the ultra-wide, you have the macro thing that it does, which I don't like, but it can get you a picture of something. If it's close, you want to take a picture of a label or something. It just doesn't work with this phone.

you have to move it far enough away or maybe take it from far away and do the 2x crop so you can get something close. There's kind of no way around it. This is one of those things that it's just physics is a problem. The sensor won't allow it. You could think of it almost as a 1.0 phone again, right? It's like

when we had the original iPhone and those early iPhones with one camera, it's kind of like that again. It is. Where they're hitting a reset button because over time you can see if this is a direction they go, there will be more and more technology that'll be miniaturized and put in the plateau. And that includes cameras, but they're not, they're not there. This is, uh, this is the cutting edge first gen for all that implies.

You get to be the first one to have a product like this ever, but it's also the first one of these. And so it's got a lot of issues. So I have the light blue one. Or sky blue, wherever they're calling it. And Brad was the panadic Brad. He was with us. It was great to see Brad.

He was saying to me, he's like, oh, I saw it of Federico got the blue one, but I like yours, the white one. And I was like, well, no, Federico got a black one. And I got a blue one. And he's like, no, you did not. I was like, yes, I did. That is blue. That's blue? That is blue.

Okay. It's not blue. It's nice, though. I like it. It's white with a blue undertone. I like the color. it's pleasant but it is

to call it blue is quite a thing to say I got the bumper case for it too the bumper case ruins the phone I didn't think it would but it does

so what the bumper case does is if you hold the phone like just the phone oh it's super thin but when you hold the phone how a regular person would hold a phone to actually use it, well now

it's thick again. Yeah, it's thick again. They thickened it. Yeah, because it's about the bumper case sides feel to me, I haven't had measurements, but feels basically as thick as a regular iPhone. Right. So when you're holding the phone, it's still light, but you're not benefiting from the thinness.

I do feel it's maybe a controversial take. Probably not, but this is my take. Do not buy this iPhone put it in a case you've wasted your money. If you are not willing to use this about a case, don't buy it. Right, because you should get a phone that has a battery and proper cameras and all the other things. The reason you use this phone is to make a light. Putting this phone in a case

just ruins what's good about this phone. Interesting. That might be controversial, but that's a great take. That's a great review take. There it is, the Hurley take. And that is a take for someone who doesn't use cases, right? So like, I'm willing to, I'm willing to die on this hill. Well, I mean, if you are not in a case, you will die on that hill. If you had a case, you might have survived. No, I think you make a logical point, which is the only, there are so many concessions you have to make to buy this phone in order to get a feature that if you then wrap it in a case, you have lost. And it doesn't matter that Apple's like, we built a thing case. It doesn't matter. And like even the bumper case, it doesn't matter because it just, it has to protect the

sides. It's kind of the point of it. It has to wrap around it. And once it's done that, you've lost it. You've lost it. Any case, I feel like, just any case will always make the phone thicker and then what is the point? Because all cases make phones thicker, but phones are not usually about being thin. Right. Yes. This phone's whole thing is it's thin. And she says you give up so much to get that. If you put a case on it, you lose that. Even if it ends up thinner than the phone you used before, I just think you're just not getting what you want. I'll give you a counterpoint. And this is David Schaub in the chat has has suggested this as well, which is if you're a, the counterpoint is what if you're a case person

and now you've got the thinnest and lightest phone in a case ever. I don't take that. I just don't think it does. I get the point. Yeah, but I agree with you. At that point, save your money, get more cameras, get more battery, and just have a big phone. Yes. Because I just, it just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make, this is a phone to be used. This is a phone to be used of our case is how it's designed and it's how it works well outside of that i don't know why you're doing it all right i got the cross-body strap yeah to here um i'm a little bit disappointed with the fiddliness of the attachment system now i knew it was this way when they showed it but i was hoping apple's going to do something different not the strap itself but what you

have to do to your case oh yeah you've got like little tassels coming off your case You have to thread these little thread pieces through the holes which then you attach via a very clever magnet there is so much clever stuff in the strap itself this thing is full of magnets the entire

so you've got magnets that attach to the little tassels the dangles then the strap itself so you know like on backpack straps or any strap you always have kind of like where it overlaps and you can loosen or tie it based on the overlap

there is magnets all the way through this to keep it closed and the actual system of lengthening and shortening it is nice now i'm really bad at doing this in all bags i can never work out how to make a strap shorter or tight i'm very bad at this i still struggled with this but it was nice it was easier because of the way they've done it you kind of and there will always be a slack in the cable until you tighten it to a level so you would move one and then you have to move the other and that would change the height and change the slack in it but eventually it will always need to be magnetized closed the two pieces and that kind of in a way helps me understand that you've made an adjustment because my inclination is to just

keep making adjustments and the way end up in the same spot again because I don't know what I'm doing so there's a lot going on in here but to attach it to the case you have to put these little threads through holes and you have these little pieces of metal dangling off the case that feels not good to me because now I would take the strap off and I'm at home and your phone is

I mean you have to take it out of the case essentially instead of taking the strap off you should just take the case off and that is fine right because otherwise you end up where you wear your air which people watching the video

don't worry if you're not just listening to the audio podcast because we're using it to record so you can't see it but I am watching it right now and it is ridiculous. Yes. Because there's little dangly bits coming off of it.

So what you would do and if it is for the air specifically, if it was I'm recommending, you would do this to use it outside and then when you get home, take it out and use it properly. Pop it off. As it should be used. And maybe people that want to do this of any phone, you end up with

two cases. You have your lanyard cross-body case and your regular case, but that also feels silly. And all cross-body straps have some attachment mechanism. I think some are better than others. They always have some kind of, there's always something dangling off something

if you want to take it off the strap. I had just hoped Apple would have a better system than this one. Because the amount of effort that's gone into magnetizing this, I was maybe hoping for some kind of magnet lock system, kind of like how you attach the battery to the Vision Pro. Right.

Like push in and lock. That would serve. And maybe, you know, maybe you'd have some, divvets in the back of your case because of that. But I think that would be a better system than this one. I just don't think it leaves your iPhone in normal situations looking very good. No, it's got little dangly bits coming off. And you wouldn't take the dangly bits off either because you kind of have to rethread and thread them. So I think that the execution of the strap itself is very, very, very good. But the attachment mechanism leaves something to be desired.

I think. I do also see, I think we both saw it, the Beets case. Do you see the Beets case that has a little integrated kick sand? That is genius design. It has a little pod that hangs off the case. You open it up and then you can put your phone

on a little kickstand and watch a video or whatever. I just thought that was really cool. We'll have more to say on these iPhones. For sure. You're getting an air too, right? Yes. So other than next weeks, we'll have more to say on them. These are basically just first impression.

and mostly my first impressions. But you also, but you did get AirPods 3. Yes, I did. Pro 3. Pro 3. What has your, been your experience with those so far? It's, so the noise cancelling seems great, although one of the reasons that I bought them is I'm going to take a flight.

So we'll both have that experience. I was surprised. I usually am pretty, pretty default with the AirPods pro. I think I have a, I think I maybe go down to, a smaller size with the eartips. It was weird. I put them in my ears and my right ear didn't feel comfortable. Yep.

But my left ear did, which is very weird for me because I'm usually always in the same size. Yep. So I went down a size and it still felt a little weird, but it felt better. So I went down another size. Yes. And then it felt better, but I could also hear the same. sound getting in from the noise canceling. I could hear a little more sound.

I think it was leaking a little bit. So I don't know. I've got to spend some time with it. I really got to mix and match. I'm not sold. I was surprised that the fit felt very different. Yes. And I don't think it felt better.

No. I'm very mixed on AirPods Pro 3 right now. I might get used to them, but my initial thought, was not, oh yeah, this is the stuff. It was more like, oh, this is kind of not pleasant. Case is bigger, and I don't like that. So everything's getting bigger. Yeah, with less battery, I think. Case is bigger with less battery. I don't get that, and I'm not happy about that. I also went down, I went down one size, and I expect I'll get used to it too, but the feeling

of putting these in my ears is not pleasant. It's painful. It's like I'm shoving them in. Whereas with my old ones, I felt like they just went in. They just popped right in. These are like you're inserting them in your ears. And this is the phone. Yeah, because I have used AirPos Pro foam tips, and this is what they feel like. And I, I am, so I've only tried the noise cancellation in my hotel room. I think it might be too strong.

Interesting. For my taste. See what you think on a plane. Exactly. That's the real question. And also then just getting used to it. I'm keen to see how they are. And as you say, it might just be you get used to this.

Because this is not a complaint that I've heard from anyone that has had them for multiple days. But I have used AirPods Pro 2 for a long time. And I use in-ear monitors all the time. And so I've gotten used to some different kinds of feels. This is not those feels. There's something different here. And I may also get used to it.

But I think it's interesting. In fact, you only get, it's like from a commercial you only get a first chance you only get one chance to make a first impression right you only get a first chance to make one impression to make a first impression and so I try to honor that right because you never get that chance again so I'm going to honor my initial response to putting the AirPods Pro 3 in even if I decide that it's a thing that I got used to over time. I think it's an interesting data point that I put them in and I thought

I'm exactly in the same boat as you. My first impression with these was, well, this feels like a mistake. Yeah. Because first, it just was very uncomfortable. Yeah. And then I went down a size and it was possible. And I was wearing them

last night. I fell asleep with them in and that was, I haven't got any pain. And they're not painful. They are just not comfortable to put in in the first. time. And maybe over time, the tips conform more to my ear shape. Maybe. I don't know. Or I just get used to it. I don't know. All I know is I do, I don't, I did not enjoy it as much as I enjoyed my previous AirPods in my ears.

Yeah. And you say, it may be that you're like, oh, you know what? These are better in absolutely every way. I haven't had that kind of experience yet. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to doing some AB testing on the flights and all that. And I had zero fit problems before. Comfortability problems I don't know some people did and this would solve that because these things aren't going to come out I found it deeply weird

that one of my ears with the default size felt fine and the other didn't that's never happened to me before With AirPods Pro 1 I used to wear mismatched the AirPods Pro 2 I didn't

but I used to wear one medium once more I don't know man so interesting it's going to be I agree it's going to be interesting to see how a fair

it is over time I don't remember how I felt when I first tried AirPotsboro. I don't remember what it felt like to put them in my ear because I've always been pretty adverse to that before. Yeah, well, and I've been using an ear, in-ear headphones so long now that it's never... The style of earphone that goes in, actually in the ear, not on the ear.

You know, like you're just like the regular earpods. Yeah, I've never been a fan of that, but I tried it, and I was like, you know what, I'm willing to like this. I don't remember... I know my first impression exists on the internet. I think Zoe is to point in there and Discord. To the podcast archives. Yes, that's right.

It exists out there. And it may have been that I was quicker to dismiss any issue because I got to experience the noise cancelling and that blew me away because I didn't think I was going to like it because I previously not liked it. This is the first time using AirPods Pro where I'm like, oh, I'm not sure that this noise cancelling makes me feel very good. so yeah i only use noise cancelling and very it is very strong and i know you've had those issues before where you've said like it feels a little weird yes like your your head is kind of in a weird

space um so we'll see i only most of the time i'm using adaptive the adaptive mode which is so great because it filters out noises that are like you know i live near a freeway so it'll filter out the hiss of the freeway, but if a car is coming by, I know exactly where that car is. I can hear that. That's brilliant. It is rare that I'm in full noise canceling and it's like on an airplane or if I'm working in the backyard and the neighbor is, you know, using a circular saw to cut pavers for their backyard, which has been happening for many weeks now. Those are the kinds of times that I'll use that. So that'll be part of the test. I guess, just living with them.

I use it quite a bit, like I use it at home, like washing the dishes. I'll put, I will actually go straight into noise cancellation, stuff like that. Because I don't want to hear the clank of the dishes. We'll see. I mean, here's the thing. Early days. What I know is, if I get used to it, which I do expect I will, I can tell it's better. Like, I know it's better.

Oh, for sure. You know, and so like that is interesting to me. And I am very eager, as I was saying this to you before, I want it to be good on a plane because I want to get rid of these airports, Max. I'm done with this pair of headphones. So on the way here, at moments that were seemingly random, my right ear cup would go

it wasn't the microphone because that's a different noise. Like if you mess with the microphone, it was just explosion of static in my right ear. I hate wearing them right now because I hate the way all of this sounds. What I am hoping to be able to do, Because I then tried, so my long haul flight, I used these,

and the sound was great. Noise cancellation is incredible. And then on my shorter flight, I used my AirPods Pro 2, and I had to have the volume of my iPad, basically, the maximum. And I did not need to do that with the max. What I'm hoping is the AirPods Pro 3 will get me most of the way there, and then I can just put a regular pair of headphones in my suitcase for recording podcasts, and I'll be happy.

Because even right now, I just don't like how I sound using these with the whole setup that we have, it just doesn't sound like a regular pair of monitoring headphones. Like, I feel like my ears are vibrating with bass, even though I had them set to the off mode. Like, it's not doing NOS can't sensation, it's not doing transparency. It's just something about wearing these AirPods max.

It just makes me uncomfortable when I'm talking. As you know, I'm very sensitive to my own voice. Like, I hear it a lot, and I'm very sensitive to it. I think I mentioned this recently so I could talk about it more in full now with the updates that we did for WidgetSmith I made some videos talking about the features

and they are put into the app some of them are loaded into the app so they're quick to watch you don't have to stream or download them I gave them to underscore and he compressed them to put them in the app and I was like can we change the settings on my audio

because I don't like the way that it makes me sound if it's feasible to do without increasing the file size, I would love a higher bit rate audio. He's like, oh yeah, I can do it in a base that you changed nothing. And he did it for me, I was like, great. And I underscore said, I cannot tell the difference between these two files.

But I can really tell the sound of my voice when it's overcompressed, like from like a lossy compression. But of course I can. Like, I know my voice in a way that regular people don't know their own voices because I listen to hours and

hours of myself when editing. So I'm just very like, I'm going way off on a tangent and nobody needs right now, I realize, I apologize and I'm now just going to record straight out. I'm intrigued to see what my experience of AirPods Pro is, but I agree with you. My first impression has not been a good one. Yeah, I agree.

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Still running. That's fantastic. I'd love to see it. Rumor roundup time. Yeha! Yeha, buddy. Ming Chi Kuo is reporting that Apple is getting ready to launch a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen OLED display next year.

So this is, these rumors have been going for a while, but we've Yeah, Mark German wrote a piece that mentioned this, and he said, ah, last week, Ming Chi Kuo reported what I reported in 2023. Like, take a victory lap. Okay, it's fair. He did, he did break it. He did. Different reporting, though.

Yeah. Right. Quo is talking about the fact that parts are being lined up. Yes, right. He was talking about the strategy internally, and Quo is talking about they're making this thing. He's right, but we need both of them, I think, to kind of really narrow this stuff down. So it is expect, there are two pieces of information.

here. So at Touchgreen, we'll come back to that in a second. Sure. There are two things that I find intriguing here. The expectation is this is the M5 MacBook Pro, and it will not come until 2026. It doesn't make sense to me. Doesn't make sense, right?

No. So, Quo says early 26. So maybe it's like January, February, and they just don't revise the MacBook Pro by the end of the year. Right. Well, there were a report Germann said that the fall launch of the MacBook Pro was not going to happen

or probably not going to happen and it would become early next year. Yes. Which is really interesting because that would say that the OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro is imminent essentially. It will come early next year.

It's the next one. As an M5. When I had thought we might have another year before this, it feels like this is the thing that you would do with the next one,

which is like the anniversary redesigned MacBook Pro, right? That's the expectation. But I think it's very interesting, right? To be like,

oh, there, just there won't be. So will we get an M5 and an M6 next year? I mean, they'd done it before. They could do that.

Or they could move it to a different schedule and have it pop in the, you know, in the winter or the spring. Some of this stuff is interesting because it's like when Apple moved to Apple Silicon, it's very much like,

ha-ha, they won't have to be on Intel's timeline anymore. But now they're on their own. They're on their own timeline. It seems like I think it doesn't always work where they want. It felt more logical to me that they would launch just a speed-bumped M5 this fall or early in early next year. And then in the fall, they would do a completely new MacBook Pro

that would be, even though it would only be nine months later, it's okay because it's totally new and that's why they did it. And maybe you don't want, want a touchscreen immediately or something like that. But, yeah, if we're looking at the reporting, as it states right now, early 2026, and that would be the M5 MacBook Pro, and it will have an OLED touchscreen, which I think finally is

my response to that. I think Macs need touchscreens. You do not need to be pressing the close button with your finger, right? No, it touch it on a laptop is not a primary interface. It's an additional interface because people are used to being able to touch stuff. I would like to. So in front of me right now as a Google Doc, I would like to. My hands are right in front of my laptop. Just scroll it. Yeah, that's what I always, I said this like 10 years ago when Jamie had a Chromebook with a touchscreen, when I would use that Chromebook. The one thing I would use the touchscreen for essentially was to scroll. And occasionally there would be like a dialogue and my hand would be close and I'd just tap it because I'm used to it because we're all used to touching screens now. The intent is not that you're going to sit there and intensively be reaching out, touching on a digital keyboard on the screen. It's not, that's not what you're doing there.

That's not, again, it's like, we know what this is like. When I use my iPad. Because we have iPads of magic keyboards. With magic keyboard attached and I still touch it. I just, it's just different. Yes. Because it is just, as you say, is a secondary medium for interacting with the display. I don't even really think they need to make much change to Mac OS.

I don't think so. at all to begin with this. And if people really dig it, maybe they do some bits and bobs. And again, I think iPadOS is an example of this, because there are touched targets on iPadOS now. They're too small. You tap them and they get

bigger so you can tap them again. The closed dialogue stuff, right? It's fine. And I'm excited about it. In this report, though, he does reiterate a thing I had forgotten about, which is that there is still expected to be a low-cost MacBook this year, but it would not have

a touchscreen. Sure. Touch screen would come to that in 2027, he says. I think that, I think, once there is a Mac with a touchscreen, that will roll out quickly to all of them. Or all laptops, certainly.

That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, touch screen on a Mac Mini. Well, and I'm Mac. And you just touch the top of the Mac Mini, and it becomes a trackpad. But you touch it, but you don't see it because there doesn't have a screen.

But there is a touchscreen panel in there, but it affects things on your screen, but you just have to work that one out. It's just a track pad. You've got to be detached from them. Your Mac Mini is, I think that we would in, if we got this in 2026, my bet would be by the end of 26, there is a MacBook code of a touchscreen.

I would assume so. And it just won't be an OLED. It won't be an OLED, but it'll be a touchscreen. I think that will come very quickly. I think you're probably right. The low cost, I mean, that's wild if we're getting, maybe it's just because we've been so focused on all these iPhones for so long. Yeah.

The idea that that low cost Mac laptop might be next month. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Along with some iPads and some other stuff. Like, there was an article, I think Matt Grummers had it about, like, here are the things that Apple expected to do. I think it was reporting from Montgomery. We've spoken about it in the past, right? Like, his list of stuff.

Sure. There's still, like, a lot of stuff. Like, we didn't get an Apple TV update. That didn't happen. Yeah. Right? There's like any of the home products. Yeah.

And there doesn't need to be an event, you know, per se. They can just do this whenever. But there's a lot of stuff out there. Week of press releases that they do. Exactly. They could do that. Yeah. But yeah, that is still on track for this year.

And again, I just completely forgotten about it. Is it because we're focused on other things? Yeah. We spoke about the iPhone 17 line, obviously a lot in this episode. Early reports are indicating that it is performing well sales-wise. Minkshi-Quo has said that the iPhone 17 line is selling better than the iPhone 16 in its beginning, approximately 25% higher demand. And even though the iPhone Air does still.

seem to be in supply, like it seems to be the phone that you can buy, which is leading people to say, like, oh, nobody wants it. Quo has said, Apple produced three times the amount of the air than they did the plus. So, trying to gauge response is not. Yeah, because you don't, you don't know the whole equation when you do that. And I think that the iPhone air will be a slow roll product. Someone you know will buy one and then you will buy one. Yeah. It's not necessarily, it's not necessarily an early adopter first week of sales kind of product. It's say you see it in the store when you're upgrading your phone. You're like, oh, I want this one. Or you see somebody with it and you say, that's really awesome. I want that too. Yeah, absolutely. It is, I think German's report

today, as we record this, suggests something like that too, that it seems to be doing well. The information reported that the standard iPhone 17 model has had a very strong opening week. and has exceeded Apple's expected demand, they have said that output with suppliers has been increased by 30% to meet this demand. But what they are suggesting, which I don't necessarily agree with yet, like I think it's too early to tell, but they're suggesting that this could be an issue for the overall revenue of the iPhone if iPhone 17 demand is cannibalizing pro demand.

my gut would say that wouldn't be the case my gut says the pro is still going to sell as well as the pro sells but they are going to encourage more people to upgrade now because the iPhone 17 is so good and the story of the iPhone 17

has been this is the one to buy because it just has so much as what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago and it is the kind of the overriding sentiment from reviewers

so my gut feeling on this is that people who have non-pro iPhones are being incentivized to upgrade this year but people who buy pro iPhones are not

switching away as my gut yeah I think there's probably some truth to that because this is an actual lower-end flagship model that loses all of those

limitations so if you're on that track it's a great this is the thing that you lose track of when we have the window of year to year and we have the window

of all of these different models is thinking year to year a year on the 17, it's an enormous upgrade. And it's to features that the pro users have had for years, but it is still huge. And if you're kind of on that track, you look at it and think, oh, well, that's great. Let's do that in a way that if you're thinking in a pro mindset, you don't necessarily think that way.

Exactly. And maybe I'm wrong. I just feel like most people are most likely to stick with the phone that they have and get the new one. I think you're right. I think you're right. Unless they're tempted by something like the air, right? But then they're still good money. Yeah, Apple. Oh, Apple wins in all the scenarios. Mark German is reporting that Apple's answers knowledge and information team may be shipping their own model for world knowledge on the iPhone as soon as March next year. So this is the project

that, you know, how they call, you know, a series for this, chat GPT is for world knowledge. that Apple has no world knowledge and it was sort of building their own team with crawlers and all that kind of stuff it seems like now they are targeting for this to be released with the upgrades to Syria which are expected to come in March

still feel so far away six months away and I don't buy it I just don't I don't buy it but we'll see so this would see them already kind of offering their own competition

for the integration that they have with Open AI. But there's an interesting wrinkle to this. Mark German was also five days later reported. Robbie Walker, who was in charge of this team after the G.N. Andrea shakeup, is leaving Apple. So it's not known where he's going yet. It's probably meant her.

I don't know. I mean, maybe. Or maybe. But I think his position, this is the least surprising news of the year. year. Because after what happened to him in all the reporting about how, I mean, he really was savaged in the media. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to read the quote again. I think there's no way that guy could stay employed at Apple. I think, I think whether it's them suggesting he leave

or him realizing there's no way he can stay, I think after you go through all of this, it's kind of untenable. He's kind of, I say unfortunately for him. He has kind of taken like a shrapnel from Ian Andrea being moved away. He is the symbol of everything that's wrong with Siri. Yes. And I will say confidently, unfairly, because no one person is responsible for all of the baggage of Siri. And he is not a high-level executive who usually take the fall for this kind of thing. Right?

So, like, John DeAnd Andrea has clearly been moved away and we all think he's on the out. He will probably, yeah, also leave. atypical that then like a SVP or a VP also gets caught up in this but if you're wondering why because Robbie Walker was quoted as saying the following in an internal meeting about the when Siri was announced as being delayed or the personal context all that kind of stuff we swam hundreds of miles we set a Guinness book for world records for swimming distance but we still didn't swim to Hawaii and we were being jumped on not for the amazing swimming that we did but the fact that we didn't get to the destination we did some amazing swimming i feel so bad for

him because this is just a quote he's trying to like pump up the team and be like look we did some amazing stuff but we didn't get to where we wanted to go and people don't pay attention to the amazing stuff that we did because we didn't get to where we want he's not wrong he's not wrong the way it's phrased is more like but you know we we did some amazing swimming every when in fact the answer is we were given a job and we failed yeah and so the fact that all of this got out he's kind of had some of the stuff pinned to him yeah and it's it feels untenable to me yeah and then also being put in charge of this answers knowledge and information team is a demotion essentially yeah like you've gone from all of syria which should include this

to like can you build a skunk work project to build this again this is how it feels when you read the reporting. And so whatever's happening, he won't be there anymore. No. So the way that Mark has reported on is that he has given his notes to leave, essentially. So it's not like, oh, he's been poached by meta. Maybe he has, maybe he's got a job, but we don't know, but that's not the story here. This feels like more, I can't be here anymore and then maybe I will go work somewhere else rather than that I've been poached. But who knows, who It's rough. Yeah.

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I'm happy that it does all the stuff in the background. That sounds like FitBud is taking care of me and I love that. But what I like about it most, the result of this, is that my workout program varies so I don't get bored of it because I get bored and I'm doing the same things over and over and over again. If I get bored, I'm not enthusiastic. I'm not committed to it. But making it exciting and new and challenging, it keeps me coming back for more, which is important. The FitBot app is easy to use. You stay informed with their progress tracking charts, reports, and sharing cards, so you can keep track of your achievements and personal best and also share them with friends and friends. family. FitBod also integrates with your Apple Watch, wearer, smart watch and other apps that you may use like Strava,

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That is FitBod.mee slash upgrade for that 25% off your membership. A thanks to FitBod for their support of this show. and relay. Sign for some ask upgrade questions. Oh, I got lasered. Michael wants to know. Assuming the same level of quality and style

you experience in their other products, what appliance brand would you like to make a Mac clone? This is such a weird question. I love this question. And the reason I included is because, Jason, I think I have, like for me, a perfect answer. All right. Teenage Engineering.

All right. Makers are very expensive products. and designers of things like the Play-Dade and quirky things with cool buttons and weird design, Braun style. I would love a teenage engineering Mac. It would be weird. It would be real weird. Yeah. I have no answer here because I don't...

Let me put it this way. The appliances that I buy are not made by companies that have the same design aspiration as out. Let's stretch it to any company that makes technology-focused hardware. Does that change anything? Sony could do a cool job, I think. PowerBook 100. There's that Sony. That was a Sony. And what was that like?

Little. I mean, that's what they were going for. It was like super miniaturized because that was like the Sony. You didn't have a lot of... Little's in, you know? Yeah, I don't have an answer here because I struggle to come up with companies that make hardware that make me think, this is so, so much hardware now is commodity and simplicity.

Imagine bravel. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's an example, but that'd be weird. It would be weird. It would be weird. Oxo. Very grippable. Yeah, very grippable.

Who else have we got? I like this. I want people to write in with their, if you have a company that you would like to see, make a Mac, write in. Go to UpgradeFeedback.com. right. And I would like to know. I think that would be fun. I would like to see what people think about that. Maybe like one of those companies that makes super fancy e-bikes. Yes.

Because those, I've seen some of those where they look like very Apple design sensibility. I guess what I'm saying is there are not actually that many companies that are, the space Apple represents is a high-end space. And I know Apple, because of the way we use our technology, the Apple products are at the high end so you're listening to this this podcast you have chosen to to prioritize that level but it's Apple reaches more people than a high end appliance brand right and and it's interesting because that's where you have to go you have to go to the high end like a watchmaker or the or those high end kitchen appliances and all of that and most of that stuff, I don't buy that. I do buy the technology stuff, but I'm not buying a whatever, a $5,000

dishwasher. And below the high end, it's just a doggy dog kind of commodity world that doesn't provide any of the kind of decisions. Yeah, I think that there are some luxury goods brands that can make something interesting, but yes, I agree with what you're saying. I just picked up my iPhone Proce here it's doing, and I had six consecutive pop-ups to enter in passwords for email accounts. Fine. So it's going... It's going... It's going well.

Over here. Great. Logan Wright-Sinner says, I'm thinking it's time for a watch upgrade as I'm on a series five, but I'm really struggling to decide between the 11

and the Ultra 3. I don't really care about the look, but I'm worried that the bulk of the ultra will be annoying even though I have relatively big wrists.

But the battery is definitely a big factor as I wear the watch all day and all night. I am not an extreme sportsperson. I'm just for regular workouts and running, so I'm worried that the ultra would be wasted. I think the 11 is your choice here because the 11 has pretty good enough battery. And if you charge it every day when you take a shower or whatever, like you just need to find a little time to charge it.

And it's enough. And Apple now claims all day, you know, 24 hour battery life. We'll see about that. But I don't think you need the battery. For what you describe, I don't think you need the battery of the ultra. I think you can get through and wear it all day and night. And you just have to find a time to charge it. But for me, you know, when I'm sleeping with the Apple Watch in the morning,

I will pop it on the charger when I wake up and then, you know, take a shower and then come back and put it back on and that's fine. I agree that the 11, especially going from a 5 to an 11, you have a great time. But what I will say, though, for people that are considering this, the ultra is not as in as like cumbersome as you think it is when you're wearing it. Well, yeah, you should try it. Yeah. And see what you think.

which you can do in the Apple store but the 11 is probably the right call I would say certainly the 11 will also solve all of the issues that Logan mentions and the fact that you even have the question about bulkiness then you'll love the 11 because it's super thin

yeah Amma writes in and says am I the only one who desperately wants Apple to move back to in-person live events these ridiculously scripted events have completely lost their charm the more I see Google meta or even Dyson events

the more I feel Apple is missing a trick at least one of the two major events of the year should be in person. So sometimes I want this, right? Like, I like the in-person events. But Amar references Meta. Now, a couple of days ago, Meta had an event where they showed up

what is, ostensibly an incredibly impressive piece of technology. They have put screens in their ray bands, right? Yeah. Like displays, essentially. And they have this band which you can control the UI. And every person that has tried them, journalists, content creators,

are saying, like, this is, really impressive. Their demo was an abject failure. Yeah. Like time and time again, they were trying to do things and they couldn't connect to the Wi-Fi. It made their product look stupid and it made everybody on stage look stupid and awkward. Like there's this one clip of this, I don't know who this person was, but I've just seen like a kind of a super cut. And they're trying to make like a recipe and they're using the AI to tell them what to do. And it just would not accept that they were not on step two. And the guy looked so uncomfortable because all he has to do is read the lines he's been told to read and it would not do it. Like Zuckerberg's like, oh, the

Wi-Fi is like, no, you look stupid. Like, I want live events too, but why would Apple do that and look like idiots when something doesn't work, which inevitably these things don't work? Because like we were talking earlier, technology is just not always take the path that you want it to take. If it works 99 times out of 100, but your one time is when you're showing it off to the world for the first time, you look stupid.

So why would you do it? Remember earlier today when you had a potentially controversial take? Yeah. I'm about to do it. Let's do it. No live events. No live events for Apple. It's a bad idea.

um i i i don't think apple cares that they've lost their charm that's not the point i'll also point out live events were never for live events as a concept emerged from an era where there were trade shows it continued to exist because it's it they kind of picked up the magic really because steve jobs was kind of magical at it they were never for 99.999 999% of the audience right it was always for a thousand people or 500 people in the room. Apple has proven that they can still invite people to their campus to watch

a video and then get all the benefit of people having hands on. They have complete control over it. It's a commercial just like it was before. I find it so strange when people are like the pre-recorded ones just feel like ads. It's always just an ad.

They were all ads. They were just doing an ad live at you. Yeah, it was a not a live ad read instead of a professional. And the quality is so much higher. Now, trying to get at what Amar is saying here, what I would say is, I think going to keep making takes here, Mike. I'm going to keep making takes here. I think there's a problem with apples, they call them films, right, whatever they do. I think there's a problem with the tone and the direction of them.

I would agree with that. I think that's the problem. Yes. I think they're so polished. And I think that that kind of, it's not even snarky. it's more like smug tone that they've got because they do it

not in just the tone even in their jokes the production value is so high it's like hey look what we can do it's so it is it is so polished

it's almost like they're like people start to speculate did they touch up the presenters is the background real is everything looped everything has been dubbed in

with a voiceover. Because it's also just stuff is like, there's no way you shot that in the store was open. So you're making it look like the store is open.

Yeah. So it's completely massaged to the point. So what I would say is I feel like the people who are building these events or these commercials might want to

consider something else in terms of style that feels a little... A little more foxy. Yeah. Like, let's just chill out a little. little bit. Like just, that's just, you know, I agree. It's, because it's, it's like, it's so intense.

it's like we're going to make it's like a friend if a friend of yours who's a filmmaker comes to you and says I'm going to make the best commercial ever and it's like yes that like like the sandwich video people come they're like it's going to be great it's going to be the best one we spared no expense we spent all this money it's going to be the most intense 60 seconds you've ever seen my response is going to be like whoa chill right like calm down that's too much and I think that is what these apple events are now so that's my take is I don't think you want a live event. And I don't think Apple wants to give you a live event, but what they're doing feels like it's too much and that they need to back off. That's what I would say. It's just, and I don't know

what that is. It's probably days and days of meetings at Apple to figure out what that tone is. But I think what they're doing is, I think they've lost their way in their production. And they've got, they've gone so far kind of like in the, in this direction that they need to, they need to do it differently. Do it something. Even we were talking about this. Maybe. Maybe. it's been in this last week. Even when they do funny, it's so overdone that it crushes all the funny out of it. So like, Jimmy Fallon did a live Google event. And most people seem to say it was awful, right? But I know what they were trying to do there. And I watched some of it and thought some of the stuff he was doing was funny. But like some people just don't like

his humor. Yeah. And it's maybe a mismatch for the content. But what What I would say is... But some of it was really funny. Like, he kept shouting in Tense to G5 whenever they said it. Now, I think that's very funny. Like, whenever they said it, he would shout it. And I thought that was hilarious. So my point is, when Apple does that, what do they do?

They're like, we've got a bunch of recognizable actors to do a comedy sketch about Mother Nature coming to Apple. That ultimately is this really kind of like puffing up Apple as being great. And, like, that was their attempt at a comedy bit. It was not funny. I hated that. I remember. I felt like I was a bit contrarian. I hated that. I felt it was a, and here's the, here's the core of it. I felt it was an effective bit of marketing, but it was also like death for comedy. And like, this is what I'm saying is that's not right. I'm not saying to Jimmy Fallon. I'm saying that's not, there's something going on that I don't like about how process the videos are. But I don't think the solution is to do a live event because it's still a commercial, except now the same. sound is bad and they lose all control. And, you know, honestly, the truth is going to come out in the demos and the reviews, not in the onstage demo anyway. Like, it's just not. It's,

I hear what Amar is saying, but I don't think what you think you want is what you want. What you want is something that isn't here anymore. Steve Jobs. It's Steve Jobs. Yeah, I could argue that the live event essentially was always why, I said this earlier, but like, There was Macworld Expo, and Steve Jobs would go there and do things. Everything that's happened since then, up until COVID, was trying to recapture the magic of Steve Jobs at Mac World Expo. There is absolutely zero reason that the CEO of a technology company should ever go on stage to show off their product. There is no... No reason.

Nothing naturally occurs that makes that happen. We're all just in the wake of Steve Jobs. Yes. And he's gone. Everybody wanted to do what he was doing. Yeah. Including Apple. It became the culture of what companies did.

And it was effective to a point. Yeah. But I think if you were to think about it today, you would make very different decisions. Because even Apple has. Because Tim Cook, they tried it, they stopped doing it. Yeah. Like, he took that mantle for a while and was doing a lot of the talking. And then over time, they were like, Tim should only do the intros.

Yeah. Because he's just not the salesperson. Exactly. And over time, they have found the salespeople. and I could imagine a different CEO like our friend John Turnus would maybe do it differently. Let me throw this out there too.

I think we're blowing things up here. Yeah, I love it. I think big multi-product launch events are generally a mistake. I know that you can get a bunch of people together and you can do it all at once, but not only does it swamp. So like we're talking to iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone,

Oh, yeah, Apple Watch AirPods. Not only does it swamp those other products. And the people who are writing reviews and who are covering them and talking about them are, like, I would love to spend the next two weeks thinking about AirPods, but I also have to think about Apple Watch and iPhone. I don't know, and I know the eyes of the world are on the iPhone event, and you can use that. And that's a reason to do it. But in general, we're talking about should they do an October event with a new Mac Lack. laptop and an Apple TV and all that. And my answer is no. Like if you want to do a media event in New York or Cupertino and invite a bunch of media to do a pre-brief, but we know that during

COVID, you know what they did? They put us on WebEx and they FedEx things to our house. And we had announcements every month for four months. They just kept going. So I would even say the concept of an Apple event, like WWDC, I know why it's there. And it's an OS unveiling it's basically a single product event I get it and the optics of having developers come to Cupertino great and the iPhone I understand that you

got to make a big deal about the iPhone everything else I say one-offs everything else should be and that lowers the bar for the video because it's not a 90 minute death march through a huge

spray of products right it's just hey we got a new Mac today here's the details about the new Mac maybe we'll see you in a week or two with something else who knows it's Apple we're mysterious and then they're gone Apple out and I think that's better

I think that's more effective so I would say get as far away run as far away from events as possible if you would like to send us in your feedback follow up or a question of your own for us to answer on a future episode of the show go to upgradefidback.com I'd like to thank our members who support us

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