Upgrade - 607: Lime Has Left the Chat

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

From Relay, this is Upgrade episode 607. Today's show is brought to you by FitBod, Squarespace, and ExpressVPN. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. Good to be back on our official regular release schedule after last. People were upset. Some people were like, where is the episode?

Why is it not out yet? And we can't really say why because it was an embargo. But you could usually figure out why. Although sometimes then we take it, we do like a vacation. or something where we have to schedule things differently and people are convinced there's a conspiracy. For the future. If the episode is not out and we haven't told you it's going to be delayed,

then you can make an assumption about why it's delayed. Yes. That you can. Also, if Apple's been doing stuff, yeah. That's a good, like, real ones know now. So you are now a real one, dear listener, that what happens after product announcements is that there are embargoes for the following week.

Yep. For reviewers. Well, sometimes we have and sometimes we don't. In the sense of, right. Sometimes they're like Wednesday or Thursday, so we're not going to leave the show that. We're not going to delay the show. Right. But in this case, literally everybody wanted to talk about the MacBook Neo and I had one and had spent days using it and pretending that I hadn't would have been ridiculous.

And so dropping it at embargo time in addition to being cool because we were like right out at embargo time also allowed us to talk about it freely, which we did. And I was just saying, well, we're being very insular in the beginning of the other. episode. I was very proud of last week's episode. I think we did a really good job. Yeah. I think it came together really well. I was very happy with it. But Mike, we don't have time to talk about any of this because it's time instead for a Snell Talk question. I actually have a Snell Talk question for you this week. I'm monopolizing the Snell Talk questions again. Two weeks in a row I've done this, but there's a good reason. Jason, have you ever appeared on a game show?

You know, in February, we checked into a hotel in Culver City, California, just outside of just north of L.A. airport. And the woman who checked us in, Lauren and I are standing there, and she says, oh, you're on the Sony rate. Which one of you is on a game show? because they know that it's all the game show people stay there at the whatever this hotel was, residence in or no, courtyard by Marriott. And Lauren told me afterward,

I would never be on a game show in a million years. Interesting. But that then process of elimination, that would be me. I have never been on a game show, appeared on a game show, until now, because as I announced last,

week on the internet and I'm now announcing here on Upgrade. I am a contestant on this Thursday's episode of Jeopardy. So you can see Jason Snell, a journalist and podcaster from Mill Valley, California on Thursday, along with the returning champion, TBD, whoever wins on Wednesday. And a very lovely woman named Jordan from Edmonton, who we were hanging out all day and chatting. And she's has she's done podcasts. She does curling. She's from Edmonton where I have a bunch of friends. Oh, wow. And then our names got picked for Thursday and we're like, of course, we're playing each other. So check it out Thursday on your local station if you're in the U.S. or Canada. And if you do not have a local station because you're a cord cutter, if you have Peacock or Hulu, you can watch it the next day, the Friday. Not super available worldwide, which is a shame.

I guess in our Discord, people are pointing out, I have appeared many times on the incomparable game show podcast, which is fair, but I am now appearing on a television game show, not a podcast game show. So we will be pausing here on this discussion, because there's a lot of interesting stuff around this. I recommend people go read Jason's post, but I want to talk about everything that's in that post

but we're not going to do it now because next week's episode we're going to talk about all of this and Jason's experiences and will reflect at least on the episode that we will have seen I don't know I mean you know there's no way to tell what happens like this is

the part that's tricky is I could win I could lose if I win I'd also play Friday if I win Friday I would play the following week the way they do it is you just focus on your on your debut day which is what we'll be talking about for sure and we will we will talk about that can't wait cannot wait so excited so excited next week we have a little bit of follow-up f1 follow-up so for wallolo up we put a one in the

middle anyway apple is taking a victory lap to get it over the first f1 race weekend with eddie queues saying that viewership on apple tv of the australian grand prix is up on the same race last year in ESPN so basically this is a very long way around the saying more people watched the Australian Grand Prix on Apple TV than they did on ESPN. Now, I have a couple of questions about this, which is like, are they including replay? Because I don't know how that worked to the ESPN. Like, you know, did ESP? Could you watch? There are different ratings. There's a, there's a live rating and there's a live plus three and a live plus seven. So I don't know whether they're looking at the live rating or maybe the live plus three.

I'm just not sure like if people could watch on demand for ESPN. Maybe like if you had an app or whatever, but on Apple TV you could watch it on the moment. Or you just record it and watch it if you've got the DVR. None of this is important. The point is saying that it was a very successful opening weekend for them. We're two races into the season now, but the Australian Grand Prix performed very well. So I assume they're very happy. But there is an interesting wrinkle.

So the war in Iran is actually resulting in F1 canceling. two races. So next weekend, I think is this, is this weekend or the weekend after we have the Japanese Grand Prix? That's next weekend. There's no race this weekend. Then we have the Japanese Grand Prix of the final weekend in March. And now there will not be any more races until May. So the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix are both being cancelled, which is leaving a five-week gap in the calendar. And I mention this all to say, not great if you're trying to build momentum, which they are trying to do, that now there is going to be a five-week gap between the, between, it will be the Japanese Grand Prix, and then all the way out to

the Miami Grand Prix in Irving and McKinimae, which, well, rough. Yeah, not great, but, you know, that, it happens. It has to happen. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is one of those force majeure kind of things going on here. I was surprised that they. didn't try and host somewhere else. I guess it's just so much logistically to host a Grand Prix.

But they did this during COVID. And I know it's easier when you don't have to deal with the people, right? Like the, but they will moving them around a lot during the COVID season. I was going to say, I'm surprised there isn't like a location that is not. Because I understand like if you're in a city. Yeah. Like, oh, we'll just go back to Melbourne. And Melbourne's like, no, no, no, no, no.

no, no, no, we need our streets back. You had it for those days and you don't get it anymore. But I'm surprised there isn't like a location somewhere, essentially a race track somewhere that is up to Grand Prix standards that could be put into. Right? Because this is the thing they did. Like so, you know, when they were being a bit restricted, like for, they did two races at the same track, right?

They just stuck around. But there's a lot of things of like then, you know, like people want money. I'm just surprised they haven't found. the way around this rather than being like we're just going to go for five weeks without a race. Which is interesting thing that they've done. And the F1 movie did indeed win an Oscar last night for Best Sound. That's another Oscar for Apple. The comment in our house was it did have a lot of sound.

It was a very noisy movie. It was a lot of sound in that movie. I get it. I get it. That's the most, it's the Oscar for the movie who are the most sound. That's how it works. Most sound. It's not best sound. It's just most sound. There's a lot of sound in there. So I can see why they won. It's, woo. All the sound.

Last week, Apple began its official celebrations for 50th anniversary. We'd been talking about this a while back. Like, how much are they going to do? How hard are they going to go? And it seems somewhat. So Tim Cook published a letter on Apple's website. It took over the homepage you click through. It's called 50 Years of Thinking Differently. This feels like it's the kind of this is the campaign that they're running. So they're going back to the think different kind of campaign. Here's to the crazy ones poem. And it leans heavily on that in Tim's in the remarks that he made.

But also it seems like the thing that they're trying to focus on more is the users and customers rather than Apple themselves. So they kind of talk about what our technology enables you to do rather than here's how great we are, which I think is a nice way of kind of shaping the celebration. That feels very, if Apple's going to celebrate their history, this is a way that would do that. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense.

They're trying to figure out how to do this in a way that isn't, it's like promotional and yet also not entirely self-aggrandizing. And so saying it's about all the people who have used the Apple products over the years. That's nice. I really love the version of the Sixth Color logo that they've done, the kind of scribble logo. I think that that's really nice. I agree.

They've also taken this as a time to create a new Instagram account called Hello Apple. Apple already have an Instagram account. They have Apple and this one is at Hello Apple. And it seems like that this is an account where they're going to be sharing user stories alongside their marketing imagery, like some less Polish stuff. like the bio is our stories and yours and also I saw so they hosted it then I'll come back around to this

so they've also hosted an event at Grand Central Terminal the Apple Store there that featured a performance by Alicia Keys a few days ago they published a press release saying that this is going to be one of the ways they're going to be quote commemorating the milestone around the world so it seems like they're going to be doing these maybe some pop-up events at different places where they're kind of like having people come

in and perform and stuff like that. But they obviously invited some people to that. And on the Hello Apple Instagram account, they've re-shared a reel that I Justine had made of being there. So that's not the kind of stuff that they would be sharing from the like Apple account. But they're using this one as more of a kind of like brandy account, it seems like, which I thought is interesting. So it's like another thing that they're doing now.

But I don't know why you would create an entire. account for just this, but it does feel like, you know, there's been a lot of talk about the TikTok stuff that they've been doing, which has been a bit incredible and unhinged. Maybe they have some new kind of plans around social. It kind of feels like that's the case. It does. It does feel like that. It's great. I want more, I want more FaceTime's with Lyme. I want Lyme to be FaceTime and other people. Yeah. Because like, I love, I love Lyme, as they say. I love Lyme. I love Lyme. I love Lyme. Get that lime in there. I love Lyme. So let the display them. That's very good. It's very good. If you haven't seen them, you should see them.

I've got a little follow-up that we need to boomerang around to. Okay. That nobody was asking for, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. I have a photogenic lemon update. Oh, no, I have a, I have a question for you later on. Do not worry. About the photogenic lemon? The photogenic lemon will come up later on. Okay, well then, uh, cliffhanger. Yeah, I have, I have a question for you that will pop up later on in today's episode. Okay, good. Let's not forget it. I need to touch on the photogenic lemon. Do not worry. Do not worry. Good. Good. Because right now I have to bring the whole mood down because Jason, it's time to lawyer up. Clunk flunk. We're changing. We're changing tag. Big left turn here. Man, what are you doing here?

I question all the good feelings. Just Lyme hung up. Lime is out of here. Lime is out of this conversation. Lime has exited to chat. Apple, Jason, good news. This is good news. Apple. is going to be lowering its app store fees from 30% to 25% with no catch. Only in China. Oh, that is a catch. Only in China. What a catch that is. It's the Chinese, well, that's interesting, isn't it? Yes, this is after what Apple is calling, quote, discussions with the Chinese regulator. And I was reading this on Bloomberg. And Bloomberg was talking to kind of like a specialist in this area. Bloomberg has signed me out now as they like to do every three days, so I can't get this person's name.

But they were saying that the way this kind of stuff works in China and the way that this person understands it, there was no legal thing here. The regulators just said to Apple, we would really like you to do this, and Apple has decided that they would. So the base fee has gone from 30 to 25%. The small developer program is dropping to 12% from 15, as well as the commission rate for mini apps. So these are the apps that live inside of super apps. And apparently the mini apps thing is being the big sticking point. We have companies like Tencent and Bight Dance trying to ask the government to pressure Apple to reduce these fees because they operate these super apps in China.

And they essentially have their own developer ecosystem within them. Yeah, it's a guy named Rich Bishop who talked to Bloomberg because I'm not yet logged out. because I logged in yesterday. Congrats. About this and said, this is basically just the government in China going, this is too high, lower it. Yeah.

I'm like, okay, all right. And they've done it without dragging their feet, going through court, screaming and crying. It turns out that Apple, so basically it's like they're trying to reduce this. It seems for the super apps, that's what they're doing. These developer ecosystems exist,

and now these companies only have to pay 12, percent commission fees, which all seems to indicate that it actually is possible that Apple can make changes to the economics of the app store without creating hugely complicated rule sets, entitlements and audit requirements. Like, there is no alternative app marketplaces here in China. No, they just lowered the rate. They just lowered the rate to 25%. Now, as a side note, which I think is interesting context for this kind of looking at maybe

where things could potentially go over the next year or so, Google. has announced that it's going to be lowering its fees to a baseline 20%, with there being many programs that can bring it even lower for developers. This is after a settlement that they made with Epic, but this is not a result of the settlement. So they've actually come out ahead of the settlement being approved and just said, we're doing this. So this is starting in June, and then it's going to be in some countries and is rolling out up until 2027, and then it will be worldwide. There are some weird complexities. I put a link to a Verve article in the show notes if you want to see like new apps and old apps and da-da-da-da-da. But the key thing is they are

making sweeping changes and those changes are again reducing them and reducing them without adding necessarily a bunch of complexity into the process. So I don't think that Google doing this would make Apple change tact, but it is, I don't think it helps them maybe in some of their arguments that now they're not able to point to Google and say they're doing it as well? It feels like, imagine we play this all back at like a high rate of speed, you know, like it's a time lapse. It feels like what we have is this big thing that starts out, that's this inflationary thing. And if you just do it as a time lapse, what we're seeing is it just kind of deflate over time, right?

Like that's basically what's happening. And it's fighting here and fighting there. But it does feel like the trend is... They're coming down. They're coming down. It doesn't mean that they're going to disappear, but they're coming down because of all the pressure. And I think that that's a good question is like,

in the end, is the goal that they take almost nothing? Or is the goal just because everybody agrees that this seems unreasonable for what they are providing to take that amount? And so, yeah, it just seems like over time the pressure leads to, the fees coming down. Yep. If you would like to get longer ad-free versions of this show every week, you should subscribe to Upgrade Plus,

because with Upgrade Plus, you get bonus content, you get no ad interruptions. You wouldn't hear me saying this, for example. You get access to the Relay Members Discord, and you get monthly Relay Members-only shows. One of these is called Spotlight, which is an interview show that friend of the show Kathy Campbell puts on.

I am the guest this month where Relay Discord members ask questions and I answer them. But me and Stephen also do a monthly show where we do kind of like it's all behind the scenes of what's going on at Relay. We love our members. They help support this show. We'd love it if you would consider becoming a member. Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up today. 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 that FitBod is an easy and affordable way. to build a fitness plan that is made for you because everybody has their own path with personal fitness. It is a personal path. That is why FitBod uses data to make sure they customize things

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by signing up today at FitBod.me slash upgrade. So go now and get your customized fitness plan at FITBOD.bod.me slash upgrade. That is FitBod.com for 25% of your membership. Our thanks to FitBard for their support of this show and relay. So it turns out, Jason, that a couple of weeks ago, there was one team who forgot to get their press release ready in time because today Apple announced AirPods Max

2. Which means the ones that we have before, where they put USBC on them, they weren't two. This is 2. And this is actually the product that I was asking for when they released the USBC version because they have finally put a new chip in these. These are powered by the H2 chip, which means the AirPods Max 2 gets adaptive audio, live translation, conversational awareness, and better noise cancellation because they now have the better system on a chip along with some other features.

But they are now feature-wise in parity with Airpods Pro with some additional stuff because they can do lossless of a cable and that kind of stuff. They now come in

Midnight Starlight, orange, purple, and blue. So they've got some new colors. I think those are are those not the colors from the USBC refresh? You know what they might be? They might be.

I think they are. Yeah, but that's not the same as the color from the first batch. From the first, yeah, the complexity is we have AirPods Max and then AirPods Max USBC and then AirPods Max 2. Thank you.

But I think these are the same. They did, remember, because that's all they did with the last one is they put a USBC port on it and change the colors. Yeah, and then if you remember when they did that, they also didn't have available the cable. The cable for lossless.

For lossless. They had, they created that later unbelievably. Like six months later, It showed up. I don't know. The AirPods team seemed to work at such an incredible pace for the regular ones, but with the Macs, it seemed, I don't understand. I mean, I understand it. It's the lowest priority for them, clearly. Yeah.

Yes. But it's like, I don't know why they released that middle one, the USBC version. I think they just had a lot of pressure to get a USBC version out there. So they did that. But it did seem weird that they didn't update the chip. And now here they are. They've updated the chip. I mean, good for them.

Yeah. We literally made a T-shirt that was the AirPods Macs Believe. Yep. And we believed and it happened. There is also better audio quality in these thanks to taking some new high dynamic range amplifiers that have actually put in you, I will say, or just say for the sake of simple speaker. There's new hardware inside this makes me sound better. But no other hardware changes.

They're not collapsible or anything like that, which is a shame. I was hoping that a full-on AirPods Macs 2 may see some kind of hardware change for usability, but that hasn't happened. They're not lighter or anything like that. So something interesting happened that I need to mention here about how weird this month has been. I mean, so weird. I was in the Wall Street Journal. I'm on Jeopardy.

But this has made me laugh out loud when I saw this news this morning because I thought, is it? Did it? Really? Mike. My final pick in the upgrade draft of the ages was, amazingly, there is an AirPods max update. Nailed it. Oh, for the 700? Yeah, for episode 700.

And Apple releases a newer updated standalone display was also one of my picks. So two things that I wasn't sure were going to happen across two years are already true. You're doing good so far. I haven't scored any points. I wouldn't have expected to, though, if I'm being completely honest. So congratulations to you for the early lead. I mean, technically there is still no non-pro version of the Vision Pro. Yeah, yeah. And the liquid glass design language is still in effect. Still works at Apple. So you have got that way. Yes. But in terms of developments, instead of like attrition, in terms of developments. Those are two. And that AirPods Max update, I really was taking a flyer on that. And I just laugh like so soon in the process. Of the draft of the ages. I was like, did I pick that? Yeah, I did. I did. So just, I'm just saying, I can't believe it, but it happened.

So last week, we reviewed the MacBook Neo on the show. I did. Yeah, you did. And I was there. I mean, I was asking questions. I like to consider myself as part of the experience, you know. You help. You are.

You are part of the upgrade program experience, even if you didn't have it. I didn't have it. Do you have one now? Do you have the MacBook Neo? No, and I've got some. serious fomo on this one, Jason, if I'm being honest. So I heard you on connected talking about it. And I found that whole process funny because basically you detailed all the reasons why it literally makes no sense for you to have one.

And then you're like, but I kind of want one. Yes, I do. And then Stephen Hackett. Actually, Stephen has enough for the both of you. He has two with them. He has two. Betterico bought one and called them to return it. and the guy came to pick it up and he was like, no, you can't have it.

How dare you? Why would you be here? So, but you're right. It's not for you, right? Like, it's cool. It's interesting. I mean, you could, look, in the business that we're in, you could always get one because you could say, I need it for my work just to know about this computer.

But it is not otherwise relevant to you in any way. I've thought about that many times because it does feel, and the reason, the reason that I think that you are correcting like it's, you know, for my work is that there is, there is, there is, a serious hype around this product in a way that I have not experienced for a Mac in a long time. Like, maybe the M2 MacBook Air, if not before then, the beginning of Apple Silicon. Like, this feels like a big story. And people are very excited about it. And I think on the whole, even though your review was so glowing, I was still left surprised

at the fact that all of the reviews are glowing. All of them. Like, everyone loves this computer. So it feels like something of a moment. But the problem I have is my daily computer is a MacBook Air. Now, if I used a MacBook Pro every day like you do, I could maybe justify it. But like, there is no benefit to me using this computer in any one. If you had, yeah, if you upgraded maybe at work to a MacBook Pro and said,

I'm just going to leave it at work most of the time other than when I travel and I'm going to have a little mini. MacBook at home, you could do it, but at that point, you should just take your M2 Air Home. Yeah. And if Edina wants a different computer and would accept a different computer, there's scenarios where you could end up. But this is the thing about it is you can really see in this story the dichotomy, I guess, between pure kind of gadget lust and practicality. Yeah. Because usually, if you're a techno person who really is in. into this stuff, you get the gadget lust,

and you get the product. And this is a product that is really interesting in so many ways, but it's not for you. It's not for us. It is, I just, I mean, again, you could get it. I just find it very funny that a more technical people, like, it doesn't provide anything better. The price is better, but like, it is a MacBook Air.

It's not lighter than a MacBook Air. It's not smaller than a MacBook Air. It is the same. as a MacBook Air, but cheaper with cheaper components and slower. So it is really great from a perspective of filling in a niche on the Mac, but I don't think for a lot of use cases, it makes sense as a purchase. No.

For people who already have a Mac, like you already have, you probably already have a Mac that is much better than this. Not saying that there aren't, I do find it very funny that I think Casey Liss and Stephen Hackett have both kind of referred to the concept of the downstairs computer, which, you know, if you have a laptop, you could take it downstairs.

But they're like, nah, I mean, really, just leave one downstairs. And I get it. I mean, I have made the iPad my in-the-house computer. And for the most part, the MacBook Pro is my at-my-desk computer. So I could see how you could have a laptop in those two different places

and how there would be some benefit there. But it's just funny. I get what you're feeling. but also I want to underscore that what you said on Connected about it not making sense for you in any way is accurate. It doesn't. I can't even justify it for the downstairs computer because my downstairs computer is an 11-inch iPad Pro

which is significantly better for one of the main uses of this, which is watching video, because that screen is unbelievable. Exactly. So, like, I have the tandem OLED one, so it's like the M4 or whatever. And, you know, the MacBook Neo screen is fine, but it's entirely believable. Yes. Exactly. I look at that screen.

I would look at that screen and say, I believe you. And the M4, I don't believe you. Nope, I deny it. Who are you? So I think this is one of those things where I would diagnose it as you should go to an Apple store and check them out so you know about them. Yeah. And that'll be fun, but, you know.

I do worry about going to the Apple store, though. I think that could actually be a problem. Just like I don't really know what happened. There was like a haze and there were a bunch of people out and then I left and I had a MacBrimio with me. This is why I didn't go to an Apple store for like six months after the Apple Watch Ultra version 1 came out. I'm not going to go look at that because I will leave with one. And then I waited for long enough that I knew there was going to be another one. So it's like, well, I can't buy one now.

But yeah, this is purely, you described it as gadget lust. It's exactly what this is. like this is and it it for me it's just like this feels like an important computer but it's like what am I I have nothing to do with it and now I'm not rolling out that I may get one but I still have yet to buy one and so I think that it will start to go to calm down so forgive me for for for people who live in colder climates than than California but we've been having a heat wave even though it's March and so I have been writing a bunch of stories back in the backyard, which I love to do.

And I've been able to do that this past week. And one of the things that I realized was, do I want to take the MacBook Neo out into the backyard and write? And I could, although it's not currently set up with all my stuff. It's sort of got a limited set of apps on it because I just started it up blank and have been adding apps as I go. And I thought, well, I could take my MacBook Pro. And I'm like, I don't want to do that either. and I ended up writing in the backyard on my iPad with a keyboard like I do. And that was an interesting moment of like, I could take the Neo, right?

But I'm not going to take my MacBook Pro out there, really, because it's because the Mac to me, if I'm just sitting and writing an article, it does feel kind of too heavy for that. Not like in terms of weight, but just in terms of complexity. I kind of like it better to have this writing environment where I'm a little more focused because it's a little simpler. It's not my Mac where I've got all. all of these windows to manage and it's it's a simpler environment so you know I I went through that process and decided that I actually don't want my MacBook Neo that I have as my writing

companion out there yeah but you know it's just it's different so tear downs is another interesting thing that's happened in the week between so there are a bunch of tear downs one of them I'm put a link in the show out to a macrumas article talking about on the YouTube tech renew did. Really good. They took the MacBook Neo apart in six minutes

and it's basically all screws with no tape or glue which is unbelievable. There's one little thing that like something that's taped down but it's just not a, it's just you just lift it up and it's not a big deal.

And nothing is glued in. Lots of screws. And that's great. It means it's super repairable. You should be able to, if you're like a school or something especially, you've got a bunch of these, you should be able to, like, unscrew this part and put a new part in once the parts are available and all of that.

Really encouraging. And I think that it's a side effect of the price is that it's made to be easy to manufacture. It's not made to be this bespoke beautiful thing that packs everything in all possible ways and all possible angles. It's meant to be a fairly simple build all the way around. So I got, like, an interesting piece of information from someone that I trust. used to work at Apple. And they told me that the process that they have used for the Neo has been something that Apple's been working on for over 10 years,

this new way of creating the cases, where like essentially what you're doing, instead of taking a large chunk of aluminium and milling it, because that creates a bunch of waste, you're essentially extruding aluminum to be closer to the final shape. and then forming it. Like that's a very overly simplified way of doing it. But this has been like a cross-company thing

between the sustainability teams and the manufacturing teams and the research and development teams. Yeah, this has been like going on because this person has worked on it a little bit 10 years ago at Apple. So this is, you know, I don't know what it says for the future. You know, we were talking about it like, you know, how,

what is going on with these cases? Are they better? Are they worse? are they, like, what is the difference? Because clearly it's part of what they needed to do to bring the cost down. But can they apply this to the other machines and how quickly will they do that? It's fascinating. But yeah, they've also, as well as this, Apple's also making this computer significantly easier to repair, which is better for everyone.

Yes. Yeah. No, it's one of the things that I think gets overlooked about Apple, is its manufacturing. It has to make lots of everything. It has to use materials. And one of the things they do, the Apple and China book really detailed this

is they don't just take whatever the stock production process is off the shelf and use it. They create new processes that then everybody else uses because that's how that works. But they're driving innovation in manufacturing

in order to get the products to be the way they want them. you linked to something on Six Colors. It was the Verges. Was it their review or was it an article about it by Antonio G. D. Benetetto. I've never said that name I learned. It's an article. He reviewed the Neo and then he wrote a piece.

He's written a bunch of PC laptop reviews as well. And the story is basically like PC makers aren't ready for the MacBook Neo. Yeah. And I just thought this is a. really interesting idea that like if they don't have a response to this immediately, you can get it done. Like this is a problem for them. And it reminded me of when the MacBook Air came out, like when, I don't know if this was the first or second one, but when the MacBook Air became a successful popular product, it kind of created the thin and light category of

laptops. Like that became a thing that rolled out over time, but was more possible to do then because it was Intel, right? So like Intel was able to provide the chips. that could run in these thin and light laptops. But I think part of the thing that's going on here is Apple Silicon. And can other PC makers get a good product down to the price that Apple have with the MacBook Neo? If what we believe one of the reasons for this is Apple Silicon being what it is. Yeah, I thought this is a really interesting idea. And just that quote, PC makers are not ready for the MacBook Neo.

I just thought was a pretty good way of putting it. Yeah, this is, I like to hear this. from somebody who's seen a bunch of laptops in this price range because I have not. And so that's why I thought that this insight was good, which is just like these, that's a category that maybe is ripe for change and certainly competition. And Apple bringing its sensibility to that category is going to be disruptive one way or another. Yeah. So the question that we wanted, Mihir says, Jason, what happened to the photogenic lemon?

Did life turn it into lemonade? So this is my photogenic lemon update. The photogenic lemon was used to make lemon juice for chicken picata, which we had on Friday, which is a lovely dish with lemon juice in it. So I squeezed all the juice out of that photogenic lemon using a brand new Christmas present, actually. So we were in Denver at my brother-in-law's house, and we needed to squeeze. squeeze juice out of a lemon and they had a juicer. This like you put the half a lemon in it and you go, and all the juice comes out.

And I said to Lauren, this is a kitchen gadget. You should get me for Christmas. And so I broke it out for the first time this year on the photogenic lemon, got every last drop of lemon juice out of the photogenic lemon. So thank you, photogenic lemon for being a part of my dinner on Friday night. Yeah, you sent Stephen and I, a couple of different shots that you were thinking about using for your review.

And I wanted you to use the one that you did where the lemon is front and center, because in the other version, it's with some other fruit. And I felt that is not doing justice to the photogenic lemon. That's lower down in the story. There's also it's in a bowl of oranges. I have not read your review on the website because I read it before. So there it is. There's the image.

Yeah, I'm very happy. that you went with the, you know, the pride of place for that photogenic lemon. Something that was very interesting to me with the different reviews and the different images and stuff is the people that chose to lean into the green and people that chose to lean into the yellow

of this computer. Like it seemed like by and large, people went in one direction or the other, and I thought it was funny because this very much is in the middle of a green yellow. It's a lemon line. Well, I mean,

that's one of the reasons that I shot it with a lemon in front of the citrus tree that's got the green, greenish, yellowish leaves. Because I thought that that, in the afternoon sunlight, because I thought it kind of encompassed the citrus experience. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform that is designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling a business, Squarespace will give you everything

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ready to launch, use the offer code upgrade and you will save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is Squarespace.com slash upgrade with the offer code upgrade and you'll get 10% of your first purchase and show you support for the show. Thanks to Squarespace. for their support of this show and all of Relay. So along with all of the upper products that you had last week, you also had the studio display, the regular studio display update. Regular studio display. It's right.

It's right here with me. And you did actually write a review on it, which I think as a product, you could have skipped a review on this if you wanted to. But I would say, you had something to say. I had things to say about it. I think that's exactly it. One of the challenges is it's very, it's not very different,

but they did send me one and I thought, well, I do have some feelings about it. So why don't I let, again, one of the challenges with products that don't change a lot is, what do you write about them? And the thought there is you come up with maybe like an essay about aspects of that product and where it fits and what it is. And, you know, when it's not the MacBook Neo and it's a brand new thing, you end up sort of thinking big picture thoughts. And I thought, what am I going to write about that display? And I thought, I know what I'm going to write about it. So I did.

You've said, I'm going to read a quote from your review here, Apple has shown no interest in upgrading the studio display to improve it in any of the ways it's improved the stock display on a MacBook Pro. Right, right. The idea of leaving aside what other displays in the category are doing, like, since the studio display came out, we have had, the MacBook Pro has gotten this dramatically improved backlighting that is bright and has a dynamic. range is going to be replaced by OLED, but like it's got that. And it's a high resolution display,

or I mean, a high refresh rate display. Like these are innovations Apple has added to the MacBook Pro. And the studio display is still, you know, 60 hertz. It's still the same backlighting. It's, you know, it is what it was. It is. And it's not that it isn't a good panel. I think for most regular users, it's actually fine. Um, but the, Truth is, when I look at this as a new product, replacing a product that came out years ago, what I see as a product that I had hoped would either get better or cheaper, and it's done neither. The camera got an upgrade, so you got a better camera? Because you had a real saga with the original camera of the studio display.

Well, my lighting is better than a lot of people. So people are like, this camera is terrible. And I thought, I don't know, it looks fine. And it does look fine. so I didn't have the bad lighting required to determine how bad it was. But, I mean, it's soft. And what they did is they put this, this widescreen camera in to do center stage because they were really excited about that. And, but the result is that you've got to crop it in order to get anything.

And then in low light, it really falls apart. And it looks really soft in all light. And you could see there's an image sample in the story. Like, it's instantly clear that this new camera, even though it's the same specs, is so much better. there's detail on my face where otherwise my face is just kind of like just a super smooth skin blob. And you can see all the imperfections in my in my skin and details of my eyebrows and stuff that are just not there in it. So they fixed that. They fixed the thing that made everybody complain about the product.

It took them years, but they did, they did fix that. They added the second Thunderbolt port on the back, which means you can daisy chain them now, which means that if you were to buy, if you found the need to get a second, one of these. You could pair it with your first one and just run a cable between them. And that's nice, right? So it's not that they didn't update things about it, but, you know, they updated very little about it. And the most important thing, I think everybody would agree in the display is the display part of it, right? I mean, they upgraded the speakers to the speakers are better, I suppose. It's like, that's fine.

I use my speakers for some stuff, and so having better speakers is nice. But, like, in the end, these are all the side dishes and the main chorus didn't change. If you've already got a studio display, there's no real reason to upgrade it to this model, which is true.

Yeah, I don't, I just don't see it. I don't see. There's the question of who is this for, and it's like, for somebody, well, two things. One is, it's for somebody who would like an Apple display. And doesn't have one.

And doesn't have one or it died or whatever. And, but the caveat here is if you're willing to not use an Apple display and save money, there are much better, there are, not better. There are

other displays that are essentially identical to this with maybe even some extra features like an ergonomic stand, a height, adjustable stand, for not just like a few hundred dollars less, but I found one on Amazon that was half off the price of the studio display. Now, so why does this product exist? We know why, which is because two reasons. One is, some people just want the Apple display.

It is, it's got Apple's warranty. You can buy it from the Apple store when you buy your other computers. It's got a logo on the back. It's nice. It's nice. There's nothing wrong with it. It works, too. Like, you know, I've used multiple monitors over the last few years.

And sometimes I would have a scenario where my Mac would restart, do an update or whatever. You know, and I have a two monitors in front of me. One of them just wouldn't turn on. Like, you never have that trouble with a studio display. It is integrated with the Mac. There are so many reasons why you might get it. But bottom line, if you look at the price and you're like, maybe I'm, I should shop around. The answer is you should because there are other options out there that may serve you. The other reason, so it's good for Apple to have this just like it's good for Apple to have iPhone cases in the store because some people just want to come in and buy the Apple thing. And they're not even thinking about the fact that they can, you know, go to Amazon and get some company that they've never heard of to make a monitor that. They're like, no, no, I'm just going to get the Apple one. And Apple makes a big profit because of that. But it's valid. Like, it's totally valid that they do it that way. And then the other thing that I think is,

important about this is we've seen what happens when Apple doesn't make a display, which is it invalidates the category of Mac displays. Everybody else who makes displays is like, well, I guess Apple doesn't care about displays for Mac users, so why should we? But Apple's presence in the market, we've seen this with this display, Apple's presence in the market draws other companies into the market because they see an opportunity to undercut Apple on price, to compete with Apple and steal some of its customers away for a display. And like, that's good for Mac users. Back, it was really ugly when there was only like the LG Ultra Fine and the, you know, before there was the studio display. Because basically nobody cared. And Apple being in the market makes people care,

even if you don't buy the Apple display, I think you benefit from the Apple display existing. Yeah, because if you're trying to sell to Mac customers, of which there are many, the standard quality level has been increased by the fact that Apple makes their own thing. So you now have to kind of try a little bit harder to make something better. And they're doing they're doing mac resolutions right like there are a bunch of 27 inch 5K monitors out there because this display is available. But the thing is I see a lot of you know, there are a lot of 30 inch 5k or 27 inch 4K. I'm like I know everybody is going to have different standards. To me if it's not retina resolution, I don't wanted. I don't want a 4k 27. I want a 5K 27. I don't want a 5K 30, right? Like those,

those pixels per inch are not what I am accustomed to as a Mac user. And I'm just not interested. Some people don't care. I mean, for some people, even retina doesn't really matter. But certainly that those resolutions, and you can make a, you can buy a much cheaper monitor if you don't care about Apple levels of PPI. But there are options out there for that. And that's super important if you want to be able to shop. Competition is important. But that said, this is not, I mean, this is not a competitive monitor in that way. It's an easy choice, a comfortable choice, and you will pay more for it. And for some people's priorities, that's enough.

And like, I get it. I have two studio displays, right? I tried one of the competitors, and it was garbage of Samsung one. I set it back. It's cheaper now. And I guess it would, I just didn't like it. But I can see the reasons why you might buy it. But at half off, it would be really hard to turn away from something like the Asus ProArt display that is half the price that I'm sure is not as nice, but it's half the price.

You could buy more than one MacBook Neo for the savings there. And the other thing that I had to say about this is the ergonomics of it. And I ran it about it a little bit, but long and short of it is, I believe that ergonomics are part of accessibility and that Apple's commitment. to accessibility should extend to ergonomics of its displays, including the iMac. Yes. Apple only making a tilt-adjustable iMac and display as the default

is ridiculous. Buying a beautiful new iMac or display and then putting it on what? Like a dictionary that you've got laying around in order to get it up to an ergonomic height in front of your eyes? You have to buy a monitor stand, right? We're sure there's an entire industry now of these things. Oh yeah, I've got one in the back. Out here I have it.

on a visa arm, which, by the way, is another way to buy this for the same price as you can get the visa mount, and then you have to buy a stand, so it's more money, but you can buy an adjustable stand that way as well. In the back, I literally have the base model studio display, and it is on a little, you know, little riser shelf thingy that I bought from 12 South. And it's fine, but it's also a little bit silly that we have to do that. And here's the problem. The height, And tilt adjustable option for this thing adds $400 to the price. And I mean, okay, here's, I'm going to kind of control myself here. This smacks of designers at Apple and engineers at Apple who really like luxury cars.

and are very proud of their prowess in designing things. And I, you know, I like, I can't point fingers at anybody in particular. I like to call this the Johnny Ive effect, because I feel like when Johnny Ive was there, Apple made a lot of decisions that added huge amounts to the price of the products that they were making, but they made them super luxurious. And I'm not trying to run down that $400 height and tilt adjustable stand. It is amazing.

It is so smooth. Like, it is a beautiful piece of engineering. However, what I say in my review is, engineer something cheaper that does this. It doesn't need to be a luxurious option because height adjustability is about ergonomics. It is about the health of your users. It shouldn't cost $400. And even if this thing is an award, it could be, it could win awards. It's so beautiful and glorious.

It's a mistake. And it's a failure. And the reason it's a failure is because they've failed to make a product that's affordable for users. And really the goal should have been, can we do a height adjustable stand that we can make the default

on the studio display on the iMac? Or at the very least, make it a $99 upgrade or something like that. Well, I would argue it should just be the default. Like, you know, like, just put it in. They can't. They can't. It's over-engineered. That's my point is it's so nice. I get why it's a $400 upsell.

I get it. That's the mistake is they thought, let's spare no expense for height adjustability. And, you know, my response is no. High adjustability should be table stakes. All of these other displays that cost half have some kind of height adjustability. I'm sure it's not very nice, but it exists in the box and you don't have to put a dictionary under your display. So I just, this is one of those areas where I know this is a legacy of Apple thinking about this product probably, you know, five, seven years ago when they were doing designs on this. I'm sure

that that's where this comes from is a long time ago and there's new people in charge now. And I know that this is not a priority. Well, it's basically the same design as the XDR stand, the $1,000 stand. It's essentially that one. But I think what it doesn't do is tilt 90 degrees. I don't think the studio display does. Yeah, I don't, no, no, it's just a basic tilt and height. So I know this is not a priority, which is why the product doesn't look any different. But the iMac is also in this boat here. It's like I would really like to see Apple try to make an affordable, height adjustable display that they could put on every iMac and every studio display by default. But a $400 piece of amazing hardware, like you did it.

You made the most amazing, smooth, beautiful, height adjustable thing ever. but it's a failure not because it isn't good, but because it costs $400 for people to buy it. And that I think that it's just a complete misread of what that product should be. So yeah, that's, look, in the end, the studio display, I'm glad it exists as a product in Apple's lineup.

It has value in doing so. I'm not saying people shouldn't buy it because I bought a couple of the old one because in the end they're fine, they're nice, even though there are better options. There are reasons you could buy it. But my frustration with it is also enormous because it should be better or cheaper

and it isn't either. And it should not cost $400 for you to be able to make it go a little bit higher on your desk. So I have a studio display XDR. I have the display that we wanted. So this is a display we wanted, right? Like all of the things that you're talking. about here.

They made that display and more expensive. Twice the price, basically. Yes, exactly. I, so I plugged it in a couple of days ago. I am not a,

I am not one of these people that can describe to you display quality in the same way that I cannot describe to you, you know, like when people talk about headphones and they're like the mids and the treble and the bass, I'm not one of these kinds of people, but I know what I like when I see it. it or hear it. And as soon as I

plugged the display in and plugged it into my Mac, I was immediately taken aback with how good this display looks. Like, the brightness, the colors, the black levels, like, it was fantastic. It is fantastic. And I watched some movie

trailers, you know, so I went to, because you know, with these things, I always find it difficult to try and find, like, what can show this stuff the best, you know? So now what I do is I go to the Apple TV app and watch Apple TV movie trailers, right? So like I watched the F1 trailer, for example, because I figure they are going to do all of the color, all of the HDR, all of that stuff, right? And I watched some movie trailers and I could immediately

notice the difference between it and my studio display. Like, it looks fantastic. The speakers sound great, too. Like, obviously, the speakers are upgraded somehow between this and the original studio display. And it actually it felt like that there was an element of like that kind of fake surround that you can get

kind of from like a soundbar because again I'm watching the stuff that's mixed in the perfect way and yeah it looks amazing that's kind of what I have to say about it from being honest like it looks great

I can't give you more than that it looks really nice and I now am sitting in front of in my recording area my old studio display so I move my old studio display in here which was one of the main reasons I wanted one

I'm getting used to the fact that my screen is smaller now. I've gone from like a 32 inch to a 27 inch. So I've had to get used to that a little bit. I tried that thing where you do the more space and it was, I didn't like it. So I'm just used to it. But I have a second display anyway, which I use for all my recording stuff. But I have like, it fits perfectly. Like I've just had to make every, all the windows a little bit smaller. But yeah, I, my studio display XDR is wonderful. I have no experience with it in the high refresh rate because my MacBook care cannot power that. That is a thing for later on when I get

that touchscreen MacBook Pro and put that thing. I plug that in and then I'll get another upgrade. But yeah, look, not surprising, the XDR panel is fantastic. Like, it looks brilliant. I think it's great. Yeah, I mean, and it costs twice as much, and most people shouldn't buy it. But again, if you want nice things, it's there, and it's nice. There's no doubt about it.

Room around up time, Jason's down. Don't room around up in a while. I have a couple of things that are going back a little bit and a couple of things that are new. So Mark Goerman is reporting that the inside screen of the iPhone fold will in fact allow for two iPhone apps to be used side by side. What we're not going to get is iPad OS or windowing capabilities. So while it's going to be about the size of a mini,

and a mini can have floating windows that is not going to be what is happening in the iPhone fold. I think that's fine. It's going to have split view. It's going to have split view. Fine. And apparently there will be new developer tools in iOS 27 that will allow for iPhone apps to have sidebars that will help them look more like iPad apps. I'm assuming when they're the only one on the inside display. Yeah, I don't really understand this report because this is size classes and like these already exist and you can already have things if you turn your, you're in your big, you know, Pro Max sideways where the, a side's.

sidebar will appear. I don't feel like this is really breaking any new ground. Maybe there's a detail here that I don't understand that German is elaborating. But of course, if you have an iOS app running on a big screen, you're going to be able to define an interface for it that uses that big screen. And one of the ways they do that is that the sidebars appear instead of being hidden off screen. And I guess that'll be for people who are doing iPhone-only apps. That's what I feel. That will be a new thing for them to learn how to do. do, but it's not new. It's been there all along because that's how iPad apps work. I figure from this, there's like there's some new detail, which is kind of thinking about how an

iPhone would be big and small, an iPhone only app. I don't know. I do wonder though, you know, if they're going to add, because there definitely will be some new API for this. There has to be, right? Or like something design-wise at developers we need to think about. And I wonder, are we going to see any of this in June? Or are we going to wait a lot? till September. Like, when are we going to see the APIs or stuff in the SDK that relates to this? Like, I wonder when it's going to be. I don't know. I mean, I just don't know how much they actually even need to do. Because if you're, because iPad apps essentially are iPhone apps. Yeah. And they, and they just change because they've got a bigger display, which is what we're talking about here.

So maybe this is more they're concerned about a bunch of iPhone only apps and how they, they want to evangelize that to iPhone only apps. so that when they run on this thing, they, because I'm sure there are developers who are like, I run into them from time to time on my iPad, right, that are like, yeah, iPhone is fine, we're not going to do an iPad app. And this is going to give Apple a reason to tell them, no, you need to do this because of the iPhone fold.

And they, I assume, we'll pick up the iPad as a part of that too. Yeah. Yeah, I would expect that a lot of apps, if you're using them on their own, it will look like an iPad app. Like it will just look like the iPad mini app. That's what I expect is going to happen. I assume it'll look like an iPad app when it's on its own

and if it's in split view, it'll look like two iPhone apps. Which, that sounds so good. Doesn't that sound right? No, that sounds really good. I mean, I use, not only is it okay that they're not doing the floating windows from the iPad. Like, I only use the floating windows mode on the iPad like 5% of the time. When I'm doing something that requires it, the rest of the time,

I'm just in full screen because it works. works really well. And I think for this kind of a product, that is all you need. Mark Gohmann is also reporting that the home pod of a screen has been delayed yet again due to Apple intelligence. So Apple were expecting to release this product in March. And if you remember, it was also supposed to be released in the fall of 2025. Then it was going to be pushed to March because it was believed that the revamped Siri features would have shipped in March. But that's not happening. doesn't seem like it's happening, especially now that German is hearing

that their app was currently now targeting September to be the release time frame for this product. The story here is very much that they are developing this product now with the 27, TVOS 27 as its underpinnings

instead of 26. And that means they have punted it back to whatever happens in the fall release. And I think he was even skeptical that it may ship in the fall or it may even ship next year. Yeah, because who knows, right?

Because like at this point, who can believe that this stuff is going to be good even when it does ship? They got to show it, right? They got to show it. And we can see it in German's reports kind of falling backward because it's just not good enough yet. And so pinning it to the 27 releases, you know, I think this would be a great product to release in the fall, right? Like, it really would be a good holiday product. But I think they're also terrified, right, that this.

AI stuff is even through the summer and into the fall is not going to be good enough to to run at the heart of this product. And so then they're like, maybe. I like he reports it's been, the hardware has been finished for, he says, several months.

It is, this is a done deal product that was intended to work with AI. And it just, it just isn't there yet. So Apple TV base is nice, right? Like, I mean,

we've got all these details. Yeah. Or, I mean, yeah, TVOS 27 now. Yeah. And so, you know, we'll see. I mean, the good news here is that I don't think anything in this category has been particularly successful. No. Like, it's not like Amazon and Google have set the world on fire with a product in this category.

Maybe that's bad for Apple because maybe it means this category is not as great as Apple hopes it will be. But I don't know, I think it could be really cool. So, we'll see. I think I saw something fly by a couple of days ago. Yeah, the Echo Show 8, you apparently have to pay to have it as a photo frame now or something like that. Or maybe the Echo Show. Like I saw a headline. I shouldn't talk about this because I'm just saying a thing out loud.

But I'm sure I saw something. Yeah, Amazon charges $2.99 for personal photos on Echo Show. $2.99 a month. Oh, man. That is on Yahoo News. There you go. Yeah. How about that? Terrible.

They're the worst. What are we doing? They're the worst. I mean, I stopped using my Echo Show because it was so bad and just trying to sell me stuff. And that's the thing is Amazon, Amazon's devices are not without capabilities, but the whole experience is just awful. And I say that as somebody who's a prime member and I ordered a lot of stuff from Amazon. But like, Amazon only wants to view me as a person to be marketed to. And I'm just not interested.

No. I'm still waiting on this product. I can't wait for it, but I'm not confident it will happen. I will say that this report, it's giving more fuel to my personal theory that we're not going to see any of this Gemini stuff before we see iOS 27. I just don't think it's going to happen. I think if we do, it will be minor updates, maybe even to existing features rather than the big stuff, which will be WWDC. One quote I found perplexing and fascinating

from the SmartGerman article on Bloomberg is John Turner's senior vice president of Apple Hardware Engineering has been playing a central role in the smart home efforts and sees it as central to the company's future growth. I find that fascinating. Like, Turner's loves a smart home, turns out,

and they're developing products for that. And I'm surprised by that, and I wonder what that means in the future? Look at wearable, Wearable's home and accessories is a category that has stalled out. Yeah, big time. And the key here is future growth. Like,

I think he believes that Apple can popularize smart home devices that have been, I mean, we've been in a smart home era for a long time now, but it's still like uptake is really spotty and they're very nerdy and it's very, it's kind of iffy. And he'd say, this is an opportunity for us to enter a category that's not very strong with a bunch of Apple stuff that is really focused.

at, you know, home control and doorbell and security camera and whatever else. Like, and again, it's not central to the company's revenue, but it's central to the company's future growth. I can see that, the idea that they could create a new category and generate new revenue growth, which Wall Street likes to see. And it makes you part of being an Apple customer, that now your home is controlled by your iPhone. It fits in the ecosystem, right?

I mean, that's their great advantage. And again, their competitors, aren't doing it. Like, that's the other thing is there are, there are standout products here and there, but it's not like, you know, oh, well, everybody has an Amazon Echo now. And like, and I can tell you, like, they're bad.

They're bad. So there's plenty of opportunity here for Apple to try and redefine this. I don't know if it'll work or not, but like, I get where he's coming from. I think that there's an opportunity here for Apple because I think the stuff that's out there is generally not good enough and they could do better.

I felt that way five years ago, too, but, you know, what took them so long. But apparently AI failing is one of the reasons it took them so long. But maybe they'll get there. Apparently, there is a HomePod Mini and Apple TV update that are also waiting for Apple Intelligence. So if you've been wondering why they didn't do that either, that's why it's also holding those products up. Wow. Ming Chi Kuo has updated a previous report that he made on the production of what became the MacBook Neo.

So Kuo was reporting on this years ago. It was one of the things that really lit the things that really lit the fact. fuel into this product is going to be a thing. Quote previously stated that he expected the second version of this product would have a touchscreen, but is now saying he does not expect that to happen in the 2027 product release. I expect here that Apple is deciding to make touchscreen a premium thing on the MacBook Pro for a while. While it does make a lot of sense, I think, to put a touchscreen on the MacBook Neo, maybe give it a little bit longer. I don't know what the cost, the out of cost is. bunch of cheap laptops that do have

touchscreens so they could do it but it does seem like a differentiator and remember everything is all about holding down the cost of this thing so I didn't that didn't make sense to me that report so I'm kind of glad he's walking it back kind of give him credit though like July

of last year he said 13 inch display A18 Pro processor colors silver blue pink and yellow like yeah and he said they project five to seven million units sold

this was last July and I think that's I think that's really cool remember this this goes back a long way to digit times in 2024 so this has been hanging out there for a while but yeah I think the touchscreen thing is

doesn't make sense to me I would be surprised if we see a touchscreen on anything but the MacBook Pro for a little while yeah and the information is reporting that Apple has decided and ultimately to ask Google to set up servers for their future Gemini-powered Siri features that they're working on.

If you remember, there have been previous reporting that it was a consideration that they may use Google to power this rather than using their own private cloud compute infrastructure. Apparently Apple's made that decision now and this is where they think they're going to need to go. In this report, the information also shares that about 10% of Apple and the digital requests are going to private cloud compute and that their servers, they have servers that are

essentially unused because of this, because of how little data they're getting. And I wished I had taken screenshots of this, but I've been noticing over the last few days, not really changed, I don't think anything's changed, but maybe I've just been using Siri a little bit more. And I was so surprised at what I thought was still very basic questions that would say, going to check GPT to get the answer. Stuff like Times. own conversions and things like that. Like, it was still going out to chat GPD to get the questions for, to get the answers to those questions.

And you figure, can private cloud compute not do this? Like, what are we doing? So, yeah, I was, again, it's not great reporting because I don't remember the exact questions, but it happened like two or three times where I was genuinely surprised to see it say asking chat GPT for the answer. But yeah, I do wonder, private cloud compute was. in part created because Apple anticipated they'd be using their own models.

And they have also been, I think, conservative about what they send to private cloud compute versus on device so that you can see that in that they're only using 10%. And then Google announced their private infrastructure as well, which since Apple chose Google,

I suspect that what this means is that Apple feels like if they're using Google's models on Google's servers, but it's in this private context where they can say, this is all private and secure. And Apple and Google don't know anything about your data and all of that. The same argument as private cloud compute, it's effectively the same. And I think that that's what they'll probably say. But the question is, in the long run, what happens to the private cloud compute infrastructure? Are they going to

keep it? Are they going to throw stuff at it? Are they going to work with Google to try and get some stuff that runs on it? What are they going to do with it? Because it potentially is a legacy of the previous strategy and not the current strategy. What a mess. Years of work. Well, yeah, I mean, this is all the fallout of the failures of 2024. I think it's if they get it all together and they pick up the pieces and it works, then it doesn't matter.

It is a mess, but like sticking with the old strategy was worse. right. So throwing that away and doing something new. Also, there was a piece that went around that I don't want to like super endorse, but Horace Daydard wrote a piece that went around, I think group or link to it about Apple's investment in AI and how Apple has not done the massive capital investment that other companies have done. And I mean, we've talked about this a little bit too. Like we don't know where this AI thing is going to go ultimately. and who the winners are going to be. And there's a thought like, well, if it's a bubble,

Apple will have avoided spending all this money on something when the bubble pops. If it's successful, but everybody's got a version of AI and you can just pay Google a fee to run Google's AI, Apple has avoided paying billions and billions and billions of dollars in infrastructure investments because they can just rent space on Google. and that's a good move for them. It is like, don't get me wrong, Apple has tried to a certain degree and failed with AI. Yes.

But what they haven't tried is massive infrastructure investments like some of the other tech companies have. And part of me thinks that that's because, I mean, this goes back to Luca Maestri, like saying, I'm not going to give you all of those servers that you want, John Gend and Dre. I think it was GPUs. Yeah.

Yeah. So Horace's argument is it might end up being that the Apple strategy works for them because they didn't need to spend all that money, especially on the hardware infrastructure, leaving their problems with their AI models aside. They don't need that hardware infrastructure. They can just pay Google a billion dollars a year for it instead. And I think that that's a possible outcome here, which is really interesting, that Apple ends up looking pretty good. because they didn't join the rush that everybody else did. And I think the example here that is, I would have two examples here, which is X-A-I and meta, where both of those companies are spending enormous amounts of money on infrastructure and on models. And maybe I'll be proven wrong,

but I don't look at either of those two companies and think that they're going to make it on this. And there was that conversation about how much money meddles. this was part of what Horace wrote about, a conversation about how much money meta spent on all of this AI stuff. And then they were also rumored

to be talking to Google about using Gemini. Yeah, that's wild, that story, right? That like, they seem to be so far behind that they may need to also use Google stuff for whatever it is that building. I think that, I think there are too many companies

spending too much money on hardware and on model development because they can't all, they can't all win, right? And I look at XAI and I look at meta and I think there's no way. And if that's true, and I'm just a person on the outside who only has a, you know, a layman's view of this, but I'll just say, I look at that and I think they have just wasted enormous amounts of money and they're never going to get there. But they, they are diluting themselves into thinking that there's still players in this game.

And in that context, Apple not spending a lot of money on model development and it bit them, I get it, and not spending an enormous amount of money on infrastructure, could end up being okay. We'll see. I'm not trying to excuse Apple's failure in doing models

because they wanted to do good models and they've just flopped. They belly flopped at it. They fired, or they're ushering out. John G and Andrea. They have a new strategy and they have a deal with Google. But like in the end, if they've got if they execute on the part

that they haven't yet executed on, I'm just saying, do we think Apple was ever going to be a frontier model with an enormous GPU infrastructure for this stuff? Like, it never really made sense for Apple. It never really did.

And they may get away with it. That part I think is interesting. Like they may get away with it. And meanwhile, they're just taking all that money and they're putting in the bank or they're buying shares or whatever they're doing to increase their stock price. I think it's an interesting idea that maybe inside Apple, at least part of Apple understood Apple as a company and what it is good at and what it's bad at. And maybe it was the declining to buy all those GPUs. Maybe it was saying we're going to make a little private cloud infrastructure, but not a big one. Maybe that was Apple understanding that it was never going to be Amazon or Google at that scale.

Like it was or open AI. Yeah. Maybe they might get, and that's my point is like they may get away with it. We'll see. I think it is a decent take. It's a good take. It's potentially quite a charitable take, I think, from Horace. Like, because one of the things that I look at, and I'm not, I don't think I believe this.

but I can see it as a possible scenario or like a comparison. So you go back to the beginning of the Mac, Apple thought it was important enough to build their own operating systems. IBM were happy licensing from Microsoft. And then, you know, move forward into time, Apple made the right decision

in building its own thing. What if this is like that, right? And instead of them being able to build their own large language model, they're the one that's licensing and they never get to have the control and freedom that they would want. I'm simplifying it, but I can see there being a thing there of like, yes, I understand how complicated it is, but it's not that it's not within their DNA to build their own.

They're just not able to. I, but here's the thing that, this is why Horace is focused on infrastructure is I don't think it's about building a model. Like Apple tried to build a model and failed. Could Apple have built a good model? Maybe under different leadership. Could they try it now? Maybe. Or they could buy a company that's got a better model.

Maybe. What they aren't and they never were is Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and now, and OpenAI, building enormous server farms to crank out giant cloud model behavior. I don't think Apple was ever going to be that. I don't think Apple was ever going to do what was required, nor were they that interested in building out something like chat GPT or Gemini or anything that Microsoft and Amazon have

in terms of their enormous cloud focus. Apple's not a cloud company, right? They're not a cloud company. And that's a debate that can be had because you could say, well, they should have seen it coming. Sotia Nadella saw it coming. And maybe that will be true. But I would argue that you look at what Apple is good at

and you need to know, like, they were never going to be good at that. It's just not their, it's not in their DNA. They were never going to be good at that part of it. And so they didn't build it and they aren't spending the money on that stuff. The model might come back to bite them, although I still think, and if it doesn't, it's not because they didn't try to do it. It's not because they declined to build their own model, right? It's because they failed at it.

And that's why it can come across as a defensive apple in a way that it shouldn't, because they did try to make a good model and they flopped. And they fired the guy who was in charge of it, right? Like, all of that is true. But the other part of it, like, if it turns out that models are readily available for a fee, and cloud infrastructure is rentable for a fee, and that Apple doesn't need that model to be bespoke Apple model for them to compete,

then they may get away with it. That's how I read it all is that after all of this, Apple might get away with not having to spend all that money on all this AI stuff. And I thought I've had that fascinating because by any measure Apple's AI up to now has been a complete abject failure. I just think it's funny that they may get away with it in the end. Or also if you dig into history at a different point, maybe they buy a company like they bought next and they use that to power something. Exactly. If there is a bubble that bursts. and there are companies that could be had somewhat on the cheap,

I do think that that is not beyond the realm of possibility that Apple would then swoop in and take somebody who's got a really great model and use it. I think that that's another, and again, that would be in the category of Apple got away with it. We'll see. We'll see. There's a risk that they didn't get away with it. But if Apple fails because they didn't build their own model,

fair enough, because that was a failure of theirs, a competitive model. If Apple fails ultimately because truly what mattered was having the giant cloud infrastructure to run models, I don't think Apple was ever going to succeed at that. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is a little bit like not having a case for your phone. Most of the time, you're going to be fine, but all it takes is one drop. I have made those drops. And you'll wish you will have spent a few extra dollars on that added protection.

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And desktop Macs are not focus. Like it mattered a lot to get a more affordable laptop. That is the one. Most of the Macs that are sold are laptops. I'm not sure that the people buying the Mac Mini need to have a $399 Mac Mini that's running on a phone processor. I'm just not sure it's necessary in that category. Is it possible? Sure.

Wouldn't it be cool if they made a super lightweight Mac Mini that was cheaper? But I just don't think it's a priority because I think putting an M processor in there is good enough for that market, which is a different market. Because it's a very, you know, desktops in general are a different market. You have to have a display and pointing devices and stuff. It's a totally different kind of thing. So they could do it. the thing that I kept thinking, not to hijack Andrew's question here,

but like the thing that I kept thinking was what this really shows you is that if you wanted to do a Mac mode on an iPhone or an iPad, you totally could, right? Not that we didn't know that already, but like it's an iPhone, like what it means is that other than disk space

and memory or whatever, like you could plug an iPhone maybe into a display and reboot into Mac mode and it would be a Mac that would be perfectly fine. I think that's really funny. I don't think they're ever going to do it, but they're making all these products out of the same component parts. So I think it's a great example of how powerful that phone in our pocket is.

But I don't think they'll do a desktop with it, even though they could because I just don't think they feel there's a need. Edward writes in it says, Jason, how excited are you to watch the two new Lost Doctor Who episodes? I also noticed you editing the Wikipedia article for the show. Yeah, I heard about this, like, minutes after it broke, and I thought, I went to look at the missing episodes page on Wikipedia, and then I saw that it wasn't updated.

And I was like, well, I could update it. I could just press edit and update it, and that would be a fun way. And it also was a Thursday night, and Lauren was at work, and so I had nothing better to do. So I edited that page. I thought that was kind of a fun thing for me to do. Well, am I excited to watch them? I mean, these are Doctor Who episodes from the 60s. they're not very exciting

they're more of a historic interest than anything else but I do love a missing episode I'm more excited about the fact that they are finding 60 plus years later they are finding episodes that had been lost that were in like somebody's collection in their attic and they died and they left them to a charity

that is designed to do just this you told me this story yeah it's generally called film is fabulous and the whole idea is they're all these collectors who have this stuff, and they know that nobody else has seen it, but they love that they've got it and nobody else does,

but they're all very old and dying. And so this charity exists to remind them that even if their kids and grandkids or whatever don't care about their collection, they care and they will take good care of it and find good homes for the stuff that is special. And it's a smart way to like, it's almost like a little bit of a social game

of, you know, we are going to create a safe place. Also, some of them feared legal repercussions. Like, I'm not supposed to have this. And I possess it. So am I going to get in trouble? Are the BBC cops going to come? So it's a cool idea. And in this case, it's somebody who died and they were a collector.

And film is fabulous went through and they found these two episodes of Doctor Who that literally haven't been seen since the 60s. And were thought completely lost. And they're back. And so I'm excited by the concept of it. And sure, I'll look at them when they're available. But also that black and white, Doctor Who from that era where they were recorded an episode every week

was not that exciting. No. But I love the idea of bringing back these lost episodes when there were, there are still like so many episodes from the 60s that were junked because the BBC saw no future in rewatching old episodes of anything. So they just like threw them, through the videotapes away or wiped. My favorite is they wiped some of the videotapes

so they could use them again. I hate that. Film history is important and television history. They didn't know. History at the time, though. It was just a TV show. I know, they didn't think it was relevant.

There was no home video. Yep. And in the case of that story, the international partners declined it because it was apparently too violent for them. Most of the missing episodes that have been found over the years were film prints

sent overseas. But this episode never went overseas. So how this all came to exist, it's kind of a... So I just love it from a historic standpoint, because William Hartnell, Black and White, Dr. Who, it's fine. I mean, it's just... It's a fascinating document. I like thinking about how Star Trek, the original,

was being made the same time as those Doctor Who episodes. And, like, there are documents of the 60s. There's a... I found on the film's fabulous website, they have, like, some statements on Doctor Who, and it seems like they may have caused a bit of a kerfuffle in the community because they've issued multiple statements.

One of them is very funny to me where I think I'm not sure if they're intending it to do this but it's doing the exact opposite

I think that they're trying to do so statement film is fabulous do not have any other missing episodes of Doctor Who we are not

holding any missing episodes back to announce at the special screening on Saturday the 4th of April that makes it sound like

they absolutely do have them right when I read that I'm like I think you do but I don't think you do but I think you Because the fans are really excited about the idea that there are many more out there.

There are lots of rumors about that. There have been rumors going around for a while. And they're like, easy. Calm it down. That's how it reads to me. My paper part of this story is that there's a guy Peter Purvis who is a well-known person in the UK. He did Blue Peter for the kids show for many years. He was one of the co-stars of these episodes.

He's still alive. And again, this is like 1966 or something. Like, it was a long time ago now, in 1996. And so they lured him to a theater saying that he was going to be asked questions about TV production in the 60s. And when he got there, they said, that was a lie. We found your episode, an episode you did that he had not seen ever. He acted in it 60 years ago and had never seen it. So they watched it.

So pulled a prank on this old man. And then they get to the end and he's like, oh, that was amazing. And then they said, guess what? There's another one too. And then they showed him the next one. He's like, this is incredible. So I think that's just kind of adorable that they took an actor who hasn't seen that work.

And he was thrilled in part because, right, that was work that just he did the work and there was no trace of it remaining. And he got those episodes back. So, yeah, it's a fun. I just love the topic. Again, I don't love the missing episodes so much as I love the topic of trying to find,

try to coax these film collectors to give in their secret thing that nobody has seen in 60 years. I love that. That's such a cool idea. Yeah. John says, what do you think of the possible?

of the OLED MacBook being a new ultra tier above the pro, could Apple really make four tiers of portable Macs work? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think the new

OLED MacBook Pro will come in in in Pro and Max versions, and they will keep the existing one. We'll get a base M6 processor in the existing case for an affordable price, and then these two will cost more and be amazing. and then over time, maybe they drift down a little bit,

and eventually in a couple generations, that low-end model will pick up the OLED and the touchscreen and all of that. I think that's what they'll do. I don't think they need premium and ultra-premium tiers. I think it would just be confusing. I don't think they're going to do that. There's so much precedent for them doing exactly what you're saying, of like, there's now another MacBook Pro in the lineup,

and it will be there until the middle one goes away. Also, I mean, it's also possible, that they'll do something weird like bifurcate where there's like a there's like a smaller one that's in the old style and there's a larger one that's in the new style that like only one size gets the OLED touchscreen. Yeah, maybe. But I think

it'll all be MacBook Pro. Yeah, I think we'll end up with the MacBook Pro line will be the 14 inch with the regular processor, the current 14 and 16 with the M5 and whatever or whatever chips they put in it. And then there will be another 14 and 16

with OLED touchscreens. But they'll all be just And you just all MacBook Pro and you just go choose what you want. That's what I think they'll do. I don't know if they'll even do that. I think it might be even simpler than that. But we'll see. I'm looking forward to seeing how they try it. But I don't think, I think they'll all be MacBook Pro and I think that they'll keep it simple.

And they'll just say, like, if you want the OLED, pay more money. That's right. Like, just pay more money. That's their highest end laptop. I just think they might do what they did with the MacBook Air, right? When they redid that of like, this is more expensive and you can still buy the old ones and they'll do that for a little bit. The M6 processor is so capable that I don't think they need to make old style M6 Pro and Macbook Pros because those are high-end. They're going to be expensive anyway.

And yeah, so I would be surprised if they keep them around at that level. But maybe it's possible by like many hundreds of dollars. Yeah, we'll see. So that's what makes you think. And Joseph asks, this is a good question. I think we've had this before, but I like to ask these questions every now and again. Joseph says, I'm curious if embargoed information has ever caused an issue of a draft. Is there a time when you guys have been making draft picks, but Jason already secretly knew something that Mike didn't?

I don't think so. Now, I believe if I could go back far, there has been a time, I think, during COVID. But what we did, we did not include picks about that thing. I do not remember this in detail. No, that sounds right. COVID timelines was so weird that I think there was something that you knew about and then potentially by extension I knew about. So we just didn't. So we just didn't pick it.

Yeah. I will say it's very rare because what embargoes. So like embargoes, modern Apple embargoes tend to be the long ones are for reviews, right? So I got a MacBook Neo. Yeah. on Thursday, the day I came back from New York, the after I came back from New York, came back Wednesday night. On Thursday, FedEx shows up.

I've got a Mac with me out. That was under embargo until the following Tuesday morning. So I had that time to write the review. But, and we have done that. I have been on podcasts where I have had to talk about it based on what I learned not under embargo and not talk about any of my personal experiences. had it where I had to say, you know, here's what my speculative story about what an A-16 Macbook would be like in terms of speed when I actually know exactly what the MacMEO is like.

Yeah. So I've been on, not the draft, but I've been on podcasts where I've had to pretend, like the Sex Colors podcast on that Friday, I had to talk about the Neo in the context of what I'd seen in New York and not the fact that I had one in front of me, right? Which was one of the reasons that we decided to delay last week's episode. so you didn't have to do that. I didn't have to do that. And also, I wanted to add those things to upgrade. So that's part of it.

There are occasionally news embargoes. So I'll give you an example. When I was on vacation last year, I got an email from Apple saying, we want to give you a briefing under embargo. I'm like, oh, geez, I'm on vacation. But I'm like, okay, all right. And I got this.

In my hotel room, I got this briefing. And it was the M4, no, yes, M4 MacBook Air. Sky Blue and the Mac Mini or Mac Studio with the like M3 Ultra. Yeah. That was a surprise. Those were an announcement together. Those were embargoed for the next morning at 6 a.m. So when Apple does news embargoes where they're literally telling you things about products

that have not been announced, those are much rarer. And because like I'll tell you. the iPhone doesn't get embargoed for news. People show up and they tell you, and everybody is surprised. Those are not getting embargoed. But for Macs and stuff, like an iPad,

sometimes that'll happen, where they're giving you the news in advance and you write up a story so you don't have to do it like right then. So I ended up sitting by the pool and wrote two stories about, one about the MacBook Air and the sky blue and one about the weird Mac Studio.

And those set to post at 6 a.m. Pacific the next day. Could those theoretically interfere with a draft? I mean, yeah, but it's extremely unlikely because those are rare embargoes and it's very unlikely that they would occur with a podcast recording happening between the embargo, let alone a draft. So, you know, I'd say the most that it happens is I know there's something that I've been scheduled to be briefed on when we do the draft. In fact, this is true of our last draft. I didn't just have a briefing about the product that got announced Monday morning. I knew I had a briefing Tuesday morning. I didn't know what it was and all the rumors were out there anyway.

So I didn't have any facts, but I did know that I had a briefing. Did that impact the draft in any way? Well, no. And Mike is informed enough to know that we'll just move those things out. So sometimes I know things in advance, but generally it's only for reviews. And generally the timing is so tight in anything else that it wouldn't matter. So the most I ever have to do is only talk about my experience with the hands-on or with the seeing the news. And I try to compartmentalize my review part until the review embargo drops.

That's the most that happens. If you would like to send us a question of your own or you have any feedback or follow-up for today's show, please go to Upgradefeedback.com and send that in. Thank you to our members to support us who have Upgrade Plus. This week, Jason, I have a shocking surprise for you.

I can't wait. You can go to GetUpGrabPlus.com to learn more. You can find us on YouTube by searching for the Upgrade podcast. Thank you to our sponsors for this week's episode. That is ExpressVPN, Squarespace and FitBod. But most of all, thank you for listening.

We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.