Upgrade - 615: But in Citrus!

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

From Relay, this is Upgrade episode 615. Today's show is brought to you by Century, FitBud, Keeper, and ExpressVPN. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Hello, Mike Hurley. It's good to be here again. As always. As always.

As always. Until next week when you're not here. That's true. Next week, I'm going to be away. And so you're going to have a guest to fill in, which I'm most excited about. Because I love listening to the show when I'm not on it. I've asked Stephen Hackett to fill in. Perfect. So that way we can maintain relay co-founder continuity.

It's very important. I couldn't ask for anybody better. And he's not on a tech podcast anymore, is he? That's very true. He doesn't do any of those. I can't think of one. There isn't one. I have a snow talk question for you. It comes from Darren who says, I just watched the video of Jason's new door lock on his review that you spoke about a few weeks ago, and I couldn't help but notice the color of his front door.

Always peeping. Always peeping those pixels, aren't you? I have to ask, Jason, was it deliberate that you made your door TARDis Blue? I'm watching Doctor Who for the first time, and every time I see that shade of blue in the world now, I can't help but think of the famous police box. Darren, it was deliberate. Oh, my God. It was. It's literally, literally, I got the pantone color of the David Tennant, I think. police box and gave it to our painter and said this is the color we would like our door to be.

Fantastic. In fact, and the door, it may not have showed up in the video, but the door has four little glass windows at the top of it. And the shape of the door and the placement of the windows I also chose because I felt it would be TARDIS-esque. So, yeah, that was it. That front door is the homage to Doctor Who. And the reason that we like it is because if you know, you know, and no one else will notice.

It's just a blue door. It's just very nice. Darren is. But if you know, you know. And just like the TARDIS, the snow house is bigger on the inside. Bigger on the inside. If only it were bigger on the inside, that would be really nice because it's very small on the inside and the outside. Well, you've done your best.

You know, you expand it into the garage, right? So this kind of makes it a little bit bigger. I guess. I guess that's true. You'd think that was where the cars go, but actually, that's where the podcasts happened. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It does contain multitudes. There's no doubt about that. If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question to open a future episode of the show, it's very easy. Just go to Upgradefeedback.com and send in yours. Thank you, Darren, for that great question. We have some follow-up, Jason Snell. We have some upgrading us that have written in with some thoughts today that I want to share.

Sophia's wrote in and said, regarding the ultra-naming for the upcoming iPhone and maybe MacBook Pro, perhaps instead of features and like what the feature set is determining Ultra, it could just be simply going up the price ladder. The name's essentially saying how expensive something is. The only thing consistent about the iPhone Air, iPad Air, MacBook Air is that they're placed between the regular models and the pro models. Perhaps this is the same vein, but for the top end. I heard, we got, I feel like a lot of feedback about that.

about our ultra Mac conversation. My problem with the Mac conversation, and there's more to come here, but my problem with the Mac conversation is, I feel like if you're going to add another level, you're probably committing to doing it for a long time, and I'm just not sure there's four levels of differentiation in Mac laptops that need to exist.

That are consistently you can keep them on. In fact, one of the criticisms people have about the iPad sometimes is like, what is the air? and leaving the mini out of it because it's a different kind of product. Like, there's only three. So, you know, how are the four laptops differentiated? And I just, I struggle with the idea of what the MacBook Pro is

if there's a MacBook Ultra. There's some challenges there. I'm not against Ultra as a name to differentiate a product line. And I don't think it needs to necessarily mean anything other than what Apple wants it to mean. Right? And that can vary per product. I just, it's the MacBook Pro itself. Like, that's a very popular,

successful way to differentiate a product. I'm not sure there's another one above it. I'm not sure what that does to the MacBook Pro if you put it there. And I'm not sure how long do you have the ability to keep it going. Matthew wrote in and said, I want to guess that with the expected split

in the iPhone announcements, that they could actually do this to the iPhone 2, the iPhone Neo, iPhone Air, iPhone Pro, and iPhone Ultra. Then bring it all into alignment with the Mac and other products. We have each moniker being sold as standing for something specific.

The Neo, fun and value-focused consumer. Air is fashion, style, and portability. Pro, camera, and video, creator-focus, and ultra-bleeding-edge technology for new adopters. Sure. I guess what I would say is, I understand our human,

I was going to say our listeners, but really it's just our human desire to... Patents. To directly quote Matthew, bring it all into alignment. Yeah. But I will tell you, we want Apple to do everything

in a way where we can make a spreadsheet out of it and put it in perfect understanding and alignment. And I'm, Apple, Apple doesn't because Apple wants to make money and maximize the success of every product. And putting everything in a nice, tidy box is nice and it's human nature, I would say, or at least for some humans, it is human nature to want everything in a nice, tidy box with a nice, tidy label and be consistent. But in the

end, if you're in a meeting at Apple and you say, well, I know we could do something that we think is beneficial to the Mac or to the iPhone, but it will mean that we are stepping outside of this nice, tidy label that we've given for this thing. The answer is going to be, wait, we're going to make more money. We'll then do it. Right. And the tidiness is going to drop away. So while I understand, And I think that as like more broad guidelines, I think we are all intuiting now what Neo means and how you might apply that elsewhere. We've intuited what air means to a certain extent. It doesn't really mean the same thing everywhere. Like we pro obviously as a word Apple uses, it has a definition of it. It is much looser than I think the literal definition, right, which is like an iPhone pro is not necessarily a professional's iPhone, right?

It means something else. So I know we want these words to have meaning, but they are also marketing terms. And while they do have meaning, the meeting is loose and it can shift. And it is not necessarily like what the dictionary would tell you that word means. Because Apple defines what it means. So I just don't expect them ever to bring it all into alignment.

Because every product line is different, right? Like the Mac is not the iPhone. And they're going to make the right decision for the Mac and the right decision for the iPhone. and that's that's like I I wouldn't expect that the iPhone 17e is going to be replaced by the iPhone 18 Neo or iPhone Neo 18 or just the iPhone Neo 2027 I don't expect that to happen they could do it if they wanted to but I don't think you know just to bring it all into alignment yeah I agree although I do like as a way for me at least to think about what ultra could mean being kind of more edge case kind of technology. as opposed to necessarily the most,

which is how I've been thinking about it, that's at least kind of like a thing that I can square in my mind. Sure, sure. And this, I mean, this kind of takes us to, to our next piece of follow-up because the challenge here to me and my stumbling block with MacBook Ultra

is we can define it as cutting edge. We know what's coming, presumably, with the M6. I have a hard time, imagining that the cutting edge remains there every year and also the MacBook Pro is relevant beneath it. That's my challenge with it.

It's more ongoing. So let's move on to the next piece of feedback and then we can talk about it a little more. Dan says, even though it might sound ridiculous, what if they took a cue from the iPhone and called it the MacBook Pro Max? There's precedent for the iPhone Pro Max to have exclusive features that let

that later trickle down to the regular iPhone Pro Pro. Just don't think too hard about someone owning a MacBook Pro Max of M5 Macs processor. Or a MacBook Pro Max with an M5 Processor. Does the M5, the MacBook Pro Max get a Max and a MacBook Pro gets a pro? Or would it be the MacBook Max? It's a Mac and it's Max? I mean, fine, it's the same argument as Ultra, I think. I guess it puts it within the MacBook Pro category,

but the iPhone Pro Max is a product, right? It is a larger version of the same product in most cases, most years. Sometimes it has a few variations on it. But it's also there every year. So I like the idea of maybe there's a way to say that this is a MacBook Pro, you know, plus a little bit more as a way to differentiate it, which brings me to an important history lesson from the aforementioned Stephen Hackett, who mentioned to us last week after listening to Upgrade

that when Apple came out with the MacBook Pro, the first MacBook Pro with a retina display, and remember it was much more expensive than the regular MacBook Pro, but it was the first MacBook Pro with a retina display. I remember getting one of these, a reunion of these at WWDC, and that was when we were having our terrorist party at MacW. world. And I remember Marco Arment was like, do you have it? Can I see it? And I like, I remember going and getting my review unit and bringing it out onto the terrace where everybody could, well,

not everybody, but Marco and people around Marco all looked at it. Right. That, that product was marketed as the MacBook Pro with retina display. And it was a differentiator within the MacBook Pro line and for a limited amount of time. And that, I'm glad Stephen brought it up because that fits better to me. The idea, because this is, this is the thing.

Because to be clear, that, that had a different design too. It wasn't just that it had a retina display. Like it would sound like, oh, this is just the one with the retina display. No, it was like a brand new laptop that featured a retina display and they carried on selling the

existing MacBook pros alongside it. until the inevitable moment when all of them had retina displays and they didn't need to differentiate it anymore. But what they wanted to do was keep selling the MacBook Pro, non-retna, at the price points that they sold them at, while also selling this thing,

which was much more expensive, as a cutting-edge product. And the beauty of that was that it happened and then it ended and was absorbed back into the normal part of the line. And this is the stumbling block I have with this idea that people have had. It's like, oh yeah, it's going to be

MacBook Ultra is okay I get it it's going to have OLED it's going to have a touchscreen it's going to be a new generation of design that will then hold onto for a few years my problem with it is is a MacBook Pro never going to have an OLED display

is a MacBook Pro never going to have a touchscreen are other MacBooks never going to have OLED never going to have a touchscreen it feels to me based on every other Mac or Apple product line that probably eventually some or all of those features will trickle down. Now, I know, like, the iPad Air doesn't have an OLED display. Okay. Like, every, but the iPhone 17 does.

So my challenge here is if every MacBook Pro is going to have OLED, or, you know, over five years, every MacBook Pro is going to get OLED. There's going to be this kind of typical transition where you have the high-end, new cutting edge model and then over time, it just kind of trickles down. Then do you need, do you launch Ultra and then have it fade away and say, well, the Ultra is gone, it's just the pro now and they all have it?

And that's what I like about this suggestion, that maybe this enables Apple to continue selling what we think of as the MacBook Pro today. And then at a much higher price point, sell this new model and call it MacBook Pro with super whatever OLED touch blah, right?

And not give it a new product line because that's my stumbling block is I don't see how you need to do a new product line when you're turning over laptop generations in order to add some new features that are eventually going to be in all the MacBook pros but can't really be quite yet.

I just, because that feels like a commitment to me. Now Apple doesn't, Apple plays by its own rules. Apple could stop and say like, yeah, we'll just do Ultra for a little, for a couple years. we'll stop. Like, they could make that decision.

I just, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Whereas Stephen's suggestion of like, remember the MacBook Pro with retina display, why don't we do another MacBook Pro? Like, it's like a variant of the MacBook Pro that's higher end. And that would, that would

do something that I wasn't expecting. I was expecting that what they would do is they would sell the M6 Touch OLED MacBook Pro. And then they'd also sell a base M6 in the old design down lower in the price list. But I thought it would be sort of like the pro and max models would be up there and then the base one would be down there. This would enable them to sell all of them in variations for a year or two and just say, take your pick.

We got the ones down here that are cheap and we got the ones down up here that are incredibly expensive but have this amazing display that you've never gotten on a Mac before. Hooray! So I like this idea. And this and this and this. Like there will be other things. Of course. This apparently is going to be a full redesign of the MacBook Pro. Yeah.

And it allows them to introduce it, sell it. Because I think part of the importance here is what they don't want to do. They sell a lot of MacBook Pros, right? And it's an important product for them and it's got great margin and it's their, you know, it's their pro laptop. What you don't want to do is say all of those people who used to buy, MacBook Pros with a pro chip in them at 14 or 16. Well, that computer's gone. And instead, we've got this OLED touchscreen version that's really cutting edge and cool,

but it's also like $1,000 more. And we're not selling the other one again. That's the danger, right? That's what they are trying to avoid, I think, with a scenario like this, is if you can't make the prices close enough that it's okay to just have the regular spread of three MacBook Pros, If you can't do that, then add a couple at the top for a couple of years until finally you can do a refresh at M8, let's say, where they all have it and it doesn't matter anymore. And also, you know, it gives them, I'm sure they feel very confident, but it gives them the opportunity to not make touchscreens the default across the MacBook Pro line because maybe customers won't like it. Maybe it's not going to, and at least maybe gives them maybe more time to make that a better experience.

then maybe version 1 as such. Yeah. Also, last week we spoke about how Apple stopped selling the 256 gigabytes SSC storage option for the Mac Mini, so essentially raising the starting price of the Mac Mini to 799. Four days later, they cut the 32 and 64 gigabyte of RAM configuration options from the Mac Mini. So now the Mac Mini is still 799 with 16 gigabytes of RAM, or you can upgrade it to 24 or 48 gigabytes. Along with this, the M3 Ultra Mac Studio can no longer have 256 gigabytes of RAM.

It is only available in 96. It's the only option for the M3 Ultra Max Studio. This is interesting to me in two ways, with the Mac Mini, especially. The M3 Ultra, I think everybody could see that that was coming, that they were going to get rid of the really high RAM option for that because it becomes ridiculous at a certain point. But the Mac Mini one is weird because they made a change and then four days later made another change.

So what happened in those four days? Why didn't they do them both at the same time? The other thing that's interesting to me is that other than the starting configuration, you can only upgrade to 24 or 48 gigabytes, which are like those weird non-standard amounts of RAM. I wonder if there's something in that that like whatever it is they're doing for even because it gets 24 or 48 I wonder if there's something

rather than the 36 or 64 so anyway that it just stands out to me that they're the two that are left available but this is very strange to me that what happened it was four days difference why not do it once obviously things are things are happening and they're dealing with them I want to throw into the mix here a thing that that I haven't heard a lot of people talking about that I want to remind people about, which is there's been no M5 update for these systems.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's another part of this, right? It's like, these systems are also at the end of their lives. And how much of this is RAM limitations and all of that, and how much of this is them also being really aggressive about what configurations they are either still manufacturing or have manufactured and are managing because they don't want to make too many of the M4s if they're about to switch over to an M5 version, right? Because that's the other thing that's probably going on here is they're going to

switch over. These are going to be at the end of their lives and there's going to be new models that have the M5. And what's up with that? Also, the M3 Ultramac Studio is a great example. Like, is there an M5 Ultramac Studio coming? And, you know, or maybe it may not. Who knows? But it just adds complexity. Could also be a scenario where they've had to push those revisions out a little bit longer, right? Absolutely. It's possible that they have, especially since those are M5, which means they work on a very specific process. And maybe if they're having a system on the chip limitations on their processes, switching more max over to the M5 process from the M4 process might be something they don't want to do.

Yep. So, yeah, we very rarely get to watch Apple do supply chain management in real time because they want to be a black box and just have it all work. And they work very hard to make this stuff not visible to the outside, to guarantee that they've got what they need to do what they want to do. and we just are right now in a period where they're not able to do that. It's first time since, really since COVID that we've seen anything like this in terms of disruption. Since 2020, 2021.

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The listeners of this show can use the code to upgrade 26 to get $100 in Century credits if you're a new user. That is S-E-N-T-R-Y-O and the code Upgrade 26. Our thanks to Century for their support of this show and all of Relay. All right, so, speaking of supply chain issues, a few weeks ago, we spoke about Tim Culpin's reporting on Apple needing to make a decision about how they would deal with demand for the MacBook Neo.

Essentially, it was outperforming to the level that they were running out of the Bind A-18 Prochips that the Neo needs. And then last week, when we spoke about the earnings call, we got a bit of, we got a bit of color from Tim saying that, yes, the MacBook Neo had indeed exceeded their expectations. And then also at different points of the call they were talking about, their biggest bottleneck is actually TSM's advanced nodes right now more than it is RAM or anything else. So that's kind of added to the, yes, you can see how this has become a problem. Colpin laid out a few scenarios in his first report for how Apple could deal with this situation

and the one that Apple appears to have chosen is to pay what is needed to TSMC to produce more new A18 Pro chips to fulfill MacBook Neo demand. So it was a reminder they use bin chips. It used the chips that were being made essentially for the iPhone. The ones that weren't good enough for the iPhone. They were keeping aside for other products. The Neo was one of them. So according to Tim Colpum, Apple are preparing its various suppliers who produce all different parts of the machine to produce another 10 million units of the MacBook Neo.

I think it's to produce 10 million units. I think they were going to do five and now they're going to do 10. So I think it's an additional. Thank you. They're now expecting an additional five overall 10 million total A18 Pro MacBook Neo's. Great, great clarification. Thank you. And because this is an additional supply of chips,

it's expected that Apple will need to, in some instances, probably most instances, disable a GPU core. So it's in line with what the machine inspectors, because then you would have all these new machines that have six GPU cores. Right. Because what they're doing is they're going back, Culpin calls it a hot lot, which is basically like,

we need another bunch of this thing, and they're going to have to pay to do that. And because presumably they were not producing A18 pros, and they're going to need more of them. But the A18 Pro design has more GPU cores than are in the max. MacBook Neo because it's using bin chips that had a failed GPU core. As a result, some of them will have a failed GPU core, but some of them won't. And this may be true. I mean, MacBook Neo, it's possible that some of the chips in there also don't have, do have six functional GPU cores and one of them is turned off. That's also possible. It just depends on the inventory. But yes, so the idea here is that they would probably just disable them for all so that they don't have a weird like, you know, you won the lottery and you. you got a magic MacBook Neo with an extra GPU core activated.

And it seems weird, but this stuff does happen sometimes when they're trying to like level out the product line, even if technically some of the parts on some of the models could do something different. They want them all to be the same. So, but the big deal is that they have to go back to TSM and buy more chips. And, you know, the cost per chip of, because, you know, I'm sure the way TSM's contract work, I believe, you know, for the ones that are that are binned, Apple is still paying, but they're paying a lower rate because of the failure on a component. There's like a failure cost, I believe. This was, this came up in a story when they went to the three nanometer process at the very

beginning. And I think there was a period where I read a story that said it was kind of unprecedented where if the chips were failing, TSM was basically eating it because this was such a cutting edge thing and that doesn't usually happen. So presumably the A18 Pro chip. weren't free, but they were essentially free in the sense that Apple had already paid for them as part of the production process for iPhones. This time, they're buying them all for the MacBook Neo, and they will have a price, and that price will presumably be greater than the price was for the chips that they put in the MacBook Neo, meaning it's going to eat into their margins that they expected for the MacBook Neo. Which is, this is a very peculiar situation they've gotten

themselves into at this point. You know, we spoke about it at the time. But it is, it is spectacularly strange to have, I assume, you know, they created a product around the idea of what we have these chips, what can we do with them. And now here we are,

they're making fresh ones. Like I, I can't imagine that the margin of the MacBook Neo at, what's the cheapest you get at? Is it $4.99? On education? Education, $599 general public. At $499,

Apple's still expecting to make money, right? Like, they're still expecting to make probably a pretty decent margin because they've, you know, they create the product around the idea that they could sell it for that price. And it is interesting that now the product has been so successful

that they've gotten themselves into a situation where that margin has to be shrinking because this machine was not built around the idea of having its own chips made for it. Like, that's not what it was really built around. I see people talking about, you know, the chips are essentially free, which I get that point. It's hard to kind of like get that across, I think, in a way that actually makes any kind of accounting sense. But these are chips that they could have been used anywhere. They could have kind of just been gotten rid of. They could

be stuffed into things that definitely don't need them. You know, like there are, there are iPhone chips in devices that don't use the vast majority of the capability of that chip. And but they've just got to put those chips somewhere. And at least with a MacBook Neo, these machines are using the chips to the vast majority of their capability, right? Because they're used, in fact, they're more capable than what the iPhone's doing with them, right? And so it's fascinating that they've gotten themselves into this. And I really wonder what it means for the Neo in its current and then going into the future.

because so for right now Tim Coppin suggests a few situations that he could imagine Apple could do you know like maybe they just they get rid of the cheapest one and they sell the base model being the next one up because there's a bit more margin in it but I feel that undercuts the whole proposition

of the laptop exactly he says you know maybe they could add more colors to further boost sales but it doesn't feel like they need to boost sales like this is the problem I don't know a lot of that Tim Culpin he used to work at Bloomberg. He's a writer based in Taiwan who writes about the chip industry.

Reading his blog posts, I'm struck by the fact that he seems to have very good contacts to do reporting about the chip industry. His analysis, some of his analysis doesn't make sense to me. I find it kind of, I just, it doesn't make sense to me.

The last two points, like the what could they do now? It's like, yes, these are things they could do, but they don't really make a lot of sense to do. No. Now, how do, yeah,

his analysis is basically like, how do they distract people from the fact that it costs more. They could do some new colors. Or it's like how do we kill the popular product, right? Like how do we, you know, like by getting rid of the lowest price point? So I think the wise thing to do is take Culpin for his good sources in the chip industry and not give the same level of focus on his kind of punditry about what they could do

because some of it doesn't, like the colors thing is like, I don't even know what he's talking about there. Like, I don't know. Colors doesn't solve anything. And, uh, and it's kind of weird. It's just a distraction.

But like, it, it doesn't deal with the, the underlying issue here. I think that, you know, and barring something where they still have enough A18 pros with, uh,

with five GPU cores that they, because I keep coming back to the fact that one thing they could do is differentiate the high end one differently, uh, or additionally to the way they already differentiate it. Like, maybe you put those, functional six GPU ones in the higher end one and the, but like bottom line is supply.

They just, they need, they need to have supply of these things. I have a hard time seeing them raising the price because the whole premise is the price, but at the same time, their margins aren't going to shrink. And I think ordering chips suggests that they're willing to do that because they need, they really feel like they don't want to lose the momentum of this product. And if you raise the price or eliminate the low end model, you risk, you risk reducing the, momentum of the product. So maybe, and maybe there are some subtle ways that you can manage this that are, that we're not thinking of necessarily as, you know, when we're thinking, what could

they do? They could do A or they could do B or they could do C. And maybe the answer is, well, what they're really going to do is not manufacture as many of the low end ones. So they're going to stay like less hard. They'll be harder to find. And they'll, they'll, if you want to order one of those, it'll be further out. and that will suppress demand for that one

and increase demand a little bit for the $699 model where they'll have more of those and that will drive more sales toward the one that's got more margins in it. Like there's stuff they could do. I don't know if they'll actually do that, but that was one thought that occurred to me

is what if you just make the $599 harder to get and that will presumably drive some people who want to buy this thing to the $699 model that's nicer without killing the $599. model entirely. But I don't know. It is a challenge.

But suppressing demand even feels complicated because you've now just spent all this money on the chips. So, like, you've kind of, they've got to get very balanced and that we should, we need to basically sell all of these, but not too quickly. I think this is such a low price product. Here's my summary take of this, which is this product costs so little that the profit margin on it, the difference between profit margin percentage A and B is incredibly small because the product doesn't cost very much. It's not going to show up in the earnings report at least, really, right? Like if this was an iPhone that they did this too, now we're into a complete

different situation. So my take is if you can sell the MacBook Neo at 599 with these new chips and you do the math and you still have an okay profit. margin, but it's not where you'd like it to be, but you're still making a profit and it's still benefiting you in terms of this being a hot product. You just take it and know that it's temporary and that you're going to come up with a plan for what you're going to do with the A19 so that you can keep the momentum going but build more margin in down the road. And you take this as part of the cost of launching a surprisingly successful product. Because, because yeah, Eating margin on 4 million additional neos is not the same, to your point.

It's not even the same as eating margin on a MacBook Air, let alone a MacBook Pro or an iPhone. Like, it's not because it's a $599, $699 product. And, you know, and it's part of the cost of launching a hit product that you want to keep it rolling. So that's what I would say, not knowing the numbers, not knowing the internal discussion, but just my off the top of the head gut reaction is you just let it go because it's not going to really impact your bottom line. I mean, if you're losing money on them, I guess I feel differently about it. But if you're still making a margin, it's just not your usual margin on a low price product where the margin is small, nets out to a small amount of cash regardless.

Just let it roll and figure out and most importantly figure out how to start regaining margins with the next generation. Yep. Like, you know, if you, I'm just saying, let's imagine they've gone from 30% to 20%, say, is the profit margin, right? If you'd go to the MacBook Neo product manager before this product launch and say, would you sacrifice 10% of your product margin for having to be so successful, you have to double the order? Because you're going to spend it on marketing, say, right? You're going to build an additional marketing campaign. It's going to cost this amount of money. You'd say yes, because this machine is an unexpected. hit in like a category in that nobody would have expected Apple would have a hit. And you're hurting and you're stealing

you're stealing mostly sales from your competitors. Yes. As Sebastian and Discord notes, market share matters. Sometimes you trade one for the other and the Neo is the best market share growth story in years. I mean Apple generally doesn't trade margin for market share. That's their thing. But the Neo is a different product with a different purpose. And again,

you know, you're not talking at At $599, if you went from 30% to 20%, you are giving up $60. Right? You're giving up $60. But again, I feel like it depends on how dogmatic they are inside. But this is like version one of a product and it's a hit and it looks like it's really putting the hurt on your competitors. And you're in unique circumstances in terms of chip availability. If you were ever going to say, we're just going to eat it a little bit.

here because all the other reasons to do this are good. And you're not committing to eating margin forever. You're committed to eating margin for a portion of what you're shipping in order to keep it rolling. And presumably you've got a plan for A19 Pro where you're not going to have to eat this level of margin. Then just let it go and keep it rolling. Because you, yeah, if you've got momentum for this product and you're putting the herd on all those Windows PCs, especially that are out there in the $500 price range. Raising your price, it's the last thing you want to do.

You got them, you got them in a corner. You got them against a wall. You need to press your advantage, even if it hurts a little. Yeah, Apple chose to be aggressive with this product, right? Yeah, the whole purpose of the product is to be aggressive. And they also relaunched all their social media platform stuff. They've gone so hard with this. This is what happens.

Sometimes you go very aggressive, you're successful. It works. There you go. They did it. Don't screw it up. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I can't emphasize this enough.

I'm sure there's somebody who's sweating this inside Apple right now. Make sure this doesn't happen next time. Yeah. What do we do to ensure? What is our plan for the second generation Neo that allows us to get our margins back up where we want them to go? Well, I mean, probably they prioritize it for the bin chips. over other things, right? Like, there's another story

we're going to talk about about chips. Yeah. And I have a theory about that because we'll get to it later. But like, one of the things that they're doing now that this exposes a little bit is what you said. The bin chips strategy works until you run out of chips. Yeah. It's nice to have a bin chip strategy.

It's nice to be able to use those chips that weren't in your high end product and a lower end product and different. differentiate that way. Great. But maybe at some point you need a broader strategy where you actually have a lower end chip strategy that isn't based on binning. And what does that look like? But certainly for, I would also say, like, they're making A19 pros now, right? For the iPhone. Yes. So like, everybody just needs and they're supply constrained. But that's something to follow, which is, are you going to get what you need out of the A19 Pro, if that's what is going to drive the MacBook Neo, now that they look at their sales numbers, they will have, I guess what I would really say there is, they now have a better idea of how many binned A19 Pro chips they're going to need when the A19 Pro process is complete. And that will allow them, once they get in supply demand balance,

once they announce the next generation iPhone that maybe doesn't use the A19 Pro, they will know how many more, maybe they need to keep making in order to fulfill demand for the next Neo so that this doesn't happen again. Yeah, it feels like if the Neo continues to be successful, it definitely increases the amount of complexity given an iPhone chip like management, you know? Like it's, I know it's not, you know, the MacBook Neo does not sell, you know, anywhere near what on any of the iPhone sells, but it doesn't need to. It actually should shouldn't. That's why, you know, you kind of want your bin chips to be a small percentage. But it does mean that if the MacBook Neo is important, there has to be an amount of iPhone chips made

for there to be the percentage that they need. It's a weird coattail riding. Yeah. Well, I mean, it may be that this product is enough of a hit that they've realized that given whatever the failure percentage is on the iPhone pro chip, that that's not going to be enough. Yeah. And that they're going to need, although I will say they're making, remember the iPhone 17 is a hit. They've sold a lot of them. They're supply constrained because they literally are selling more than they expected. That means that the number of bin chips that they will have will probably be also greater.

But it is a funny thing where they may need to say, we need even more than are in the been. Yeah. So keep making them for a little while after we don't need them for the iPhone so that we've got them from the MacBook Neo. It's a very funny. As, as, uh, uh, Adi in the Discord says, uh, John and Johnny must have worked this problem out already.

Like this is, I like the idea of like, turnus and Sruji having a little huddle up and it's like, guess we need more of those, huh? Yeah. Okay. I'll call the SMC. We'll get them. What a strange couple of months it must have been for. the MacBook Neo product manager.

Yeah. You know, at first, they're like walking around. Look at me, everyone. Look at my hair. And then it's like, um, sorry everyone. Too successful. I'm a problem now. Too successful.

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Mark German, Ian King, and Ryan Gould at Bloomberg are reporting that Apple is looking to work with Intel or Samsung or and Samsung to help them produce Apple Silicon Chips in the USA. I'm going to read from this report. The iPhone and iPad maker has had early stage talks of Intel about enlisting the company's chipmaking services. Meanwhile, Apple executive have made visits to a Samsung plant under development in Texas that will also make advanced chips. Bloomberg is reporting that all of these discussions remain preliminary at this stage. Along with their existing reasons for wanting to diversify supply that we've spoken about in the past, you know, reliance on China and all this kind of stuff. Ultimately, and so not well, reliance on China, yes, but also risk of China in Taiwan for TSM.

Factories are all in Taiwan. Ultimately, Apple is also now facing competition at TSM, unlike they have in the past, because AI companies have the cash to compete for production, and they also bring the potential promise of future production in such that TSM is willing to kind of... willing to jeopardize their relationship of Apple is kind of how I look at it from the outside.

I feel like maybe TSMC have always given Apple kind of like, will let you do what you want because you're going to buy so many chips every year? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I would say willing to jeopardize. The way that I've seen it characterized is Apple was TSM's best customer, and so it was always the priority. Yeah.

And now TSMC has other customers, which means Apple has to Apple has to compete for TSM's attention. The reason I say the jeopardizer, and you definitely write to POMI off, because it's odd language. is that TSM know that Apple is going to come to them with an order of X amount of money every single year

from now to infinity, right? Like that feels like you can probably bank on that. That like something massive is going to have to happen for Apple to not keep coming back to TSM with that order. It is unknown if the AI companies are going to keep needing to do this. It's true. We have a lot less history to suggest that that's going

to happen going forward. And if you're at TSMC, that's one of the things you have to balance is you have an enormous business opportunity right now with these AI companies. But Apple, like, there's a chance that these AI companies are going to give you a lot of money for about four years and then they're going to disappear. Yeah. They may not, but they may. Apple is not really going anywhere.

No. And so you want to, I would say it only jeopardizes the relationship in the sense that if you're their number one customer and always their priority, and suddenly you're one of their number one customers and sometimes not their priority, that is a less strong relationship by definition. And the management of that relationship from TSM side is important. And it feels like this story suggests

that the relationship is in some level of jeopardy. Maybe. Maybe, although, again, like, one of the things about Samsung, because remember what they're really talking about is production in the U.S. from Samsung and Intel. Apple, you could, the other way to spin this would be to say, I'm not actually trying to spin this way, but you could spin it as being, Apple has a strategy not to get away from TSM, but to produce chips in America.

And they've been on that strategy for a few years now with their initial chip partner as a part of that go-to-the-USA strategy, which was TSMC. And now they're also talking to Intel and Samsung about joining the U.S. chip production bandwagon. But Apple and TSM are the ones that are like, they're working on that already. So you could, you could do it that way. I think, I think, I think,

I think it's also fair, right? Like TSM's got other partners. Apple has other partners. Fair is fair, right? TSM, if there is a future to bet on, TSMC have to take it, right? That like, you may end up in a scenario, where you have three companies that order chips three times the amount that Apple have been ordering.

They don't know, but they've got a kind of anyway. Absolutely. So I think the way, there are lots of ways we could characterize this. But I think maybe the right way to look at it is, is that Apple and TSMC still are kind of best friends, but they have other friends. They do have other friends. And so, but that's a different relationship, right? It's a different relationship. So I think there's a way to read this that doesn't look at the history and goes,

whoa, Apple is on the outs with TSM and they're running away to Intel and Samsung. That's not really what's happening here. This is more about diversifying Apple's options. Although, if you were TSMC, like what you just said was Apple's going to be with TSMC to the end of time. But like if Apple injects many billions of dollars in Intel, and Intel Intel's you know

Intel's really kind of sorry right now or Samsung I guess more Intel but but but and it might take a decade but like if Apple injects

enormous amount of capital in Intel to help Intel get back on its feet and compete more with TSMC to the point where in five or 10 years Intel could maybe make a play for leading edge nodes

for Apple chips that's bad for TSMC in the long run you've allowed You've allowed the arch enemy that you defeated back in the game by doing that. So there are reasons you want to hold Apple close if your TSMC because you don't, the last thing you want is to be complacent about that relationship and allow them to fund a competitor to the point where you're that competitor. Because then when that happens, they won't just take Apple's business. They'll take other business too.

So you don't want to do that. Even though that's, you know, TSMC is, I think way ahead. but still that is their risk in this. Yeah. So like as we mentioned already, as we heard last week, Apple's biggest supply issue right now is actually TSMC chips before RAM,

because Apple have a lot of, what do they call it, lead in supply or some strange phrase like that? Yeah, I don't know. There was a phrase that they used. We have, don't worry, we had RAM, but they can't get the TSMC chips Well, the chips made by TSM.

So they're looking more aggressively about having additional avenues for supply. But the issue remains that if they were to decide on a second partner, TSM is far ahead in capability and quality to whoever they go with. And so there is going to be an element of needing to work for TSM for into the long term. Of course. I think the only scenario that is really happening here is Apple is talking, and this is true of TSM. Again, the same conversation can be had about TSMC's factories in the U.S. They're not going to be at the cutting edge. They're not going to be the leading edge nodes. These are going to be legacy nodes.

They're going to be on the older processes, which means these are not going to be the premium chips that are in Apple's highest end products because these nodes are not going to be. Those TSM researches and develops and builds those nodes in Taiwan. That's because that's their home and that's where they do it. Which are the ones they're having the shortages on, right? So, like, this is not going to solve this problem immediately in the near term. Exactly.

In the, in the, not in the short term. And Intel and Samsung would be similar. They're not going to be necessarily up there with TSM, but they are capable of making chips. Which changes this story, right? Because then this story becomes, what are the chips that they're going to make in the U.S.? And what we've heard is they're going to be,

things that are are not on the cutting edge. And this is what I was saying earlier about the previous story, which is right now Apple strategy really seems to be we're going to put a whole chip generation

on the cutting edge nodes at TSMC and then we're going to bin them and we're going to have variance. And we're going to package them together and that's how we're going to do it. So their strategy is new year, new chip generation, It's all on TSM.

That's what we're doing. This opens the door, and I would say suggest strongly, that this is not going to remain Apple's strategy. And that what Apple strategy going forward is going to be is a split strategy. Because I don't, my understanding, again, not a chip engineer. Not even close. I like chips with like guacamole. But that's it.

That's as far as it goes. So is anybody I did there? Anyway, this is, my understanding is that these, these providers, you can't just take your like blueprint from TSM and walk over to Intel

and say make this. Like, you have to use their, you have to build a chip design for their process. So it seems to me like what Apple's really saying is they're going to bifurcate their chip design and they're going to build

alternate, older node chip designs elsewhere. And some of that may be chip designs where it's like part of the package and then and it's for lesser components and it's not the the core system on a chip but it could also be that there's going to be b tier systems on chips yeah and if you look at the iPhone there's the there's the you know a 18 pro and a 18 and and we've got the m5 and the m5 pro and the m5 max and maybe an m5 ultra like you could there could be a scenario to take it back to the macbook neo where the macbook

Neo's processor is no longer a binned processor from an iPhone. It is instead a previous, not like an M4, not like an A15, not like we're just going to go back in time because those were on the cutting edge at that point. It's like a new processor built on an older processor node in Arizona by TSMC or in TexasMC or in Texas by Samsung or whatever. her. And that could be a bunch of Apple's products, right, are using the B-tier chip design instead of the A-tier chip design, which is reserved for MacBook Pro, iPhone Pro, you know, maybe other Mac Studio, maybe MacBook Air and stuff like that too, but you could have a bifurcated world of Apple chips. That would be a new thing for Apple Silicon to be bifurcated not by like, you know,

not by as simple as these are coming off of the same TSM line in different designs, but like this is just in a completely different. We make this, this chip is not made in Taiwan by TSM. It's made somewhere completely different, but we're using it. I want to come back to this, I just want to mention real quick.

A few days later, a Robbie Wieland and Rolf Winkler at the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple and Intel have made a preliminary agreement. Right. I don't know why they wouldn't, they haven't announced this. I don't know why they would not announce this. preliminary is probably the reason

that they've agreed to work together but they don't know what the terms are and they're still figuring it out. Also, another reason you wouldn't announce this is you may have missed this, Mike, but like the U.S. government apparently owns some of Intel now as a part of all of the nonsense

that's going on and involving all of this. So one reason you might not announce this is in order to allow people in positions of power to announce it as part of a big foofara. Okay, that makes sense.

And this is a little inside baseball, but I'm going to, I'm going to, it makes sense in a way. In this scenario in which you have painted for me, yes, I can understand. You know, actually, I want to jump back from a second. Because I feel like I'm being, you know, like I'm making, it is not, it is not abnormal for a government to own a portion of a struggling company. Like it happens here in the UK. It's actually about to happen again. And it happens in America. I know that they're like, I'm sure that there is something that I would find to be distasteful about the way in which it happens.

But like it is a thing which happened. And I actually, in the case of Intel, I absolutely agree that the American government should have a stake in Intel if it means Intel stays. Because America needs Intel for many real risks and risks. absolutely. Absolutely. Also, by the way, this B-tier, this B-tier chip strategy, right, which I think Apple is executing on, like the B-tier chip strategy, whether they call it, I mean, I don't know what they would call it. They may just call it like M-7 is actually made by Intel or made by TSM in Arizona, and M-7 Pro is on a different process. Like, they can market them as being part of the same thing. I don't think they necessarily market them as, as standing out, but we would know like, oh, well, it's like in the Intel days where people like, oh, well, this is actually whatever lake, and this is like some other lake or other fire or whatever

with all those Intel names, right? Like, the insiders might know, but nobody else needs to know and it gets branded that way. What it does mean is, if something catastrophic were to happen with Taiwan, Apple would still be able to make products. They might not be able to make the same products that they did and there's issues with like would they be able to make them as long as you know if there's if something

happens to Taiwan it's probably because of China and they they manufacture stuff in China and that's where a lot of their supply chain is but it would eliminate one geographic lock and that is um that that that would be a good thing for Apple so this Wall Street Journal report I just wanted to mention this and again it's a little insidery but I want to mention that Mark German made that initial report and said they're they're talking and then the Wall Street Journal said they have a preliminary agreement and Mark German responded on social media and said basically like, look, I already reported this and there is no, he basically said there is no agreement. They're just talking. And it struck me that this sounds a lot to me. And I like Mark German's reporting a lot. But like the Financial Times disclosure about Tim Cook's thing, Mark German's response was to bat it down and say that's basically that's not what I heard. And it turned out the FT was undoubtedly a direct leak from the board and was completely correct. And that German was acting on his sources which had been prior or didn't know as much or both.

I look at this where the Wall Street Journal specifically reports factually a preliminary agreement has been made. And Mark German says, well, last week I reported that there was no such agreement. So there, I look at that and say, well, they got you, Mark. Like, take the L. You, you, you, you, it's not even a loss. You said that this was, the talks were happening. They have said that they'd come to an agreement. And what I didn't see for Mark German was saying, this isn't true.

I've done new reporting that says it's not true. It looked to me like he was basically saying, look, last week I already told you they were talking. Yeah. Just talking. It's like, well, but time has passed. And the Wall Street Journal, I, I just, again, I, I don't know, maybe Mark German is right, maybe the Wall Street Journal is right, but a newer report with more specific information that follows on what Mark German reported that literally cites the Bloomberg source from the previous week and says Bloomberg reported previously they were talking. But now the Wall Street Journal says they have what they are at least characterizing as a preliminary agreement, which takes the story forward a little bit.

To me, that sounds like things progressed. and I don't quite understand why Mark German would like resist the idea that things progressed especially since I didn't see him say flat out I talked to my sources again and this Wall Street Journal story is not true it's more like he's offended

that they progressed his story before he could and like I just life happens you got to get over that and move on they cited you they gave you credit for reporting this initially and again, I wouldn't make as much of it other than the fact that this is absolutely what happened in December with the FT,

which is like, I don't know, I don't know, things do progress and other people have sources too. I don't know, very weird. Jumping back to the story, it was a point I wanted to double back on that you were talking about with like Apple's chip strategy and maybe having kind of more of a split strategy, right?

And it did make me wonder, Maybe, now, let's not, look, I know we're all, we all love speeds and feeds here, right? So let's not all get upset with Mike. But maybe Apple need to pull back on their advancements a little bit. Like if they want to try and push their manufacturing out into other areas, having new cutting-edge nodes every year for the iPhone. and then for the Mac, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe that is not going to allow them

to get another manufacturer on board and anywhere close to where they need them fast enough. Maybe they need fewer new processor revisions than they currently have to allow them a little bit of elasticity in trying to get their manufacturing sorted out. Like if they're always going to be having, a new cutting-edge chip

every single year Intel will never catch TSM. They're just never going to give them the ability to try and get good enough. So what's happening is that I think Apple's chip designs are just working in lockstep with TSM

because Apple wants to use the new nodes, the new lines. As TSMC makes new processes, Apple is their partner. partner and Apple benefits and TSM benefits from that. And I, and so I think, I think for the most part, that's what Apple is doing is Apple is designing new chips in conjunction with knowing what TSM's capabilities are going to be.

Yeah. And I don't think Apple, and I think Apple has to remain TSMC's partner in that. That is the partnership that has been so successful for them. What's happening, though, is it's not as if Intel or Samsung are not trying to catch up. with TSM. It's just harder for them and they trail. They're behind.

They're not standing still. They are advancing their processor technology, their production technology too. And an injection of cash from Apple. Like what Apple's not doing is going to Intel and saying, we want to buy some of your old crappy stuff. What they're saying is we want, we will also want to invest in your cutting edge.

But your cutting edge isn't as cutting edge as TSMC. And so it is helping Intel push forward. and get more capital to push forward faster to maybe catch up with TSMC someday. But so I think that's the model, right? It's just to, and it's good for Apple because then you've got more options and you've got a more diverse strategy and that's probably a good thing overall. And it also still allows you to say to TSMC, you're still the best. And as long as you're the best, we're going to come to you, right? Yeah.

And that's a great way of putting it, right? which is you're the best, you're number one, we all know it, we're the best at designing these chips, you're the best at making them. And as long as you remain the best at making them in the world,

we will use you as our number one. Implied is, if you lose the lead, you'll lose us. Yeah. So don't lose the lead. And that's, I mean,

that's business. I think that's the way to do it. Did I pull invest money into TSMC? Like going back into the day, did they put money into them? Because the reason I'm saying is, is they're going to put money into Intel. I think that's pretty clear, right?

That like... I don't know if they're investing. I think it's more like they will... It's this thing where they like, they give you billions of dollars and they're basically like, they're basically buying... They're giving you money to build a fab.

Yeah. And then they get the production on the fab for some amount of time. And it's, it comes back to the chips that they get. I think that's more of what it is. Okay. Because they just figure, you know, you put money.

into that. Because there was a report a while ago about the possibility of Apple taking a stake in Intel. If I'm remembering far enough back. I think there's some politics there too where there was a suggestion of like, is the U.S. government going to strongly suggest that Apple invest in Intel? And they could, they could do that. I mean, if they feel like they need to, politically, they will do that. Yeah. Because I'm just wondering, like, if they do that, or if they put any amount of money into them even to, like, you know, like, what are they incentivized to end up producing that? It's, uh, right. It's interesting. But Apple was paying, I just found a, a story that says Apple paid, spent $24 billion at TSMC last year. Okay. But was that just for buying chips

though? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there, I, I, I, I, I, I think that's it. I think that they are not a, are not an investor. They're just an enormous customer. Yeah, I just wasn't, because, you know, I, I'm not keeping track of Intel's current status, like, as close as say a Ben Thompson is, but I'm just acutely aware of they need a lot of help before they can get started on this. Yeah, I think the model is not that they get investment. I think the model is that they make a deal where Apple says, we're going to give you, essentially, yeah, we're going to give you $5 billion and you're going to build a fab with that and you're going to make us chips.

And then Intel's like, great, we've got the money to build a fab. Yeah, right. Yay. And they build it and they make it for Apple chips. And then when they're done making those Apple chips, they've got a fab that they can use on other chips too. Yeah. Because this is me thinking about like, you know, from reading Apple in China, like, you know, Foxcon, they're like, okay, we're going to buy out of this equipment and bring it in. You know, like, it's a...

Well, that's it. That's it. That's it, right? They pay Foxcon and Foxcon like builds the factory and they, and Apple brings in the equipment and supplies that, which doesn't happen with chip, the chip manufacturing with DSMC. But it's a similar kind of idea is, you know, you, how do you fund building? these fabs that are incredibly expensive. Well, one way is you get a customer who's going to say, we will buy all the product off

of this fab, now go build it, and here's the money. Would it not make sense for Apple to have some kind of joint venture of Intel? I don't know. I honestly... Like, if we're like wargaming this out far enough into the future, doesn't it make sense for

Apple to have some actual stake in the chips and how they're made and who is making them to the point that they own? part of it? So this is the question is, what does Apple feel like they want to be, like Apple doesn't own Foxcon either, right? Like, there's stuff where Apple, Apple doesn't want to be in the business of doing X. Yeah.

Apple has resisted manufacturing chips. That is, they design their own chips now, not all of them. But it got to a point when they felt like they had to design them is, you know, so it's like they got to that point. So when did they get to the point of, we're not. employing people, but we own part of a company that does. I don't know. My gut feeling is TSM is the leader here, and they're not going to buy TSMC.

So what they really want to do is they don't, they don't, their vulnerability is that TSMC is their one chip supplier for systems on chips. That's their vulnerability. And the solution is not necessarily to go into business for yourself. The solution is to make sure that there's competition. and bringing some of their business to the competition is how you assure competition. So I think that's the, I'm not sure investing gets you anything.

Like we can start a rumor, we can say should Apple buy Intel? But I don't think that necessarily makes sense. I think it's more, I think Apple would view it this way, which is we're investing in our partners by making deals with them where we give them large sums of money for them to invest in their infrastructure and then build chips for us. And that's how we invest in our partners.

We invested $24 billion in TSMC last year and exchange they gave us chips. I think that's how they view it more than something strategic about ownership. But I don't know. Let's start that rumor, though. Let's just start the rumor anyway. Apple's thinking about buying Intel.

There you go. I just think it's irrelevant. I just think it's a red herring. I think that who owns Intel is irrelevant. it's a matter of, is Apple going to give them money and rely on them to make chips for them? Or Samsung or TSM, how do they stretch that out? I think who owns them is a red herring. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Keeper Security.

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We went so long that that's no longer the roundup. So if you look in the chapter list, who said it was a room in a roundup at all? Definitely not me. Mark German is reporting that in iOS 27, Apple is going to allow users to choose which AI provider they want for certain requests like text and image generation. So this is in addition to the previously reported ability

of having different AI providers for things like wild knowledge and serial requests. which are currently being handled by OpenAI. And all of this is in addition to Gemini, being the underpinning model for the new version of Siri. Is this confusing enough yet? I'm going to read a quote here from Mark German. Rather than building the best AI software and services itself, the company is looking to make it easy for customers

to find a wide range of options on its devices. I just feel like, you know, it's going to be like, all right, in this place, you can choose from these people. And in this place, you can choose from these people, you know. And I'm sure it will be done easier that like when you install your favorite chat bot, it pops up and it's like, would you like, oh, you know what this is going to be like, Jason?

Just as I started talking this out, I can see where we're going. Every time I open a web browser on my Mac and it's like, oh, hey, why don't you make me to default? Every time you open any AI app on iOS and Mac OS, hey, I could do this for you and I could do this for you. And I could do this for you. Let me do it all. Let me do it all. Mark Gorman is also

Do you have anything to say on that? It's like, okay, right? Like I, I, this is how it should be, right? And the only reason, and we know from Apple's behavior that what Apple likes to do is be the only. And elbow everybody else out because it's Apple's platform.

But the other way you play this is where Apple is now because of their weakness in it, which is we want to be a nice default, but we also want anybody else to play here if they want to play here because it makes the platform better. Like, if you would prefer to use Claude or prefer to use Chad GBT or whatever,

you can just choose it and it will work seamlessly with Apple hardware. And, like, I think that's good. I think that more stuff should probably work like that. But certainly this is reasonable. And it makes it harder, I think, for Apple's competition to say, oh, Apple, they don't get AI. If Apple builds a system that really,

embraces all the different third-party AI stuff that's out there. Also, the AI stuff moves so fast. And this is something that we haven't talked a lot about, but like Apple's still on an annual OS cycle. And like, is Apple, is the model Apple ships in iOS 27 going to be updated every little while with, you know, a new Gemini white label model? Or is it going to go for a year? I think it will be updated in the background. Maybe. but remember this is the special Apple white label version. It's not the standard Gemini. They're going to need a system to update it in case of an issue, right? Like in case it goes off the rails. So that's going to have to be built in without a software update. I've got to assume.

I mean, there's stuff they can do in the back end, but I just wonder if the fundamental model, like, that models are changing so quickly. And I'm skeptical that Apple's models are going to change that quickly, even if they're using Gemini as the basis for them. My point is just that the tying into third parties means that if everybody says oh my God the new open AI model is so great you can just switch to that and then

continue on and Apple doesn't have to do anything because that is something that is happening via the AI provider But this is my theory is that the Siri app if they have the chatbot app that will actually be an AppSot app so they can update it more but then that will be functionality

on top of the model but I think it would not be, I don't think they'd be setting themselves up for success if they think they only need to update this once a year. I don't think that they're really going to be setting themselves up in the way that they want it to be. I'll take that bet. I think the Siri app's going to be integrated with the system and any changes they make will either be OS updates or in the cloud. Okay, you heard they hear first. Yep. A podcast that I listen to Jason, I do a thing called pizza bets. Let's make a pizza bet. So, loser buys the other pizza. Yep. All right, Mark Gohmann is also reporting that Apple have hit the late-state

stages of development for AirPods with built-in cameras. Essentially, at this stage, the prototypes have gotten to the point where the design is considered to be essentially final, featuring what is expected to be the shipping set of capabilities for these devices. So I'm going to read from Mark's reporting. The cameras essentially act as eyes for Siri and aren't designed to take photos or videos. These components, located in both the right and left earbuds, allowed a device to capture visual information in low-resolution. and low resolution. Other than the longer stems

to accommodate the cameras, the product will resemble AirPods Pro 3. So, I feel like I don't have a sense for how this product is going to work. And I'm not sure that I want my AirPods

to have cameras on them anyway. And to me, especially if I can't use the camera, right? Yeah. And I get why like you would put in what is essentially a sensor rather than a camera

it's going to be you know some people said I are as I said low quality enough that an AI can understand what's happening

but not caring about clarity that you would want if you were to take pictures on them but then I'm wearing cameras that I can't take pictures with that is like a big ask

from me as a person because I wear my airports all the time I don't know if I want cameras pointing out all times Mark does say that the AirPods have an LED

that lights up when visual data is being sent to the cloud but also like the way that these products seem to work they're capturing information often how is it processed

do I not have a say in necessarily when things are going up to the cloud or not like it's all seems quite fraught I I don't even like to

like approaching this subject from this direction because I don't care Look I literally do not care about cameras being in AirPods

What I care about is Are there new AirPods that do more interesting stuff That benefits me? Yeah And if so What is that stuff? Yeah

Because Like Okay cameras and AirPods Like I believe you can put cameras In AirPods I believe in you Apple Why?

Yeah Why? Why the extra work and the extra expense and the extra battery required and all of that. What's the feature? And this has always been my question. What do I get out of it? Of two cameras sticking out of my ears firing sideways to see things that are around me. What do I get? And I know Mark German's got examples, which you should probably read. I'm not sure I'm sold on these examples, but why don't Why don't you read them anyway?

Yeah, so one of the examples that Mark uses, probably the most detailed, is like, oh, looking at a set of ingredients and telling me what to cook for a dinner. And for me, I feel like that is the same example that every, it's almost like the asking a chat bot to plan a travel itinerary for you. Everybody uses these same examples. It's nonsense. It's kind of pointless. I don't really think people are doing this.

Like, you know, like, I just don't think that, I think that these are. are they sound nice, but I don't know if anybody is actually encountering this issue in their life that often that they need cameras on their iPod. So he gives another one. And this is my point is, is we've seen this with lots of tech products recently where they come up with these examples and they're ludicrous. They're like, oh, you could do, it's very much like when personal computers came out and every single person was like, you can balance your checkbook or keep recipes. And like, that was the best they could do.

And let me tell you, keeping recipes on the $5,000 computer in your, you know, far off somewhere else from your kitchen is not a thing people did. Yeah. Or it's like, you have one that, this is one that's used in visual intelligence. Take a picture of a poster and add it to your calendar. It's like, I mean, sure. but like I have been able to attend to things. Like it's, you know, it's not like a huge... I've had that feature for months and months now

and I've never used that once because I've never been a position where I've been like, oh, I better capture this thing that's on a poster. Like, it's just never happened. So Mark gives more. He says Apple have been working on other uses for the AI cameras. Good news. The device could give the wearer a reminder

based on something the camera sees, or it might use external visuals to provide more advanced to turn by turn directions. The AI could cite a specific landmark ahead when telling users where they should turn. Okay. These sound a little bit better.

They sound more like, okay, maybe. What I hear here is the one feature that is aided by cameras in the world right now for this stuff, which is Apple has a database of building, based on street view. And if you're in a place where the GPS connectivity is shifting, which a lot of big cities in their central cores,

where they've got tall buildings, they have GPS problems. And that feature allows you to hold your iPhone up. And from what your iPhone sees, it knows where you are. It's basically able to more precisely place you based on what it sees around you. And I can see how,

if you were wearing AirPods with these in, it would be able to use that technology, probably lots of places to more precisely place you not just, if you're walking, not just like in an urban center, although definitely then, but also in general, like it would know you're on the sidewalk on one side of the street because that is a level of precision that it can see that maybe your GPS can't see. Like, okay, more advanced turn by turn. specific landmark ahead is literally like if my dot is here you know there's a landmark ahead there's no there's no there's no the camera's not really doing that it's just the precision that's doing it

which is why i feel like and maybe mark german you know he's got his limited ability to get stuff out of his sources he's doing the best he can with what he's got but this to me feels like people struggling to find a reason to have this feature yes like this is what i worry about And the landmark part. It was like, oh, and then you can tell you that there's a landmark coming up. Well, it could do that now. All you're really doing is saying we have a little bit better precision than GPS when we can also combine it with some visual signals. It's like, okay, what else you got?

And so like this other thing, right, which sounds so great, but I know it's not going to work in the way I imagine it. So the device could give the wearer a reminder based on something the camera sees. Like, for example, imagine if I'm cooking and I have a, timer for something on the stove and I turn off the timer and I forget to turn off the stove and the thing's still boiling or whatever. I've done this before. Wouldn't it be incredible if your AirPods could say, hey, that's still boiling? But you know it's not going to do that. Like, it's not going to be that good. But like, you hear something like, oh, that would be kind of cool. But what's it going to do? It's going to be like, you didn't close the door. Like, what

is, I don't know what it could remind me about that, like, actually feels. you know like I just don't think it's going to do what I want it to do it's like this is the thing like I'm hearing

this whole product and what this sounds like is you're going to make AirPods worse that's what this sounds like AirPods are going to be more expensive they're going to look

worse again they're going to be more uncomfortable and you're going to build a social stigma into one of the best products you make

for what for what and again I'm not saying look there are a lot of smart people at Apple this product has continued to be made.

And obviously they haven't announced it, right? Like, this is a different conversation if we're having this after we see them, show them off. And Mark German's report is very specific that they have not put it into production. Yeah. It seems to be at the threshold of production, but they have not put it into production.

And so what I get from that is, maybe there are some smart people at Apple who really do believe that these unlock a bunch of things that will actually be beneficial to users. The problem I have with that is that's how they sold visual intelligence to me. And I don't think visual intelligence

actually unlocks a lot of value for anybody. I mean, apologies if you use visual intelligence, but like it feels to me like somebody said, well, we've got a nice camera and we've got an AI model. What could we do with it? And they came up with some things and they're not, when it's like, if you see somebody with a dog, tell them to hold their dog still

and then kneel down in the grass and then take a picture of the dog and then ask the computer what kind of dog it is when the person who owns the dog is standing right there and can tell you who the dog is. I can tell you that nobody uses

visual intelligence because last week we eviscerated visual intelligence and I got one piece of feedback which was someone who said that they use it for plants but I know they can also do it with photos you take picture of plants.

Sorry to that person. No but it's like whenever we say this kind of stuff if people do really use it we hear from them right and we didn't hear from them. It just feels very much like, I want to believe that people at Apple are building this product and are motivated and that it survived to this late stage because they really,

really, really, really do believe that there are things that this can unlock beyond more precision for what side of the street you're on and when you're in a big city. And okay, so what is that? But I'm having a hard time seeing it. And it leads to a line that jumped out at me, screamed out at me from Mark German's report, which was, I'll read this, while the hardware is nearly ready, concerns about the AI elements could further hold back a launch if Apple isn't pleased with the quality of the visual intelligence features. Here we go again. It's another air, there are a lot of Apple products that are like airplanes circling the airport,

like waiting for permission to land, all of which are waiting for AI features that Apple hasn't built, or hasn't yet enabled, hasn't been capable of building. And this is the part that gets me, and this is why I'm so skeptical about these AirPods with cameras in them, is I worry that when I say there are a bunch of smart people at Apple who have thought of reasons why this product might ship and be relevant and have features that people would use. I worry that they're not basing their estimation of what that product is capable of and how it benefits users based on reality. I worry that there is a magical AI thinking that happens where it's like, well, AI is going to let you do this and this.

It's going to be noticed that Mike's water's still boiling when it's not on. And like, and visual intelligence is a great example of that. I think that, I think that there is this problem where maybe people aren't being as realistic about what the AI features are going to be capable of, then is true. And say what you will about AI, and I am in the middle on it. I believe that some of it is amazing,

and some of it is snake oil. But I would say this. I think that there is a rush in the tech industry to believe hype about AI that is not practical and not true. And that's what concerns me here is I'd like to believe that the smart people at Apple who are building AirPods with cameras in them and think it's going to be good, have good reasons, good use cases, why me as a user, why I am going to want to use this feature and it's going to be useful for me in some way.

I am a little concerned that what they believe they're going to be able to do with this is not possible. And saying it might be held up by AI is the tell, which is Apple is so good at building hardware that they build hardware that relies on AI. features that don't exist and then they cross their fingers and hope that they exist someday so they can ship those products. And while we've been really hard on Apple for the software and the AI stuff holding back Apple's hardware design, I got to say, if Apple is designing hardware for dream features, that's on the hardware designers too. Yeah. Like that's a lack, that's on the product management. Stop doing that. You can't design hardware for for a cloud that says,

you know, miracle happens here. Like, you can't do that. You cannot design this stuff and say, well, the AI will fix it. It'll solve it.

There's so much that the AI can do. Let's just build visual intelligence and see what happens. And that is what concerns me is that these products that are on hold that are in the pattern that are circling the airport right now, looking to,

hoping to land. Like, are they any good? Is modern AI even today enough to make them useful to people? Or has Apple's hardware strategy partially been predicated on some assumptions about the capabilities of these features that are just not realistic? And no product clarifies that to me more exemplifies that to me more than AirPods with cameras in them. Because I have yet to hear a good reason why the tradeoffs are worth it,

put cameras and AirPods. And Mark German's trying, but he can't do it. Can Apple do it? And that last line could further hold back a launch if AI feature, well, why did you build this product? What's this product for?

I just don't see it. This seems like a terrible idea. And I'm ready to be convinced otherwise, but I thought about it and I've been waiting for people to explain how this is going to be great. And I just, I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing how two cameras staring out from your ears to see what's to your

sides is, uh, is worth it. And it's just saying AI processing is not enough. And like I want to come back to the social stigma thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the, that's one of the things you lose, right? It's battery and it's cost. And it is the social question of now I've got video monitoring. I'm a walking ring doorbell now. Like this product Mark Garman is saying will be the first before glasses. And I feel like that's a mistake. Bring glasses out and they will be able to do everything

these can do plus they'll be able to use the cameras on them or whatever. And see where you're looking, by the way. See where you're looking. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know what direction these cameras are actually. It doesn't make any sense to me. Like where, Anyway, but anyway, like, you can test how do people react to Apple doing this? Because currently, like the reaction to Raybans, the methraubans was good, and now it's trending not good. People are not happy about them now. And so you put out, Apple puts out its smart glasses and sees what that reaction is.

Because if you start with AirPods and people are unhappy, now people are going to ask everyone who are, are they their AirPods with the cameras in them? Do you really want that to become a thing that your users have to start contending with? Does it tarnish your entire product line? The entire product line, of which this is an incredibly successful product line, it is the Kleenex of Bluetooth earbuds at this point, right? Like, AirPods are just like the thing that you assume that people are going to buy. Do you really want to put that on people? That, like, maybe people don't want AirPods.

They don't want people to think they're the ones with the cameras in it. Like, is that what you want to risk? And I feel like if you at least start with the smart glasses, that is like a whole thing. You can just see what happens. And if that product fails and people don't like it, you just stop, right? But this is a hard thing to walk back for AirPods

once you start down this road. And I tell you, I do not care what Apple says, right? If they're like, you can't take pictures on your cameras, no one's going to pay attention to that or remember it. These cameras are really low quality. No one's going to pay attention or remember that. People are going to think AirPods with cameras. That's it.

It doesn't matter what your messaging is. If people don't want there to be cameras in their face, like around them all the time, obviously ignore that. I do sometimes find it funny. It's like phones have cameras and we point them each other all the time. Even like whether you mean to or not, but it doesn't matter.

Like we're trying to deal with this. like cameras and other things. And I just, I worry that they're going to undermine the AirPods by having this part of the product line, have any camera in it. So we'll say. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. Using the internet without ExpressVPN

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I'm also going to be able to use it to say that we're back at home. So I can change my location back at the UK so we can connect to the streaming services that we're subscribing to and continue watching the TV shows that we're watching without having to try and deal with geo-location restrictions. Protect your online privacy today by going to ExpressVPN.com slash upgrade. That's EXP, RESSVPN.com slash upgrade to find out how you can get up to four extra months. That is expressvpn.com slash upgrade. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and relay. It's time for some Ask Upgrade Questions, finish out today's show.

First comes in from Josh, who says, Do you think the Apple executives will appear at the talk show this year? And do you think one of them could be John? Dennis. Well, if John Gruber does the talk show, which you probably will. I'm sure he will. I would think somebody, I would think yes. But that's just a guess. I think, I don't know how that, maybe they thought it weren't great last year. Who, Apple? Yeah. Maybe they thought it went great last year and that there's nothing there and, and that they didn't, they didn't really care that a bunch of us in the media thought they were cowards. I mean, I wasn't there, but I listened. And

As a listener, I actually, I preferred the episode with Jailenna and Jaila. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah. It was really good. But I think it benefits them. I think it's a net positive PR benefit for them to be there. And so I'm going to say yes, but their ways are mysterious. I think they will do it, and I think one of them will be tennis.

I think it's a real good possibility. I think they'll do it. it would be interesting if it is him for like what will he talk about like will he just be like I'm not CEO yeah John just like you know it'll be I think it could be fun I mean I was talking about this one connected we had a segment called Jobs for John

where we we've we've outlined a bunch of things that we would like John Turner's to do in his first year and one of mine was basically exactly this I want John Turner to be on a podcast for a long period of time and have a conversation It is a thing on a tech podcast specifically, because Tim Cook, I don't think, has ever done that. He's been on Dubelepo's podcast talking about kind of his life. But I want to hear the CEO of Apple on a tech podcast talking about the technology.

And I am convinced John Turner can do this because John Turner has been on podcasts already. I've heard him on some. and so I would like just hear him talk about the technology. So that would be lovely. Nick says, do you think that the Mac mini price rise is not just because of memory prices, but to make room for a Mac Neo desktop? No.

Yeah. I feel like at the moment there's a lot of talk about neoing things, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's natural. I know. The Mac Mini is the Mac Neo desktop. That's what it is. There's no need for a smaller.

They already made the small one. It's called the Mac Mini. And it's a desktop. The MacBook Neo, the whole point of it is that laptops are where everything is now. Desktops are niche. The Mac Mini is the Mac Neo. That's what it is. It has a different name.

It's fine. There's nothing below it. It's already there. And that's all that the desktop side of the Mac line needs. Yeah, and just in general, like, you will dilute the brand of the MacBook Neo by now pulling in, I'm sorry, boring products like the Mac Mini. Right? Like, the Mac Mini is not cool and it doesn't matter if you paint it green. It isn't cool, all right?

That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah, a utilitarian aluminum cube that you can plug into a monitor, but in citrus. Yeah, it's just no, no more Neo. It's the Mac, the MacBook Neo is the only one, all right? Like, that's it. Just leave it at that. That's fine.

Jason writes in and says, A few months ago, The Vergecast had an episode about the industry shift in podcasting because Netflix decided to get into podcasting. But it seemed to me that the real shift was an indeterminate point in time when YouTube became the main podcast platform. I still think of podcasts as on-demand audio,

but more and more seem to be video first audio if you want that. The meaning of the term changed around me. What made that shift? Are audio first podcasts going away or simply in a lull? I know you've got a lot to say here, but I will say one thing, which is, I love that you always say you've seen the podcast industry shift so many times and been declared dead so many times. Before you give your answer, I will point out this. There was a time when podcasting was redefined to be incredible. incredibly high production value scripted NPR style cereal, right? That was what everybody wanted.

I find as somebody who is firmly in the people having a conversation genre, I love that as a part of this whole thing, that's what a podcast is. Yeah. Like, what we do has come back to be what a podcast is. Yes. In a way that makes, it delights me. have created or bought, they're all talking head shows.

Yeah. Like, yeah, I mean, when I, when I see, like Conan O'Brien needs a friend, for example, that's a really popular one, or Amy Poller's podcast, that's what we do. So I love that part of it. That podcast seems to have gone back to the point of being,

it's about people having a conversation. Not that there aren't other kinds of podcasts, but like, there was a while there where it felt like our whole area had been redefined as something we weren't. And that definition has kind of been re-redefined to be back where it's what we do. Yeah. Yeah. So Netflix buying the rights to some Ringer shows and some others,

that is just the beginning of the next death of podcasting. Because Netflix will not renew some of those shows. And then everyone will say podcasting is dead again. before Netflix did this, podcasting was dead because the shows you just mentioned, the full like 25 team narrative podcast stuff, all those companies started going bust, right? Or like Amazon laid off a bunch of people at Wondery

who were making these kinds of shows because they weren't cost effective for them because Amazon bought Wondery for way too much money because of this. Those shows weren't all making enough money or whatever. and then they're laid off a bunch of people, unfortunately, but that is just the way this stuff goes, because it has gone this way many times in podcasting.

And so then everybody said podcasting was dead, and then Netflix bought these shows, and now everybody thinks there's a possibility for them to get their show bought by Netflix. That's not going to work. Netflix won't renew these shows, no die again. So to come back to Jason's question, there is nothing to suggest

there is a lull in audio-only podcasts. that what is happening is people think that their podcasts will boom if they go for video. So what you're seeing is a lot of people are assuring audio or audio first to go for video or video first in the hope that it will open the door for either a massive audience on YouTube or the path to Netflix or hopefully people think Amazon Prime or YouTube paying you a ton of money or Spotify

on maybe now Apple people might hope that's going to happen a ton of money for YouTube have your video exclusive to a platform that's what people are hoping for now but this is yeah you can call it I mean we're on YouTube YouTube we'll be exclusive to YouTube

you know what I mean? Just give us some money but like we are an example of I think the right way to do it in that the audience has not suffered at all. Nobody would even know that we did video if we didn't mention at the end of the episode that you can get the show on video.

Because we don't look at each other. We haven't changed the way that audio is being produced. Like, you know, there are some podcasts that I have listened to that now they're using lav mics because it's better for their sets, even though they're not recording

in the same places. They're very slowly rebuilding the talk show format, the late night talk show. But now, but like they're not in the same places. But now they've made their audio worse because of it, right? Or like there are so many podcasts that I listen to that now are just talking about the fact that they can see each other all the time.

Like there's just, we've got a bunch of visual jokes that are happening that no one can even... There is a podcast that I listen to that doesn't have a video version. it just has clips, but they only make clips, right, for the video. But they've changed their entire setup for the clips, but you can't watch the video, right?

And so they're referencing things. Anyway, so like, you can't do that. That's the worst part is when you start referencing things that are only available if you see the video, because I'm telling you, here's my secret, by the way. Most of those video versions, people aren't actually watching them, it's a TV show.

No. They have them on. They're listening to them and occasionally they're glancing. People are, you know, at work and they've got one on in a window, and occasionally they'll glance over. But they're not watching it because it is about the audio, whether you want to admit it or not. And I know how important clips are, right?

Like, The Verge just publish this big thing about clips. Like it is a way that people are... Absolutely. Like, they reference... They were talking about it on the Vergecast, like, the most recent episode. There are people who consume... And I have this. There are some podcasts where I only ever see clips for them.

I don't listen to the podcast, but I enjoy seeing the clips. But anyway, this is, we're getting off the point. It's also, it's also in a medium that is really struggled with discovery. How do you find podcasts?

Clips is actually, little video clips, it's actually one of the best things ever for podcast discovery. Absolutely. Because podcast discovery has been so bad for so long. So like, you know, this is happening now in the same,

way that the serialization of podcasts happened, where budgets exploded for podcasts and people thought that if you paid an insane amount of money for a podcast to be made, that there would eventually be insane amount of money on the other end. And that never happened. It just never materialized. And so podcasting died again then. Like, podcasting seems to, I don't know why, but like it is full of people who over time are willing to invest tons of, of money for a bigger return that basically never comes. And I don't know what

is about this medium that people are hoping they can turn it into TV and movies and like are willing to keep doing it with the evidence of 20 years of it not working. And when there is, you can look around and see

so many examples of people building businesses that are incredibly successful. I mean, we talk about Goalhanger all the time, but they are the example of like, they started small, they built it out, they're now huge, and they're definitely ballooning,

but not in a way that seems to be undermining their core, right? Like, they're adding more shows that are like the shows that they're already doing. It's like the right way of kind of scaling it. And they're playing with some stuff around the edges, but they seem to be mostly kind of the way that's something like this should go,

rather than now we're going to hire 70 people to work on this show or whatever. You know, like I think like a gimlet, right, where they were having just massive teams of people working on conversational podcasts that had a lot of research that needed those people, but maybe their formats weren't correct. So I think what's going on with YouTube specifically is you're seeing people who want a specific kind of thing. They want to be able to, at some point, look at people having a conversation, whether they're watching the whole thing,

or are there people like me who I listen to some podcasts on YouTube because I want to be able to look at the video for certain portions of the conversation? Oh, yeah. But there is like a perception that I think a lot of people have that that is somehow instead of audio, where I think it is actually in addition to audio, in the same way that when Spotify came around,

people were like, oh, they're going to take the market away from Apple. But that didn't happen. They actually added to the market. And one of the fascinating things about Spotify, I don't think this is the case now, probably, but it was for a long time. They brought a different kind of listener.

So like typically podcasting as a whole as a medium was was demographically more male focused. And it wasn't just because the type of content is just the way that it tended to be, where the same podcasts on Spotify were getting more female listeners. Nobody knows why this happened, but this was a thing that happened when Spotify started entering the space. And so it was growth for the overall ecosystem rather than a redivision of the existing pie. and I think YouTube is doing that, but people are learning the wrong lessons again, and now they're chasing what I think is hilarious,

which is a pivot to video, and they are going to learn the same harsh lessons that news organizations learned in their pivot to video because shows are declining in audio quality that's turning existing fans off, and it's becoming a bit of a mess all around. So there you go. Yeah, yeah, it's, uh,

I, I, you can see how we feel about this by how we've approached it with Upgrade, which is we did change our production process slightly in that we are now using a different method of recording that gets us a video version that is then put together and pushed to YouTube. But we are continuing our audio first production process.

Our audio version is not the audio track from the video version. It is a custom edited properly podcast. The video version is not as detail edited for lots and lots of reasons. We don't go video first because we want the audio to be primary. But we also make a video version. We did adapt to do that because we do think it's kind of important to be there. I like that we're there.

I think we do reach people who prefer to watch it that way. I watched a podcast last night. I did actually watch a podcast. last night while we had dinner. We watched the Taskmaster podcast which has I mean it's got comedians in it sitting in the set of Taskmaster

but like it perfectly valid to do it that way too. I like that there's another medium for this. I love that the world has discovered that podcasts really are just talk shows. Yeah. I love it. So it's great. But our priority obviously is

the audio which means that our first step is the audio a version that most of our listeners and viewers are using. And there's a, you know, I love the people who are watching it on YouTube, but, you know, we're going to do both. And the audio is going to come first. Yeah. It's a funny, podcasting is such a funny business. And I don't, I don't really, I kind of do know. I think it was like a hobbyist business that became something people could make real life-changing money from. And so then people were like, how much can we change those lives? You know, and then it became a problem. And it continues to be a business that people can make real life changing money from.

But I don't think it can change the lives of a bunch of investors. I just don't think it can make that much money. It does feel like that's where it all kind of like comes apart is that you try to turn it into a TV show with TV show budgets. And expectations. And that's, requires TV show level returns, and that's not what you're going to get. No. If you would like to send your own question in for us to answer on the show, you can go to UpgradeFeedback.com and send in your AskUpgrade question. You can also send us in your feedback and follow up there.

Thanks to our members who support us directly with Upgrade Plus. You can get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week by going to getUpgradeplus.com. If you would like to see what this show looks like on the YouTube platform, just search for the Upgrade podcast and you can find us there. I would like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode. That is the fine folk over at Century, FitBod, Keeper and ExpressVPN. But most of all, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Justin Snow.

Goodbye, everybody.