Upgrade - 591: The Apple TV Draft

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 591, today's show is brought to you by KRCS, eCM, FitBod, and Udacity. My name is Mike Hurley, and I am joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. Happy Thanksgiving week to all who celebrate, which it does not include. Actually, you're going to do a Thanksgiving. I am. I always celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a great meal. It's a great meal.

And also, you know, for me, just the modern tradition, the idea of being thankful and giving thanks to people and things in my life, that is something that I like to practice. So for me, that makes a lot of thanks for Thanksgiving. And I will just start by thanking our listeners for being of us every week. Indeed, we've done a lot of episodes of this, almost 600, and that they have stuck with us. and that new people have come as well like it's really great and Thanksgiving is a that's why I like it as a holiday is that it's just

be grateful for what you have gather your people around you that's what it's all about and it's very nice so and it's an excuse to have another feast day in the in the late fall early winter so that's kind of fun to get a turkey in there whatever I love it I love it for that

but I have a snow talk question for you to start out this week's episode which is unrelated it comes from Peter who wants to know are you interested in getting the Lego USS Enterprise? Also, do you build Lego, Jason? So, yes, it finally happened. Lego came out with this huge USS Enterprise set with all the Star Trek, the next generation crew minifigs.

I have a few good friends who love Lego. I'm going to call them out now, my Lego pals, James Thompson, friend of the show. Tony Sindelar Friend of the show They're all friends of the show They're all friends of the show Let's say

Lego friends of the show And of course Stephen Shippansky Who is One of the greatest fans of Lego Of all time And I used to think that was James But then I saw

That Stephen has constructed an entire He's been on the national news With his ballpark That he built in his kitchen I mean Clutcher field The social handle is Legopolis, right? Legopolis, which is, so he's also the host of a long-running Doctor Who podcast,

and that is a Lego and Dr. Who pun in one. Amazing. Incredible. So, yeah, it's amazing. So those are my Lego people. And this is not, you may be thinking that what I'm going, where I'm going to is, I don't think myself as a big Lego fan because I know so many people who, who by comparison are such big Lego fans.

That's not true. In fact, I just have... I mean, I built Legos with my kids and stuff, but no, I'm not into it, and I don't need more things in my life like this. So, no, that's the long answer. But shout out to my friends who, all of whom are deeply conflicted about this,

very expensive, but kind of incredible-looking Lego set. And I'll just say, every time a very expensive nerdy Lego set comes out, the same thing happens, which is James and Tony, And Stephen all cringe because it's like the money, you can see the money flying out of their pockets when they do that. I always, for me, you know, you do the like pounds per pieces, right?

So it's just like 350 pounds for 3,600 pieces. I feel that's a pretty good ratio. Like if I'm going to spend that kind of money on a Lego set, that's what I want. That's what I want, you know? You need the value. Because I like a good Lego set. I'm not like, I am not to level of. these friends of the show, but like if a property that I care about makes a good Lego set,

then I will purchase it. Although I currently have like two or three unbuilt Lego sets in the studio that I need to get to at one point. One of them is the Seinfeld set, which I'm very excited to build, just have and build. I have some mini figs around. I have a, we have a refrigerator magnet that is from the Copenhagen Lego store that I got, which is fun because you can replace the head I think it's you can replace parts of it so you can have it be somebody else

I think it was like a Viking or something when we got it but it can be so it's been a baseball player and it's been all sorts of things I forget what he what that guy is right now

but he lives on the on that and I have some I have some Lego characters around of different kinds but it's not not including

and you and I both have our mini figs that James Thompson made of our D&D characters from that D&D game that we play So that's fun, too. But I have no sets.

I have no Lego sets. There are lots of Legos in the house. They are in a bin, and they are from my kids. And they're still there. So James, come and get them. If you would like to send in a Snoltock question of your own to help us open a future episode of the show, just go to upgrade Feedback.com where you can do that. We're going to start with a combo follow-up, rumor roundup.

Yep. To begin? Rumor round follow-up. But we're going to talk a little. bit. First, I want to set the stage a little bit, and then we can talk about it. So we're going to talk a little bit more about Tim Cook and his potential resignation or retirement, I guess. Joe Rossini-O-Mack rumors has given another indication for why Tim could assume the board chairman role at Apple if he was to retire a CEO. So the corporate governance guidelines for Apple's

board state, quote, a director may not stand for re-election after age 75, but need not resign until the end of his or her term. The current chairman, Arthur D. Levinson, turned 75 this year. Yes, and you may be asking yourself, well, how long are these terms? Is it five years? Is it four years? Friends? It's one year. Yeah. And I'll read directly from Joe's article here. There is one potential wrinkle. Apple typically releases the proxy materials for a shareholder meeting in mid-January. And that filing would need to indicate that Cook is up for election as chairman.

That would be before Apple's next. earning report in late January. So remember, the report from the FT said that it's unlikely Apple would name a new CEO before their earnings call in late January. So the exact timing of all these things is a little bit wonky. It's an interesting detail, right, of like, oh, there isn't, there is a functional reason that they're going to need a new board chairman. In the next year, they're going to need a new board chairman. Well, there's another detail. And Dan Moran pointed this out to me last week. And it's in Apple's governing docs. And this is, so there There's the, well, what if Tim Cook retires a CEO and becomes chairman of the board? The other thought is, well, what if Tim Cook does not yet retire a CEO but also becomes chairman of the board? And you're thinking, is that legal? And I would say, according to Apple's governance documentation, quote, the board regularly evaluates whether the roles of chair of the board and CEO should be separate. And if they are to be separate, whether the chair of the board should be selected from the non-employee directors or be an employee of the corporation. The

board believes these issues should be considered as part of the board's broader oversight and succession planning process. So in the governance docs, it says, let me summarize, as a part of the succession planning process, we could make the CEO, the chair of the board. That's what it says. So it's possible that what we're talking about here is not Tim Cook steps off as CEO and steps on as board chair, but an even more transitional transition in which In which case, Tim Cook becomes the chairman while CEO. And then there's a period where he steps off as CEO that happens down the road. And it's just a matter how they want to play it.

So they have options. It's up to the board and Tim basically together about how they want to orchestrate this. But then we have some drama coming from Mark German in the Power on Newsletter. I will read directly. There's a shootout at the rumor roundup. like a shootout. There's some rustlers from the Financial Times, and they're fixing to rob some cattle down in the corral, and the sheriff is on the case.

Based on everything I've learned in recent weeks, I don't believe a departure by the middle of next year is likely. In fact, I would be shocked if Cook steps down the time frame outlined by the Financial Times. Some people have speculated that the story was a test balloon orchestrated by Apple or someone close to Cook to prepare Wall Street for a change, but that isn't the case either. I believe the story was simply false. Okay. So Mark German has the best sources. I think this is really interesting. Let's just say, I think it's pretty dramatic that Mark German is accusing the F.T. of getting the story wrong. Like, four people. I believe the story was simply false, he says, about the financial times. And, and, you know, Mark

Sherman sources are so good that I think that that's a very serious claim that needs to be taken seriously by everybody because it's one thing to say that's not what I'm hearing. And it's another thing to say, I think you're wrong. However, I don't know. We don't know. But I'm just going to, I'm going to do a little reading between the lines here. First off, you didn't quote the part where he mentions that they reported the two things. And then he says, well, I'll already reported all those, which is a little catty, but it's true. I believe they do. Credit Bloomberg, having previously reported that in the F.T. story. But it's true, Mark German was on this story a couple of years ago and certainly has been on it more recently as well. So, fair enough. Like, he has led on this story. But if I were to parse this statement here, I find it strangely noncommittal, right? Like, if Mark German knew for a fact right now that what the F.T had been told or had heard, was wrong. I feel like he would have come out stronger and he would have put it higher up than in the FAQ's part of his at the end of his newsletter. Well, no, technically this was in, quote,

The Bench, which is a recurring part of the freely available version of the newsletter. It's, no, I don't think it's free anymore. I think that the whole thing is not. Oh, okay. Because it used to be the FAQ was only if you paid. Oh, yeah. No, no, no.

This is, my point is irrelevant. Bloomberg's newsletter strategy is irrelevant The point is it's not the lead It's not a story on its own He just tucked it in at the end of his newsletter And what he's saying is hedged It is based on everything I've learned In recent weeks

Which might predate the FT story I don't believe a departure Is likely, he said I would be shocked You know again What he's saying is He's got what he believes Based on recent information

And he would be surprised and he said that isn't the one thing that he says that's very strong is that isn't the case that this was a test balloon orchestrated by Apple or someone close to cook to prepare Wall Street for a

change I believe he says the story was simply false. Now we can read this right take it on its face which is Mark Germott's sources say that this isn't right, that the FT reporting isn't right. I could also view this as being a really soft response. Like, the equivalent of him going,

mm, that's not what I heard, which is not the same as I've re-reported this and they're wrong. It's, I reported something. They've reported something different, but you know, I had what I reported, which had a totally different time frame and they said nothing was imminent. And we're all left to kind of guess what's going on here. It's possible that the FT has misread it, but I want to just say, despite Mark's protests here, it's also possible that people at a higher level who are in a position to make decisions like this when this decision was made and they decided that like people on the board and they decided to leak it to the FT that Mark's sources weren't at that level and were

previous to that decision. Because what I don't read in this is I have I have now checked and this is wrong. This is more like I previously reported something. different, so I don't think this is true, which it's just not the same thing. Because he does say, like, unless something significant has changed, it's like a phrasing that he uses. So I'm going to get the exact quote. Significant things change, right? So he's like, unless there is some unexpected event that forces cook to step down

sooner than planned, that moment is not at hand. And it's like, I think what he is, what he is like referencing here is health. And I don't think it's that, right? No, I don't think so. It's as planned, though, here's the other part of this. And this is a part that I found fun because the F.T. is using a Bloombergism or a Mark Germanism, but it's a Bloombergism. It is that classic no earlier than phrasing. So they say Tim Cook will step down no earlier than the end of January.

You know what's no earlier than the end of January? The end of time. Like literally. And also, like, even if you just consider the year, December, which is a really. really long way away from January, like even if we're still talking about 26. Even if it's 26. So what I want to do here is say, I think Mark German has good sources, but I think I'm prepared for the possibility that the F.T has better sources on this one. On this specific report. Otherwise, why are they just repeating Mark German's reporting? Right? So I'm skeptical of that. Mark pushes back, but doesn't not push back as hard as I really would expect if, If he had gotten a direct refutation from his sources, this feels more like either he didn't check with his sources, again, or they couldn't tell him whether this was a new thing or not, but that they had heard contrary things, which is fair, but it's an interesting example of this. And then, again, I just feel like so much of this could be in the muddy middle that it's the, forgive me for going back to the parable of the blind men and the elephant. but it's like no later than January and later in 2026 are the same thing, right?

Like if Mark German is hearing, look, it's not happening by the middle of next year. And the F.T. is like, we got a, you know, a board member who told us that this is going to happen in 26, but it's definitely not going to happen imminently in January. And they reported it carefully and differently. It doesn't mean that Tim Cook isn't going to be named chairman, sometime in the first half of 26 and resigned as CEO sometime in the second half of 26.

Both of them would be right in that case. So from a journalism standpoint, I'm fascinated by it because after that FT story came out, I kept waiting for Mark German to weigh in and be like, here's what's really going on. And the fact that it didn't happen really until his newsletter and it's this sort of like,

it's not a post on the Bloomberg website. You know, like in that way, it's not one of his big reports. No, it's really like, eh, that's not what I heard. I don't think this is true. Yeah. And then I will say the strongest thing he says is I believe the story

was simply false. But like that is that is quite an allegation to make based on belief or whatever your sources are. And what is the belief because all we really have here is in recent weeks,

which the FT story was more recent than recent weeks, wasn't it? So I don't know. I mean, I hate it when Mommy and Daddy fight but and German's got good sources.

But I do wonder if part of this is just German's kind of mad because they repeated his very good early reporting on this and then added this element that one ups him and that he doesn't have that and his sources are contrary to that. But it feels to me like he kind of doesn't know and his sources kind of don't know that they believe that it's not true, but it's possible that it's above the pay grade of Mark's sources.

It's possible. I don't know. Maybe I just like the mess and the drama of it all, but I do believe that Mark German's situation is true according to him, right? That like his version of the facts are this, but I also believe, well, where did this financial times report come from? I believe that it's also accurate. Yeah, here's a journalism thing that I'm going to throw in here, which is Mark says, I'll be, shocked if Cook steps down in the time frame outlined by the F.T. But as I recall, the F.T. story sort of says

it could be as early as the end of January. But no earlier than that. And like, again, it's possible that the F.T.'s not really outlining a time frame there. That what they got was an assurance that it's going to happen

after results, but they don't know exactly when. And that is that a time frame? And I think that it's possible that the FT in a desire to have this story that is otherwise just repeating things already reported by Bloomberg has puffed up their story a little bit. And the FT story is a little like this, right? Where they want you to think it's more imminent than maybe it is if it like there is an attitude in that story of imminence that is not supported by what they actually say, right? Like they breathlessly report it could be as soon as late January. But, they don't actually say it will be as soon as late January. It's like no earlier than that construction that makes you think it's going to be January, but it could be December.

So I think that that might be what is partially going on here is that the FT has tried to like lift it up and make it like more juicy with the facts that they've got, but to like to make it seem breathlessly reporting this to get noticed, which they did. And that German is like, whoa, now. this is sheriff is in town now hold your horses it it's going to happen but like it's not imminent and and i think if i had to put my money down on something it would be that is that the ft got really excited and said it could happen soon and mark german sort of rides in on old paint and says whoa now it'll happen in its own time later this year maybe and i that i think

that's probably the most likely scenario, is that the Ft timeframe implies that it's happening faster than Mark German's sources suggest that it actually is, unless, again, unless something changed. Also, the whole chair and CEO thing is part of this, right? Like, it's also entirely possible that there's a misread going on about Tim becoming the chairman versus Tim resigning a CEO, which, as we've seen in the bylaws, he could be both for a while. And I think that that, did, did jobs ever do that? Was he both? No.

He, he, in, in, you know, August right before he died. He resigned a CEO. I'm conflating that with him being bored, but clearly still being a part of the running of the company. Yeah, that was the, I think that was the intent is, I think that they didn't, I believe that even though Jobs was very sick, based on people's comments about what, happened, the intent was that he would continue fighting his cancer and be as involved as he could be on the board, but that Apple really needed a full-time CEO, and that was going to be Tim. And then as it turns out, Steve didn't make it. But, I mean, that's why I keep coming back to why I find this so fascinating is, in some ways, this is the first instance where Apple has been

able to plan a transition, because Steve Jobs' transition was, I mean, he was sick for a long time, but like it was forced by his health in a way that this is different as far as we know. Tim Cook's health seems pretty good. And this is more about proper succession planning in a way that Apple really basically never has had to do it before. Yeah, because again, going back to what we talked about last week, if there's one person that knows that this company needs proper succession planning, it's Tim Cook. Because I guarantee when he took that role was like, oh boy, I wish we'd plan better for this. Because that was a lot, a lot put on him.

Yeah, and he was acting for a while. I mean, he was more prepared than anybody usually is because he was acting CEO a couple of times, which is a big deal, but it's not the same. And then I'm sure he also wanted Steve's advice, and he didn't get it. And guidance, and he didn't, yeah, it wasn't there anymore.

And also Apple is just unfathomably bigger now. And this is just a gut feeling thing. As an observer, I don't know anything. about this. I've never met Tim Cook. I've been near him, but never met him. Mike's met him. We didn't talk about this, though. I would say, I think part of this, especially if you think about the chair thing, is Tim Cook has a timeline of when he's going to leave Apple. And my guess is that it's probably maybe even 10 years out. But like, you start the transition because I think my guess is Tim Cook would like to be

in an advisory role for some period of time but if you hold on to being CEO for 10 years you know now you're 75 and you're still supposed to go to the board meetings and talk to the CEO for another 5 or 10 years I don't think he wants that I don't think his time timeline is that wide and so to have a position where he could maybe

even be on the board for 10 years and and until he hits the mandatory retirement age and be as as you know needed by the new CEO at the beginning as needed as need be and then sort of fade back into the background and let the CEO do his thing is uh that's my my gut reaction is that it's something like that that that that this is all about the clock starting on how long tim wants to continue to give to apple

this episode is brought to you by our friends at k rcs one of the oldest apple premium resellers in your one-stop shop for all things Apple in the glorious United Kingdom. I added glorious, but KRCS is one of my favorite sponsors because they are a British sponsor and it makes me so happy. Their month of savings is well on the way. Right now at KRCS, you can build the Mac of your dreams in their Black Friday event and save 10%. You could shop the new MacBook Pro 14 inch with an M5 chip from just 1,439 pounds saving you, 160 pounds. You can make your Mac truly yours and have the exact specification that you want or take your pick from their in-stock models and save 10% until midday on the 5th of

December. You could even spread the cost of affordable monthly payments. With free next working day delivery on in-stock items ordered before 3pm, there's never been a better time to get a Mac, KRCS, your local Apple experts. Get more information right now at KRCS.com.com. slash relay or click the link in the show notes. There's representative 9.9% APR of 18 plus subject to approval and T's and C's apply. This is if you're interested in any of their financing options. Please spend responsibly.

Borrowing beyond your means could seriously affect your financial status. Ensure you can afford to make your repayments on time by the due date KRCS or a broker, not a lender. Head over to KRCS.com. slash relay now. That is KRCS.com.uk slash relay. Our thanks to KRCS for their support of this show and all a relay. Let's do the actual follow-up now.

Okay. Okay. Because we really got stuck in that one for a while. It's fun. F1 owner, Liberty Media's CEO, Derek Chang, has given a couple of interesting quotes in an interview with CNBC about their relationship with Apple. I want to read these quotes for you. I think Apple, with what they can do from a technology standpoint, will really enhance the product and therefore the content. And I think Apple will be very active with global streaming rights. We're in discussions with them on a multiple set of fronts. It's still very early, and I think we view it as a very strong partnership that we could see it happening in other

places. Oh, look at that. Yeah. I mean, nobody should be surprised by this. It would be very easy for Apple to drop in other regions to their deal with F1. Yes. This, to me, feels like one of those things that, like, someone said and I don't know if they should have said it. You know? There's a lot of partners.

Maybe. We'll say. Maybe. Yeah. Partners don't always say what Apple wants them to say, but I think this is Oh, I don't think this is a problem for Apple. I think this is more of a problem for the, for the F1's partners. Oh, I think it's exactly what you want to say in order to get the bidding that's true

to go up right that's true this is how you make more money like get ready to pay more money than Apple for something Canada you know whatever or whoever Australia watch out watch out Australia

Apple's coming to eat your F1 yeah I mean I if it goes badly then you know maybe but I think that F1 is obviously in that giddy moment now where they're like who Apple's going to do all their magic technology

and bestow it upon us which you know we'll see we'll see but Um, it's not bad having Apple as a partner, I would think. And it, it, it burnishes your brand because it's such a powerful global brand. And I think it's very obvious that Apple is, it can drop. They're not, that they're not going to stop at the US. Very obvious. Brian has written in and says for this week's lather up segment, I wanted to share the soundbot SB 510, my favorite shower speaker. It's round and has a suction cup on the back so that it can be very easily. mounted at head height in any shower like Mike talked about last week its battery lasts weeks at a time

all right so I had one of these at Marco's recommendation I think way back when a long time ago I wonder if I wonder how Brian this is friend of the show Brian who wrote this in and I wonder if Brian heard about us talk about this speaker

on this show because I also had one and that is when Brian bought it and is now recommending it back to us that would be fun nice so when mine so I replace mine with this

with the one the soundbot or no what is what is the one that I had it's in last week's show go look it up yeah

it's there but it's the I can't remember anyway I replaced it and a few reasons one is the suction cup thing like the suction cup works great until it doesn't

and then your thing your speaker drops from head height to the hard surface of your shower. This would be important in a minute when we get to the next bit of feedback. My trust level of the of the suction cup is not super high.

And my soundbot had dings in it, had little plastic chips taken out at places. Also, you know, I don't think I liked, and I'm certain my wife didn't really like that there was this thing sticking out of the side of our shower. all the time um i just it i never felt comfortable i much prefer this speaker that sits on a little shelf basically at the window where there's room for it and there's nothing else that would go there and it's got the little rope around the crank of the window so if it falls it will be saved um that said i mean if depending on the ergonomics of your shower have it and you're feeling about suction cup standards, if you can get this permanently place somewhere and you only have to take it out, you know, every, every month or something to recharge it, go for it. They do make

and integrate. And the idea is the speakers on the bottom. So it fires off of your tile or, you know, shower enclosure or whatever it is. And fires back to you, which is very effective. So I took mine, when I replaced it, I took mine to Phoenix and had it at my mom. mom's place, and then it died. So, RIP. The A soundbot speaker of some description, because the link is now dead, because that's how Amazon works, was nominated in the 2016 upgradees in the most life-changing hardware category, which I don't think we continued. I don't think we did So the one that I use now is the tri-bit X sound go

which is which is kind of longer and yes no no but again I think it's about ergonomics that one was a perfect fit for me because there was a perfect space for me to put it at head height

basically in my shower your mileage may vary so they're all waterproof and all that like I mean the one that I use it's got that it's got the rope on it it's got the string on it and so I can hang it

anywhere in any shower and if it gets wet it doesn't matter because it's waterproof it's like all their amazon ads are like i'm having fun with a speaker in the swimming pool which is i mean okay i mean yes i got it it's waterproof great good job this has just reminded me uh about something for the upgradeies uh we're gonna we're in an upgrade plus today we're gonna talk a little bit about production for the upgrades because it's coming yeah upgrade is meeting looking at that list reminded me of how every year people want links for all the nominees. So I've just made myself a task to remember to do that later on this year because people always want it.

They always want it, not just the winners. Yeah, yeah, that's a big thing. That's like when we do incomparable book club episodes and there's like, I got a link to 40 different books. Understandable, but I've made a task. So I will start doing the pre-work for that long before. And then hopefully it'll make it easy. That's what AI should be for is that kind of thing.

Yeah, I actually, yeah. Maybe. And Jordan writes in and says, regarding your continued discussion about shower speakers, I wanted to share a solution I've been using for a year now. I use a mag-safe suction cup

for phone holders in cars attached to glass in the shower. They're surprisingly stable and it allows me to help, it allows me to keep the phone high and dry. The phone speaker is close enough to my head to be audible. I don't have to worry about getting it wet.

It's easy to travel with. stick to most glass and tile. Jordan, you are a person after my own heart. This is genius. Genius. That's what I say. I don't think Jason will agree, but I want you to know, Jordan. I think you're a genius. Jordan, you're a maniac who's taking their life and their phone's life into their own hands. Good luck with that. And I do not endorse this. That's what I love about it. It's not just if the phone was to fall. What if the whole thing falls? And now it's all flying towards the ground. Oh, there's so many points of failure to drop your phone from a great height onto, presumably, in a shower, a very, very hard surface.

Suction cup technology at this point, you know? That is some problem. I don't trust it. Have a little bit of follow-out as well. I would like to point people towards Widgetsmith.com slash jobs, because we are hiring at Widget Smith right now here across forward. We're looking for a design. designer. We're looking for someone to come in and help us with a vast variety of design work. I would say I think the most exciting part of this work from my perspective is to help

design and redesign some widget layouts, which I think would be super cool. But loads of things, wallpapers, general UI stuff, even for our other apps, aesthetics and themes, helping us with fonts, imagery. This is a wide-ranging job. I think this is suitable for people of all experience types. I want people to go check it out. Widgetsmith.app slash jobs. There'll be a link in the show notes too. If you are a designer, I think this is worth your time to take a look at. I think this is very exciting. I think this is cool, but your work would be seen by millions and millions of people and I think that that is a

quite unique opportunity for such a small and growing team so go check it out also Jason put together a little video that is on our YouTube channel that is worth watching so if you were subscribed to Upgrade Plus

we did a rare pre-show in the last episode because something completely unrelated to the show happened before when me and you got a bit silly and had a very fun time And we just so happen to have video of it, it includes a spit take. So I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes too. So you can go and watch the video version of this little thing.

It's available to everyone because I think it's very fun and worth seeing. But you would have heard it if you were a member. And right now, Jason, have we got a deal for you? Oh, man. Do we ever? You can get 20% off your first year of Upgrade Plus. It's very easy to do this. Go to getupgradeplus.com and use the code 2025 holidays at checkout. That will get you one whole year of Upgrade Plus for just $56.

That will get you longer, ad-free episodes. You're looking at about a dollar an episode, and you'll get no ads, more content, and you'll support us. If you're hearing me say this and think, a dollar doesn't sound like very much to give to my favorite tech podcast once a week, I will agree with you. So why don't you consider becoming a member? You support the show, which is so helpful.

Like, again, we spoke about this before, but if you listen to this show and you hear the ads, you will know that over the last few months, this show has been doing great with ads. And like, for the rest of the year, we're well booked out and we're very lucky to be so. But you never know. Also, I would say, I would say other times, that has not been the case. Yes. And also, we've had those, you know, those ad-free episodes or those one ad episodes. Yep, it's not great.

And also, we're. We're like, this is the worst time of the year for advertising. Going into the beginning of the next year, like people are working up budgets. It's a very unsettling time. So it is very heartening to us as content creators to know that we have direct support from the people who care about this product the most. Like, it takes us a lot of work to put this show together and to make it as good as we think it is.

And if you agree with us on that, you really enjoy this show every week. Why don't you take advantage of this deal? go to getupgradeplus.com, use the code 2025 holidays at checkout, and you'll get one year of Upgrade Plus at just $56. If you're the kind of person who are around the holiday season, it's like, ah, people always ask me what do they want, like what to buy me, and I never know what to tell them. Just give them this URL, giverelay.com. It's got everything they need there to understand how to give it as a gift as well, when you can also give it as a gift to other people. And I already mentioned it, but on Upgrade Plus today, we're going to have.

our annual planning meeting for the upgrades, where we take a look at the categories, talk about it, settle some stuff, and get ready for the most wonderful episode of the year. And if you're not a matter, there's always a post-show segment that we do. So there's more upgrade every week. We try very hard to have that. Sometimes it's very fun, in fact. We do a lot of weird stuff, fun stuff, content stuff. It's like usually like an extra 15 minutes.

This is like a whole extra segment every single week that we do. And we put a lot of work into that like we do the rest of the show. Thank you. Last week, Jason, Google announced that they have found a way to allow for airdrop between pixel phones and iPhones in both directions. This also works with iPad and the Mac. When I originally saw this, I was like, oh, this is like, Find My, right? where Google and Apple

worked together and they created a way for do interoperability because Pixel has their own thing that's called Pixel Drop I think

it's called or PixelShare or QuickShare there is a thing on Android and I also think there's a thing on pixels which is

essentially Airdrop right? Like they have it it's called QuickShare sorry it's called QuickShare and that is like the way that they do

their own air drop and the works of Android phones Apple was not at all involved in this and Google was not at all involved in this and Google have said so and published

tons of information on their blog and on their security blog to show that what they're doing is secure. And they even hired a third party security firm to audit what they're doing to confirm that they're not

lowering security. They're not doing back doors and they have just reverse engineered airdrop. Fascinating thing to happen and that Google just like, hey everyone, look what we did. And then they've just done it. It's only available in the pixel 10 right now, but that's just for right now.

They're going to start rolling it out. What was your initial kind of feeling about this news when you saw it? I mean, I think it's great for people who are living in heterogeneous environments. And, I mean, my thought is basically, is Apple not involved at all? Did Apple give kind of a surreptitious nod? Or did Apple say no or did they not talk to Apple at all and they still did this? And then my second thought was, do we live in an era where Apple can take steps to break cross-platform compatibility without creating greater scrutiny? Yeah.

Right? Like, which if I had to guess, my guess would be that that's what Google is planning here is Google is basically saying. Do you really want to stop this? And I think the answer is probably no. And I also wonder, right? So like now they're in this scenario of do they now need to consider this? Like, that they can't make a change that would break it because it would then look like they've meant to break it? Yeah, well, that's actually going to be, I think, one of the arguments against this is that that has a third party come in and done an implementation that Apple now needs to test.

against and they'd be like this is the whole point this is our whole point is that now we have somebody else who is implementing it in a way that is not documented and uh if we do a change for good reasons to airdrop on our end and it breaks this what is our responsibility because we didn't build it we didn't tell them to build it i don't know i it it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. It would be nice if Apple and Google agreed that there is a secure framework for device-to-device transfer going forward that satisfies all groups and that Apple, you know, the thing that Apple does do its developer releases in public. So even if it was just that, but especially if they're also communicating behind the scenes with Google about what Apple is planning

with Airdrop so that they basically said, you know, you're on notice. We're making this change. You need to, you know, be here on this date. That, you know, would they support that? It's messy. It's messy. It's really messy. So like David in the Discord is like, I doubt Apple will care if they happen to break it. Apple, yes, I understand your point. But the problem is they are under so much scrutiny for antitrust now that like making some kind of like a monopoly, I should say, is probably a better way to say it. Now that this is in place, anything that they do

is going to make it look like they are trying to make it harder to leave their ward garden now that this exists. And if everybody who is in favor of making it, you know, making Apple,

forcing Apple to change their policies will use this as a battering ram for that, which is like, why is such a simple thing as transferring files between devices not based on an open standard or available this or an available that. And there are reasons,

but again, it just kind of comes back up. So I don't know. I mean, like, I think, do I think that if Google and Apple are satisfied that this is secure,

do I think that this is okay? I do. I think that this is good for users. If it's secure. I appreciate that Google actually went to the steps of saying, look, we're not hacking anything here. Everything is secure. Apple will probably be the judge of that.

But if it were all to be fine and secure and not allowing nefarious people to push things onto your device, I feel like Apple has locked down AirDrop so much recently that this was a bigger issue before than it would be now where it's like off. I mean, even the Google video about it, you've got to go to AirDrop and turn it on to everyone. And that lip type by default time limits now, right?

Which is the thing they didn't use to go. Exactly right. So you you turn it, you basically open the door, it comes in, and then the door closes. Yeah. So it's a, it's a, there's user, user input happening as part of this process. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fascinating thing for Google to just do.

It's, it's super interesting to wonder if they bothered to, not bother, but like if they told Apple they were going to do it beforehand. Especially considering that the company seems, the company seems, the company seemed, to work together better than they have in a long time. It's like, this is an interesting thing. Like, oh, by the way, we also did this. Well, I think, I think there's a non-zero chance that this is, I'm not saying this happened, but I'm saying there's a non-zero chance

that they actually got like a surreptitious nod from Apple. Or just, like, we're not going to cause you trouble if you do this. We're not going to participate in this, but we're satisfied with your security results. Fine. We're just not going to talk about it. But that is where I lean to where it's possible. We're not going to create a system with you, but we're not going to kick up a fuss if you do this.

And if you agree that you're just on the hook for managing this and you won't cause a fuss if something we do breaks it, it's then on you to fix it. Watch our developer betas and make sure that you stay compatible. Also, I am fascinated by how this is on a phone, right? you can do this on the pixel 10 and again I know Android is just such a mess of different phones and everything but like what a

what a great example I mean it's not just that they're holding it for their one device but also like so some Android phones will be able to do this but others won't because of whatever reason software hardware whatever it is I don't know what a weird thing right

it calls it brings into relief what it what the value, some of the often invisible values of being in the Apple ecosystem are, which is like, if you've got an iPhone, it does AirDrop, right? Yeah. And I know Apple invented it, but the point is, there are a bunch of these features that Google, the platform owner for Android brings out, and it's like, this just works on our phone. Yeah.

Or it'll roll out to some selected phones later. And it's like, well, what about other phones? Well, it might not go to them. How fractured that whole world is. It will probably go to all pixels, and then maybe they'll say, Samsung, would you like this? And then Samsung would to make their own decision, right? Like, it's like such a weird.

Samsung drop instead. It just is a reminder. I was thinking about this. There was that story about, I'll see if I can find it, but it was Windows PCs dropping support for HDCP in web browsers. Yeah, I'll find you. You sent it to me. I think it was Dell and HP.

HP. And I just had a moment where I thought, again, this is the kind of invisible like, we complain about a lot of stuff about Apple, but the idea that your browser would just stop being able to play some kind of content because the manufacturer decided to stop paying a license. It's just so like PCs were a mistake. So I just, I mean, again, lots of issues without. Apple. But sometimes the actions of Apple's competitors remind you, remind me that Apple has some standards that seem invisible. Like, of course all iPhones do this, going back a long way. And then Google comes out with essentially an Android feature that only works on one phone. And I think that that is, there's no reason for it to only work on one. It's AirDrop. It's Wi-Fi direct. and Bluetooth and like and yet here we are so just a reminder there are there are some things that I think we all take for granted about Apple's standards that Apple has below which they will not go to which they will you know they will not stoop to do something quite like this even though

they stoop sometimes they do some things that are annoying all true I'm just saying every now and then I'm reminded of all the things they don't do this episode is brought to you by e-cam. If you're a Mac user who creates video or podcasts, you need e-cam. Ecam Live is the all-in-one studio built exclusively for Mac, so it looks, feels, and performs like a native pro app should. Whether you're live streaming, recording a podcast, or producing training videos, e-cam gives you broadcast-level control with drag and drop simplicity. You can switch cameras, share your screen, cue overlays, and control audio all without ever leaving your Mac. With e-cam, you can brand your show with titles, graphics, and lower thirds.

You can also pull in guests via interview mode or record multi-track audio for perfect post-production. And if you're into automation, e-cam works beautifully with tools and apps like Streamdack and Loopback, as one as many Mac tools you already know and love. That is an example of it being like an actual Mac app and the apps that they call out like Loopback, like, oh yeah, you know, you know, you get it. You can upgrade to pro and unlock e-cam for Zoom, letting you feed your polished setup straight into Zoom meetings or webinars, share Zoom comments on screen, and even capture each participant's audio and video separately for easy post-production work. I know, Jason, you've really found a lot of use out of the Zoom integration. Yeah, we use it for incomparable for Total Party Kill.

I use it for the Zoom stuff because we always use Zoom, and it used to be we were like doing a screen capture of the Zoom window and carving it up. And now you can, with a Zoom integration, you can assign each person to a different camera or a different virtual camera and put them in Windows and you can build a layout. And then that layout goes from session to session and they automatically pop in. And if they change their name or not logged in or whatever, you would just assign them and they automatically populate all the different layouts. It's so much easier to do the setup. And then we also generally use that for the Six Colors Live stuff we do as well because it's just easier to have the native Zoom integration. since I'm doing that already. Right now, new customers get ECAM's best offer of the year

with 40% of annual plans in their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal at ECAM.com. That is 40% of annual plans between now and December to 2nd at ECAMMECAM.com. Thanks to ECAM for their support of this show and all of Relay. Considering it is a festive week, we decided what more festive than a draft! We're going to do a draft, but we're not doing a draft that you may consider. We are doing an Apple TV content draft today, where we are going to draft the best list of content, and then maybe at the end we'll try and decide who has the best list. Content.

Considering this is an exhibition draft, non-sanction draft. Yes. I figure maybe we should decide who will go first via a coin flip or something. Does that work for you? That's fine. Although you can also go first if you want to. No, no. I have one of the original Relay Challenge coins here.

Do you want Big R or Little R? Let's go Big R. Little R, so I'm going first. Okay. All right. I was going to let you go first anyway. I know. So we ended up getting there,

but there were a little bit more drama. So the premise here is there's lots of stuff in Apple TV now. In fact, in the compiling of our list, we have 200 plus pieces of, of television content plus there are a bunch of movies it is a lot a lot of content and so as why are we doing this um one reason is um maybe there's stuff that you haven't watched on apple tv plus maybe you have not uh or apple tv now it's called um formerly apple tv plus and uh and maybe there's stuff that we're going to talk about that you're like oh i haven't read that that i haven't seen that

that's interesting let's go there let's watch that so that's great also just a reminder of like the stuff that's on there that it's got a big catalog I think it's kind of fun to to point out all the all the interesting stuff that's on there so you know we thought it would be fun in on Thanksgiving week to do a little to play a little game and also just construct a list of good stuff that we like on Apple TV yeah I also feel like here there is like an element of picking our favorites too this is also you said like just a fun way for us to talk about some of our favorite things on what I think pound for pound on content is maybe the best stream of service.

It's pound for pound, it may indeed be. And I'll just say again, non-competitive draft. The point here, we do this on the incomparable a lot. We use the draft format to build a list. Essentially, that's what we're doing, is we are building a really nice list of stuff. That's what we're going for here. So it's competitive in the sense, like you want to take pride in what you selected,

but there's no like scoring system at the end. we're like, aha, Jason won that one. I mean, who are we kidding? That's not going to happen. But yes, let's go. But we've got... Let's go. Let's go.

But we do have our own list. And I'm picking my round one pick is severance. Okay. See, I think this is instructive of like, of our rankings here too. Very interesting. I think severance. Severance may be the best thing they've made quality-wise. I do have an argument for at least.

one or two more things about like what I think is maybe that may be higher quality output but there have been two seasons of severance they have both been excellent and they have driven more conversation I think about Apple TV than anything else I think at this point even more than Ted Lassau Ted Lassau was very big during COVID and then I think that was the absolute peak of cultural relevance for the show and it held on for a long time. It has remained a relevant thing. But Severance was like a big moment. It felt like the moment, like when a new HBO TV show drops and everyone's talking about this one television show, the second season of Severance had that feeling to it. And so I think, I think at this point, Severance is maybe their most valuable homegrown property.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. That's my first. I love it. It's a great show. I am amazed that it has captured people's attention because it is it is a bit weird but but but it became like the show of the moment in season two. It's perfect timing and I think it's touching on a lot of classic themes using sci-fi elements but also like it's about work life balance. It's about identity. It's about you know workers being exploited by cruel overlord. It's like, it's timely. So I think that that is one of the reasons. A whole premise around a clever pun, you know? I mean, really, seriously. Is that the whole thing? It might be.

And that is perfect, you know? Maybe so. Good pick. I have to pick Ted Lasso. Wow. Okay. I have to. Yeah.

I mean, how does an Apple TV draft go without picking Ted Lasso? Yeah. I think it will go down as one of the classic comedies of the streaming era. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I mean, and there's lots of takes about season two and season three. Season one, I would argue, is a almost perfect season season. I would love to be the contrarian who says, you know, everybody talks about season one is perfect, but it's not really. It's not at all that. And season two and season three, like, I'm not going to say that. I think season one is just about perfect. Season two and season three are different, but, you know, you have to tell a story. It's like, I mean, you can't just replay season one. You have to go somewhere. And so they went somewhere in season two and season three. Were some of those decisions weird? Yeah, some of them were weird.

I think they were not entirely prepared to do everything at the level that they... Like the Christmas episode in the summer? Like that thing? That was weird. There were a lot of weird things that went on there. But I think great writing, great cast, Jason Sue Dacus really kind of killing it in that character that began as such a simple joke character for a bunch of ads. I think it's been said so much that it gets tiresome, but I have to say, a Ted Lasso is not only the, was the breakout show of Apple TV when it started, which they did not expect, but is foundational to what they're doing. So much so that they have moved heaven enough to continue it, right?

Like, we know that was a big negotiation to get not just the show to return, but to also seemingly get, Acos to be the continued star of the show. Yeah. And so, like, yeah. Here's the thing. I had Ted Lasso and all my this, obviously. It wasn't super high up because I'm kind of like, I'm wondering what is its impact season four?

So I'm kind of modeling, this is like draft craft now. I am modeling this draft similar to how some of the drafts are on the town where you were essentially like one of our favorite podcasts they do drafts too and a lot of their drafts are competitive and like they are drafting franchises to be the most successful in the short medium and long term that is kind of how I'm thinking about my list of like what is the set of franchises that Apple TV own and control that could have the best long term output for the service right and it's a really great premise that we did not agree on

before the show. No, but I thought that was the point. No, this isn't the competition. This is just how I'm thinking about my list. That's how you're approaching it. It makes sense. So for me, for me, I'm really kind of saying what are the, what are the great, if I was to make the top five or top 10 list of Apple TV programs in its first era,

what makes that list? I'm really thinking of it down to the ones that I have seen that I have loved. I also have a sprinkling of that in there, too. Because, like, one of my picks, which will be coming up very shortly. It's not my next pick, but it would be the one after, is one that I just love so much. But it doesn't seem to really be so, like, successful. I'm not, I'm not programming somebody else's streaming service. I'm picking the ones that I like.

Yeah, which makes sense. Which makes sense. So my next pick is kind of what I was alluding to a minute ago about, like, quality. But there's only been one season, and it's the studio. Ah, yes. Season one of the studio is, like, one of my favorite things. things. Won all the awards, though. Yeah. Won all of the awards.

But it's like, well, season two be anywhere near as good as season one? Could it be better? Like, I don't know, right? But like, the season one of the studio is just one of the most incredible things that has been produced in television in a long time. Just in like, just watching it, if you just watch it, the quality is excellent. It looks good. It's funny. the story is good but it's not too much it's got that really good mixture

of being kind of like monster of the week and also there is a long running narrative throughout the season you don't have to think about it too much and then you start to if you pay attention and you see what they are doing

technically with the show and if you know just a little bit about how content is made and you know like it really I think the second episode is the oneer where it's all one shot and like when you stop

when you clue into that where you're like oh hang on a minute this episode about producing a one shot is actually a one shot then it's like we're oh I know what we're getting here it's just incredible Seth Rogen is a genius

and like even then integrating things like the podcast I just referenced the town is referencing the show and Matt Bellany the host is in the show. Oh, it's brilliant. It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant stuff.

And then, you know, bringing all the TV executives and all of the cameos that they get, like, oh, it's beautiful. Love it. The Emmy Awards agree with you. I agree with you. It's a great show. It was not as high on my list. Yeah.

But I think it's a great show. And that's great because I am going to go back to the Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein. steam well and pick shrinking next which is a really really great sitcom it's kind of at the top

of its game yeah it is a classic Bill Lawrence people hanging out haven't you know talking the premise is interesting but you know it as with all of these shows it goes way beyond its premise pretty quickly the idea that this is a guy who's grieving whose wife just died he's got a

teenage daughter he's a he's a a therapist who decides to kind of make some questionable therapy decisions. But really it's just about, you know, Harrison Ford is a supporting character as the gruff mentor. Great cast, killer cast all the way through. Good, really good writing, two very strong seasons. Great guest cost, too, right? Like, Zach Braff was in the second season, right?

well you know Zach Braff is uh you know Bill Lawrence did scrubs and yeah no I know but like he's great in it so he also I think he directed some of the episodes too but like just to me like you know it's the the main cast is great the guest cast is great like it's a very very good show like it's it's a lot of fun I like it a lot you know what I'm not sure Zach Braff is in it I think I'm thinking of a different show on Apple I think you are thinking of a different show that is also on my list so maybe we'll get there later. Oh, I remember what show that is now, and yes, he's really good in that, but it's not this one, but he's really good in that.

But, yeah. Like, he's doing a lot of that, but then he'll be back on the, uh, all the success Bill Lawrence has had on Apple TV has led to them bringing scrubs back. What do you think about the fact that they're bringing scrubs back? I don't know. I mean, every time I see, so you don't know

this, probably, but in the U.S., we are blanketed with T-Mobile commercials that feature... I've seen them. Turk and J.D. I mean, When I've been in the States, I've seen... It's the actors, but they're basically being Turk and JD. And it makes me think that maybe there is an audience and appetite for more scrubs, given that those guys have kept their bromance alive for all this time.

But we'll see. I mean, we'll see. I mean, you kind of can't recapture the magic, but if you can use those older characters as mentors for younger characters and get that vibe back, certainly Bill Lawrence has shown that he knows what he's doing. already did try to do that. Like, their last season of scrubs. The last season of scrubs, they tried to do it and they failed.

So I really hope that actually they don't do that. No, I think that's what it has to be. But everybody was tired and ready to be done with scrubs at that point. And now they're bringing it back. So we'll see. But Bill Lawrence, I think, is, Bill Lawrence is hot right now. So they're going to let him do that. I mean, I didn't know this.

Is Bill Lawrence actually doing the reboot? he he is not the showrunner because he has so many different things going on but he is the exact producer and has people from his writing group that are in it so it's like he's involved i i don't think he's involved with maybe at the level that he's involved with shrinking where you know brett goldstein kind of developed that show and then bill lawrence helped him develop it because bill lawrence is such a pro we'll see oh and so Speaking of which, Brett Goldstein is so good in shrinking. In shrinking. He's just so, so good in that. Like, oh, man. What a great show. My next week.

Yeah, thanks. I picked it. Is what I was also referring to this second ago, for all mankind. Oh, I do a whole podcast about for all mankind and you got it. I wish more people watch this show. because it's astoundingly good. You want to binge? They've done four seasons, I think, now.

So it's super bingeable if you have not seen it. I reckon, this is the show like when, you know, like I have friends and they'll be like, oh, I signed up for Apple TV for this, you know, like whatever it might be, right? They've signed up for Severance or they've signed up for the studio. The studio. And they're like, what shall I watch now? And I'm like, for all mankind. Man.

It's a show. The premise is simple. what if Russia got to the moon first, go? And the space race continued. And gets hotter and hotter. And, you know, the future becomes quicker, right? Like all that's the compression. And oh, and also every season, they jump like 10 years into the future.

And like some of the characters get older. And they actually do that really well, like in a believable way. Like, oh. Yeah. Joel Kinneman is like using a walker now. but it's fine. But it works. It like totally works.

I don't know how they've done it. Like, but it continues to work. It surprisingly. It is, it is great. It is one of their best shows. It is one of the best shows on TV.

Um, it is exciting. Look, they have their moments. There are plot corners that go in where you're like, what are you doing show? I think season three has one of the weird. It's not good.

But they, but I'll say they write the ship. I can, I can now say like that in season four and I really liked it. They have some, some wild twists, some real action. There are a lot of stakes, a lot of people die, a lot of spaceships blow up.

The first episode of season three is one of the most tense it's the hotel one. It's one of the most tense episodes of television. This show is brilliant. It is so good.

And again, I know people like to do like a binge watch or something and a lot of things we've suggested is like there's 20 episodes, there's 10 episodes. There's 40 episodes of For All Mankind. A fifth season is coming. A spinoff set in the Soviet Union over the beginning of the show is coming. Like Apple clearly really likes for all mankind. I would also say that one of the interesting side effects of Apple not having a catalog and building their own is that they are willing to stand behind franchises a lot longer than most other streamers are, because they want, here's the thing, they want people like us to say,

oh, watch For All Mankind. There's four, about to be five seasons of it. So you can just dive into that. And it's really nice to have a big catalog of something like that. And they're doing that with For All Mankind. It's really great. Is it perfect? No. Does it do some silly stuff? Sure. But like, I am riveted. And it is one of the very few TV shows that rose to the level where Dan Morin and I now do an episode by episode podcast about it called NASA Vending Machine that is over on the incomparable because it's that good. It is so good. So highly recommend. Good pick, Mike. What I, I'm really excited about the, like basically in the spin-off show, they're going back to the beginning of the show and retelling it from the other side. So from, you know, the show is set on the American side and they're going back to Tut from the Russian side. and I really wonder if there will be like a way that you'll be able to watch it where you jump between them eventually like you would watch

episode one of For All Mankind and then episode one of what is that one going to be called I think you mentioned I don't know whatever they've announced the title I think but like you know like where you end up like you could kind of machete order or something and you end up going on episode one episode one two two star star city is what they're calling it Which is a place where the Soviet Union space program is. And, yeah, it allows them to maybe bring back actors, in fact, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I didn't think about that. Yeah. Oh, man. So good. So good. Yeah. All right. What's your next pick?

I love it. I am going to say, here is an up-and-coming sci-fi franchise that I think they did an incredible job with, and I went to see much, much more of it. And it's murder-bot. Okay. I haven't seen this one now. Murder-Bot. murderbot is great.

The format is really interesting. It's 30-minute episodes, not hour-long episodes. So they're short and sweet. For those who are put off by the subject matter or the title, it is a funny. It's what Chris White's who did American Pie and About a Boy, among other things. It is a really faithful adaptation of Martha Wells' MurderBot series of novellas and novels, which are beloved,

they've been really successful in the sci-fi reading community over the last decade. It is funny and a sci-fi show. So, like, are there alien monsters? Are there lasers?

Is there tension? Yes. It's also funny, and also it is about identity in a very interesting way because the main character is the murder bot. It is a synthetic life form.

It's made of, a combination of computer and cloned human tissue. So it's got a brain, but it was never a person, like a human. It is a person. And then the interesting twist is these types of creatures are created as essentially a slave race. They are put under control. They kill themselves if they disobey orders. And this one undoes its programming and has free.

will. And so it becomes a story about this character that is not a human being figuring out where it fits, wondering about the freedom of other creatures like it, navigating the politics, which I think is really appropriate for our time, of who is going to agree that it's free and not human, but sentient, right? Who is going to agree with it? Where can it go where it can be treated with dignity. And yes, its pronouns are it. Which I also think is kind of fun. And there are a couple of shots where it's a male actor, but like there are a couple

shots where you see it's genital area and it's a Ken doll, right? Like it's like there's like there's like there's not made for that. It's made to be a security robot. But it's not a robot. It's a person. It's just not a human. Anyway, so there's a lot of that. But it's also funny.

It kind of is working with this. tag group of kind of space hippie scientists and is always frustrated by how bad they are at security, which is why they have a security bot with them. Anyway, I cannot recommend it highly enough. I love it. It's hilarious. I hope they make many, many more episodes. My only complaint about it is in the 30-minute format, it's really nicely bite-sized,

but it means the season goes by real fast, and then I want more. So I hope they bring it back for much more because it's really brilliantly executed. It's about something. It's got action and size. fun and is funny, all in one package. What a special gift, murder bot. This episode is brought to you by FitBod. If you're looking to change your fitness level, getting started can be tough. That's why I'm pleased to let you know FitBod is an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan that is just for you, because everybody has their

own path to personal fitness, which is why FitBod uses data to make sure they customize things to suit you perfectly. FitBod will adapt as you improve, making sure every workout, is challenging, while also pushing you to make the progress that you want, because you will achieve the best results when a workout program is tailored to your body, experience, environment, and goals. These are all unique to you, and FitBod will store this information in your FitBod gym profile. It will then track your muscle recovery, making sure that you avoid burnout and keep up your momentum. And FitBod builds your best possible workout by analyzing billions of data points. They have exercise science on their side, and all of this stuff has been fine-tuned by certified

personal trainers to make sure that they give you the very best exercises. They mix things up, right, because that is important. By mixing stuff up, and we're talking about different workouts, different exercises, different rep schemes, supersets and circuits, you will have a well-balanced workout routine so you are not overworking muscles or underworking them. Doing either of these can negatively impact your results, so they balance it out for you. Now, when you're learning new exercises are being given new exercises, you want to make sure that you're learning them well. And I love that FitBod has thousands of demonstration videos in their app. Their app is really easy to use and it works really well.

So I can watch these videos. They're shot from multiple angles and make sure that I feel comfortable with the exercise that I'm about to take on. Postalized training of this quality can be expensive. FitBud is just $15.99 a month or $9599 a year. But you can get 25% off your membership by signing up at FitBod.me slash upgrade. So go now and get your customized fitness plan at FIT. BOD.me slash upgrade. Once again, that is FitBod.

dot me slash upgrade for 25% of your membership. Our thanks to FitBard for their support of this show and Relay. So my next pick, I want to pick Formula One in the Apple TV

draft here. And I guess we can, you know, I would like to... I'll give you future Formula One broadcasts and F1, the movie streaming soon on Apple TV if you want it because what you're picking is the relationship. Yeah. Well also

it is also like they're definitely going to make a Formula 1 too. Yeah. I heard that. I heard this is very funny to me. There was a the director's his name Kaczynski. Yeah. He was being interviewed

like on a red carpet for something recently and someone referred to how is F2 going? Which I thought was It's so funny. It's like this human being was an AI who just assumed that if you had a movie called F1, that the sequel would be F2, where if that was what they were making, it would suggest that Sonny Hayes got demoted to the Junior League of the sport and raced in F2, which doesn't make any sense. So yeah, I'm picking the concept of Formula 1 as a part of Apple TV, because I think that

this is going to become a bigger and bigger thing for them. I think if Drive to Survive didn't exist, they would make that, right? Like, as part of this arrangement, I will be really intrigued to understand what that relationship is like between the production company and Netflix as to who actually owns Drive to Survive

because there is a production company that makes this for Netflix. And like, what does that deal look like? Is Drive to Survive a movable thing or a concept just like it and maybe it goes to Apple in the future like everything is up to play for when it comes to Apple in this sport

because they're in for a very long time and it is a successful product that is growing. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Jason, like one of the sports which is weirdly considered to be growing its audience around the world which doesn't seem to happen often, especially growing its audience in the US

which is an important market. So yeah. I'm picking home in a one. Okay. You said beforehand that you would probably do that. And I said, go ahead. I'm not picking it. So that gives you one less pick and I'll take it.

I think it's great. Interesting to think about it. I am going to pick another, maybe a little less talked about, but deserving way better than I expected it to be one of these. Apple specializes in this, the high budget, high quality sci-fi series for the thinking person. I feel like there's somebody with an Apple TV. who knows exactly this portion of their market and it's me and other people too but me

and so I'm going to pick silo interesting yeah silo good good it's a book series I was going to pick this too I feel like you undersold it in the way that you were describing it yeah it's a book series that I don't actually love I think it's okay but the way that it's done

It is so brilliant And what I would say about it is Silo sounds like The Kind of show I wouldn't like Because although it is a sci-fi show It is one of these Like in the future after an apocalypse People are locked in a chamber together

And must turn And we'll turn on each other And who will reign And like the Walking Dead gave me fatigue Very very quickly, right? This is not that show. this is there is an aspect of power dynamic but it's a different kind of power dynamic

it does have a question of like in a democracy what is the power of the people what happens when the people in charge get out of line what if secrets are kept like all of that is going on but there's also the ongoing mystery of like

what happened why are these people in a silo what happened to the outside world and the show and this is not a spoiler the show is like is there even an apocalypse outside. Maybe somebody should go out and look. Oh, but if there is, then they die. Well, there's a whole thing about that. That's part of what the show is about. Rebecca Ferguson is the star. She is fantastic. The show makes a lot of great moves with our characters. You're like, oh, it's that character. And that, like, it is not afraid to kill characters off. It does it a lot. It is, I really like common in the show, too. I think he's fantastic. And after season one, I would have been like common is a super scary villain and after season two I'm like common is a complicated character yeah who is super scary but also maybe you understand him a little bit more after season two which I love that's

a great kind of villain I love a villain question mark I think that's really interesting Tim Robbins speaking of is great in this he is absolutely great uh lots of good uh other good actor steve zahn shows up in season two and is amazing. So I highly recommend it is, it is really, again, one of these kind of meaty shows where it's not going to make you roll your eyes with like repetitive, like something really messed up strong warlord takes over.

Again, like there are a lot of apocalypse shows that are like that. This is not like that. This is like they form this society to stay alive. They're obviously right on the knife's edge living in the silo. And so there's this real push and pull between like the democracy and the power dynamics,

but also the class structure, live down low people who live up high they you know the people up high look down literally and figuratively on the people who work down low like there's a lot of really interesting social dynamics as well as an unraveling mystery of the silo itself and what's

outside and how they got there and like is history being suppressed there's a lot here it's really well done two seasons out they're making I think two more that will conclude the story because it's the story from the books

and I just I think it's really great and Rebecca Ferguson is fantastic I agree I was unsure about it like it seemed like a like a dark grim show right and I was like I wasn't sure that I wanted it but so many people were talking about it that I watched it and yeah there was a lot of darkness to it but it's also just like

really good we watched it just after severance was over because like season two started when severance ended and we watched all of it one and two although I will say super frustrated the way that Apple promoted the show where they

spoiled the end of season one in the promotion for season two which is like not great like just not great but you know nevertheless they did it anyway my next pick is a favorite of ours slow horses

yeah that was next on my list too brilliant show brilliant show I give it to the UK, you can have it. Yeah, Gary Oldman's so good in this show. This is another one where it's like super interesting in the way that Apple produces this show where they always seem to have another season shot by the time the season ends.

It's really interesting. They seem to shoot two seasons together. Yeah. Back to back. And then they also have a pace where they then come back to shoot the next two seasons a year later so that they can. do, because it's not, it's like two six episode seasons. So their seasons are short,

but it allows them to like do 12 in a block. And then a year later they do another 12 in a block, which I like as a model to have it come back every six or eight months for, for six episodes. It's pretty great, actually. Yeah. So like, because they always do this thing, which reminds me of like, it reminds me at the end of back to the future too, where at the end of every season of slow horses. They're like next season on slow horses and they have like a bunch of footage to show you because they've done it already. Which I always think is so funny. I love it so much. I agree with, so Jack Loudon, his wife, Shursa Ronan, is like campaigning for him to be the next James Bond. And I agree because I think he would be a brilliant James Bond. I really like Jack Loden in this show.

It's fantastic. And there is also another James Bond connection to the show where his grandfather is played by... Oh, Jonathan Price. Yes, who is one of my favorite Bond villains who plays... I think it's Tomorrow Never Dies. And he plays like a Rupert Murdoch figure, but what if he could make the news? You know, so that's the... Yeah, really great, really great.

So I love Slow Horses. It's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant show. And it's all produced in London and it's fantastic. like looks great yeah pretty great Gary Oldman so good yeah the sporting cast is great Kristen Scott Thomas who yeah having not read beyond the first book in the series didn't know whether she'd be back but she is always back and is also great so yeah it's so good we are very fortunate to have slow horse I in fact honestly I look at slow horses and I think this should be the model for adapting any like book series

especially like thriller, crime, mystery, book series. I had just brief sidebar. I really enjoy Richard Osmond's series of cozy mysteries, the Thursday Murder Club. And they made a Netflix movie of it. It's not very good. It's super mediocre. And the books are so good.

And all I could think was, I know you maybe couldn't get the giant cast of stars for it. but like should have been slow horses that's what they should have done that every book should be six episodes because you need because having a book adaptation be six episodes of a tv show you give it space you give it space for the subplots you get to know the characters you give everything some breathing room and there's no breathing room in the thursday murder club movie because it has to be over in two hours instead of like five hours and uh i i keep coming back to slow horses and kind of pointing at it and being like that do that

That, that's the right way to do these kinds of adaptations. They even got like a banger cast for the movie. I know. Helen Miriam Pierce Bros and Ben Kingsley. Yeah. And it's kind of a damn squib. I would rather them have fewer of those stars if they needed to to save on budget and done it as a six episode, slow horses style TV show instead. It's a shame.

Yeah, books by and large pretty much, books should be TV shows, not movies, right? Books should be TV shows. In general. Absolutely true. They're just bigger, right? Like, you get the time to tell the stories. The stories are longer. Yeah, movies are like short stories, not novels.

And a good novel movie adaptation, they happen, but like, it's a mismatch. You're dropping a bunch of stuff out. And sometimes it harms the final result. All right. I, this is my fifth pick. I'm going to go, even though it has only dropped three episodes or four, episodes now, especially since the TV critics who have seen seven or eight of them think, like I talked last week on downstream to Alan Seppinwall, longtime TV critic, and he said that show of a year for

him is between The Pit on HBO Max, which is a wonderful show, and Pluribus, which is the new Apple TV show starring, what is it, Ray Seahorn from Vince Gilligan, who is the, Creator Breaking Bad and Bitter Call Saul and used to work on the X-Files. Kind of a mind-bending concept if you haven't seen it, but, you know, it is sci-fi and human drama and a wild concept.

And Apple says it's the biggest premiere they've ever had. And it crashed Apple TV when it premiered. So I'm going to say, based on what I've seen of it, what I've heard from the critics, and the fact that it's been by all accounts a huge viewing success

I can't leave it off this list so I will pick Pluribus even though I hadn't seen it I had it on my list because I know how much people love it right yeah yeah yeah like I am really excited

to watch it but it's just I have yet to get to it we're currently finishing Taskmaster the only reason I've kept it this far down is I've only seen whatever four episodes of it and it's great

but like it's I haven't even seen a full season of it. And so I wanted to go with things that I have 100% confidence in before this. This might not stick the landing, right? To the end. It might not. I can't say.

And that's why it's down here. But I feel like I can't let it go any along. Have the critics seen the end? No. Yeah. Apple has withheld. As they often do with these sorts of things, they've withheld the last two, I think.

And that's what I mean, right? No one knows yet if this show, you're like, is it going to feel satisfying when we get to the end of it? Right. I'm going to pick a show that I enjoyed more than I thought I would and I thought I was going to enjoy it

and that is your friends and neighbors. This is a show where we take John Hamm and I think put John Hamm in the role that John Hamm wants to play where it's funny as well as him looking good. You know? Like I think

John Hamm gets put in roles because he looks really good and he wants to be funny and this show does that. It's like he is, you know, it's dramatic, there's tension, the story's really good, takes some great twists and turns and there's a lot of comedy along the way. Essentially the premise is what if rich man loses his job, doesn't want to tell his family and friends and just start stealing from his friends as a way to fund his lifestyle and then hilarity ensues. It's a really good show. I think they're making more.

I hope they're making more. I really liked it. Right. I still haven't seen it. It's worth it. Keep it on my list. They make some really clever production choices to this show too, which elevated it from me,

like some of the ways they produced some of the stuff. It has been renewed for a second season. Excellent. So good for you. All right. Well, I am going, see, now I'm torn because I've got my, I got my sci-fi shows that I've been picking and I've got my comedies that I've been picking.

Everybody's pretty much figured me out now. It's the sci-fi shows and the comedies. That's what I get out of Apple TV. I'm going to go, it's a comedy. It's a little bit off for me. It's not a sci-fi show and it's not quite a comedy, but it is a very, very funny mystery thing.

It's a bad monkey. Great show. Starring Vince Vaugh You convinced me to watch this And you were right It is So a lot of people It turns out a lot of people

Don't like Vince Vaughn What I will say is Vince Vaughn is perfectly cast in this This is like when I say You may not like Will Farrell But you should probably watch Elf It's a little like that

It's like it's the most Vince Vaughn But it's also the perfect deployment Of Vince Vaughn Yeah Bad Monkey is Kind of in a very specific genre which is the sleazy Florida crime. Carl Heisen kind of,

anyway, it is set in Key West and a little bit in Miami. It is about a guy who's like a cop who's lost his job. This is Vince Vaughn. He lives on the water in Key West. He's like a schlubby noir detective kind of. He gets, he follows a lead on a case that leads to kind of like more. sleazy crime that's going on. It's funny.

The plot is interesting. There are a lot of great appearances by interesting actors, including Zach Braff. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah, uh-huh. That's the one. And I just, and the vibe is immaculate. Every song in it is a Tom Petty cover.

It's just choices. And this is also a Bill Lawrence, by the way. Bill Lawrence produced this show, too. So it's not quite a sitcom, but it's very funny and also just has a vibe. It just is pleasant to watch funny, interesting. There should be more shows like Bad Monkey. I love it. It's really good.

Much, just surprisingly how good. I was really surprised by it, too. That's why I like to spread the word on Bad Monkey. It's like, again, in our Discord, they're like, I'm not a big Vince Vaughn fan, but I enjoyed it. It's like, this is my point. is, if you don't like the vibe of Vince Vaughn, it's like, I don't know, try this because I think it's his, I think the character he's playing is feeding into your conception of Vince Vaughn. I think it's a perfect use of him because he's kind of a loser. And you kind of want to root for him, but also you know that he's going to kind of blow it.

But, like, I mean, that's kind of what you're looking for here. It is that seedy, sleazy, Florida vibe going on. Like, nobody is without their sins. but very funny. I'm actually thinking my next pick is going to be something related to this, which is Stick. Oh, good show, good show.

Very good show. And it's related because Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson together forever. You know, like locked in our minds together forever. This is the Owen Wilson it's like Ted Lassow but golf which is not a really fair premise for it, but it is like Owen Wilson and a ragged

tag group of people sort of mentor a teen's golf phenomenon yeah it's a great show and also like he is flawed right and like um there is a little bit of like a rags to richesy kind of story of like you know he's a cut he's like a burnout you know like he he's not he's you know

considered to be not good anymore can he redeem himself it was it was very funny and had a really good story and it was one that I wanted to try and was really pleased that I did. One of the things that I like about Stick that I also like about Ted Lassau is they're both aware of sports clichés

and are willing to give you the sports clichés when you want them, like from sports movies and stuff. They know they have power, but they also know that they're cliches. And so it's a fine line where it's like, because I know they're cliches too. So they'll do a sports cliche thing. There's a great Amazon series called Red Oaks that does the same thing.

And it's like, you know that this is a, Red Oaks is like an 80s romantic comedy slash sports movie all mashed together. And it's a great show. But like it's the same idea, which is I know it's a cliche, but it works and I love it. And if you also as the writer or producer of the show know that it's a cliche, but also know it can be powerful and fun when done right, we're all in sync here. Like, why are we watching this story about an underdog sports person and seeing what they do?

It's like, we know what we kind of want out of that. And you're going to give it to us, but you're going to give it to us in a way that we all know what we're getting into and we all know what there's going to be a different spin on it. And like, I'm trying to express here the idea that, like, it knows the tropes and it uses them, but it all, but the fact that it knows them and it knows I know them make elevates it beyond that. It's got that other level of like, we, we all know how fun sports movies can be and we'll put that into effect. And like, we all agree. Yes, that is fun. Something I like about Stick 2 is they got to do the thing that very rarely a season one of a show like this gets to do where they're actually on. the PGA tour, the real one with the real golfers. Like, cameos in this show are of all the real top golf starts. Right. Like, they're there in the show.

And like, they're playing, yeah, they're playing golf in the tournaments. Like, they actually, I don't know how they did it, but like, they did it. Where you, like, the Ted Lasso, it took to season two, right, for us to get any real footballers in it and like any of the real teams in it and all these, like, well, maybe not the real teams. Yes. No, they didn't have the real teams. They did have the real teams, yeah. But like, you know, it usually takes like, oh, this thing got successful.

So now, it's like in Drive to Survive, the first season of Drive to Survive, which is the F1 documentary show, the top teams, Ferrari and Mercedes were not, they didn't want to take part. And then it was a massive success for the other teams. So then everyone wanted to be part of it. Exactly. Exactly. How many more picks do you have? Obviously, you have your one to match mine. I could do this.

I could do one more round after this if you wanted. Yeah, just do that. Or we could stop here. Just do one more round after this. All right. Okay. So then I'm going to go back to sci-fi and I'm going to pick Foundation. Okay.

Again, many, many, many seasons with more to come. The scope of this show is bananas, right? It's thousands and thousands of years and yet they managed to keep many of the same actors. There are reasons. season one is kind of a tough watch it gets better as it goes but it starts really slow it picks up after that

I would actually say the problem is that the pattern with the show is that they front load a lot of stuff at the very beginning of the season of the season and you're like oh boy this show downloading all this stuff again and then by the time it's in the last couple episodes it is flying like that's the thing is this is the show that I want to

recommend it because I think the net is amazing, but I have to admit that every season is a little bit of a rough ride where you start and you're like, oh, God, hundreds of years of knowledge and reference to that thing that I think it actually might work better as a binge because I'm always like, who is that guy? What was that? What was that in? But if you, if they lay down their cards at the beginning of the season of like, this is the story we're telling now. And then the momentum picks over and then like when it is good you are talking about like galactic stakes and planets being destroyed and the fate of the galaxy at at risk at any moment of like um and it does it so well it is one of the great examples of like a a tenant of the science fiction

genre which is the the space opera the galaxy spanning space opera um that doesn't get represented it in, in, uh, media like this very often. And foundation goes for it. And I think it does a pretty good job. It is, uh, you know, the story that you're watching is, is secretly not quite the story you expect it to be. And that's actually part of the brilliance of it. Um, I, so like, I have to list it. I love it. Even though lots of asterisks, you got to be committed. But I think, I think actually on balance it is it is brilliant even though it can be hard to get into and you got to persevere but but if you persevere there's a lot of reward every season great performances in this one too um so yeah Jared harris is great in this my last pick is a show that i have not seen the final

season of yet oh but the rest of it is really good uh mythic quest oh you snipe me there it's also a show that's done. So, you know, it's got that benefit to it. I have seen it. And you liked it? I've seen the last season and the SideQuest thing that they did. I like Mythic Quest a lot. I think it's funny.

I went into it being skeptical about whether I was going to like this show, you know, it's from the, that's always sunny guys, but it's like, you know, video game. And we talked about it when they were announcing it. It's like, is this really going to be, what's this going to be is an ad for, because they. video game. They partnered with a video game company, Ubisoft. Yeah, to make it. To make it. So it was like,

it's just going to be a whitewashing of the game industry. Like, what are we doing here? And it's not. It's great. It's a story of the people who work at this video game studio and that, you know, and you've got your technical expert and you've got your overbearing, annoying, creative genius who knows that he's a genius. And you've got various other characters that you pick up along the way.

It is funny. You don't need to be a big video game person to find it incredibly funny. and good characters, best COVID episode that any TV show did. The last season is good. The side quests are actually some of the best stuff that they did, which is they did a little mini-season

right at the end of, I think it's four stories that don't involve the main characters, but are set in the world. Basically, they're the episodes that you normally would do as a standalone in the middle of your season run. Which they did.

Every season had one. Which they did. And then in the last season, they just did four as a, a total separate show. And those are really great. What I would say is, I felt at the end of the last season

that it had run its course and they didn't need to do anymore. I was happy that we got what we got from Mythic Quest. I think it was great. I think they ran out. I think we got to the point with Mythic Quest in the previous season where they realized that for these characters to change anymore would break the premise of the show.

And so they decided to not. They did a lot of like, everything's going to change. And they got to the, the end of the season. They're like, nah, forget it. And I think at some point, you just got to say, we've told all the stories we're willing to tell with these characters. Um, so let's move on. Yep. Which I think is exactly why I ended. It's fine. It's fine. But it's very good. Really good show. Wow. So that, that, that sniped me. So now I have to, I have to go somewhere else.

You do. Um, and so I am going to pick, uh, I'm going to get some Seth Rogen in my life and I'm going to platonic. Do you like this show? Rose Byrne and Seth Rogan. I've only seen the first season of it, and I do like it. I think it's nice. I think it's funny and silly. It is about a pair of kind of old friends, mismatched old friends.

They were pals when they were younger. They've gone their separate ways. This is Seth Rogan in a more Seth Rogan-y kind of. He's a he's a schlubby studio executive in the studio. Here he is a schlobby brewmaster at a brew pub. It is and kind of in a state of

Arrested Development. It is a much more traditional Seth Rogen character. Yeah. And then Rose Byrne is playing a suburban mom who went to law school and was an attorney, but at some point she and her husband, who's also an attorney, she decided to stay home with the kids and he went and did the career path in the law firm. Now, the kids are a little bit older, and she meets her old friend who is kind of in the state of arrested development, but it's a reminding.

her sort of like what her life was and that she feels like she's kind of put her life on hold. And so that's the concept, but then there's just, you know, there's also lots of jokes as these two worlds collide in a bunch of funny ways that you might expect. And I think it's a really well-executed show. So that is the ample TV content draft. If you've not seen any of these shows, we recommend them. Go check them out. Yeah. That's it. We did a lot of them. And there are more. Mike, I had the Long Way series with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman on my list that I didn't get to, which is two idiots ride motorcycles around the world. It's fun. It's a travelogue. It's cute. There's a mini series called Masters of the Air from Tom Hanks that's about the Air War in World War II. That is really great. I like that a lot. Shmigadoon is a fun musical comedy about musical comedy.

Um, I really like the doc series Super League, the War for Football, uh, which is a very dramatic retelling of the attempt to, um, an attempt for the most rich, uh, soccer teams in Europe to subvert the authority of their soccer leagues and form their own breakaway league, uh, the Super League. So it's Super League, the War for Football. It's very good, good documentary. Um, the after party. I had that. Yeah. Fun show. Fun show. Just didn't make the list. Um, um, time. Um, um, um, time. Um, Bandits, one season and out, I really liked it. I thought it was really adorable and I'm sorry they didn't bring it back. I thought that was a nice fun kind of for the whole family take on the classic Time Bandits format. And I got to say, I was surprised people hate them, but I thought it was a really great doc, the Dynasty, the New England Patriots, which gives you Tom Brady and Bill Belichick kind of reluctantly talking about themselves. And I thought it was actually a really good story about as a football fan about that era that has stuff that I have not seen elsewhere and I thought it was really well done. So there's some other stuff on Apple TV too. We didn't even

touch the movies. There are some movies. Some of them are good. Most of them aren't. This episode is brought to you by Udacity. There's a lot to keep up with in the world of tech and we've all got blind spots and that's where Udacity comes in. If you want to learn skills that command high salaries. Udacity is an online learning platform of courses in AI and tech, including generative AI, agentic AI, Python, data science, and so much more. Udacity removes the guesswork so you can learn what you need to know and nothing that you don't, saving you from scouring YouTube or prompting chat GPT for hours on end. Learning of Udacity means doing practical exercises and projects that prepare you for the job

that you want, and that's why 90% of Udacity graduates say that they are achieve their enrollment goal. And get this, they just launched a comprehensive course in artificial intelligence, which you can study for under $5,000. When you have a certification from Udacity, recruiters and employers take notice, so for a better job, better salary, and better skills, check out Udacity today. Udacity makes a lot of sense to me because I'm a person who likes to learn new things, and I am right now, actually. I'm looking more social media marketing and have started a Udacity course on that exact subject. I think it's very powerful to have access to what is essentially a thousand mentors who can give feedback and knowledge on so many

different subjects. The tech field is always evolving and you should be too. You can try Udacity risk-free for seven days. Head to Udacity.com slash upgrade and use the code upgrade and you'll get 40%, 40% of your order. Once again, that is UD-A-C-I-Udacity.com slash upgrade for 40% off and make sure you use the promo code upgrade so they'll know that we sent you and you'll get that discount. A thanks to Udacity for their support of this show and relay. It is time for some ask. Upgrade questions. Our first question today comes from Sam, who wants to know. If Apple TV does include an ad-supported tier, which level of membership do you think would be included in the Apple One bundle? I would presume the ad tier will be included of an optional additional

charge to remove ads, but I'm curious to what you think. I, my prediction is that if you're an Apple One, you'll get it ad-free. And that if they add an ad tier, it really will be a cut rate ad tier trying to get people in the door who are buying a single thing. But if you're buying the whole Apple bundle, I think they're going to keep you at the top tier. Yeah. That's my guess. And I think if they really felt the need, they would increase the price of Apple One, which they've done in the past. You know, by like a dollar or two a month or something, and then you'll get it.

The whole point of Apple One is you're a prime Apple customer. you're all the way in the ecosystem and you're buying a lot of stuff. And I just have a hard time seeing them pull on Amazon and say, on top of this, you also need to pay us not to see ads. I think that I think Apple's desire if they do have it to show ads at all on this, that's one of, you know, it will have its limits. And I think that's one of its limits. There is a possibility that they, you know what they could do.

The individual plan, maybe you get it of ads and the premier plan, you get it ad free. So remember, Apple One has three pricing tiers. They have the individual, which includes iCloud plus for 50 gigabytes to storage, Apple TV, plus, as they name it, on the thing, which is funny, Apple Music and Arcade. They have a family plan, which includes those things plus 200 gigabytes, and then they have the premier plan, which is also a family plan, but it has two terabytes of storage and includes Fitness Plus and News Plus. So I could imagine them doing I don't necessarily think they would do this but I could imagine a scenario where you got the ad plan

included in TV in the individual and ad free in Premier. Anything is possible but my gut feeling is that if you're paying Apple that much of money their goal is not to get more Arpoo out of you at that point. They got you in the bundle.

I think they want you in the bundle and that this is for people who are going unbundled and are really reluctant to pay at all for Apple TV, and so they're giving them a deal, but they're showing them ads. That's, you know, never say never, but I think that, because I think it's already a dicey premise, right? Like, Apple showing ads at all, I think is going to be a tough sell. And if they go there, I think they're going to be careful about all the next steps they take.

And so I just think they'll leave the bundle alone. Totally forgot that fitness and news are not in the individual or family plans of Apple One. It's only in the premier plan. It's pretty wild, right? Why would you not? I wonder if that'll change. Why would you not? Why would you not put them in there?

They feel like the cheapest ones. Like, that's odd. They're designed to be the throw-ins, right? Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. It's super weird. That's very strange. I haven't looked at this in a long time.

Like, I got Premiere and then just never thought about it again. Yeah. Because I do actually think, for me, Apple One Premiere is a good deal. like to get the 2 terabytes of iCloud storage that I can share of everyone and then all of those services and I do use music which is 1699 a month on its own if it's to do a family plan and I use TV and I use arcade like I use these services it would cost

nearly double to pay to pay them separately. Logan said should Apple end the Mac Pro as we know it and rename it to Mac from sorry and rename the Mac Studio to become Mac Pro. Studio display could become Pro Display without interfering with the Pro Display, XDR. Besides leaving some disappointed, the only other issue is no Mac could be made in America

like the current administration wants. Well, it's okay because they're making the servers in America in Houston, the private cloud compute surfers. And my answer is no. They can also make any Mac they want in America. They could just do that. They could, I guess, if they wanted

to. My answer is no. I get the, I get the, we want everything to be in perfect boxes and so we want to rename it but it's like the mac studio is the mac studio it's going to stay the mac studio the mac pro will just go away or it'll sit there on the price list and nobody will buy it but renaming a product just to fill a slot doesn't make any sense i think mac studio is a better name anyway also yes it is a better name than mac pro and also it absolutely does not matter if they don't have a product called mac pro like it it doesn't matter and and also the people that care the most about the mac pro would be

really upset about that as well you know like that's i suppose there's another a poke in the eye for that it's like yeah i get i get that there are people out there who like want every apple thing to be nice and tidy and they've created like a little chart and all that but it's like no it doesn't make don't do that yeah because then i mean if we're doing that then would they also have to make a mac max you know because that because max is a thing mac studio is fine mac macs fine name the macmax with max uh it's fine

Darren wrote in and said back when Apple first introduced the cursor to iPad OS, everyone loved how they used the amorphous blob design as a real iPad-specific approach. But I feel like I haven't heard much discussion of how with iPad OS 26, they got rid of that in favor of a more traditional arrow. What do you guys think? Do you miss the blob or prefer the arrow? All right. Well, I haven't heard much discussion about it. I wrote about it in my review, but I'll just say. No, but you wrote about it, discussion. Discussion and writing. I didn't discuss it. I get it because they felt they needed, especially with the new multitasking stuff, to have a pointer that indicated the precision using the track pad, right?

That now they've got some interface elements that are smaller and that they wanted to indicate the precision. However, amorphous blob, it still is. The pointer still changes when you move it around. it still has a lot of those characteristics and will change. So it morphs into an ibeam when it's editing text, right? Like that is still the case. Does it still do the snapping?

Like it used to snap to content? I don't think it does that anymore. If the app wants it to, it does. But otherwise it doesn't. I think it's not supposed to ideally do that anymore. I think at the time when it was introduced, it made a lot of sense to make a curse of the size of a finger because that was what was interacting with that.

but I think as iPads have become more complicated post that being introduced and with iPadOS 26 it makes more sense now to have the precision. So I think, like I didn't, it was funny when I read this question. I was like, oh yeah. To me, it just felt like such an obvious natural change

that I never really thought about it. And when they introduced it, I was like, great, I prefer this now. So the blob is a nice idea. The circle was a nice idea, but it's a virtual finger. And there are elements that require more precision now that you would need something more precise

than the circle. And so they made the advantage of having an arrow is there's the point of the arrow, which is super precise. And that's what they want. But it still is not the Mac pointer, and it still does its little morphing animations and stuff. So it's fine. I like, I like, I like what they did with the original. I think that it was super clever. But the OS has evolved and the cursor, you know, pointer has evolved. It's fine. And Matt wrote in and said, do you feel an extra pressure to not make mistakes on the shows that you record live in front of an audience like Upgrade versus the shows that you do not record live? How do you approach these recordings differently?

I mean, I talked about this on the show, I think, but one of the things that is a challenge for me when we're doing Upgrade live and streaming it live, which is, too, you know, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively small audience is I don't want to make mistakes and break because, you know, then I have to go back and it's a whole thing. But I think that, and I've tried to not do that

and say, like, if there's something that I don't like, I just need to say, let's stop and do that again. But here's the truth is, in my head, it's all about editing. In my head, it's always about every time we say, let's stop and go back it's a marker it's a break it's a note to jim who edits to the audio version of the show it's a note to jamie who's editing the video version of the show we are making more work for somebody else every time we do it and so i want to be aware of that and so it's a balancing act like some imperfections are natural and we'll go in the show and are fine there's a threshold beyond which

we got to take we got to mark it we got to break it and you can hear us If you listen live, you can hear us get that point. You can hear one of us say, oh, I'm going to, let's do that again. Or, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to do that again. Now, sometimes Mike will silently mark something and say, we redo this. Yeah. And cut that out as a note for Jim. But I'm really thinking of the moments when one of us explicitly either says, I'm going to do that again,

or just stops and then says it again. And it's very clearly like, this is going to be a moment. a break. Yeah. So, but I'm aware, like, every one of those has a cost, right? I don't want to give Jim 30 edit notes if I can avoid it. I don't want to give Jamie 30 different video splices that she has to do. So, um, that's what we're mindful of is, is this is not a show.

So like Mike and I, big fans of the rest is history. Yep. I hear how edited that show is. They don't let, they don't let the mistakes in that. That gets an intense edit. our shows don't get, other than Cortex. I guess Cortex gets an intense edit. It does.

So we don't do that. We are a little looser than that, but there comes a moment where you're like, okay, now we need to do this anyway. I don't want to make a lot of trouble. There's a fast turnaround show. It's newsy. It doesn't need to be perfect like that.

We are alive to tape production, right? Pretty much, right? Closer to most, like a lot of TV shows that you would see, where, you know, there is a studio, audience and we are recording it live and so basically all that goes into the recording comes out here like it's not super tidied up which is as you mentioned cortex it's very different where like if i did this uh did this what i just said right now that's just going to stay in the show whatever you can hear me you know what i'm talking about in cortex that's taken out like

one of those did this is taken out and that is many thousands of edits that sometimes which takes between two people, something like 25 hours to edit one episode of a podcast. Completely unsustainable. But makes sense for the type of show it is with the audience size that it has. Like it's just, it's a different beast. It's a totally different type of

show. Like from my perspective, like there, the shows like that I do, they have a totally different vibe to this where like for this I am assuming that everything I'm saying is going in by and large. So I'm not going to have random asides of Jason that I don't want anyone to hear, which is

like how me and Gray would record the show, we might stop and have a conversation during the middle of our recording about something completely different, but we know it's not going to be in the podcast. Or like other shows that I do, if I have a show that is not recorded live and has ads and I read the ads,

I make so many more mistakes when I'm reading the ads than when I record them live. Don't know why that is. About taking a tangent, what I would say too is another factor here is are you at a resting point because again you're making more work for the editor

even if the editor is you're making more work for the editor now if it's an intense edit it doesn't really matter that much but I would say also you have to get into mindset ideally you've come to a stopping point because like the last thing you want is to be in the middle of a conversation and then have lost what that conversation is because you can only do so much with the edit for that

so you want to you want to come if your conversation has come to a resting place And then you go on a tangent and are just talking. And then you begin the next segment and say, clip this part out. This is just us chatting. It's fine, right? But you have to be mindful of that, too. The last thing you want is, where were we?

Because if you don't remember where you were, not only have you lost the energy, but you may make it so it's not editable. Oh, yeah. And that's bad. So. Oh, great. So there was actually on the latest episode of The Rest is History, there was a weird editing thing. I don't know if you've listened to those, they did their new Nazi series. And it begins.

unusually with an intro about what you're about to hear. And he repeats the same line twice. So he repeats the same line in the intro. And then they start the show and there's another introduction, which does the same thing. So I have a theory about this. What is happening there?

I have a theory about this. It's some kind of thing for some platform. Like, there is one of the many platforms that they publish to where that is like essentially going to be a trailer or they're going to use that as like it will be dynamically. cut out like because that was that to me sounded like a DAI thing like that was put in

dynamically when I downloaded the show that like yeah that or was a mistake for the member version mistake for the member version maybe but like even even without the mistake just him even having the intro didn't even make any sense when then they know like to me I heard it and I was like it's funny I thought of you because I knew you'd have a similar response of like I'm seeing into the matrix here and I don't like yeah you know like I don't know what you're doing. You never do this. They did do an episode where they only posted the audio from one side of the conversation.

Really? That was amazing. How? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was incredible. Anyway, this is a tangent that we're leaving in the show. Yeah, but this is related to the content. It is. It is. This is what people are here for. It is. This is great stuff. So that's, I mean, that's the answer is this is different. And we try to minimize what we change in this.

it does happen we have taken things out we have taken bits out when we were in london we took a bit out after the fact we're like let's take that part out like that that does happen um because we're mindful of the content and all of that but we try to do it live have it feel live it's a regular conversation make a little tweak here and there when i clear my throat mike presses the button that says jason clears throat we take that part out i don't i can't take that one out you can't take that one out also that's not how you you clear your throat anyway. It's not. You actually might need to clear your throat now that you've done that one. That feels like a permanently damaging one. Maybe. We'll see.

If you would like to send in a question of your own for a future episode, what we can answer and ask upgrade. Go to UpgradeFeedback.com. You can also send us in your follow-up there as well. Thank you to our members to support us of Upgrade Plus. Go to get Upgradeplus.com. And don't forget,

you can get 20% of your first year for new subscribers with the code 2025 holidays. You can find us on YouTube by searching for Upgrade Podcasts, and you can see us in video every week. You can also support our sponsors because they help make this show possible. That is this week, Udacity, FitBod, E-CAM, and KRCS. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.