Upgrade - 590: Who’s This John Apple?

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 590. Today's show is brought to you by Gusto Squarespace and Delete Me. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. I have returned to my normal place in the world, which is California. Yeah. But sorry if the studio seems a little lonely. It does actually.

I really enjoyed having you here, but I especially enjoyed recording in person last week. It was a lot of fun. It was a really good time. It was a really good time. I mean, it's great that we hadn't asked up great question about that because it got us to kind of like deconstructed. It's just, it's a lot of fun. It is, I feel like it's almost like a little out of body experience. I was there, you know, and I know I'm on camera, which I am every time, but it's like I'm on camera and everything's positioned in a certain way. And I'm looking kind of over a microphone. at your iPad, which it was like, I

felt a little discombobulated, but I think the episode was pretty good. We'll talk about it a little bit. Well, secret is I saved that. Ask up great question until I knew you were going to be. Yeah. And then we asked it. Yeah, that's, we are not amateurs here. We didn't doing this for 590 episodes. We're professionals.

We have ways. Yeah. I have a snow talk question for you that comes from John who wants to know. Jason, you often mention that you do not keep your iPhone in the bedroom. So what do you use as an alarm clock? Now, first, I want to say, I work out of my garage. So what makes you think I even need an alarm clock?

How would you know when to get up? Okay, well, a few things. First off, the dog, second, the cats. And third, my wife does work in a place that's outside and has an alarm that goes off. Okay. That said, I do actually use my Apple Watch when I need an alarm. Oh, okay. The Apple Watch goes by the bed in nightstand mode,

so I can do that thing, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest things that the Apple Watch can do, which is it lights up in the middle of the night if there's any vibration. So if you bump, I literally bump my nightstand. I just kind of like with an elbow or a hand or whatever, I literally just give it a little, it's not even a hard bump. It's just, I kind of like push it.

Like you wouldn't believe all the alarms we got in this bad boy and you hit the... And it pops right up and says the time and then it also says when the alarm time is. And that's what I use. I use the Apple Watch nightstand mode is my alarm when I need one, including when I'm traveling. When I was in London, my Apple Watch was what I would set at night so that I would not, you know, because with the jet lag, your fear is that one, you might wake up at 4 a.m. And two, you might wake up at noon. So I would set that alarm for 7.

30 or 7 or whatever and get up then so yeah that that Apple Watch is the answer I really I really like how they've implemented you don't sleep track with your Apple Watch you just you just leave it next to you I try it for a while and then um and I tried it a little bit when they put the sleep score out but generally no um if I did then the answer would be the same the answer would be I be more effective I have an alarm on my I have an alarm on my Apple Watch and when and that that works great too that's silent that just taps you when it's time to get up um I should really try to convince Lauren to wear her Apple Watch to bed and use that as

her alarm because her alarm goes off at 6.30 in the morning and I don't need to hear it because I don't want to get up then. But that's when her alarm goes off and it would be nice if it was silent, but it's, alas, it is not. So, but yeah, if I sleep tracked, I would just also use my Apple Watch. Apple Watch is the answer,

for sure. I set like six alarms in the morning. Oh, you're one of those people, huh? Yeah, but I'm not as bad as Victor in the Discord who says they have two old school digital alarm clocks and Nintendo Alamo and my iPhone alarm to wake me up. So Victor, Victor needs a lot of assistance in the morning is what we've learned today. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they design products for people like that where it's like the

thing you've got to throw across the room, which snoozes it, but then it's across the room and it goes back on and you have to get up because it's not going to stop, that sort of thing. so you know that's that's fine i don't i don't even want to snooze on mine i just i'm not a snoozer either i just once i'm up i'm once i'm awake i'm awake like once i commit to being awake that's it it's ruined everything is over it's the same reason i'm not a napper i like i just once i once it's over it's over if you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of the show just go to upgrade feedback dot com and you can send in your own Snell Talk question.

It's time for some follow-up. I'll just mention here. This is your last warning to buy upgrade merch for the holidays this year by going to Upgrade Your Wardrobe.com. The campaign ends on the 19th. I think it is.

Hoodies. And colors are shirt. Very popular. Really nice colors this time. So yeah, check out the hoodies and the colors are. And there's some other stuff there too. Somehow, AirPods Max,

believe, is going to go to print, which is amazing. Mike, did you get an AirPods Macs, Max, believe? The shirt I made for you. I don't think I did. I don't remember. I have made an order. I would need to search my email. I have also made an order. I would be surprised if I ordered it. I ordered two colors ours this time, and I ordered an upgrade pro, which I have not done before, because I like colorful t-shirts. But I did because they got the long body. They got that long body tea. We love that long body.

I love that long body tea. I have one that's for ALS research. Baseball is the best t-shirt from Pitching Ninja. People can look it up. I've got that in orange and blue and it's gorgeous. But according to the people at Cotton Bureau, that t-shirt is basically only available in monochrome colors. And I was like, oh, okay, well, I'll put it in the upgrade pro then.

So I'm getting a, I think, dark gray upgrade pro t-shirt in long body, so my body can be long. Love it, love it. No, I bought two colors are t-shirts, a colors are sweatshirt, and the quarter-zip. Oh, Colorsar sweatshirt, the pullover. Yeah, nice. Nice. Anyway, upgrade your wardrobe.com. Thank you, everybody.

And it ends in a couple of days as we record this Wednesday at the 19th. So if you have doddled, dawdled no longer. Many people wrote in, Jason, to say that the $30 discount that we spoke about last week when you buy an iPhone in the US obviously doesn't apply if you're a customer of an MVNO networks or one of the smaller networks. It's like a virtual carrier that's using an existing network. So this is how they get you. This is how they get you. They're like, oh, it's all cheap down here on Mint Mobile or whatever, but then your iPhone costs $30 more. So that sucks.

Sorry about that. Someone also wrote in to say that AT&T sometimes or. always charge a $35 activation fee so they end up getting it back. I have not experienced that but I'm on an unlimited plan see this is the thing is that what is a price really like obviously depending

on what plan you're on like T-Mobile there's an ad for T-Mobile right now that's like if you bring in your old phone or you switch to T-Mobile I forget what the deal is but like on some circumstances with some plans they will give you an iPhone for free and an Apple watch

and an iPad right Like, it is bizarre. So, yeah, that's what there's an ad with Kevin Hart that's all about that. So I guess what I'm saying is this is, the carriers know that this is their way to merchandise and get people on plans and get people to commit to certain plans at certain levels. So what is pricing. I think $7.99 is what Apple quotes and that it is the mainstream price for people on the three

major carriers in the U.S. But it's absolutely true that a bunch of people don't pay that. It's not as owner as it was. Look, this is a vestige of the. the under contract price, right, which used to be a real thing, which is you can buy it unlocked or you can buy it under contract. And it's not quite like that now. I can just buy a phone and say it's AT&T and I don't need to agree to be on AT&T for certain number of years and I can unlock that phone whenever I want. And it's just, it's just not a big deal. But this is a

vestige of that. That if you're not part of the preferred set of carriers in the U.S., you pay more. And that's too bad. I agree completely. That's dumb. Apple has announced that Major League Soccer is going to be available for all Apple TV subscribers at no extra cost. Yeah. This is a big story because this was a, I think, 99, 129. It was basically a separate subscription you could get that wasn't Apple TV.

Or if you had Apple TV, you could get it for a discounted price. But you had to pay more to get all the games. and it was very complicated and they put some on Apple TV and they put some that were free it was a mess and I feel like the moment that they announced

that F1 would just be on Apple TV was the moment where I thought they got to do that with MLS right and this is actually part of a larger thing where they renegotiated their contract with MLS so Apple used to have an out yeah yeah so a couple of things that going on there was some Apple leverage here

because MLS wanted to change its season. NLS is going to align with European and, I guess, international soccer league seasons. So they currently play over the summer and end in the fall. And this, they're going to change so that they start in the summer and end in the spring, like everybody else. So that, I think, requires a change, especially since they're going to have to play like a mini-season

in order to align in 2027. They're going to pay like a spring season. And then they're going to start their 27-28 season, I think it is. that summer. So they had to do something with Apple here. What Apple did, Apple moved it to this tier. I assume that there is not much of a rev share going on there. I think Apple's just paying for the service.

I don't think like for every MLS League pass that was sold, you know, a few dollars went to MLS. But maybe that's true. I don't know. But so they renegotiated this to get it down on the standard Apple TV tier. There's just one thing. I think that's great for simplicity. The other thing is that Apple was, Apple had an opt-out in two years, I think, where Apple could just walk away from the deal.

And then the deal continued for another like five years beyond that or four years beyond that. Now the deal is shorter, but the opt-out is gone. So I've seen some people say, this is Apple. not being happy with MLS and wanting to walk away. I actually don't think that's true. I think that this is Apple and MLS committing to be partners because the opt-out is gone, right? So now Apple is going to stay longer

than they optionally could have. Yes. And it means that MLS at a time when sports rights are going way up, MLS will be able to renegotiate and find, either renegotiate with Apple or find a new partner and put their rights up for grabs sooner. a few years, like two or three years sooner. So it's just the deal

has changed. But for viewers, the great thing about this is, and I think this is so smart for so many reasons. Like, if you're even MLS curious and you're an Apple TV subscriber, you can try it out. And hitting a second paywall is a bad idea,

just as it would be for F1. So I think this is super smart that they're doing this. You have a note in our show doc, which is, so this probably means they're going to raise the price of Apple TV. Again, I would say, I don't know, I feel like they're going to, I'm not sure that sports rights are a motivator here that much. But I mean, I think they're going to raise prices anyway because everybody's raising prices. But I think they'll put the price up and we'll say

like at some point next year, look how much we give you now. Right. And so I think they'll put it up. That's the argument is that what they're doing is they're pouring all of the stuff in there. And I've heard from people who are like, oh, no, they're going to ruin Apple TV like they ruined cable because the sports rights fees are going to make everything cost more. And it's like, well, yeah, but what they're trying to do here is make it appealing for more people. So you're going to get people who get Apple TV initially

just for MLS or just for F1 and then we'll watch severance or whatever and get into it that way. And that's good because those people are coming in for sports and are staying. You're coming in for not sports and are staying and they're trying to build this thing that is a little more broad because it's not a very

popular service right now. I saw my first peak cock Apple TV bundle ad yesterday during a football game and it's wild because it's like Severance Ted Lasso

and then it's like The Office and Traders and it's like two great tastes that are not that similar but they taste great together

by the bundle interesting interesting thing so that's but again Apple Apple says that they're very happy

with Apple TV and I think that they are in terms of the content especially but I think they're real challenge is just getting more people to try it and and keep it as a subscription. So I think

this MLS deal is just another, it's not going to be a game changer, but it's another indication of their strategy that the F1 deal was also an indication of. Yeah, for whatever reason they set the terms with F1 the way that they did, right, that it would be available to everyone, like it wasn't going to be an extra cost. For whatever reason it ended up being that, whether F1 pushed it or Apple pushed it or whatever, I think. that then it just made it so clear that they need to do this. Unless, as you mentioned it, I'm sure that's why it seems like Apple may be given a little more in the renegotiation, because they, they, I'm sure that Apple were more convinced about wanting to offer this to everyone with MLS getting a different deal. I don't know. They call out in the press release that 2026 is going to be the World Cup, which is in North America. So it actually does. feel like the perfect time to offer MLS for free.

Yeah, they are for, you know, with the Apple TV subscription for free. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I agree that always there's hope in the U.S. and in North America that the World Cup will help. I don't know if it, I don't know if the World Cup is going to help soccer in North America this time around just because I feel like soccer in North America is doing pretty good now, but maybe this will give it a little bit of extra attention, a little

boost and that's true. But I think it's actually, I think soccer has come a long way in North America and the interest in it. It may be more globally than MLS, but we'll see. We'll see how it is. The problem with U.S. interest in the World Cup is your team, right? Yes, and our men's team is garbage. Where the women's team has been very successful, and I think has really increased people's desire to want to watch women's football in America. What I would say, though, is I think that American soccer fandom is more international, right?

I think that American soccer fandom has got a few different groups. There are people who are fans of MLS, but there are a lot of people who are fans of European leagues. Yeah. And there's also a huge slice of people who are fans of League of MX, you know, the Mexican League.

And so I think that that's going to be interesting because I think World Cup. in the US men's World Cup it's just a different experience but you're right you don't get the USA USA part

which you're not going to get the casual people who don't care about football they might watch it because the American team's in the final but they're not that's not going to happen which actually did happen for the women's team because Americans I'll say this

even if Americans don't understand soccer they understand winners winning teams being the best in the world and they love that. So the women's team did that. It's funny when I was in London, went to the Arsenal Chelsea women's match at Emirate Stadium with my friend Simon,

who lives right next to Emirate Stadium, the Arsenal Stadium, and is a Chelsea fan. It was very funny. He got to actually go. We had a great time. 50,000 people, which is more people than have ever seen a women's professional soccer match

in the U.S., not the World Cup, but professional soccer. It was a lot of fun. But I, you know, again, it's a great environment, but I was reminded the Chelsea manager used to be, the current U.S. women's manager was the Chelsea women's manager. And Simon asked me how people felt about her. And I said, well, as much as people in the U.S. think about soccer at all, I think they, everybody thinks it's logical that the U.S. women's team would get the best women's soccer manager in the world. Because that is, that made people really. And, you know, the U.S. women haven't gotten worse. they have had a lot of people retire and they have a new generation. And the truth is that the rest of the world cares about women's soccer now in a way they didn't. But you're right, the dynamic is just very different there than it is because the U.S. men's team is not going to be. I mean, they'll be miracle if they get out of their group. So we'll see what it is.

But it's a, I think, unlike why it's a canny investment, F1 and MLS are canny investments for Apple because they get to own the whole thing. And they are both perceived as being sports with growth potential in a way that a lot of sports maybe aren't with with kind of large growth potential and that they're interested in it for that reason so um we'll see i i wanted to when i was at heathrow um waiting to come home which means that i've got a post on six colors that is time stamped 152 a m which makes me i'm delighted by that um i just wanted to throw this out there related uh a lot of people linking to this interview Eddie Q did with Screen International

which is like a French magazine I think I don't know and they asked about Apple TV doing an ad tier and he said nothing at this time I don't want to say no forever but there are no plans and everybody's like see they're not going to do it

and I point at the same thing and I say see this is what you this is what you say when you're going to do it but you're not ready to announce it yet I think no plans means we haven't made the plans yet Nothing at this time means nothing at this time. It does not mean nothing at all future times.

I don't want to say no forever is a thing you say when you will probably say yes sometime, right? Like it is that people are not parsing this right. And look, I take no glee in this. I pay for ad-free tiers on all of my platforms. I don't want to see the ads. But I wrote back two years ago about this. I do think they're inevitable in the long term for a few reasons. Every other streaming service has them.

And they've all been successful and have generated lots of revenue. Once you offer an ad-free tier and you calculate the average revenue per user, everybody realizes that they make way more money on the ad tier than they do on the ad-free tier. And then they raise the price of the ad-free tier in order to get it to match. Apple keeps raising the price of Apple TV, which gives them more room underneath to place an ad-tier. they love services revenue and want to increase it they are not very well viewed and offering a low-priced ad tier

would be a way to get new people to watch Apple TV and my favorite Apple has a as we've discussed here dedicated ad sales VP whose job it is to generate ad revenue everywhere Apple touches so I look I have no doubt that these ads would be tasteful and limited and high quality etc etc yada yada yada but i'm just i'm just going to say it i i i don't i can't conceive of a

scenario where apple is literally goes years and years and years as literally the only streaming service to not offer an ad tier especially since they have like an ad business i think it's going to happen and i think it's good you know because uh if somebody wants to watch especially the sports because the sports will have ads in it right the sports will have ads in it The MLB already has ads in it. They'll have some ads in it. So whether you've got the ad tier or not, you'll still see some ads. It gets people in the ecosystem.

It gets people watching F1 for maybe cheaper, but they'll make that money back. Like, there's lots of ways to cut this. So I think it's much more likely than not that they will do this. I'm not saying when. I mean, I don't want to say no forever, nothing at this time. We think it's better for consumers not to get interrupted with ads. By the way, let me parse that. Not to get interrupted with ads doesn't mean no ads.

means pre-rolls, it means, like, it means post-rolls, it means in between, like, I'm just saying, this is not evidence of anything. And in fact, it might even be evidence that they will do it at some point. It is funny that the sport, like usually you'd say, like, oh, sports are perfect for ads, but the two sports to Apple have are really bad for ads. Are the worst, are the worst for ads. Yeah, although, I mean, the, the, The broadcasters who do it, they slide up, they slide up ads, they put ads in the scorebox, they, they, they pull it, push it back and make a wrap around it while it's going on. There are, they find, they find ways to do it. They're just not the ideal ones. They're just, and with all the pregame and the post game and all of that, they put ads, they stuff ads in there. Half time for soccer, they stuff the ads in there. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see how it goes, but, oh, by the way, no, no spoilers or anything, but have you seen Pluribus? Yeah. Not yet, no. I know. I know. It's really, at the moment, right now it's, like, particularly difficult for us to be able to sit down and, like, watch a show for an hour, like, uninterrupted. And so, hopefully, even the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to start watching it.

I see, blame the baby, blame the baby. I never said anything about a baby. You said something about the baby. I just said we can't watch things right now. Okay. I can give a reason. All right. I'm going to blame the baby then.

Anyway, it's good. That's what I'll say. That's my review of pluribus. It's good. I can't wait. A federal jury in California has awarded a victory to Massimo in their fight with Apple over the patent for blood oxygen readings on the Apple Watch. This jury concluded that Apple infringed on Massimo's patent and has awarded them $634 million in damages.

Now, when you read that, you're like, oh, it's settled. This has got nothing to do with Apple, Massimo, and the International Trade Commission. Like, there are multiple separate lawsuits that are occurring. This is just kind of like Massimo going for damages. So they beat Apple here, but it doesn't have any real standing over whether the Apple Watch can have a blood oxygen sensor in it or not. Because the patent that they've been, the patent that was in this case expired in 2022, but they've been able to claim damages for the time period of what, like 2015 to 20, 20, 20, too. And they won this lawsuit. So things continue. But if you've been seeing this headline and you're like,

aha, it's over. No, it's not. The thing you care about, which is blah, locks in the sense to coming back to your Apple Watch, nothing to do with this at all. But fight continues. Yeah. I mean, they don't like it. Here's some sports. Getting back to the sports. Oh, these two don't like each other. There, I mean, yeah, 600. I'll just point out, 634 million or whatever is a lot of money to you and me and not to Apple. Yeah, it's still a lot of money, though. I mean, I know it's not a lot of money to them, but it is a lot of money. It is. It is. It is very funny. I mean, this is why,

maybe this is why they don't settle the dispute is that Massimo thinks that they can rack up a billion, you know, billion, two billion in claims. Yep. And Apple doesn't want to pay them two billion. So they're like, all right, we'll just keep suing you then. Here we are. Jason, it is that time a year. It's Jingle jingle Jingle It's the most

Wonderful time of the year So this is when we We have a sale on our membership So go to giverelay.com to learn more Or you can just very easily go to Get Upgradeplus.com And use the code 2025 holidays at checkout

And you will get 20% Of your first year of an annual plan So you will get a year Of Upgrade Plus for $56 dollars that will give you longer ad-free episodes of the show every week. So for about a dollar an episode, there'll be no advertising. You won't hear us talk about Upgrade Plus anymore, like the fact that you should sign up for it. You just get content. You also support this show. If you're hearing me say this right now, and we are an important part of your week, you know, you listen to us

every Monday or every Tuesday, you enjoy the show. Do you think this episode is worth a dollar? to you. If you think it is, become a member. Your membership support continues to be more and more important to the way the show is able to be produced. It's true. We are very lucky to have advertisers in the show, but we don't always, and it's not something that we can always rely on. Things go up and down throughout the year, but what doesn't change is membership support, because people who become members, our membership partner, member four, they tell us So Relay FM, or Relay FM, Relay and Relay FM before, switch on, that we are among their lowest churn that they see across all of their partners,

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Like, we put a lot into this show. So if you agree of us, this is a show that you enjoy, I would expect that you'd be happy to pay the equivalent of $1 an episode. So, also, if you're the kind of person that has people asking them around the holidays, what would you like me to buy you and you have no good answers? This is a good answer. you just say go to giverelay.com and get a membership for Upgrade Plus. They could gift it right to you.

It's very easy to do that. Remember 4 built a great flow for us to be able to do that. So go to giverelay.com to learn more or go to getupgradeplus.com. Use the code 2025 holidays at checkout and that will just get you right sorted and you'll be all taken care of. On Upgrade Plus today, we're going to talk about my iPhone pocket. I have an orange iPhone pocket and we're going to talk about it there. Imagine. Wow. I can't wait to hear about it.

I reckon you've got some stuff to say about the iPhone pocket. I mean, we'll find out in Upgrid Plus, whether I do or not. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Gusto. You started your business to do what you're good at, not to spend hours calculating tax of holdings. That's where Gusto comes in, to take the stress out of payroll, benefits, and HR so you can focus on why you started your business in the first place.

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A thanks to Gusto for their support of this show and all of relay. Room around up time. Yeha! The Financial Times is reporting that discussions Apple regarding Tim Cook's succession are accelerating with the thought that he may be stepping down, quote, as soon as next year. They say it's unlikely that a new CEO would be named before the next earnings report in late January, which is very soon. It would be that quick. It's like, whoa, hang on, I wasn't expecting it in January at all. You're brought that up, not me. But the expectation from this report is actually, it's in the report. It's in the report. as well, like the expectation is this role will be filled by hardware chief John Turnus.

This is something that would expect it to be done earlier than not in the year to lay the groundwork for Turner's taking on more responsibility over the course of 2026. He would probably co-lead WWDC, the iPhone event. Like he would start to, everyone would know it was going to be him. So he would start to do all of the stuff that a CEO would do and him and Tim would probably have a bit of a double act going on as the year continues. John Gruber posits that this may be an intentional leak by Apple to start the ball rolling and like get the word out there because he expects that people who would know about this

would not speak off the record about it, especially as the Financial Times lists talking to quote, several people familiar with the matter. That made a lot of sense to me, right? Like, if you've got a lot of sources on this, who are these people that would know this? This is the board. The byline is for people at the FT, too. This is a, yeah, I don't, I think John is right. This feels like, first off, I want to step back and say, I think it's stunning, because I really did think Tim Cook was going to hang around as CEO for maybe five years. But I have a couple thoughts about that.

I do think it's, I do think this is probably official, and this is the beginning, this is the testing the water, seeing how the stock reacts, getting, nobody likes to be surprised. So you put this out there and it's like setting the narrative that sometime in 26, we will hear about it, but don't worry, there's a plan. It's all going to be fine. You're going to hear more about it. And, and in some ways, I feel like Mark German has served that purpose by mentioning for a couple of years, John Turner's name and that they were doing some succession planning. Um, and then this FT story comes out and says that this is going to happen, you know, not, you know, not at the end of January or not until maybe the end of January or maybe even later. And, and so it's like, it's stunning, but I think because I really did think it was going to last longer. But I understand why they, if they're going to do this, they have chosen to do, um, this in this way where they're, um, leaking out the details. Nobody wants to be surprised. Everybody needs to be able to process it. And then I would imagine. imagine, look, Tim Cook took, Tim Cook had to be interim CEO a bunch. And then as Steve Jobs was very ill and not too far away from dying, Steve Jobs transferred to, uh, the CEO job to Tim Cook and then became the chairman very briefly. Um, I would imagine that as seasoned as he is now, Tim Cook has some opinions about how that went and how ideally it would be done. And then I'm sure he's, also talked to the board. This is one of those cases where the board is has to be deeply involved because it's the board that chooses who the CEO is going to be. And so I think that this is, this is that plan that Mark German's been writing about for a couple years and it feels like they have pushed the button to begin the execution of the plan. I expect as I think a lot of people expect that Tim Cook will probably be named executive chairman of the board or something

like that. We have spoken about that for a while, me and you, right? Like, if you're going to do this, you know, do you really just want, like, a man as powerful and connected to world leaders as Tim Cook to just go home? Like, you know, all of a sudden one day, you just let him go? No, no, no, no. He turns the lights off and uh like there has to be many situations where turnus and cook are going around the world together meeting with the premiers of different countries like you you don't just be like oh i'm out i'll see you're everybody i'm out of here and and honestly when when don't Trump says i want to talk to tim apple tim apple needs to get on the phone yeah like that tim apple needs to get on the phone.

He's like, who says John Apple? I want a Tim Apple. Yeah, he's like, no, no, don't worry about John. You just call me. You just call me. I'll talk to the people. I'm the guy. I'm the chairman.

You get me. I'm in charge still. And they can split the, actually, this is a great way to do a transition, right? Is you split the job. And John Ternis wouldn't, if he's the CEO, wouldn't have to do 100% of the job. Because Tim Cook is still there doing more like super high level diplomatic, functions. And I wonder if that, I mean, it would not surprise me if that is a big part of the conversation here is how to, the whole point is to do a transition that is not shocking. And so to

have him step into this role, like how Tim Cook was C-O-O, right? Like, he steps into this role. Tim Cook is, uh, chairman and is still present and is still doing stuff. And then that allows Tim cook to sort of like gradually kind of fade away into the background and and that's the way you want to do a transition like this. I still am shocked though. I have to say I still thought I thought Tim would not do this for a while. But there are a few things here. One is if everybody knows you're going to do it, it gets succession planning gets weird. Like I think about Disney, Disney before Iger left and Disney now with Iger leaving again. You end up in a situation where you end up with a lot of lieutenants who think they're owed it

but aren't going to get it and then you're going to lose talent because those people are going to quit and go somewhere else. So to have, there's an argument that if you're going to do a longer transition and you're going to keep Tim around

on the board, that once you've, once everybody knows that's happening, maybe it needs to happen. That making it linger makes it weird. And if you feel like you've found the guy, right? Like you feel like you,

like if they're confident, if he's confident, it's like, I want it to be. John, do not let someone come to him and offer him a hundred billion dollars. You know what I mean? Like don't get yourself into

a situation where now you've lost the person. Like that is the worst thing. You mentioned this is exactly what happened at Disney, right? Was it Kevin Sacks? Was that his name? I forget. There were yeah, there were definitely people, there were people who thought they were going to be the CEO and then

the CEO just didn't retire. And they left to do something else. And then when the CEO was going to retire, they thought that they were going to be in the running for CEO, somebody else got the job and they left and then the CEO didn't work out either

so it was like bad all so yeah so there's an argument to be made that that once you once you know it's going to happen it needs to happen right? I think I could get behind that argument that like you can't say we've got it all planned

it's a little like it's going to be a bizarre reference but like they signed at some point like with five years to go or something they signed a deal with Conan O'Brien at NBC where he would take over to the tonight show and Jay Leno would retire and then it gets five years later

and they're like but Jay Leno's ratings are still good what are we going to do and it was a disaster and things and they ended up basically they ended up giving the tonight show to Conan O'Brien and a year later taking it away from him and settling and paying him off and having him leave and they put Jay Leno back in charge

very Bob Eiger like in some ways but it's this idea the point there is they did They did a multi-year succession plan, which is, I got to, it's just a bad idea. Like, the last thing you could do is say, you're going to be in this job, but not for five years. And you're going to be in this job for five years and then you're going to leave. Like, if you're going to do it, plan a transition and then start it. And it feels to me like they've decided 26 is that year. Yeah, do a multi-year transition and then you start it with an overlap.

And then the outgoing person is still around. but slowly letting go of things over time. But, like, who knows, right? Maybe Tim stays on the board for, like, a decade or something, right? And just continues to be the, maybe turn to, it's like, you know, I don't want to do all the political stuff. It's like, you know what, no problem. I like doing this.

That I don't want to completely let go, but I don't want to be deciding what Max we're doing anymore. A lesson from the jobs transition to, to, to, to, Cook. A lesson from that is every CEO, and we've talked about this, every CEO brings what they are good at and who they are. And the job is defined by the person. I would argue that the job of the executive chairman who is the CEO for 15 years and has been in the company for 20 years is also defined by the person. So you don't, a rigid view here would be, well, I mean, he's got to do everything that Tim Cook does because he's going to be the CEO like Tim Cook. It's like, that's not how it has to be. This may be strategically, look, we should say it may be that Tim Cook has so much money and he's done. And he's like, I'll give you a year and then I'm out and I'm just going to go sail around in the Mediterranean or whatever. Like, okay, fine.

I don't actually believe that. He seems like a very type A personality who cares about Apple and doesn't, can't conceive of not working. But what you could say is, I'm going to step into chairman job. That's going to let me do some of this politics stuff. John's already the SVP of hardware. That's going to be the thing that he's best at. He will coordinate strategy with the board, with me, and with everybody who works for him,

and he will grow into this job of CEO and define it as it works for him. You know, Tim Cook had lieutenants around him. Tim Cook had Jeff Williams, for example, right? And then ultimately, John Turnus, to rely on for stuff that, and he had Johnny Ive at the beginning, to rely on for these things of,

like that were not in his area of expertise. He could be a decision maker, but he had the lieutenants who knew the details that he didn't have to. Every CEO defines that differently. So I could see this being a really smart way of approaching it that keeps Tim Cook engaged at the level that Tim Cook needs to be engaged at. In fact, you could argue that this is something that would not necessarily be and maybe shouldn't be a dramatic change where one day one guy's in charge

and the next day another guy's in charge. But instead it's more like a content. a continuum, a transition, where Ternus gets a new title, but Tim is still doing stuff. And then over time, Ternus is building up like his set of people, which are all coming from inside Apple, because that's how they do it. It just has to be good. Somebody, I think German pointed out, John Ternis has been at Apple like half his life. I mean, he's a lifer. He's a, he's been there like 24 years. Yeah, he's 50. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it is, it is in his blood. That is the type of person you put in charge of Apple. And if he's the superstar, you do that. But yeah,

so we'll see how it goes and we'll see what they say. I definitely, I'm surprised it happened so quick, but I think that that maybe suggests something, which is that this is not going to be so quick, actually. And the point of doing it now is that if they wait five years, that transition time is going to be less, right? Because I think at some point Tim Cook is going to be out. And if Tim is 65. Maybe he says, okay, if we want to do a five-year transition, let's do it now. Right? Because at 70, I'm going to walk away or whatever it is or be less engaged. So why don't we start the disengagement now? But I still am going to give you five or ten years on the board. And that's how we're going to do it. Now would be a way to do that. So I'm stunned a little bit by it. But I agree with all of the people who read this as to a high-level financial organization. So it's Wall Street Journal or Financial Times. So in this case, it's the FT to have this story with several people saying that this is going to happen. Apple wants it to be known that this is going to happen.

And they don't want everybody to be freaked out when it happens. And this is how you, so we get, we get two years of Mark German saying it. Then we get the FT saying it. And it allows all of Wall Street to process it, calm down, and then be ready. And when they announce it, they'll be like, oh, you. Yeah, I already, I already knew that was going to happen. It's fine. It's fine. Yep.

Just from a simple perspective, you know, on Room Around Up, where we're talking about similar publications a lot. We never talk about the financial times. FTA is very rare. It does happen, but it's really rare. But, like, of having, like, oh, they got the hot scoop. No, they are like the perfect place to talk to the people who are most likely to be upset about this happening.

Right. And to talk to the board in order to convey this message, to p the movers and shakers on the on the board of directors at Apple. I think that is what's going on here. Yeah, for sure. Moving on, Mark Gohmann is reporting that Tesla is now looking to add car play to its cars as a way to try and defend against the decline in sales and interest for the brand. Yeah, this is.

hilarious is what it is it's very funny so in the context of GM saying forget about it and of Rivian never supporting it and Tesla has never supported it and Mark Germott's report points out that there was a lot of bad blood

between Apple and Tesla early on because Apple was poaching people from Tesla to work on their car project which no longer exists and so the relationship is not as fraud as it used to be but I think the real

thing here is that there used to be a big EV rebate in America that was like a tax credit from the government and the Trump administration killed that and that has heard EV sales. Elon Musk did a bunch of stuff really turned off a lot of the public to him and his whole thing.

I don't know how many of those people are coming back but I think some, I think there are people who care a lot who would never ever consider a Tesla. I think there are a bunch of other people who are like, eh, you know, whatever. Like, even if they're kind of negative on Elon Musk, I think that they're more reachable. Tesla's not going to reach the people who are unreachable, right, by definition. But I think there are people out there that are maybe more reachable. I think there are a lot of people who are,

who just kind of don't care. It's a car. And if they like the car, they'll buy it. So I think all of that's going on. But the big thing is Tesla's product line is a disaster, right? Like, because Elon Musk's, has been focused. So leaving his politics aside just for a second, he is so focused on literally everything else in the world. And Tesla does not have a CEO like SpaceX does. So it's pretty much this guy. And so like, they were going to do an affordable Tesla. And he was like, no, don't build that. Build a two-seater robo taxi because full self-driving is about to happen. He's been saying full self-driving. It's about to happen for a decade. It isn't happening.

Uh, the, their best selling car just got a, an update, the model Y, but it's a super minor update. Basically, uh, Tesla's four core models have not changed almost at all in ages. So they're, to use the car industry term, stale. They're super stale. The cyber truck is selling 25, has sold like 25,000, but they thought they were going to sell. going to make 250,000 of them a year. So, oops. So they're a company with enormous problems of sale and a new deal for their CEO who gets

a lot of stock options if the company does well, which it's not right now. People who talk about Musk having a trillion dollars in stock from Tesla, he would have to completely turn around Tesla, a company that needs to be turned around because of him. seems very unlikely to me. Anyway, you put all this pressure on them. What's an easy win? You find out that almost everybody who might even possibly consider

buying an EV in the United States, like 80, 90% of them, whatever the number is, consider carplay a vital part of their decision-making process. Well, let me tell you, Tesla is not in a position

to turn those people away. So I think ultimately, and look, this could not have, happen because a high-placed Tesla executive known for changing their mind on an ongoing basis could just I just I sources are telling me that there's somebody like that in the chain of command at Tesla could kill it at any moment but like you do this you do this because you don't want to give people yet another reason not to buy your cars when your sales are about to go

off a cliff because Tesla had pretty good results in sales in the third quarter because the EV rebate was going to end. And so all their cars were going to get $7,500 more expensive. It's going to go, it's going to go real bad really soon. So that's, look, I think car playing cars should happen. I think everybody should put car play in their cars. I think that car makers who are so in love with their own software that they think that it's more important than people's phones and the data that they have on their phones are delusional. We've talked about this a lot. So, hooray, but just to put into perspective why they might do this, it's because they're kind of desperate. And at this point, it's, you know, the last, the last thing Tesla of all

companies needs is another reason for people to not consider a Tesla right now. So I hope they do it because I think it's the right decision to make. There are a bunch of Tesla, one of my hobbies is reading a couple of Tesla websites that are super obsessed with Tesla because it's like, it's like Pravda-esque. I'm not going to name names, but they're like,

it's amazing to, as a person who does tech journalism to watch these sites, try to bend and contort their coverage to explain why what Tesla is doing and what Elon Musk said is totally amazing and is going to change the world, even though it never happens.

And so they've spent years writing about why CarPlay is a bad idea for Tesla Because Tesla stuff is just so good Their software is so good Why would you need CarPlay? And besides, they added Apple music support And they added Apple podcast support You got what you wanted, it's fine now, it's great And so this story comes out and I'm like, oh, let me see what they say about it

And the answer is this deeply conflicted story Where they're like, well, it might be okay And my favorite part of it is they photoshopped pictures of the Tesla console with like a giant car play in it. I'm like, well, that's not going to happen. They're going to put it like in a little floating rectangle, right? Like every other car company. But anyway, so they're losing their minds because they've just spent years explaining

why you don't really want car play in your car. And now they're like, oh, but maybe. So it's funny. Anyway, I hope they do it because every car should have car play, period. Every car should have car play. I get the impression from listening to Marcus Brownlee on his podcast, especially talk about like Tesla is very very focused on adding and removing access for people that are positive and negative about the company like and like you know he was pointing out like

you know when they're doing their robo taxi trials and stuff think crazy things would happen in those cars and people would be like oh wow how weird ha ha ha ha it's like yeah right because those are the those are the fan YouTubers who are doing those things the influencer things. Is it, it's, I can't remember his last name. It's Fred.

It's a guy who writes Electrek. That's a great website. That is not, that is not Probda. That is in the Gizmodo maybe family and gadget.

I forget, I forget who does Electrek. 9 to 5 Mac, actually, family. It's the 9 to 5 Mac family of sites. Of products. Electrek.

And Fred Lambert is his name. I like his cover. It's really good. He's the one who does, like, Elon Musk says full self-driving is right around the corner for 10th straight year. Kind of like, he knows. He allows truth to come into the conversation, which is very nice. And I'm sure he never gets invited to anything. I think he got blocked by Elon Musk on Twitter on X because he believes in truth and saying things that are true.

Anyway, again, just to say, car play is good. it should be in every car if it comes to Tesla just like adding Apple Music and podcast to Tesla was good adding CarPlay to Tesla is good Rivian should add CarPlay too again giving people choice

and letting them use their data from their smartphones in a convenient way does not take away from your software for your full self-driving interface or your charging maps or whatever it doesn't have to take away from that it's fine just let it happen this episode is brought to you by Squarespace

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the information is reporting that Apple is making some big changes to their plans for the next iPhone Air model after some disappointing sales. So the information says that the plan had originally been for an updated model to debut alongside the iPhone 18 Pro this year in September, but that has now changed with the expectation that it will debut later with the iPhone 18 in the spring of 2027. If you remember, they're going to split the releases.

Right. And this is Mark German's whole newsletter, was about this, mostly rehashing things he's reported before, but with some new information. And he actually gave it to the information a little bit in that newsletter. He said, he said, from what I've heard, the second generation air hadn't actually been earmarked for next year in recent months. This wasn't a delay due to the phone sales performance. The fact that Apple named the device iPhone Air rather than iPhone 17 Air signaled that didn't want to tie the product to an annual release schedule. And he says, Apple developed the air believing it would make up six to eight percent of the new iPhone sales, I'm told. Now, we, there's some indication that

maybe it is not that it's not doing six to eight percent but we'll see how that goes but i think that's really interesting that it's very easy to say oh they've delayed this thing because it isn't selling well but german says they already had delayed it because they want to slide it into that spring slot and that they didn't i think the fact that it's not named 17 was the real yeah clincher of like we don't know how often we're going to do this and there was some talk of like maybe they'll put another camera in it, but I think German was like, it doesn't really make a lot of sense because all the compute is up

in the bump. And so to move like that would be a major redesign of the hardware as opposed to just a new chip, a 2 nanometer chip that's going to be more efficient and therefore extend the battery life on it, which seems to be like a more likely scenario for a second iPhone air.

I mean, the information is saying that they will add an ultra-wide camera, vapor chamber cooling, a large a battery and it will be lighter. So that is a lot of change year over year if all of this stuff actually... Nobody's buying.

Yeah. And it's, you know, it's obviously... It doesn't make sense to me. Year over year, it will be year over 18 months, I guess, will be the, you know, the way that it will work. Right. But from one unit to the next one, that will be quite a lot of change for

this device. Yeah. So German says no, right? Basically, German says, I'm told the main focus of the second air will just be to move it to the two nanometer chip rather than major structural changes which should help the battery life, which is the biggest drawback. He says adding a second rear camera

is technically possible, but I find the idea is strange. It's already crowded. Reddoing that section just to add the least used iPhone camera seems like a lot of work for a phone that a few people are buying. I don't.

The only way it makes sense if he's reusing some pieces from the folding phone. I'm not sure that I agree with the least used iPhone camera. It may be the least chosen iPhone camera. iPhone camera, but the ultra-wide is used a lot in iPhone photography, because if you are close to something, it automatically switches. And there is no affordance for this on the iPhone air. So, like,

it is actually quite an important camera. And Apple believe so, because it's what they put on the iPhone 18, right? Like, they, more than anybody else, they make the decisions, right? And I'm sure that if Apple felt that that customers would most benefit from a telephoto, maybe they would put that on the regular phone. But they put an ultra-wide and the regular phone, the regular camera. And so my expectation is it's used more than people would think because it sometimes will automatically switch to it rather than it being some people chose. It's unattributed, but I sort of assume that somebody at Apple told Kerman that it's the least used of the three cameras. And that's why he said it, but he doesn't say, according to Apple, he just throws it out there as if it is a fact. So it may be,

but I mean, I look, I've been doing this long enough that I look at that and I think that smells like something that I can't say where this came from, but I did actually hear from somebody who said that this was the case, so I'm going to state it as a fact, and I'm going to let it go. I don't know. Maybe it's just him throwing that out there. I think, as several people on our Discord are pointing out, Apple hardware designs go, like, so far in advance. Like, there's no way, like, there, I think what German's saying is, is probably true, that there's an iPhone Air 2 that was already in development, that's going to use the two nanometer process. It'll be a refresh. They'll do it in the spring, and they'll keep that product going. And if it is a total.

loser, we may never see another one. But, you know, I think if there are six iPhones in the product line, which is where we're headed, having one of them be a perfectly nice six or eight percent of the market that's using a lot of the same technology that's in the folding phone, it's probably fine, right? That's, it's probably, it's probably fine. Yeah. You've got six different models. So we'll see. I mean, Because in the end, it's what does Apple think? What does Apple expect this phone to do? No.

There was a report. I'll try and find it and put it in the nose. I thought that we ended up having too much on this, but this was like not as well-sourced as somebody else off that we're talking about. That they stopped production in the air, which is interesting. I saw that. I mean, we don't know. I mean, it all comes down to what your expectations are, right?

because they said they increased production of some other models and they stopped production or they decreased production of that model cut it back and that may just be

that they thought it would do better than I mean if they thought it would do 8 or 9% and it's doing 5% then that would explain it because they don't because again they don't want to they don't want to build

more than they sell right that's the last thing they want to do so if it's not selling but then we had that report about it selling really well when I went on sale in China I do believe that that's the kind

of iPhone that may sell better, I've said this before, may sell better over the course of the year or 18 months than some other models because it'll get out there, people will see it, people who are more casual buyers may look at it and go like, oh, I like this one, why wouldn't I get this one?

Maybe they won't. I don't know. But like, I think that it's possible that it'll be a little more of a grower than some of the other models. And maybe it's okay, maybe it's not. I really like it, but the fact is I really like it and I'm using an iPhone pro. So maybe that's the the facts of it. Also, German, another piece that German had that I thought was really interesting is he says, look, this product also exists because the fold is coming.

And I know we said, like, Apple doesn't release a product that's just a tech demo. But what he said is, and he really believes this, so he's got people who are telling him this, that for Apple to get the supply chain capable of making the kinds of parts that are going to be required for Apple to make its. folding phone, Apple needed a product to prime the pump and to push those, you know, those production lines and the suppliers to make things like this. And so I, I think it's probably complex. I think that Apple would not ship a product that didn't believe in, but I could see Apple saying tactically, could we make a super thin phone as a way we get a super thin phone out of it, that's cool, but also it's a way to get us in position to ship a folding phone. Of course, of course.

I want to double back to something that we touched on just for a quick a moment ago about like Apple plan their phones in advance, you know, years in advance is the timeline, so they wouldn't make a change so soon. I absolutely agree that that is the case that they do plan iPhones years. in advance, I absolutely also believe that Apple could make massive significant change to an iPhone line within a short period of time if they thought it was

important enough. I agree, but I think what I would say is what's important enough because they kept the mini around for two years and they kept the plus around for two years. So probably there's a... It's like, you know, whatever. But like, you know, if they genuinely believe that adding a vapor chamber

or a larger battery in a second camera, like, just imagine that they do believe that would sell more. I could imagine that They could be, I'll give us an extra six months and we can make that completely different. Like, I do believe they could do that. I could imagine that, but in a time when they're shipping their folding phone to then also put the, remember, they have to put the effort in after one cycle to redesign an entire phone that doesn't sell very well. So it will sell probably, let's be honest, slightly better, but not take the world by storm. I'm skeptical.

I think my guess is that German knows that the second iPhone. air is going to be like a very minor update and that what the information is seeing is what they're going to do down the road. Yeah. But it's possible the information is better information than German. That's in the name. It's right there. We don't call them Germans, do we? You know what I mean? No, they're not Germens. We've got some great Germens here. It's information. It's the fourth iPhone spot cursed. Like, why does this not produce a successful product because the other iPhones are so good and you I think that's the bottom line is like that's why I keep saying there we're about to enter an era german talks about it where there's six

iPhones so what he says is Apple plans to unveil three high end models the 18 pro 18 max and a foldable in the fall of next year then roughly six months later it will roll out the 18 18E and potentially a refreshed iPhone air I expect the pattern to continue for years to come with launching between five and six new models annually. So he's a little unclear about the airs being annual or not in the long run. Or the E. They might not necessarily release one every single year of each of those. But if we, for a moment, ponder the idea that there are six iPhone models in the line,

you know, some of them are going to be niche. Is the ideal that each of them sells one sixth? I mean, I don't know. I mean, the pro and the main line and the pro max are always going to. to be the best sellers. And everything else is going to be an edge case. Like, what's the percentage of people that are going to spend $2,500 on a folding iPhone? Like, how big is that? You know, like, we don't know, but what is that? We could predict that they're going to be like, oh, the sales numbers for the $2,500 folding phone aren't very good. And it's going to be,

what do you mean by aren't very good? Because it's a $2,500 phone, right? Like, or whatever the price is. It's not going to sell well because it's too expensive, but maybe it will sell well over time. And it might be rapidly, you know, they've got margins on it and be something where they can make a lot of profit on those. Yeah, it's like you sell 10% of the units and make 25% of the money. So, you know, something crazy like that. So I'd say the fourth spot is cursed only in the sense that the other three phones are broad crowd pleasers. And the fourth and fifth and maybe sixth are not going to be that. And that's okay if they fill a niche that Apple thinks is worth filling.

if they fill a part of the product line that will appeal to people who might otherwise spend less money or not buy an iPhone or not buy an iPhone as often, like the more holistic reasons. But like, and I really do believe the Air is also

testing out product stuff. Again, it's not it's a product. It's not just a test bed, but it is also testing out stuff that's technology that they will probably use in their 20th anniversary iPhone. And in the iPhone going forward over the next five or ten years.

And that's part of the reason you do that is you think that there's an upside down the road. I think Apple just clearly thinks that there's an upside in selling five or six iPhone models instead of three. Otherwise, they just sell three. We mentioned last week in discussing Apple Silicon

that Apple kind of seems to have ultimately abandoned the Mac Pro. And in his power on newslet that this, Mark Gohmann essentially confirms this. Mark begins the report by saying, that Apple is no longer planning for an M4 Ultra, that that

is, they're not working on that now, so there won't be an ultra chip in the M4 generation, and that that will come in the M5 generation and that this will actually be for the Mac Studio, not the Mac Pro. Mark says, a quote, Apple has largely written off the Mac Pro.

The sentiment internally is that the Mac Studio now represents both the present and future of Apple's professional desktop strategy. Yes. I can also report that. based on what Apple does like

this is where we are the Mac Studio is Apple's professional Mac desktop that's it the end of story I'm not saying the Mac Pro won't get

an update I also wouldn't be surprised if it never gets an update and it goes away yeah yeah I mean

I think it's pretty clear I think I've been banging his drum because I think it's fun but like it just you know come on if they're

put it if they're putting out a m5 ultra on a mac studio and the mac pro isn't getting an update they should take the mac pro off the price list that should be that that should be the moment where they do and if they don't it's because they have some client out there who's like please please please please we still need to buy three of them a year please please please and they're like all right we've got some in the warehouse we'll keep them in the price list but like it's over it's over and i don't think there is enough of an audience the argument is like what is there an audience for that kind of a product i don't think there's enough of an audience for that kind of a product to merit the engineering work? Like, could Apple theoretically building a new chip that was different

and had different characteristics and was like not like Apple Silicon in a lot of ways that we've come to know it so that they could make a better Mac Pro? I'm sure they could. And that's so much effort for a product that's not going to sell. And that almost that functionally, functionally from a full market perspective, nobody cares about. I know there are people who care about it. One of them as a friend of mine. But as a market, it's gone. It's gone. Like, it's just the Mac Studio does,

is the Apple Silicon take on the Mac Pro. That's the bottom line. Yeah. John, what, what's it going to take to get you in one of these Mac studios today? You know, what's it going to take? Seriously. Roll one of these Macs up to law.

L5 Ultra. He's got to wait anywhere between one to four years for the M3, or anything to go by because they did not come when we expected. Last week was the 10th anniversary of the release

of the iPad Pro. Of the iPad Pro. So I think we spoke about it when it was the anniversary because of the announcement because they announced in September, shipped it in November. Right.

Or late October, but yeah. All the reviews were in early November. To kind of commemorate this. You've written something about your time where you, when you came to London, decided to not bring a Mac with you. Yeah, this is one of those things where I do, sometimes I do weird stuff and dumb stuff because this is our job. Content. Right? Yeah. Right. Like, like, this is my job is to, is to experience things and observe them and write about them

and wonder about them. And, and it's why, you know, we're in this. this business like you got to try the stuff you got to use the stuff even if even if you decide it's not for you you got to you got to try it um at least in the area that you're interested in like i'm following a thread that i've had in the past when i've traveled with the ipad pro and i thought i would give it a try again given ipad os 26 um so i took it to london and i didn't bring my laptop and you know what i mean as i am writing a piece of on this for Sixth Colors that will probably be up

by the time the show gets out. I was able to pretty much do everything I needed to do in London with the iPad Pro. And if I didn't have your studio and I brought a microphone, I would have been able to do my podcast and it would have been fine.

It would have been fine. But, like, so I feel like that's where the iPad Pro is right now is kind of, you can do everything but so you don't crash the metaphor we used a lot was

crash into a wall right you hit a brick wall where you're like forget it this is not a thing that I can do got to get a Mac got to do it some other way I feel like most of those brick walls are gone now right

so the brick walls have come down and there was a really good piece David Pierce wrote on the verge and we put in the show notes it's a brutal headline because it's a decade of unrealized potential, which is not entirely inaccurate, but what I like about David Pierce's piece

is that what he says is, okay, then this is how I feel too, okay. So now you have a platform that is capable of all these things. The changes in iPad OS-26 have solved a lot of these problems. The windowing system is good. A lot of the brick wall stuff is gone. Where is this product going? And I think that that's, like, that's how I feel.

It's like Apple has now reached kind of the base after a 10-year assent that should have taken five years, right? Like, the iPad Pro should not have taken 10 years to get to the state that it's in now, but it did. What now, though, is my question. Where does this thing go? It's obvious that Apple at one point thought this was a Mac replacement.

Now they don't. But it is a professional device that they charge a lot of money for the iPad Pro, right? It's, you know, $1,500, $2,000. if you throw everything into it. And it's good. Pierce says maybe the best computer Apple makes. And in some ways, I think you could argue that that's true.

It's not as capable, but it's really very good and very flexible, which is that Areca Vatici's argument always is, right? Like, it is what you want it to be in a way that the Mac is not. But what now? So for me, that was what I came back from London thinking is I can do almost anything. And in fact, there's some things I can do frustratingly, the iPad that I can't do on the Mac, like our whole Final Cut camera, multi-camera recording session, which requires Final Cut Pro for iPad.

Because that feature's not on the Mac. What? What? But it's like the, it's like doing everything with oven mitts. I guess that's what I'm saying, with mittens on. It is not that I can't do it. It's that lots of things I feel like are just, it takes too many steps. And some of that is that I don't use my iPad 100%.

of the time and I have automations on my Mac that don't exist on my iPad. I will grant you some of it is that. But a lot of it is I can't do that automation because it requires a command line that doesn't exist. And there are command line apps that run like virtual machines, but you're not in the command line of the actual thing. It's different. So that's a thing that's taken away from you. Certain software has taken away from you because it's not in the app store, so you can't do that. And then some of it, like I think Safari is a great example. And I know that Federico has talked about this. And I think he makes a really good point, which is, remember, they made Safari desktop class browsing at some point, which made it better on the iPad. However, you will never

use Safari on the iPad and think you're using Safari on the Mac. It's just not. And that's one of those cases where I think to myself, there are places where the iPad Pro really needs to be as functional as the Mac. And anytime I hit one where it's not, I say why. And remember, I'm not an iPad Pro. I'm not talking about the iPad or the iPad air. I'm saying you're selling this thing for a couple thousand bucks. Safari should be as capable as it is on the Mac. And there are wall, okay, they're not walls that I hit like the brick walls, but there's soft walls where I'm like, oh, I had this happen in the hotel room. I had to do an edit on our YouTube post. And like, you can do it. You have to use a YouTube web interface. It's like, you can do it. But, like, you can do it. But, like, It's tricky on an iPad in Safari to get those things. And on the Mac, it's not a problem. And it's the same hardware. It's theoretically the same app.

It's just there are those moments where I think this should be better. And does Apple think that? Does Apple, is that the goal or not? Or is Apple satisfied? That said, we had a whole thing in 4K HDR that I put together in your studio, exported in your studio on an iPad, and then uploaded in a browser. to YouTube from your studio and it never went anywhere but the iPad. And that's impressive. It didn't used to be like that. But it still, I still was frustrated more than I would like. And every time I push

the iPad in a way that I think it feels like it's only sort of slightly intended for, I think, okay, I can do this, but I'm fighting it. And, and so that's where, that's where we are, I feel like, is a lot of the deal breakers are off of the iPad, and there are places where the iPad is really great. Obviously, if you're an artist and you're using the Apple Pencil, it's really great. I can say that as a writer, it's a great device for writing, and I love using the Magic Keyboard and writing things on my iPad Pro.

But now that we've gotten to the point where everything is functional, what are Apple's intentions with this platform? Is this it? Is it just going to be, well, it's functional work on it? Or what David Pierce says is Apple actually needs to start making this more Mac-like in a bunch of ways, including, and he mentions, like, the terminal stuff and being able to run, you know, stuff without finding a weird app that enables a thing in a virtual way that on the Mac you can just do. I don't know. I don't know where they're going with this. But I think that's the question to be asked now, is that now that the iPad is pretty capable.

that it has kind of graduated from the, I wish it could do these things, but it can't. Where now that it can, but it's not? Like, does Apple spend a decade tweaking all that stuff? Or does Apple look at this and say, problem solved, moving on? I think it's maybe a little bit of a latter. Because I think Apple has done the thing that we wanted them to do. They've done it.

And now it would be, quote, up to everybody else, right? Like up to developers. But we were just talking about this unconnected. really got into this of Federico for reasons you could imagine. The problem I think lays on the fact that Apple has kind of made a bed for themselves with developers and trying to convince people to do significant work to like to support everything that iPad OS26 has to offer even is hard enough. Well, so here, this is this is one of those things where if Apple, and I know Federico talked about this. If Apple can't convince people to make really, really good iPad apps,

especially if those companies have web apps that they rely on. And then there's some companies that just build a great web app and they don't even ship an app app. They just ship a great web app. What Federico's experience indicates is that Safari's got to get a lot better, right? Like, yes. If, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if Web apps is what you have to do to be full-featured because Apple has, and it's not just Apple's behavior toward developers, it's also developers just saying why would we build a native app for iPhone and iPad when we can just build a web app, then your web displaying technology also needs to be a lot better.

I should be able to run any web app that I can run on my Mac on my iPad at the same level with the same functionality. And I think Federico's experience is you can't. Yeah. You can't. Because Safari is just not it. Like it's not the safari you want it to be. Right.

Like it is a version of Safari. Great. You have a version of Safari. It's not full Safari. It just isn't. It's just not. Yeah. I did, I did, it's funny. When we were at your bachelor party, I did a, that's the time that I generated Apple charts

because we live large in Austin, Texas. We did, it did. I generated Apple charts entirely on my iPad. That was the one time that I did that. And I got it to work, and it was fine. But what I discovered was there were a bunch of features and numbers that just didn't work on the iPad. Even though they had updated a lot of things on the iPad,

they've done a lot to really make that thing fully featured. However, I was trying to generate a chart. for a piece that I wrote at your studio and I did end up coming to a point where I'm like how do I do this on the iPad and I couldn't find it and I think it's not there and I thought that was interesting too that there are still little edges where even apps like numbers that are pretty good

at supporting the iPad beyond a certain point they're like nah even though that's a thing that's very easy to do on the Mac they're like man we're not going to even because they've got a floating interface with like tabs and things and like you burrow deep enough down and they're like it doesn't go beyond this And that's very frustrating, too.

So, I mean, I think you're right. But I do wonder if maybe that is a place going forward that could be how the iPad is more functional, is more attention to the browser. But we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. I think it's also quite likely that now that we've reached this point, Apple's just going to walk away and say it's fine. And it is fine. That's the thing.

It is fine for a lot of things. And maybe that's the end story of the iPad Pro is it's fine in these certain areas. And beyond those certain areas, you should just use a Mac because it's not fine. And that's okay. But the problem is the Mac's not as flexible as the iPad is. And the iPad Pro costs a lot of money. And, you know, I think the question is, what can Apple do to the value of the iPad Pro as a platform to justify its cost? or is it really just you pay a lot of money

because it's nicer than the iPad Air? I feel like where we are right now is you really are just paying a lot of money for it to be nicer than the iPad Air unless you're doing a lot of 4K HDR Final Cut Pro exports in which case, yeah, you probably want the M5, although there'll probably be an M4 Air pretty soon that'll do a pretty good job.

And I know that, and there's more memory and stuff like that. But like, I just, that's my question. Is the iPad Pro really still on a trajectory to be a professional tool, or is it more just we call it pro because it's nice and if you spend money you get a nicer screen and more memory and a better processor but that's the only reason I don't know that may be

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slash upgrade 20 and the code upgrade 20. Thanks to delete me for their support of this show and relay. It is time for some ask upgrade questions. Matthew writes in and says, I remember Mike recommending the app Super Agent to help with auto-setting

website cookies. Is that the recommendation that he still has, or is there another app you would recommend? I do recommend Super Agent. So what Super Agent does, you can give it a list of it lives in your Safari. It's an extension.

Extension. And it's on the iPhone, it's on all the platforms, and they have it for every browser. You sign up for Super Agent and you're like, I want you to do this, this, this for me with cookies. You know, so like, accept this kind, reject this kind, that kind of stuff. And then whenever you go to a website, it just does it all for you. And like, it just does it all quickly. And I really like it. And most of the time, I don't see cookie pop-ups because I use Super Agent. And it was funny to me when you were here, you were sitting

over there in the corner of my studio. And you're like, man, there's a lot of cookie pop-ups. And I'm like, yep. That's a thing that we still have. Yeah. I, wow. I had forgotten how bad it is in the UK until I was there. And it's like, oh, I mean, California has some cookie rules now. So I get cookie pop-ups, but it's nothing like the UK. Literally every site that I visit is like, hey, and they've done the sneaky thing where they're like, they make it really easy to say just accept everything. And then there's like a hidden link down lower that's like, except only the things that are necessary. Which is why I like Super Agent, right?

Because it's doing whatever it's doing, inspecting the web page, to, find that to go in and set them the way that they want. So like you don't need to know where the buttons are. It will just click for you. Sometimes you see it happening most of the time you don't. And like you see it happening and just like window, window, window and then it goes away. And it will set that stuff and it will, yeah. But so I really like it. I say it's obviously the thing in the UK. It's a European thing. This is a thing that happened when we were still in the EU, I think. Actually, no, it did. And I remember it happened. because I was working at the bank then

and I remember there was like a lot of concern about the cookie pop-ups because the web team worked like a few desks away and they were very, they were talking about cookies a lot and it took me a long time to realize exactly what it was they were talking about and they weren't just talking about baked treats like this was a, they had a real concern with cookies.

Lucas writes in and says the bartender update for Tahoe is not very good and it has to capture your mouse to organize the menu bar and it interrupts whatever you're doing. I'll just say, Lucas, I don't know what on earth that means, right? Like, that sounds bad. Like, I don't know what's happening over there.

I've not used it. As I mentioned before, and I'll talk about it again in a second. Lucas says it's very disrupting to the point that I've had to install it, but now my menu bar is horrible, with stuff getting hidden behind the notch. I had to disable I step menus for space.

Everything sucks. My question is, I'm sorry for Lucas, it sounds very sad. My question is, is there an alternative? what would you recommend for a well-curated menu bar? So I'll say for me, maybe Jason will have a better answer. For me, I am just now turning off what I don't want to see in the menu bar settings and system settings.

And I'm just trying to work with less and not use any system anymore because they just, over time, it's like whack-a-mole just trying to like deal with my menu bar preferences. Do you have any other recommendations for Lucas, Jason? Yeah, you could try Hidden Bar, which is on the App Store, and you can try Vanilla which is a hide menu bar free app from, I think that's the same guy who does Rocket. Yes. You were talking about this before because you were upset.

Yeah, this is the one where if you want to hide the icon, you need to use one of his other apps to do it because he didn't make that a feature because why when you can buy another app to do it? But anyway, Vanilla is free and then there's a pro update and I think that's the same for Hidden Bar. Maybe it's, maybe you have to, I don't know. I bought Hidden Bar, so, or I've got it, maybe three.

Yeah, the problem is Hidden Bar is old. Hasn't been updated in a while. And I don't know how well it will work. So vanilla might be a better thing to take the shot one. But like, take a shot. I agree with you, Mike, that I'm trying without the problem is that when I'm just on the laptop configuration here, it's bad because there's too much stuff up there and some of that stuff needs to be up there. What I like about these utilities is you take a portion

of your menu bar and you kind of collapse it and then you can just like click or roll over and see it and then do a thing and then go away again and forget about it. But yes, the system lets you choose a lot of that stuff. So you can just choose to hide that stuff. And maybe that would be enough. If not, try vanilla maybe or hidden bar and see if it works for you. Tim says recently you discussed how Apple added small weights to Division Pro headband to even out the weight. Do you think they could eventually move the battery into the headband instead so they could even even the weight and eliminate the need for a cable or would the battery be too heavy right now the battery would be too heavy

yes right in the long in the long run if you can get the power right and if there's a way to sort spread the battery out maybe because the battery dangling down is kind of a pain but like I don't know I mean maybe but getting these things lighter is really the thing you want to do is get everything lighter. And Apple, Apple choosing to do the inelegant thing of having a cord that comes off of the Vision Pro and goes into a battery in your pocket suggests to me

that Apple tried to put that battery on the device and we're like, no way. Like, no way. And the battery life of Vision Pro is not super long. So making a smaller battery that is behind your head, I don't, yeah, I think it's

just, it's a dream. It's a goal. But in the short term, I mean, there's probably no Vision Pro short term. Like, that's the dream in the long run, but, but it's too much. It's, it's just too much. Yeah, I think the dream for all VR headsets

is to put the battery back there, because then it's going to help the counterbalancing, and you don't have to have an outboard battery. Like, I think that is always the dream. I would say Steam last week announced a new VR headset called the Steamframe. It's

along with a bunch of other things that are doing, which looks really cool. Now, the technology in this system is nowhere near as good as the Vision Pro, right? Like, you know, the screens aren't as good, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But they made a bunch of decisions to get it as light as they can. So the headset and the strap, which includes the battery, the total weight is 440 grams, which is, I mean, I don't remember what the Vision Pro is when I'm going to look now, but I believe it is much lighten in that. And they, so that's the battery. And yeah, so the M5 model with the new head strap is 750 to 800 grams, according to a Google AI overview. I don't know where the 50 gram difference is, but let's just say 750 grams.

So it's like 440 to 750 is a big difference. Yeah. You know, this is the thing, like this is that funny thing of, well, the Vision Pro is going to be nice or hardware, but also the Steamframe is going to have all the games on it, where the Vision Pro has none of the games on it. So I think, you know, I think I would honestly get more use out of the Steam one than the Vision Pro, like, because I'd be able to play games on it, which is what I really want from VR, like a lot of the time is games. And I just don't see Apple getting them no matter what they do, really.

And Stephen Wrightson says, Jason has mentioned his waterproof Bluetooth speaker for podcasts in the shower. What is his current speaker of choice? Does Mike have any recommendations? Uh, my speaker, and I didn't like review 20 speakers and find it, but the one that I like is the tri-bit X sound go, which is cheapish, waterproof, battery lasts about a month. Um, because I just turn it on and off when I'm in the shower. I only use it for podcasts, so I don't care about the audio quality. It makes the rest is history sound very clear in the shower. Uh, USBC recharge, you know? I mean, that's what I'm looking for is to go back in time while I, like, shampoo my hair. USBC recharge fits in my bag for travel, so I actually take it with me.

I used it when I was in London. Because it's waterproof, I can hang it off of the handle. I take it with me wherever I go if there's room in my bag because it's light and small and sounds great and it allows me to bring my little podcast noises with me when I'm in other places.

Very nice. I just bring my iPhone in the shower, Yola. You know, if I'm going to listen to podcasts and a shower, I just, it's not loud enough for me. I'm not happy enough with that. I want a little more booming, booming podcast voice in the shower. You're going to get it to head as close as you can to head height. Well, those, those, the showers that I'm using when I travel tend not to let me do that.

At my mom's house, there's no place to get it up high. Right. So I have to, I have to use it all down low. And I've done that and I've gotten water in the speaker grill and I've gotten a deal at me that I can't charge it because it's still moist in there. And it dries out eventually. but like bringing a $35 shower speaker and it fits

the other thing I should say about the tri-bit is it's long like there are speakers that are more like you know like a soda can or whatever I was expecting like a little circle guy this is like this looks like this is like a little sonos

going on there well it's super small but it's long and that means like it goes on a shelf really well and then it's got a little it's got a little rope

handle thing so it's really easy to like hang it i mean literally in london at the hotel there are the two knobs on either side of the shower for temperature and for water and i just hung it on one of those and that's it and then it just kind of just dangles there and plays the the audio and then when i'm done to take it out so yeah it that it fits on the shelf uh that is the little crank window in my shower and so it fits there perfectly and i i put the little rope around the crank handle so that it if it falls off which almost never does, but if it does fall off, it doesn't fall to the ground. It just dangles

until I save it. So I like it. I have not done a massive, you know, check, but I think it's a really nice for the money shower companion. And I should probably just buy one and leave it at my mom's house for when I visit her. If you would like to send in your feedback, follow-up or questions for Ask Upgrade, go to UpgradeFeedback.com. Thank you to everybody. did it send stuff in every week. Thank you to our members who support us for Upgrade Plus this week. We're going to talk about the iPhone Pocket.

You can go to GetUpGradeplus.com to sign up and you can get 20% off your first year for new subscribers with the Code 2025 holidays. If you would like to watch this show, instead of just listening to it, you can find us on YouTube. We are the Upgrade podcast, obviously. You just search for that and you'll find us.

I'd like to thank our sponsors for this week. That is Delete Me, Squarespace and Gusto. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until the next time, say goodbye Jason Snow. Goodbye, my curling.