Upgrade - 600: Based on Hopes and Dreams

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

From Relay, this is Upgrade. Episode 600. Today's show is brought to you by Century. Delete me and the Pets Table. My name is Mike Hurley and I have the honor and pleasure of being joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason Snow. Hi, Mike Hurley. Good to be back. You know, I was going to say the man who's been here for all 600 episodes, but it's not true.

It's not true. It's not true. I missed three. Mm-hmm. Three. You do win in the sense of who's been here the most. I have missed many more. Yeah, by a lot.

I've missed many more. Even though I take breaks every year, I also went on a long paternity leave and had a long honeymoon. Man, I've done a lot during the time of this show's from recording. There's a lot of life going on in these 600 episodes. In 600 weeks, yeah. And we will celebrate today with a draft, but that's much later in today's show because we must start the Snow Talk question that comes from. I didn't really want to ask this question, if I'm being honest, but two people sent basically the same question in, so I figured it was. probably important. Patrick and Matt both said, how do you feel about Cal quarterback Fernando

Mendoza's success this year, Jason? Okay, so let's tell a story real quick. It's American football, sorry, Mike. But it fits an upgrade lore because it led to a title of an episode. We did an episode called 98 yards with my boys. Yeah, okay. Yeah, with my boys. So that was Fernando Mendoza's last game with Cal. It was the big game against Stanford, and they were behind, and they got the ball at the two-yard line or whatever, and they might. marched down the field and scored the winning touchdown. And afterward, he gave an emotional interview with the announcer from ESPN or whatever. And he said how great it was and how he loved everybody and 98 yards with my boys and Go Bears forever.

He then called out sick the next week, put himself in the transfer portal and transferred to the University of Indiana. That was his last appearance. How do I feel? Well, let's see. First off, do I blame Fernando? Well, he went to Indiana. They didn't lose a game. They won the national championship.

he won the Heisman trophy and he's going to be the top quarterback picked in the NFL draft. I didn't. He made just like, he made the right decision. In all measurement, he made the right decision.

Oh, so him skipping out on that, that was, that's controversial. It's not what people do. Well, no, it is what people do now, although it isn't in the past.

It's kind of a new thing. But the truth of it, and it was sad just because he was, he was our guy and he was really good and that he left was sad. Cal got a replacement who's a really good quarterback too But that wouldn't have been there if he had stayed But the other thing about Fernando I mean first of all it's hard not to like the guy

He is he's just a fun Seems like a very happy guy There's a sports writer who refused to him as future senator Fernando Mendoza I'm like probably if you wanted to be Very positive guy He also this is the thing as a Cal fan He graduated

He went to Cal for three years He came in with a load of advanced placement credit because he was a nerd and a very good student in high school. He was going to go to the Ivy League. He was going to go to Yale and then Cal finally recruited him and they came. And the moment that I was there when they put him into the game, his first game that he played. And the moment he went in because they were trying to figure out who their quarterback was going to be and nobody had really been successful. And the moment he came in, I was like, that's the guy.

That's the guy. And they did too because then they started to play him. So he went to Cal for three years and graduated from the business school and got a degree. So how do I feel about Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza's success this year? Well, it is a little bit bittersweet, but the more time goes by, the less bitterness and the more sweetness. Because you know what? The fact is, I don't know if a Cal graduate, Cal graduate will put it that way, is ever going to win the Heisman trophy, is ever going to win a national championship, is ever going to win a Rose Bowl. And Fernando Mendoza did all of those things.

So I am happy as a somewhat sad cow fan to look on with some pride because he is also a Cal Bear forever and a graduate of Berkeley. And whenever you ask him about it, he says it was a difficult decision to leave, but he was trying to make the right decision for his career. He obviously did. And that he loved his time and he is proud to be an alum of UC Berkeley. So no complaints, very proud of him. We were rooting for him the whole way. And what an amazing way to go. that they never lost a game.

Amazing. So, wait, so they won, what did they win? The University of Indiana won the national championship in college football. They went 16-0. They never lost a game. They won the college football playoff tournament. And he won the Heisman Trophy for the most outstanding college football player in the country. Wait, okay, I'm a little bit confused now.

So he went to another college? Another college, yes. Is he still in college? See, this is the funny thing is, now we have the transfer portal. Basically, you can transfer at any point with no penalty if you're a college player. So they've basically just turned it into an actual, it's like you forget that there's college then. It's fully, well, they have to be enrolled. This is the weird thing is they have to be enrolled and taking classes and showing academic progress.

But you can change, just like any normal college student can choose to go to a different college, right? You can do that now. Also, they get paid. We're not going to even get into that, but they also get paid because this is a professional sport now. So that part is good. That's why I agree with. Yeah. Funny thing.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. The coaches could change jobs and get paid lots of money. Why shouldn't the players be able to? The funny thing about Fernando is, I mean, he used the transfer portal and all that. But if he hadn't, it would have been fine for him to change schools anyway because he would have been a grad transfer. When you graduate with a degree, you get, you always got a free transfer because it was literally like, we can't hold you. You did it. You got your degree.

Yeah. So he enrolled in probably like the business school. for, you know, whatever at Indiana. Did he get a degree there? I don't know. I mean, he is kind of a nerd. Maybe, maybe, but I doubt it. So he's going to go to a team now, right?

Google is telling me he's expected to be first pick. He will be drafted very high. That's what Google says. He's going to be the next Las Vegas Raiders quarterback or something like that. Yeah. All right. Okay. Good luck to him.

Yeah. From the upgrade podcast. Good luck. You can be Fernando Mendoza, you can be the official quarterback of the upgrade podcast. Yes. Friend of the show, Fernando Mendoza. Absolutely. He went 98 yards with us and his boys.

Indeed, he did. If you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of the show, just go to UpgradeFeedback.com and send in your Snow Talk question. We have some mixed follow-up today. There's a lot of things in follow-up today. F-1 gets four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. No one expected this. No one expected this.

It turns out this was actually a surprise. Yes. It turns out that people did not expect. They do 10 best pictures, but I think nobody had F1 on the list of the 10 best pictures. The Oscars likes to have like a crowd pleasing blockbuster in the best picture list. But I don't think this would even be that one, though, would it? You know what I mean? Like, I don't even think this even fits that box.

Like, I don't know what movie it would be. It's a lot of being nominated. They just got a best picture nominated movie. That's what it will say on the poster forever. You know what I mean? Yeah, forever, for all time. So, like, it's incredible for them. Yeah.

Weird. Yeah. Weird. Very weird. They'll probably win. I bet it'll win one of those technical awards, too. Yes, it's going to win something, for sure. And then it'll be Oscar winner F1 forever.

Like U571. I said, U571, I think, the kind of okay to mediocre submarine movie, but it won like an Oscar for Best Sound Editing or something. And people are like, okay, I guess it's the Oscar-winning U-571 for all time. And it is. It is. You did it now. I mean, what I think is so interesting and funny about this is in the lead up to this movie,

there was so much on the line for Apple, right? Like, there was so much about, like, if this movie doesn't work, they're just going to stop doing movies. Yeah, exactly. This movie actually could not have worked better for them. It was one of the biggest movies of last year. I think it was like the biggest box office for an original action movie. It was unbelievably to me, this is Brad Pitt's biggest box office of ever. of his entire career.

And now it's been nominated for Best Picture. Like at this point, they can't ask for any more. Like, Bravo to everyone involved. And there is, if you didn't think there was going to be a sequel, there's absolutely going to be a sequel.

Absolutely. And it will be called F1,2. And that will be hilarious. Although give it some other name. Because what it can't be called, everyone is F2. I know people think that's very funny, but that means that Brad Pitt

will have gotten demoted to the Junior League. And that's not, That's not going to happen. No, it's going to be like F1 colon return or something like that. Fireball. Murder in Monaco. Now I would be in for that. Let's just knives out.

Oh, yeah, let's go. Yeah, Brad Pitt is, he's going to drive in Monaco. Yep. And then there's a, and he's at a high-end casino and a wealthy heiress is murdered. and only Brad Pitt can solve the murder. And he'll be like, well, I do declare. He has been a murderer. He's like in the car during a practice lap,

and he suddenly is like flashing, and he's like, I've got it. I've solved it. But he has to finish the practice first. He has to finish the practice. He can't you put it all together. But he talks to the crew. He talks to the crew.

He radios into the crew, and he's like, he's like, we're just moving on. Everybody should check on the errors. I think I know her murder. I think I know what has. happen there. Jason, we have to move on with the show. Yeah, March 27th, Brawl Mankind Season 5, Can't Wait.

There's a teaser trailer, which again shows what this show does, which is like, hey, you can see time has passed and we're in a new level of technology now. And there's a still that was released showing Jill Kinnaman playing like a 90-year-old man. I love it. I love it so much. I love how much they have committed to this one man getting older and older and older. And you know what, Jason, I hope this isn't the last season. I hope we get one more. Keep it going.

Brain in a jar. Let's go for it. He's 110 and floating in space. I was, when they showed the first aging up of him, like the significant one, I think last season, I was like, oh, no, I don't know. But now I'm so in. Just keep making him older. See what happens.

Just why not? Today, Apple announced a new air tag with, quote, expanded connectivity range and improved findability. So this features a second generation old. Ultra Wideband chip. This is the same one. This is in the iPhone 17 line and the new Apple Watches from last year. It enables precision finding ability from 50% further away. You can also use precision finding for this air tag from an Apple Watch. It has an upgraded Bluetooth chip, which means the range for finding items outside of the ultra wide band range has also been

expanded. And it has a louder speaker. There's also this quote in the press release, which I don't, they didn't really give them any more detail for. I expect we will find out more at some point. It says, quote, the new air tag incorporates a suite of industry first protections against unwanted tracking, including cross-platform alerts and unique Bluetooth identifiers that change frequently. It is not clear to me from this press release if this is different to what the original air tag does. Ah, yeah.

Right? Like, is there more or are they just reiterating what's already been done? Like it wasn't, it's not completely clear. Right. Right. The case is there. But that's now available. I don't know if they had already previously changed the key rings from leather to fine woven,

but the key rings are now fine woven. And that is really sad because I love my leather kearing and I hope that it remains forever for my airtight. Yeah. Otherwise I'm going to get a third party one, I guess. I already bought a four pack of these. Oh, okay. For any particular reason? In-depth review. Well, I have a few things that I have a few things that don't have air tags in them and I was kind of waiting around.

You know, this way I can, because I actually have occasionally like moved an air tag from one backpack to another. And I kind of like the idea of just having, leaving them in the individual backpack or bag or whatever and not worrying about it. Yeah, I'll share this. I've definitely shared this before I'll share it again. My top tip for air tags on suitcases is you need two per suitcase. one goes inside the suitcase one goes outside the suitcase yeah and why do you do that so the outside one because now

like even better now that can be somebody sees it and they're like oh I can help find if it's lost we can help locate the person right and you could also do the airline sharing thing and then they'll know where to scan it but it could fall off

or it could be cut off and then you have no air tag anymore so you put one on the inside as well so then you've got the double. Somebody needs to sell an air tag inside sticker or button or something and then you don't have to have to. But okay.

But I also like to have it secret in case there's a heist which Brad Pitt could solve in F3 where he could find my suitcase. Yes, F3, yeah, suitcase in suburbia. Yeah, and he uses Firmai. That's the vertical integration

that we can expect in future. He does. He's actually driving down a suburban street in an F1 color. holding out an iPhone looking for an air tag. I feel like I've opened the door that I wanted to keep closed. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg is reporting that John Turnus is now overseeing designer Apple.

He has taken the role that Jeff Williams was playing before Jeff retired. So as well as hardware, this is now software. So all design goes in to Turnus before it goes to Tim Cook. He is now the bridge, the same as Jeff Williams was. However, this role is being managed discreetly. for some reason. So Apple's not talking about this publicly. And from an official perspective, the design leads still quote unquote report to Tim that he's there, like they move that. But according to Mark German, John Turneris is now the quote, executive sponsor of design.

I think that's a weird. I've heard that phrase before. I think that is a phrase Apple uses. Like it's the person who looks after something. Yeah, it's how you do an organization structure like Apple, that seems kind of like all kind of floating in a soup and then you say yes but who's in charge and they'll be like well you we're going to put we're going to give you an executive they're going to be your sponsor they're going to be the one to keep an eye on you because tim's busy so uh john turnus you're doing that so that's so he's not not the again again reporting structure sometimes is all about power and perception and do i feel loved and all of those things and so it's like well you see still report to Tim, you can tell everybody, you can tell your friends, you can tell your mom that you report to him, but John Turnus is the one who's going to look after you. In Mark's report, it feels like this is like just an expectation from him, but I can see the thinking of like, when Alan Dye left, they kind of had to scramble and they, they referenced the fact that Tim Cook would now oversee design, and that was only a few months ago. And so to now

immediately be like, Tennis is going to do it, that they might want to not show the flip-flopping. externally. But also, this is being used as an opportunity to expose Turnus to more parts of the organization.

Clearly. Clearly. And I'd figured maybe they didn't want to make it too official if they're going to do an executive change.

Like if that's going to happen, it kind of feels a bit redundant to be like, all right, John Turnus now does this and then like six months like you are and now he's the CEO.

It kind of feels like why are we keeping making all these press releases when the information is out there to the people that it needs to be. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Century. I am a big fan of apps working well.

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A thanks to Century for their support of this show and relay. Saddle up partner, it's time for a room and roundup. Yeha! Mark German is reporting at Bloomberg on Apple's plans to turn Siri into a chat bot at WWC this year. The initiative is code named Kempos and is Apple's intention that this system will replace the Siri that we currently know

and that will include any upgrades it gains before the 27 OS releases happen. This is just going to come in and wipe everything out. We'll see some upgrades coming in iOS 26.4. So Mark Gohmann expects that some level of on-screen awareness and personal context will be available at this point. You, in writing about this, I liked a quote from Jason Stel saying, this suggests that Apple's executives feel those promises hanging over their heads. Right?

Because if they're going to do a big thing, why make an incremental change and then redo it? Well, it's because they made promises. Would you, if everything was a clean slate, would you choose to ship those features as the first thing out of the gate before WWDC? And I think the answer is there must be a feeling at Apple that part of the agreement, like right down to the fact that they didn't announce anything at WWDC-25 that they didn't ship in 25, I think that. they must feel like the first thing they have to do is fulfill the promise of 24 before they can move forward. And I think that's interesting because I think you could maybe give them a pass and say, you know, you just need to do that this year, start where you think it makes sense.

But it feels like internally the structure has been, first thing we do is fulfill our promises. And then we'll make announcements about new things we're going to do at WWW. DC. Well, the ones they can fulfill, because I still don't think they're going to do everything. Because I don't think they can do everything. We'll see. But at least some of it. Mark German said in his power on newsletter over the weekend that he expects iOS 26.4 will be unveiled within the next month. And that would be presumably developer beta one, right? Yes. Although he says he could imagine it being available to customers in February or March still. So that seems aggressive, but we could see it.

The Campos system, so the one that will be for 27 on, so announced at WWC this year, will offer both voice and typing communication options to this new Siri. Internally, Apple is testing this as a standalone app, but Apple is not keen on shipping this experience, it seems. Instead, kind of making the traditional methods of interacting with Siri the way that we access these features and interact with Siri. Right. It does not necessarily mean that if you do type to Siri, you might not get something that feels more like a traditional chatbot

and that you might have history and all of that. They may just choose to use, you know, where you access it through type to Siri instead of having a Siri app or something like that. I'm hoping and imagining a scenario where you double tap on the little home indicator and you scroll, like you pull down, and there's all your previous chats.

That's my hope. Wouldn't surprise me. In that scenario, they're like, why do we... And if they do that, it's like, no, I don't want an app, right? Like, let it be... everywhere for me, right? Because how are you going to do on-screen awareness if Siri is in an app? You'd have to leave the screen, but I still want to be able to access what I've previously spoken about to go back to a conversation. I have hoped that they're going to do this, so, but we'll see.

I want to read a quote here, so a couple of quotes actually from Mark's report. Apple's chatbot will allow users to search the web for information, create content, generating images, summarize information, and analyze uploaded files. It will also draw on personal data to complete tasks, being able to more easily locate specific file songs, events, and text messages. Unlike third-party chatbots running on Apple's devices, the planned offering is designed to analyze open windows and on-screen content in order to take actions and suggest commands. It will also be able to control device features and settings, allowing it to do things that make phone calls, sit timers, and launch the camera app.

also says that Apple will integrate the system deeply into their first-party apps. He actually references, I think, in PowerOn, that they've scrapped the initial plan for AI in the health app because they don't want a bunch of different AI chatbots or models in different apps. They want it to all use the one system. So they're going to have like a chatbot-like experience in a bunch of apps, but they're going to feed in to the same system. But, you know, in this scenario, you would be able to ask as a user, you know, I want to resize a photo and the system's going to know, okay, I know photos can do that and we'll just go ahead and do it for you and complete the task.

And I think to me, the biggest thing of this is all great. All what we want, right? Like if they're going to do this, do it the right way. This is the way that people are wanting to interact with these systems. so Apple has to, in my opinion, at least match the state of the art before they can push things forward. So fine. I think the most interesting part to me

of this report is that while Apple continues to create the UI and the hooks for everything here, the model will obviously be powered by Google Gemini, but the model needed to do this is so powerful. They may need to run it on Google's TPU-based cloud infrastructure, not on their own private cloud compute servers. and the way that they handle that, if they do that, that's going to be really interesting to observers like us.

Right. Right. Is it a private cloud operated by Google, or is it just full-on giant Google Cloud? And how do they flag the privacy ramifications of what data is getting set out there? I think the truth is Apple finds it valuable and a portion of Apple's audience finds it valuable. And then everybody else doesn't care. So they had to kind of balance how they want to. want to do it. And we'll see what they do. But Google is also struggling with this approach. Google also wants to have private processing. And they have a private cloud AI as well.

Private AI compute. This is something Federico highlighted to me. It's a very similar system to private cloud compute. Right. So it's Google. I mean, this is what I was saying in the past few episodes about why Apple and Google being partners makes the most sense is that Apple and Google have the same sort of set of priorities. I saw today that German is also saying that the on-device model, at least for now, is going to be Apple's model and not Google's model, which is a thing that I was wondering about because they never explicitly in the statement said where the models would run. And that German says it's Apple's model running on the device.

I think in the long run, depending on the health of Apple's AI development team, that may not be tenable. And it may also just be that it would, if they're going to use a on-device model from Google, it's going to take more time because that's more complicated because that's a, getting a Google model to run on an iPhone. And an iPhone processors might be something that that requires a little more time. But just so we're clear, according to German. Is that for 26.4? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Because I'm looking at a quote here. It says to introduce these features in 26.4, Apple needed Gemini. Internally, the company is labeled the technology Apple Foundation Model version 10 making it seem homegrown.

Yeah. But it's Gemini that's doing 26.4. Yeah, but that's, this is the thing is I think that that's a cloud model. That's private cloud compute. Not on device. Right. Okay. And that's the difference is I think that if it's processing on device, it's using an Apple model.

And if it's processing off device, it's using a Google model. And that is not a detail that I had seen before, but was reported this time. And I just wonder where that's going to go. If Apple, is Apple going to focus their AI development on on-device models, or is Apple just going to work with Google to find a good model? Because Google is motivated on that side too, right? Google wants Android phones to have on-device models that are good, and its phones to have on-device models that are good.

So they're aligned there. And then similarly, the larger point that I'm trying to make here is that, Google has an alignment with Apple and that Google is doing private AI compute because they see some of the same needs for privacy assurances that Apple sees and that makes them a good partner. I wonder if like I wonder how much Apple's model will do. It's like we still have a model. It's still doing something. Everything of high value is going out to private car compute. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I mean they can tune that but it's sort of like if it doesn't need to leave the advice. Well, the funny thing is, because we think about this in terms of like on device versus off device. And a lot of times what you think of is latency, right?

You're like, well, you don't want to do it off device if you can help it because on device is going to have lower latency. But the truth is the speed of running an AI model on a phone processor versus versus running it on a private cloud that's running powerful processors, a lot of times the answer is it's faster to do it off device. Because even though you have to pay for it in terms of latency, those processors are so much faster than the processor on your phone. The thing is, I think it's like we need to reshape the way that we thought about these types of requests, right? Where it used to be that if it had to go to the cloud, there was a delay when you would want Siri to do something, as you're saying. But now we're asking for things that are much more complex. Because I'm often surprised when I ask a question to chat GPT, how it starts answering immediately.

And I know they're doing some tricks there to like kind of, you know, they're working in the background. But it often to me feels like it's on its local, even though I know it's not. Because you're asking for things that are so much more complex than you would have anyway. So like the idea is something being faster because it's on device, it just doesn't hold up anymore. Because you're just saying if we forced it to do it, I mean, you'll be waiting for 10 minutes. And the phone's getting super hot and draining your battery life rather than just sending the request of cloud. Oh, I also wanted to mention that that report says Apple came close to acquiring an external model developer a few months ago, but the deal collapsed. He just throws that out as an aside, right? Which Mark does sometimes. No other details. I wonder if he doesn't know or if his, my guess is his source at Apple wasn't willing to say what that model developer was.

I think it clearly wasn't anthropic because he mentions them earlier in the report, right? So that my feeling is, is it was someone else? Yeah, that's my guess. I mean, there was that talk about that French. Mistral. Yeah, developer. Maybe that was what was going on there. Could have been even smaller though, right?

Or could have been a Chinese company. But that deal collapsed. I don't know. AI valuations right now, everything, if you want to buy anything that's flagged as AI, it's going to cost you a fortune. So I do wonder if Apple, I mean, German's piece is really good. One of the things he mentions is Apple approaching this as a commodity. like AI models are a commodity, which is not what Open AI wants to hear, but Apple views it that way. And the advantage of that is, well, they're proven it.

They've proven it. The advantage is that you can just pick and choose your model and buy it, take it off the rack and use it and plug it in. I think also in the long run, if there is a bubble burst event that happens, a company like Apple that's got huge amounts of device sales is going to be able to swoop in and maybe buy a provider for and make it. internal. Models are a commodity if you're Apple. I don't think they really are if you're anyone else. Maybe Microsoft as well, because these are companies that they have the install base of operating systems that they can just plug stuff in. If you're open AI,

if you're Google, they're not a commodity because you can't do that. But the idea that Apple doesn't need to make its own model necessarily because they can just buy one and put it in there and it's fine because they're building, like what you said earlier, they're integrating the hooks and everything into iOS. It's like, well,

that's Apple's job. Ultimately, the most important part of putting AI in iOS or MacOS is how is it integrated with your system and your apps? And that is what Apple has to be the one to do. The model running it is not as, it's important. Don't get me wrong, but it's not as important. It's in the same way that if Apple was developing their own AI model, that they would have to develop it in a way knowing that the model will be upgraded at a time. And the way that, so you need to build the tools for the model to be able to. to interact with the operating system. And German's report says that this is all being developed modularly. So if Apple wants to put in a different partner model, they can. Because the bet if you're Apple is you just have to weigh it out

and you'll just buy one of the independent AI companies. Right? Yeah, exactly. Give it enough time and you'll probably be able to buy Open AI or Anthropic. Like you will probably have the opportunity to do that on a long enough time scale because the way things are

right now just seem unlikely. Yeah. In the long run. Yeah. Yeah. To continue those valuations, it is probably unlikely. Considering these companies are essentially making no money, like considering how much money they're That's true.

Yeah. The burn rates are extraordinary here. So it's entirely possible. And that's where Apple's strength as a company that sells products, that sells physical products that people pay money for and they get a physical product in return. And that they are one of two dominant. smartphone platforms and that they are the they are the most successful i believe still specific smartphone hardware maker certainly the most profitable that is money money money money

who's got all the money in a way that these other companies have incredible amounts of valuation but they're based on hopes and dreams which is i'm not trying to say that that's wrong i'm saying that if it all builds out and the economy changes and the way we use technology completely changes, they will be the new wave of tech giants. I'm just saying it is based on that happening. And it's not necessarily going to happen the way they want. And it's not necessarily going to happen for everybody. And so, you know, there's an opportunity for a company that's got its money in something else. It's a revenue generation and something else to be, you know, when a bubble burst, Apple ends up looking pretty good relative. to them, and that's when they swoop in and say, well, now we'll have it.

Yeah. The information is reporting that Craig Federigi has taken control of Apple intelligence back in December, Apple, and that is why we're seeing such a change in approach. It was Craig's view that they needed to partner with someone to ship the features that they promised that they would. The report details that some are concerned, Federigi is very budget conscious, and it is believed that Apple would need to spend a lot to make their own efforts work, hence the partnerships. I love the detail. Gruber mentioned this in his post about it, that they're like,

Craig is concerned about the expense of bananas available for staff in the break room or whatever, and it's just like, come on, folks. Like, it is considered your source. Somebody's very grumpy about the fact that they don't have the good bananas anymore or whatever. I don't know. He tends to scrutinize every detail of these team's expenses

down to their budgets for bananas and other office snacks, as people said. Amazing. Well, I'll just say, I'll just say, yeah, that's what we're going to do. We're going to, but here's what we're going to do. Here's my plan. We're going to buy fewer bananas and more AIs.

Yeah, that'll work. That'll, I mean, they're totally different. I think, I think Craig Federigi, if this is true, like Apple's kind of like this. I mean, this is the thing is Apple is kind of cheap at times and doesn't want to hire people and doesn't want to spend money on things and makes all their employees buy their lunches. And it's just part of their corporate culture in a way. But I'm skeptical that the break room bananas are going to be a difference maker here. it's much more like Federigi is a smart guy, but he's a careful guy. He's a conservative guy.

And he's going to make decisions that he thinks are good for Apple in the long run. And he's made some, I think, missteps in terms of his feelings about AI. But I think that the other side of this is maybe this careful approach and using a partner, not only is that, like we just said, good for the future in terms of making it more of a commodity, but also he is clearly, he is Clearly, a person who was able to accept the fact that they kind of like failed at building their own and that they needed to use somebody else's. And that getting over, that requires you getting over the not invented here syndrome, which is hard to do. So he did that aspect of it. I have no doubt that he is a complicated manager and person and that he has a bunch of different priorities. I mean, look, as a former manager, break room bananas, that's one of those things where it's like, if it's not on your.

radar. It's just not on your radar. It doesn't mean you're a bad manager or that you're not good at the good stuff. It means that maybe at some of this stuff you're like, look, I don't care or why are we doing this? And it doesn't necessarily translate. The information is reporting that Apple is currently developing a quote, air tag sized wearable device that is focused for AI. The product is still in the very early stages, so may not ever come to fruition. It currently features two cameras on, it's expected to feature two cameras on the front, microphones, a speaker, a physical button, and inductive charging. And it's focuses on being a device that you can talk to and it can see the world when you need it to. All right. So humane AI pin, but Apple, right? Yes. Apparently they are accelerating the development of such a device to make sure they have themselves covered against something from Open AI. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a hedge. So my initial reaction to this, one is, I feel like maybe they learned a lesson about the smart glasses. Maybe don't poo-poo it.

That was my read. Yeah. Maybe don't poo-poo it. Just have an idea in case. Yeah. In case. My other thought is, like with the smart glasses, Apple has all the pieces. This is the part that's frustrating about the smart glasses thing, is what is this?

iPhone camera, iPhone microphone, iPhone speaker, you know, all in a small container. They have all the tech here to build a product like this. And they even developed a partnership and workflow for getting people like vision lenses for the vision pro. Like they did all of the bits. Yeah. Oh yeah. For glasses. And then for this pin, likewise, we're talking about technology that they have for the most part.

It's just a remix of it. They don't have to be like, oh, no, we've never made a camera before. I mean, they have all of these things. Now, is there a finished product that has all these things? I don't know. My gut reaction when I saw this story was that I think Apple, at least in part, is thinking of a world where the smartphone, and I think they're right to do so. With a smartphone, everybody's got a smartphone now, right? And the smartphone has battery.

It's got a really nice display on a touchscreen interface, and it's got a fast internet connection, and it's in your pocket. And because it's big, it's got a big battery. I think what we've seen with wearables is the problem with a lot of wearables is it's very hard to have them have power and internet and, you know, all of these other things to be a standalone something.

Yeah. And the AI pin, that was kind of part of its problem. It's like, are you a standalone something or are you not? You're the iPhone maker. You're like, well,

look, everything we built is going to be an iPhone accessory. I think that's okay. I think that's okay for them to do it. then it becomes what are the accessories? And I think the answer is everybody's life is different. Different people use things in different ways. Some people have AirPods and no Apple Watch.

Some people have Apple Watch and no AirPods. They all have an iPhone. All their customers have an iPhone. So a device like this, I look at it and I think, it's kind of smart because if you have a smartphone but it's in your pocket, it's in your pocket. It can't see the world. It can't hear the world.

And even its speaker is down in your pocket. It can't say anything to you. So I look at something like this. And I think this is a good exploration of how do we put some sensors somewhere where they can see the world? Because presumably your phone is talking to AI models and it's talking to the cloud and it's doing some processing and it's doing all of that stuff. But it needs to see where you are and what you see and all of those things. And glasses can do some of that, but is everybody going to wear glasses? Is glasses the right approach?

Is this? You know, I've heard from a lot of people are like, I don't wear glasses. I don't want to wear glasses. And I don't think the strategy going forward for this constellation of devices, which is what I keep calling it, is everybody buys everything. I think different people buy different parts and they put them together. We already see that with something like a fitness band wearer versus an Apple Watch wearer, but they might love their AirPods, right? Like you choose and you may not choose to wear glasses, but what if you had a thing that you could put on your shirt that saw everything? And then like once your, once your AI system can see where you are and see who you're talking to,

to like it can do stuff. So I think it's worth investigating. Is this a product? I don't know. Would it have all of these sensors? I don't know. But it does strike me that it solves the problem of my iPhone is so smart and capable, but it's in my pocket where it can't see anything and it can't hear anything.

And that could be a problem. Now, the other piece of this is socially, which is do people want everybody out there wandering around with cameras and speakers and microphones facing out. out all the time. And I guess what I would say to that is that is a question for society to answer. I think that we have to create societal understandings of what's acceptable and not. But I think if you're a technology company, what you can't afford to do is say, well, we don't like the idea of a camera facing out. So we're just not going to do that. Because as a business decision, you risk that being

actually a super important thing and you've let it go by. I think it's less likely that, you know, that Apple's not going to do it and therefore it never happens or, you know, so I think they're exploring it. I don't know how I feel about the idea of everybody just wearing a body cam at all times that's being processed by an AI. I also almost feel like I almost feel like it's inevitable and that we need cultural understanding and societal understanding to deal with it. But anyway, I think this is interesting.

I'm not sure this is a product either, but I like the idea that Apple's not going to get caught flat-footed like they did with the glasses, and that they're experimenting with this idea of like, you know, that one of the places where the iPhone fails is that it can't see around you. And I'm sorry, cameras on the AirPods are never going to work because of, like, people have hair that goes down over their ears

and they're also at a weird angle because they're back in your ears. And, like, I mean, maybe they'll work for some things, but, like, that's not it. It's not going to be it. It either needs to be in glasses or it needs to be something else that you wear that's facing out so that it can see your surroundings.

And so I like that they're experimenting with this. Yeah, I feel like, as well, like, you know, you read this, you know, that seems a lot in something as small as an air tag. But then I think to myself, they did an awful lot of interesting stuff with the iPhone air, right?

Getting all of the processor into that little bar that maybe in a year or two, they could make something that if it doesn't have a screen and like you know like you could maybe that and it should charge it every day you know it's like a little bit smaller

and an Apple watch like yeah you know what maybe that is a product that they could make all the stuff in the iPhone is really tiny right like I mean it's in a bigger product but that product is mostly screen and battery right in all those iPhones so I think yeah the idea that you have and again I think this one way to think of this is you know

just because you look at this and you're like I don't want that it's like well you don't know what the AI technology is going to be at that point and what Apple's building and what it might be. It might provide some real fundamental useful things. But also, like, this might not be the product and it doesn't need to be for everybody. But there is, I mean, it's very clear if you think about scenarios with glasses especially, that having your agent be able to see where you are and what you're doing and who you're talking to and can. And again, we can have the debates about like what the permissions are and all of that. But like, there's going to be value in it knowing you last saw this person on this date.

Or you are at this location and I can tell. Like right now you can do that with the iPhone, but you have to like take it out and hold it up. And be like, where am I in a city where you can't get a GPS signal? It will detect based on your buildings like where you are. But like with this thing, it knows exactly where you are because it can look at what the street is. and the configuration of the buildings and then it knows. And so it's a weakness of your iPhone being in your pocket

and we're not going to wear our iPhones probably, right? So, yeah, let's try it. Let's try it. So this report from information also had the following detail in it. Apple is also working on a home product featuring a small display, speakers, and a robotic swiveling base designed of a heavy emphasis on AI features that that device could be released as soon as this spring.

Okay. Can I just say? I love when Mark German rolls in I've been reporting about this forever and you got the details wrong I think it's just really funny and he's done it right he did it about the financial times and Tim Cook being gone as soon as the end of January

where he said that's not what I'm hearing that's not what I've been reporting for all this time for this story I read it and I thought that doesn't sound right like based on German's reporting it sounds like they're conflating multiple smart home products into a single product And then German's newsletter came out, and it's exactly what he says, is the screen, the non-robotic display.

I'm sorry, it's still not a robot, but the non-robotic display is likely to come this year. That's the one we've been talking about. And a security camera is likely to come this year, he said. The robotic arm has always been planned for 2027 or even beyond that. And he says, despite recent reports that it's debuting this spring. Ha ha! Gotcha the information. You've been German. And I just, I like that. I think that that's a, because the way I read that is that, is that they're kind of amateurs at this and he's a pro. And I think he's probably right. Right. Like, he's like, oh, they conflated these two products into one product and heard that it's coming out and that it does these things. And German's like, that's not the plan. And I'm going to, I'm going to give it to German. I think that they got it wrong a little bit and then he knows the details. So. Anyway, look, if the tabletop robot happens this year, then the information can point and laugh at German.

But I would bet that German is right. However, I will say this, bring it on, right? 2027 is a long way off. In 26, if we get an Apple home product that's a screen home controller thing and another Apple home product, like a security camera that's in Apple's ecosystem, to show that Apple is really kind of like deciding that. smart home stuff is a relevant category. We've been waiting for this for years. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I can see a scenario where it is that they've heard that it's coming and they've conflated them, right? They've mixed them together.

Yeah. But I just don't care because I just want this device so bad. I just want to do anything. Just give me it. And if they're making good on all their promises, that means that they're going to have an AI system that is what they thought they were going to have. And the story we have heard from German is that the reason that that screen hasn't shipped is because the AI stuff backing it turned out to not be good enough. And that means, right, that if they're going to put out 264 this spring, it means potentially they could put that product out this spring. It's good enough now for whatever reason.

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Upgrade 20 and you will get 20% off your Delete Me plan. Our thanks to Delete Me for their support of this show and relay. So in honor of this being episode 600 of the Upgrade Podcast, we are going to be participating in the third centennial draft of the ages. So every 100 episodes, we make a draft where we make a selection of picks, of things that we think will happen 100 episodes from now. Right. This is our equivalent of the annual picks that other podcasts might do.

I've never heard of them. And instead, what we do is we go 100 episodes. So it's, I mean, it really, it seems like it's far off, but it's less than, it's less than two years. It's less than two years off. Yeah. So, yeah, it feels super far. episodes, Barring Special Episodes, episode 700

will be in December of 2017, right? Not that far away. Oh, sorry, 2020, 2007, 2007. 2037. That's the best. There's a seven involved in a, I'm sure it'll be a very lucky year. Uh-huh. Anyway,

yes. So next year. Basically, we're just saying what will happen by the end of next year, essentially, right? barring and based on scheduling we may have to do like if we do a bonus episode here or there

it will pull back in through December into November but right now it's slotted if nothing changes and we only do weekly episodes it will actually be between the upgrade holiday special

and the upgradees well bang of time but whoa what a trilogy that would be but we may have to change it based on based on if there's an emergency episode or something

if Tim Cook retires on it basically is what we're banking this on. And we have to do the super emergency episode. Or there's a surprise, like, event that's a week out that forces us to do a surprise draft episode, something like that. Anyway, draft of the ages, what happens in 100 episodes? So we've done this twice

before. We did this for episode 500 and episode 400, scoring 400 and 300, respectively. It's when we made the picks. In the episode 500 draft, we tied. The episode 400 draft, Jason won. Shall we go through our picks?

that we made back on episode 500 of this show. I mean, you know, there was a time a year ago I looked at this. And I felt like it was going to be pretty bad for both of us. But the last year has been very, very good to one of us. I feel there are a lot of non... You were wise and made a lot of this won't happen kind of picks, which I think is really good. Like, you think about the draft of the ages and you're like,

oh my God, what is the future like? 20, 27. Yeah. And the fact is it is 100 weeks away. It's just next year. So don't get too excited. All right. Let's go through it.

Let's go through it. So I picked. I picked Apple apologizes for offensive or embarrassing content generated by an Apple AI algorithm. That was correct. I got this right because this is the news information summaries that got turned off. And I consider this. Mike was like, what was that? It was the BBC complaining about news headlines, and they're like, okay, and they turned it off.

And they put warnings on it when they brought it back. And so I'm going to give myself that one at one point for me. Yeah, I mean, the thing when I saw this pick is like an I was originally imagining, it's like, oh, it's going to be some image that's bad or something. But no, this is absolutely. Turns out news summaries. Yeah. Number two, at least one Apple Watch no longer fits the classic watch bands. They have not broken watch compatibility even now.

I know you're sad about it, but I get that one wrong. I just want a new design. They can keep the watch balance the same to just do something different in between. Mike, I thought the next one was a gimmy. Apple card or Apple Cash expanded to at least one more country. Unbelievable. I hope. Remember all those stories?

We're all like, oh, this is the beginning of Apple's great move into financial services. worldwide and it turns out no apple's just kind of like doing experiments in america and that's it i'd like to send you apple pay cash or apple cash or whatever it's called but no can't do it uh i have to use something else uh okay pick number four apple releases a new input device product designed for vision os now before the show mike was going to give this to me and i decided especially since the the question it wasn't even worth debating because who won the draft is not in doubt. But Apple didn't release it. There are new input device products. There's a pencil from Logitech, and there are Sony hand controllers that work with Vision OS. I think a pencil from Logitech

that's very specifically made for VisionOS is the product here. That was the one I thought of. Yes, but Apple didn't release it, so I don't think it counts. Yeah, I get it. I get it. It was, I should have said, I should have said a new input device product design for Vision OS is released in which case I would have gotten it. So that's a lesson for our next draft of the ages. A home pod. So take the lesson to all.

A home pod like speaker with a display exists. As we just detailed, we're still talking about that as a rumor. Still believe it exists. But we can't prove it. We can't prove it. And finally, shine on,

you crazy diamond. Apple releases a new or updated standalone display. Easy. Didn't happen. one for me. So that is a total of one out of six for Jason. Terrible. Terrible.

My first pick was Tim Cook is still CEO of Apple, which when I read this, like, oh, we've been talking about him leaving for two years, because there's no reason I would have picked that unless we were already talking about it back then. Round two, revised Apple Vision Pro hardware. Can you believe such a thing? Can you believe it?

I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it. That looked so bad for so long and then it just happened. It just happened. Pick three and Apple Watch got a glucose monitor that has not happened yet. Did not happen. No. Pick four, there is still no IMac larger than 24 inches. Man, just a bummer pick, but you got it. But I think this was around the time. I'm expecting this was around the time that they made that statement where they were like, we're not doing this. Right. Like we're not going to do one. And so I, but and we were all like, yeah.

but will you? And so this is my pick is that they wouldn't. Right. I remember, so this next pick, I remember, if I'm remembering correctly,

you were like, oh, I don't know about this one, which is Apple TV Plus adds another sport. Yeah, and they did. F1. Formula 1. Yeah. Wow.

And then, pick number six is the iPhone Ultra is introduced. Well, that didn't happen. We were convinced. It's 4 to 1. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Keep on believing. You can pick it again.

So that's 4 to 1. Mike wins the upgrade 500 draft of the ages. So I have actually put together a condensed set of rules for this draft because I don't think we had rules for the draft of the ages. So these are the rules for our draft that we're about to conduct. We will each make picks about things that could happen by the time that we record episode 700. When we get there, we look back and see if we were right or not. Draft champion picks first. The pennant is on the line.

This is a regulation game. If there is a tie, the pennant does not change hands. In this draft, we are not picking from a predetermined list of items, and there is no obviousness rule. We are free to pick as we wish, but respect that the picks should be interesting at least. Of course. So different kind of rules for this one. Yes.

Because I don't think that we were putting the pennant on the line for these, but we did for the paternity draft. And so now I feel like all drafts where there is competition, the pennant is on the line. I think that's fine. No. I think that's fine. Actually, you know what?

I want to make one amendment to this rule. Please. In the spirit of gentlemanly competition and friendship. Yep. I want to say, if there's a tie, we both win. I love it. If there is a tie. Then we're both champions.

If there is a tie, everybody wins. Everybody wins. I love this. Right? Like, why should it be like, no, no, no changes to the pennant? No, if there's a tie. both of our penance go up. Because if we tie, we have both succeeded

in something hopefully. Or completely failed. Either way. And so then we get to apologize to each other by both being champions. And that would make a lot of the rules funny because then I don't know what happens.

I'm going to amend it more, Mike. Okay. Everybody wins a 50% more of of Pixus, right? Okay. If it's worse, everybody loses. Okay.

The problem is, the problem here, and this is all fine. So this is all fine. Okay. The rules for other drafts, the current draft champion picks first, right? Mm-hmm.

So then what happens? Oh, he's writing more. In the case of a tie, draft sequence for the next draft will remain with the assistant champion. Perfect. I love it. This is how root draft rules get complicated.

But I just wanted to say, I think it's just funny that if we really do bad, we shouldn't put our penance up. We shouldn't be rewarded for doing badly. We should be punished. The champion would be punished the most because if there's a tie, they would lose and they would

become challenging. They would lose status. I feel like we should do better, you know? Although... We should do better. I mean, really, that's directed to you. You need to do better than one. So there you go. No kidding. No kidding. Well, I picked a bunch of obvious ones last time

and look what happened. Exactly. There's no accounting for time. Things happen. All right. Round number one pick. Yeah, you do it. I'm running it back.

But in a different direction, Apple has a new CEO. Wow. Apple has a new CEO in 100 episodes, huh? Mm-hmm. That's nice. It feels like it's going to happen. I mean, like, you know, we've clearly been speaking about this for years already. I remember one of, you know, one of Mark German's big,

succession reports. And I expect that within another year and a bit, it's going to have happened. So I'm going to say Apple has a new CEO. Apple has a new CEO. I think that's good. I think you're a little cowardly in not mentioning who it is. Oh, yeah. And you're planning the numbers?

We all know where it's going to be. Come on. What's the point, you know? Got to play to win a little bit. You got to play to win it. All right. Well, I probably shouldn't make my pick who I think the CEO is going to be, because that makes it too samey with you, right? Yeah.

Well, you can do it. I mean, it's still a pick, you know? Sure. I'm going to pick, yeah, John Turnus is the CEO of Apple. Love it. So in the spirit of the new draft rule, like of trying, you know, we're like shaking hands now. Yeah. Pick one.

We're like, we're equally equal in that one out. I love it. Potentially, potentially. Yeah. All right. my next round pick. I'm going to take a bit of a swing here, I think. It shouldn't be a swing, but I think it is.

Apple has released a set of smart glasses. Like this should happen, and it should happen this year, but I don't know that it will at the same time, because I can imagine a scenario where they're like, we're skipping the smart glasses, we're going right to AI pin like we spoke about today, right? But I think they should do this. They should have something to offer in that category in the same way that they offer headphones.

I think they should have something. And so I think that they will have some set of smart glasses within the next year and a bit. I love it. I'm going to jump off. I'm also going to continue living the dream and running it back. Apple ship's a smart home product Okay Right

It could be a screen controller It could be a doorbell I don't know what A smart home product Okay Let's make it happen Come on people Let's make

I feel like this is the wish episode We throw our wishes out into the wind And then see what happens in a hundred weeks I was my wishes were crushed Yeah I have a question for you right now So we had originally planned on doing six picks But I think I could go more. I think I could go

more too. Let's see. Let's see. Again, in the spirit of gentlemanly competition and friendship, we'll see where we end up. I'm thinking we might go more. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Smart Home product, that's fine. Camera and stuff would count, right? I would say yes. Like a doorbell

or a security camera. Those all count. They're in your home. They're part of your home. That screen controller that we've heard about, that would be there. A robot that folds your laundry would count. Sure. What about the information. This is a new one, right?

Is what we're talking about? We're not, or what? What do you think? Well, like a new Apple TV? No, a new smart home product. Yeah, it's like a new thing that they haven't made before,

kind of. Yeah, of course. Of course. All right, my third round pick. There is no non-pro version of the Vision Pro. Ah.

So there's not going to be an Apple Vision by the end of 2027 or whatever it's going to. You and your negative picks? I think you're right. Yeah, I don't think that world exists. I actually don't.

Now, I don't think they're ever going to do this. I think that time has passed. The market has changed. There's glasses and then there's Vision Pro and there's no like consumer vision. I think you're right. I think the goal is going to be to do a Vision Pro that brings the cost down. I think the only question is if something happens and it would, be unlikely at this point, but like if immersive sports or something like takes off. And then there's,

and they're like, you know, we really have this NBA thing. We really have an angle here. We need a cheaper Vision Pro kind of like thing for to sell to people just as an entertainment device. And we're not as worried about the, the, the computing, you know, the spatial computing aspect of it. But I think it's unlikely. And I think you're right. They're, they're working on the glasses side, the bottom up side. And this is still the top down side. I think they should still keep making the Vision Pro. I don't think they should have two products in this category. And I don't think it makes sense to ever rebrand this product to Apple Vision.

Just keep calling it the Vision Pro, even if there is no non-pro version of this product and move on from there. There is a scenario where you could have a product called Apple Vision and it is smart glasses, but I don't think that's a good idea to put them in the same category because I think that'll be confusing. where I think you actually, smart glasses should be called like AirPods something. Like that should be in the AirPods category. So yeah,

I just think that like, you know, you probably saw this, but, you know, meta's getting out of this game now. They just let, let go of all,

fired all of their game development studios. They laid off the superhuman team. That was such a coup for them to buy superhuman so that nobody else had access to that exercise platform for VR and then they just light them off. A product that they bought and was willing to put themselves in global regulatory trouble for. Yeah.

Which they did with superhuman, which is why it never left America. And they just dumped it. And they just dumped it. So I just, I think that that is indicative of the time. And I think that there will be products that exist, like Val's getting ready to release. So this is interesting, right? Valve is doing, they're doing a thing called the Steam Machine coming this year. And along with this, like, package of products that they're selling, is called the Steam Frame, which is a VR headset.

But when they're doing, they're doing it. was showing it off, one of the things that they were actually mostly showing was you can just play games on a big screen. They weren't. It's like you can play VR games with this thing, but like VR is

going away again. Whether it comes back, I don't know, but I don't think I'd be surprised if Apple has anything in the next little while. Yeah, I agree. I'm going to run it back again. I'm going to pick Apple releases a newer updated standalone display again. Please. There was just, this was originally in today's show, but I pulled it out, but now I'm going to bring it up again. There was just a new display showed up in like a Chinese regulatory filing.

Yeah. So something exists out there. Right. With no specs and nobody knows what it might be, but it's probably new. Yeah. This time, this time for sure, Mike. They're going to do it. They need to do it.

I feel like we've talked about it a lot here, but like for Pete's sake, you can't keep these old displays for sale at these prices. They need to. My hope is that they will update both of them or. at least if they're not going to update them, discontinue them. But I think there will be at least one new or updated standalone display. Like I did two years ago, I think it again. I believe it. A four-year time frame.

All right. I'm going for something vibes-based now. Yeah, love it. So I'm going to copy and paste this into our document, Jason, because you're doing a great job of typing them out, but this one's a long one. Siri is considered to be actually useful and capable, and we use it as part of our daily workflow. Oh, wow.

Yeah. This is one of those you'll know it when you see it. Yeah. Things, right? Where it's like in 100 episodes, we will know what you mean by this. I just, I feel like my thinking behind this and why I would pick something like this in this draft

is we will have the evidence, which will be me and you talking about the fact that we're using it all the time. Like that this is what I think is going to happen. is that we will both at some point say, you know what, this system actually does work, and we're both using it. In the same way that you may say you use Claude, and I may say I use Chachyip-D,

I believe that we will talk about Syria in that way. Interesting. Because I think they will have the technology to make it useful, because Gemini is good at doing what it's supposed to do, even if they just find a... Because my thinking on this is, even if they don't do anything other than ship a good chatbot,

like ignore the tie in, like it tying into the system. If it's built into our iPhones with a secret like super access that other AI apps don't have, we'll probably just start using it out of habit because the expectation is the results that it gives you will be good. So we'll just start using it.

Yeah. I hope so. I hope so. You're giving them 100 weeks of runway for that, I think that should be At this point that should be enough weeks They may need it

Yeah Well in the interest of finishing this This round with a bang Okay I'm going to make a little bit more risky A pick than my previous ones Okay

But I'm excited about the possible Possibility that within 100 weeks We'll be here There's a cellular MacBook Whoa I like that one Oh I like that one Okay.

Right? If we're wish casting, cast a good wish. There's a cellular MacBook. I think those M6 OLED redesigned MacBook pros will have cellular. The one that we may see this year. The one we may see this fall. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Yeah. Which German also had that report, which was like the M6 is closer than you think. And, you know, that makes me think that, yeah, it's going to happen this fall. And that's very exciting. It actually makes me wonder, when he said it's closer than you think, and then you think, it actually made me wonder if there might be, like, would they just go to an M6 for the MacBook Air?

Like, skip the M5 entirely and just release an M6 MacBook Air this spring? It could, right? Yeah. I don't know. It seems wacky, right? Seems wacky. But they do weird stuff with Apple Silicon. They do weird stuff.

They do weird stuff. The order at which the products ship has made, is you can. not put a pattern on it. What is going to get the chip first? You're going to get the pro one first or the regular one first? Which product will it ship in? Nobody knows. We don't know. Yeah, they could ship M5 Pro and Max in M6. Yeah. And M2 Ultramax in the Mac Pro.

It's going to keep running it back. But regardless of that, I want to put, again, I think this is risky, but I feel like now that they've got their cellular product, I think it's time for them to put it in the Mac. I think we felt that way for a long time, but it feels like they're at that point now. They're on the threshold of that. And so I would like to believe that with the M6 or potentially an M7 in the fall of 27 that they will offer it. But I think redesigning the MacBook Pro is the time to do it. So that's what I'm going to say. This one feels like if you have something that people might like, put it in this computer. Right? Like just throw it all in

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So we continue with the draft of the ages. And I would actually like to go back to what we were just talking about with your pick. And my pick is going to be, we consider the touchscreen MacBook Pro to be a success. Oh, I like this. It puts it on us. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's going to be,

a lot of feelings about the Mac getting a touchscreen, I would say I'm already starting to feel them. There's a bubbling in the blogosphere about the Mac and Tahoe and all your favorite podcasts. And I think a lot of it is concerned about Tahoe and its design and like, is this because of touchscreens? So I think there are some knives out already for this product before it's even existed.

And I think that there are going to be a lot of knives drawn when it's released as well. Like I think people are just going to not like it just because of what it is. But I think that me and you again are going to say, you know what, this works really good. Like this is a good experience and we enjoy using it. So I believe that we will consider it to be a success. All right. I think that's really interesting because we're going to end up with a little debate question. But I think you're right. I like these kind of picks because I definitely feel like it's a we'll know it when we see it. Yeah. Because again, like for me, we've making my picture. this way, I just, I believe that before we get to the episode, we've already had these

conversations. Like, this is, like, I don't think we're going to need to judge these picks. Like, we're going to have spoken about this. We're both going to have used this product, and I believe we will be able to draw a conclusion as to whether we think that it's implemented well and we use it before the episode even comes fair air. Right, right, because you'll be able to check if, if I suddenly turn into a, do a heel turn, and I'm like, no, Mike, I don't consider it. You'll be like, check that. Transcripts, you'll see in the transcripts that is not true.

Apple Podcasts, This is the savior of the draft of the ages. Gentlemanly competition and friendship, it's fine. I'm going to pick that Apple TV hardware gets updated. I mean, you'd hope so. That was like the harbiger at the end of the year. It's more of a stretch than I wish it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got to do it, right? They got to do it. The one that I keep thinking about, like, because first of all, I would like to buy one. I actually have a new place to put an Apple TV, and I'd like to roll all of my Apple TVs down. Yeah. But the thing that I would really like to see, talk about home stuff, is I would really like to see Apple sell an add-on for the Apple TV that is a camera. and I pitched this product before,

I think they could also just call it a continuity camera as a standalone product, a continuity camera that you put on your TV so that instead, so like every time we use Zoom to talk to Lauren's family every couple of weeks and I set up a tripod with my iPhone on it to shoot us using continuity camera

and we watch it on the TV. Wouldn't it be nice to just put a webcam essentially on the TV but have it be using the same continuity camera APIs, wouldn't that be nice to do it that way? Because then I wouldn't have to set up my phone. They'd just sit up there.

And it could pair with your Apple TV. Now, it could be wired to the Apple TV, but I feel like wireless is fine. You know, it'll need power from somewhere, but it doesn't even necessarily need to be an Apple TV accessory. I mean, I wouldn't mind if they built an Apple TV that was like, was a camera and you put it on the top. But I'm not sure that's necessary.

They could just make a standalone camera. But I really would like it, because I like the idea here and I just don't want to have to set up an iPhone to do this. You should be able to do this with a standalone device. So that's my little aside. Could you roll something like that

out along with new Apple TV hardware? But I hope there's new Apple TV hardware and so I'm picking it. Man, be the change you want to see in the world, right? I agree. I absolutely agree. Speaking of which, no, the liquid glass design language is still in effect.

Ah. All right. Again, we know when we see it, but I believe we will be looking at what will be iOS 28 and it will look like iOS 26. There are going to be tweaks this year and next year, but they're not going to do an about turn on this. But if you said, is it liquid glass? Because they're going to build upon and change. Yes. Yeah, it's very difficult. I think you'll get this. It's very difficult to de-design something. thing and I don't think Apple's going to de-design it. I think this is obvious.

I was convinced you would think it was obvious, but there are absolutely people that I see online that are convinced it's going to change this year that Apple will completely redesign the operating system again or make significant changes and they're not going to. They're going to keep tweaking it

as they should because these things should be living, but I think we're going to have a version of this design language, probably for as long as we had the iOS 7 design language. which we did only just leave. Right. Yeah, it's going to evolve, but based on this.

I think that's right. I'm going to make a complimentary pick here. Okay. Which also you'll like because it's sort of a will know it when we see it. And it may or may not agree with your pick here, but I like it. General perception is that Apple software design is headed in the right direction. Oh. Wow.

And you know what as well? we will have statistics to match this from the scorecard, right? As well as just sentiment. Well, I mean, a report card for, for will not be done for the next one. But, but, but I think, I think, look, we, the vibes right now are bad. Vibes are bad.

Everyone can agree. And there's a lot, everybody, look, I'll just say, it's very easy to critique design. Yeah. you just roll in and say, look, I don't like that icon. And like, okay, all right.

I do feel like, though, there's a lot of, like, I've been frustrated for a long time and I need to get this out right now. I think there's a lot of that going on. And the question is, is this a ding-dong, the which is dead, Alan Die thing? Or is it not?

Is it more complicated than that? And I don't know what the new design people are going to be able to affect in iOS 27. But by then we'll have iOS 28 and MacOS 28. And so my prediction here is just that by the time we get to the end of next year, there will be a general perception that they're moving in the right direction. Again, that is not to say that everything is solved,

but that generally the frustration that exists now will have died down somewhat because of changes made in 27 and 28 that make people feel like that, that the changes made in Apple's design group have led to better software design than was there before. And I know that's very amorphous, but I'm just basically saying, I think the narrative is going to flip around a little

where people are going to be like, all right, okay, they made some changes. They seem to understand where they're going. I'm happier about where they're headed than I was. That's what I'm trying to pick here. I can see this.

Like, I mean, because again, we're at rock bottom. It sounds like, the theory. The only way is up, right? Like, where are we going to go from here? But maybe, Jason, that touchscreen MacBook's going to ruin it all. I've got a bunch more, but I'm going to pick one of the more fun ones now.

Because we can see how many more we want to do. Camera control remains on the iPhone, but loses the swiping. Huh. Okay. I don't think they're getting rid of the button, but I think they're going to simplify it. And I think it's going to be, I mean, I do actually believe that at some point it's going to become just a pressure-sensitive area. anyway because of rumors about what they're going to do to iPhone design. I could imagine. And it was always a surprise to us when they added a new physical moving button to the side of the iPhone, right? And so the possibility of them just having a touch sensitive area that you press

and it takes a photo, like I could see that happening. Yeah. But however they do it, I just don't think you're going to be doing the swiping anymore on that thing because I don't think anybody uses it and it's added component cost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, this is always a question of like, does Apple backtrack on stuff like this? But remember, you know, 3D touch, they did. They're like, nobody wants it. Let's just take it out. It's causing us trouble. It's more expensive and thicker and whatever. And it's like, we can use that space better. I think that that's, I think it's perfectly reasonable. The big thing for me here is they added options to stop swiping. And they ask you during iPhone set up if you want it to be set up that way. Yeah. So I can see, I don't know what the default is. Maybe that's even the default is. Maybe that's even the. default. I don't know. But like I can see

a world in which people aren't using this. And so it's only causing complications. So we may as well just find the core of this thing or get rid of it or whatever. But I still think that it's there, but I don't think it works the same. I'm unsure

if it'll be there or not only because I feel like the camera control and the action button are too much. I feel like that's too many things. I don't think you need too new buttons that both kind of, in fact, my pet theory is that they wanted to do camera control and we know that like they failed. So they instead did the action button. And then they added camera control. And so they've got two of the same thing now because of the way they did it. Instead of just adding, they're like, oh, we'll keep the action button and we'll also do camera control. I think it's too many controls. I think it's too many buttons. It's confusing. And so I would be, I would not be shocked if there was a simplification of the button strategy. But if they call camera control, then you, you win and if it's action button

and they get rid of camera control you lose. Sure. Oh boy. Well, I think I know what my last pick is going to be. Okay. Oh, boy. I mean, I could go for a couple more picks. Okay. I don't know. You want to do one round after this or two rounds

after this? I could do two. Okay, we'll do two rounds after this. That also makes it, I can have wackier picks then. Yeah. I'm going to say an ultra chip beyond the M3 Ultra has been released which I think is still a question

about like where is the ultra chip going? But I say yes. So you're an M4, M5 Ultra or M6 Ultra I mean who knows right? What number it will be but I think there will be something beyond the M3 Ultra in the next 100 weeks.

You I guess said this would be for at least the studio right? Yeah, I Okay, I've got a Mac Pro pick that I'm not making here Okay What was that pick? Just for funsies Okay, well

But my prediction would be It's the Mac Studio Yeah Yeah All right My next pick Hmm It was boring

I might pick it at the end ICloud Plus customers Get some kind of different experience Of Apple intelligence Ah AI is expensive and I think they may start bumping up against some things

you know like maybe a certain type of query you have a limit on unless you're like a plus subscriber yep it could happen right that's one of the issues with the AI stuff is every use costs it's not just we ship the software

and then you use it and there's no additional cost every use costs and if there's the only thing we know about Apple they love a subscription and more things in subscriptions could be good and I think they're becoming a little hesitant. So, like, I know it doesn't make sense to do this, but I was also a little bit surprised

that, like, none of the creator studio stuff went to ICloud, like, for one, you know, like you've got that Apple One, right? Or at least you didn't get a discount, like, whatever. They didn't do anything for Apple One subscribers, which made me kind of think, they would like people to pay more where, They don't want to keep putting things in all these bundles.

And so I can imagine a scenario where they're like, hey, ICloud Plus becomes better. And maybe you get some of that on Apple One, but maybe not. And like, I was just a little bit surprised that there was no cohesion to that strategy. So I can imagine them wanting to kind of increase some prices of certain things in certain places. Maybe it doesn't affect the bundles. Anyway, it's just, I was just surprised that it wasn't like a standard. So I can imagine an ICAL plus, you get something if you're supposed to write for I article plus.

I think it's not unreasonable at all. And that is there, rather than the Apple One bundle, which seems to be focused on kind of like what we think of as broader surfaces, that includes some ICloud stuff as well. ICloud Plus covers sort of if you're paying Apple money. And that, I think, is a good slot for something like that. Yeah. If you're paying Apple money, it may even be something where it's like it scales based on what you're paying. You get more. Yeah.

tokens or whatever. No, I don't know. It's an interesting idea. Okay. I think that's good. They love a subscription. You got that right. I don't think they would do it like this is just talking about. I don't think they would like refer to it as tokens or whatever. I can imagine certain features you can only use if you're an ICloud Plus customer or whatever and they try and like balance it out that right. Or they might be like an advanced mode or you know like something like a reasoning model. Or they have limits. Yeah. what you can do and that iCloud plus get unlimited or whatever. My next pick is Eddie Q still works at Apple. Okay. Okay. Large and in charge.

Eddie Q still works at Apple. That's a pretty decent one to pick because so many of them are retiring. Right? Eddie could retire. He could. All right. He could.

I think he's having too much fun. And it's also possible that he you know, becomes a Applefellow or something. thing, but I think he's just having too much fun. I'm going to put my money down on Eddie Q's still being there. I mean, we never know with anybody. It's life, but I think that Eddie doesn't want to leave.

So I think he'll be there. Are we making this our last pick? Let's do the last round now. All right. So I'm not going to pick my boring one, but I'll tell you what that is when we're done. Just in case you don't pick it. And I'm going to finish on the Apple Watch has a brand new health sensor. Oh, a classic draft pick.

Yeah. I'm still betting they do the glucose. I believe they're going to do that at some point, but it does seem like maybe this is really hard. But they may go for a blood pressure like thing. They don't have that, right? No. No. There's a hypertension thing. Yes.

But it's using algorithms, it's not actually measuring your blood pressure. Or it could be some kind of stress sensor or something. I believe there'll be a new health sensor added to the Apple Watch. I think they need to keep moving. this is good because you're just leaving it open you're not saying they're going to do glucose you like they will in the next two rounds of Apple Watch generations

introduce a new set this is a very traditional upgrade draft pick except spread over two years two years yeah because I always want them to do it and so but I'm giving them two attempts because is it this year which is the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch

is that passed now did that's just blown past uh it was it was last year. Was that announcement? The announcement was the announcement 10th anniversary was in 24 and the shipping was in 25. Well, they'll get there someday. Don't get there.

Good. Keep trying. Oh, boy. Final pick. I don't want to play this. Man, I got a bunch of fun things here. I'm going to go with amazingly, there is an. AirPods Max update. Oh, wow. I know, right? Just when I thought that was out, they pulled me back in, you know? Believe, Mike. I hope so. I hope so. I know. Update. It could just be like they change the port again and have different colors. But an update, an update, an update to AirPods. An update is an update. My boring pick that I didn't pick because Google still provides the models for Apple Intelligence. That just seems like a given to me. It's not very exciting. So that is the draft of the ages. We will be.

be back to score this in another 100 episodes from now. I guess check back every day if you want to by going to Upgrade.Cards, which is put together and managed by the wonderful Zoe Knox, who's an active member and moderator in our Discord, and they also put together the score cards that we have for all of our drafts, so you can go through and select they'll right or wrong. You can go and check that out, upgrade.cards. that's going to be it for episode 600. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and every episode of Upgrade that you've ever listened to, especially.

I'm just going to say it, especially if you've been here since the beginning. We love all of our listeners, but we love you more. You can send in your feedback, follow-up and questions for us by going to Upgradefeedback.com. Thank you to our members to support us of Upgrade Plus, where you get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week. Go to GetUpgradeplus.com up to support us. You can find this show by searching for Upgrade podcast on YouTube. I would like

to thank our sponsors. That is The Pets Table, Delete Me and Century for their support of this episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. It's not coming in the distance, Mike. I hear the sound of charts and graphs. Oh. Money, money, money, money. Who's got all the money? That'll be next time. But for now, goodbye, Mike. I don't know.