Upgrade - 635: The 2026 September Event Draft

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 635 for August 31st, 2026. Today's show is brought to you by FitBod, Notion, and Claude. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Mike, you know, I don't want to say goodbye to the summer of fun, so I'm not going to. We're not doing it. People who really follow the upgrade law would be expecting the draft music to play now. Don't worry, you'll get your draft music.

You'll get it. But this year, we've decided that we're not just yet letting go of the summer of fun. We're going to get like half more of one episode of Summer Fun. And we'll start out with a snow talk question that comes from Alex, who wants to know. If you could spend the day as an Apple employee, Jason, what is the area of the company that you'd want to work in to make the biggest change that you'd want to see? I feel like I've gotten a version of this question recently. Yeah. And I was going to tell you to change it.

And then I thought, I'll just give a different answer. There you go. That's the, this is how we make content. So I'm going to, I get to spend the day as an Apple employee. I doubt there's much change that I can affect. But what I will try to do is I am going to become the keeper of the TVOS prioritization. list. Love it.

Because I use my Apple TV every day. I like my Apple TV. TVOS is just in stasis. There's so many things that it should be doing. And so I just want the job to prioritize a modern take on TVOS that does better with live content and fast channels and other stuff like that so that you can flip around to what's available live, like so much stuff is now, and make the app-centric model that was kind of a mistake fade a little bit further into the background. And so that's what I want to do is I just basically want to parachute into Apple,

find TVOS, give it a kick in the pants, and then I'm out of there. And I don't know, lunch at Cafe Max, and then I'm out of there. I love it. I mean, maybe you could also, you know, with this, or maybe this would be part of it anyway, kind of incentivizing Apple and other companies to do the deals that they all need to do and everyone gets everything they want so we can get things that we want them. Yeah, I'd sneak after lunch. I'm going to sneak into, so now I'm staying a little longer. I'm sneaking in, so kick, kick TVOS in the pants in the morning, go to lunch, have lunch, maybe walk around the ring on the inside for funzies. And as a part of that then, I sneak into an area where there's like a like a bat phone, like a red phone that I can use to call

Netflix. And I'll do my best John Ternis, I guess, which I don't have one. He's not a very... You haven't heard to hear him on enough earnings calls yet. Yeah, eventually we'll find out

what his ticks are and we'll be able to do it better. But nobody knows what he sounds like, no, it's not going to matter. Nobody knows. I'm going to be like, hey, it's John Turnus, it's me, John Turnus, CEO of Apple.

You know me. Netflix. What do I have to do? Let's make a deal. I want you, I want you in our TV database. Let's make a deal. You want to sell Apple TV on inside Netflix? Let's do it. We can do that. Let's make a deal. Right now. And my voice is my passport. This will be a valid contractual agreement. And then Jetpack, I'm out of there. He's out of there. Yep. There's a year you go. If you'd like to send a snow talk question of your

own so we can open a future episode, please go to Upgradefeedback.com and send in your Snelltalk question. Now, Jason, we have huge news, massive news. The biggest news since June. Yeah, it's huge. It's huge. In a time of huge news, some huge news stands out for its hugeness, and this is that. The feeds for designed in California are available now on the RSS feeds. The RSS feeds. Everybody, the biggest news there could be. Hey, look, if you're a podcast fan, RSS feeds are a big deal. It's everything. Now, please go and subscribe to this show

because this Wednesday, September 2nd, is the launch of design in California. That is when we're going to be publishing our first new episodes of the show. Currently, the feeds have everything you've heard so far. So our original kind of pilot episode, that was an episode of Upgraded in there, all of the episodes we published through June

about the Apple 2. they're also in the feed because we will come back to that story at some point in the future. And on Wednesday this week, we're going to be publishing the first two episodes of the show. This series, our first series, it's telling the story of Apple's MacOS crisis in the 90s that leads to them buying next. And we're going to be joined by special guest, John Syracuse for this. Again, you may remember we had John on this show, also to help us promote the kicks out the campaign. that discussion will be episode one. So kind of like setting the stage of the issue that Apple's in.

And then episode two publishes the same day. And then it continues to roll out from there. Week by week for a total of seven weeks for that series. Unless you become a member or back to Kickstarter. In which case you'll get, and this is true, all seven on Wednesday. It is a seven episode series to begin the show. How long is it? How many hours is this series?

It's about four hours, I think, getting towards five hours, something around that. So, yeah, if you are a Kickstarter backer, please check your Kickstarter messages if you haven't already because all of the instructions that you need there are there to be able to go and grab the feeds because that will all drop on Wednesday and then for everybody else it goes weekly. It doesn't matter if you back the show on Kickstarter or not. Please go and check this out. Yes, please. I'm so proud of the work that we've done.

This series is so good. I've heard it now, I think, five times in its entirety, and I enjoy it every time. And I really want you to give it a go. Like, if you listen to this show and you enjoy me and Jason, it's more of that. Like, it's more of us. And we get to tell these wonderful stories about a company that we all clearly care about. And it's so fun and it's so informative. And Jason does such a great job of putting scripts together.

And it still includes so much of the things you love about upgrade. Like, we're just having fun telling these stories. And I really want people to listen to this show because I'm so proud of it. And, like, we've already started on the next series. And we finished recording. And I was like, man, this is so good. And I can't wait for you to hear that one too. So please go and check it out.

There's be links in the show notes, but you can go to relay.fm slash designed. designing California finally launches this week. We are so proud of it, and I cannot wait for you to hear it. Yeah, and you can sign up now. Either way, you can subscribe for free. You can subscribe as a member. If you are a member or are going to become a member or we're a Kickstarter backer, you will be able to click a link and become a member.

That's how that works. And there are two feeds there because there's actually the regular special edition feed of Design in California for members, as well as our second feed, which we are calling one more thing. which is for our bonus episodes that we're going to do for members. So sign up for both. Or again, if you don't want to pay for a podcast, you don't have to. And you'll get a cool second episode of me and Mike talking about Apple stuff every week for free.

Yeah, you don't have to pay. It's fine. Like, you know, we were very pleased and very thankful for the people that are members. But we also want an audience of people who just listen to the show every week. Like, it's important for the show to grow. So, you know, like, and for people to find it. And so please check it out. If you enjoy it, please share it with friends.

Like share it on social media. Share it with people who you think might enjoy it too. This is going to be a big job for us over at least the next year of like trying to get this project out to, I think a lot more people in the world who might enjoy it. So please go check it up. Now the reason that we had not start with the draft today is because. it is the 31st of August, 2026, which is Tim Cook's final day as Apple CEO. And I think me and you were talking about this last week,

I think after we recorded, it would be very weird for us to just blow past this. I know. I know. Considering we're recording today. So tomorrow, September 1st, is John Tennis' first day. So we are right on the cusp of the Ternus era.

Yeah. And the end of the Cook era is here. This is actually it. Like, this is his absolute last day as CEO, unless you Bob Eagos this whole situation. But I don't think... It seems unlikely. I don't expect that to happen.

But hey, you never know. But this is the day we expect it to be. And we wanted to kind of mark that. I have some information I would like to give. I did some research this morning. And then we could maybe talk about it. But I thought maybe to kind of set the scene. We could do a little,

a very mini history. lesson on Tim Cook. So Tim Donald Cook, as I found out when was a reminder when Stephen quizzed Federico and I on Timothy Donald Cook. On Tim Cook trivia on Connected last week. That's why he wears the sailor suit because he's like Donald Duck.

No, no, I get it, but I don't think of it. I've never seen him in a sailor suit. No. Maybe he does have one. Anyway, so Tim joined Apple in 1998. He was recruited by Steve Jobs. He was work. He'd spent most of his kind of professional career at IBM, but he was at Compaq for a short time before jobs brought him in. He joined Apple as a vice president of worldwide operations, and essentially his first big job

was to get rid of Apple's manufacturing. So Apple was producing a lot of its own stuff. They're in factories, not for everything, but for some stuff, Cook got rid of all of that, and started to begin contract relationships. So this was a long-term project, which, you know, He has continued clearly to be involved with and is Apple's MO to this day of establishing and maintaining key relationships, keeping costs to a minimum, finding partners to build their products rather building them themselves. In 2005, Cook became chief operating officer. And then in 2007, Apple was restructured a little bit. And his role was then broadened to lead further, to kind of lead further operations roles.

I found Wikipedia is wrong today. Wikipedia says that he became chief operating officer in 2007. And this is when I was doing my research today, I was like, oh, no, that's wrong. And he became 2005, but his role kind of got shifted a little bit in 2007, and it seems like they picked that up. I was able to check on the Apple Newsroom to find kind of like the 2005 post. It's the source of all truth for the Apple Newsroom. Yep.

I mean, for this particular thing, it is. In 2009, that was the first time that Cook took Steve Jobs' CEO duties while Jobs was on medical leave. This happened again in January of 2011. On August 24th of that year, Jobs then resigned as CEO and Tim Cook took over before Jobs died in October. So actually, Cook just passed his 15th year as CEO before retiring. So that was last week, which is wonderful for him. Like, what a tenure? And as I've joked about this during the 50th, but it's like, what a tenure is Apple's second CEO?

Which is very much out of the company positions. There was two of them. There was jobs and then there was Cook. And that's the end of it. Don't ask any questions. Over Tim Cook's time at Apple, the market cap for the company has grown. from $350 billion to $4 trillion. So what the company is worth in the stock market.

Yearly revenue has quadrupled in that time. Apple's install base has grown to more than 2.5 trillion devices. The services business was established, which is a $100 billion business on its own. There are three new product, major product categories that were introduced under Cook, which is the Apple Watch, the AirPods and the Vision Pro.

I wanted to put this in, but it feels a bit reductive at the same time because it ignores the fact that all of the upper products are doing really great, but these are the new things. We'll get there. Environment has become a key focus for Apple. They've had a strong focus and continue to on reducing their carbon footprint. And privacy has also become a core tenant of their products and the marketing of said products.

with Cook really kind of banging the drum on this. So that is my kind of like table setting for Tim D. Cook. Okay. TD Cook. Yep. Teddy. Teddy Cook. So what are you feeling about this? You know, it's Tim Cook's last day. He's, you know, stepping away now from this role. I haven't looked after the company for a decade and a half. Yeah. How are you feeling? And being before that even, being the person who is doing most of the, the heavy lifting while Steve Jobs was getting increasingly ill. So, I mean, it's been, it's 15 plus. Yes.

For him being the kind of adult supervision and gatekeeper and whatever else of Apple. And also the thing of like, if the role of a CEO, he was probably just doing a lot of that always because jobs, probably most of the executives around jobs would, were, was shouldering some of the responsibilities that the CEO would typically have. Yes. I believe strongly that Steve Jobs, in hindsight, you need to look at what Steve Jobs did as being he was focused on the stuff that he cared about and he deputized people to care about all the stuff that he didn't. And there was a lot of stuff he

didn't care about. That's why Steve Jobs is not a great model for a CEO, not that he wasn't successful, but because you wouldn't say as a model, right, you wouldn't say be a CEO like Steve Jobs to most people because it would be a bad idea. But it was a perfect fit for his skill set. And then he deputized other people. I'm reading Ron Johnson's book that's coming out. Okay. About retail. And it's a similar thing.

It's like Steve Jobs finds somebody who's really great at retail and recruits him and says, let's collaborate on building a retail store. And Jobs was really involved with that. But like, ultimately he was also letting Ron Johnson build a team and make it happen. And that's, I think that's good CEOing. But like even there, I think he had Tim Cook and, and, uh, and his. CFO and he was not as hands-on in the same way, which I got to say, I've been saying this for a long time about Tim Cook. Every CEO, and John Turneris, every CEO brings to the party what they, who they are. And there's always going to be a different emphasis. It is not a one-size-fits-all

position. You are responsible for the whole company, but there are going to be places where you can contribute more and places where you need to think big picture and rely on the people who are great at those things to contribute more. And that's part of the job is if you, if it's one of those places, don't over contribute and micromanage your people who actually know it. Just because they've made you CEO doesn't mean you know it and understand it at the level of the people below you. And I actually think Steve Jobs was generally seems to be a pretty good at that. I think Tim Cook was too. It's just Tim Cook's interests were very different from Steve Jobs's and his skill set. It's really hard. Fifteen years is a long time. And the narrative,

there have been so many narratives over there. And it's like, you can pick, you can say, oh, he was the CEO when the Mac lost its way in the 2010s. And the butterfly keyboard happened. And, you know, obviously a lot of his stuff lately, the growth of Apple in China and everything that goes along with that, Apple's negotiations with the two different Trump administrations, like there's lots of baggage. There's a lot of complexity. 15 years is a really long time. It's a long time. So my primary thing, I was thinking about this,

what do I want to say primarily about Tim Cook and his tenure? What I would say is maybe most important to remember is that I know Apple is huge now, and that's happened mostly under his reign. The explosive growth of the iPhone happened after Steve was gone. But I think the number one way to think about Tim Cook

is that he was the right person for the right time to keep Apple going and functioning and succeeding. And that when we look back and we're like, look at Tim Cook, he's a growth machine, he's an optimizer, he did all the services stuff, look at that, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that Tim Cook was a crisis CEO whose primary job was to make sure Apple didn't die. And it's hard to think that way now.

And yes, Steve Jobs set him up for success. But I'm telling you, if you take your mind back to 2012, 2012, 2011, 2011, Steve Jobs was considered by most people to be 100% of Apple's value. Yeah. Yeah. Bottom line. Yeah. He was the genius, co-founder, came back. The moment he got there, everything he touched turned to gold, which is not true, but that's the narrative.

And he invented everything, which he didn't, but he was really involved, but he didn't invent everything. Right. It's that classic kind of like, he was super important, but also overstated, we also overstated. And also like, he sold the world on every product, right? He would stand there and show it to you, and his showmanship would move ships, right? Every product except the Motorola Rocker. Nobody bought it. So I think Tim Cook's legacy actually needs to be thought of in terms of how do you turn Apple from a founder-led company into a modern, more broadly functional because nobody's going to replace Steve. And that's an important point is you can't replace Steve Jobs.

I was so happy that Tim Cook was the guy to replace Steve Jobs because he was so unlike Steve Jobs. And the danger would be you'd get somebody who thought he was Steve Jobs and isn't. And that would be, and like, I'm just going to do everything like Steve did. And that was a mistake. And so Tim Cook didn't do that. He was a different guy. But, you know, he, yes, he was able to take the products like the iPhone that Steve Jobs had said. into motion and allow those teams to move them forward and do bigger screens and grow them.

And that moment where the iPhone 6 came out and the screens got really big, which was a couple years later, that's when the iPhone really exploded in the market. And Apple started on its incredible growth trajectory. So I think that, I know this is complex and squishy, but I'll just say, like, I think that's Tim Cook's actually biggest legacy is he needed to. to make Apple a very different company than it was because the company that Apple was was Steve's company.

And although you'd say, well, what do you mean? Apple is Steve's company is the perfect thing. It's like not if Steve's not there anymore. It's not. Steve was the, he was not the only person who did anything at Apple, but he was the mover in the center. And he was gone.

And how do you survive that? And I'm telling you, if you asked everybody in 2011, what the fate of Apple was going to be, and you gave them five options that went from, they're going to go down and be irrelevant and go out of business all the way up to what we have today, 15 years later, nobody would pick the 15 years later that is today. Even if Steve Jobs had lived, I don't know if you would say that they would get to where they got. Yeah, well, I agree.

I think that that's part of it, is. the weird thing about it is I having okay talking about design California having read a lot about Steve at Apple before he left and when he left and then at next and then when he came back to Apple

that whole series I would say Steve is a very particular kind of skill set and he was a he had great taste he was kind of a product visionary he was a he had an innate understanding of what Apple should

and shouldn't be doing. And that made him great as a turnaround person to fix Apple and launch all those products. And he navigated that so well and built up such a great collection of collaborators. But I'm not sure Steve Jobs would have been any good at taking the iPhone and saying, now, how do we make this a world-spanning product? I think, in fact, Steve would be off to the next thing. And the only way Apple would have grown at the same level that it did, if Steve, let's say Steve lived but was low power, kind of sick, but able to kind of be there as the executive chairman, he'd be focused on new products. I think that's the truth of it. And the best case scenario there is that Tim would be allowed to take the existing products and make them a huge success like he did. So Tim Cook, right person for the right time, I would say. However, this cuts. the other way too, which is it's 15 years where you don't have somebody who's really focused on the products and what Apple is supposed to be at the helm.

And I think I think that's okay, but I think that that's not the only person who should have their hands on the steering wheel. I think you need to have different people. I feel like Apple now is at a point and maybe has been for a little while where they are very optimized, but maybe not. not as focused on risk taking in new products as they maybe should be. It's kind of that innovator's dilemma thing, which is like Tim has been really good at the optimization, but he also, the more optimized you get, the more innovators dilemma you are, which is you're protecting what you've got and making it worth more. But are you doing what's next?

And so John Turnus, maybe because he was in hardware, he understands that. different aspect of Apple and is more enthusiastic about doing stuff that Tim Cook would, you know, it was just not in his nature. So, um, so I can say simultaneously, Tim Cook deserves way more credit than I think he's received for, for stabilizing Apple and allowing it to proceed after Steve and get out from under Steve's shadow. Um, but also that in the long run, a company like Apple cannot have that person stay in charge. So he needed to leave. And I think maybe even knew that he needed to leave. Yeah.

You know, going back to what you're saying about when he took over, realistically, like, if you were to play it out and think about it, you got Steve Jobs as the CEO, you actually wouldn't end up with a less likely person than Tim to be the one to step up, right?

Like, if you just think about who the CEO of Apple is, maybe he's not the guy you would have necessarily been chosen in a situation where everything was equal, right? where there was no risk to jobs, right? Like maybe you would try and find someone who has a bit more product sense.

Maybe, you know, that that ends up becoming what we think of as the Apple DNA, right? The CEO is always a product person. Like that is a story that you could imagine could have played out from when jobs came back to now. It's clearly not who Cook was. But as you say, like what they needed was a steady end. I we cannot there will be analyses that will come out yeah or have already come out that we'll say that we'll focus on well they didn't do another iPhone which is assonine because there's never going to be another iPhone yeah or if there is it's not going to be anytime soon because that was a really unique once in a lifetime kind of product category um and they're going to miss the incredibly unlikely and difficult job he had to do to keep Apple operating and be a functional company that could still put out products after Steve Jobs died. I mean, bottom line, like, Steve Jobs dying, if you would ask people in 2011, they would have said, this is it for out.

They're done. Yeah. They've lost, and I'm not kidding. I am not exaggerating. They've lost the inventor and they've lost the charisma. They've lost the market and they've lost all of it. Yeah. Yeah, they're never going to be able to do it without him. And was that inaccurate? it at the time? Of course it was. But that was the perception. Yeah. And the challenge that Cook had was to find a way to reassure people and to keep the company moving forward. And then, yes, then five years in, it's all about explosive growth and increasing the Apple valuation and all of that. And I mean, I could argue that Tim could have left after seven years or 10 years. And that would have been fine. But that first five years, let's say, seven years was enormous and incredibly important. And now, did he make mistakes? It's debatable in that era. But like, I have my opinions about keeping Johnny Ive around. But I think that keeping Johnny Iver around had a lot of caused a lot of

long-term issues for Apple. But in the short term, they had to keep Johnny Iver around because he was the only person they had left after Steve died that they could point to and say, see, see, the magic's still here. Magic's still here. Because if there was anybody else who was conceived of as being important to Apple other than Steve Jobs, it was Johnny Ive. So that's why they kept him, even though it was super awkward and probably led them down some paths that were unfortunate.

I think they did have to do it. And I thought that was a canny move. I wish they could have concluded that relationship sooner and in a better way. But they, you know, they are still unraveled. the legacy of that decision. But I totally understand why they did it because they needed to send a signal to the world that there were still creative people working on products at Apple.

And that was keeping Johnny. If Johnny I've left right after Steve Jobs died, oh, that would have been disastrous. For perception at least. Before we wrap this up, Tim today sent a note to Apple employees, kind of like a

we'll call it a blog post essentially where he kind of references is his final day. It is a little long, but I would like to read it because I think maybe it'd be nice to share. Great. This is Tim. This is Tim. Today is my last day as CEO of Apple. This is a moment I always knew would come one day, and yet it is still hard to believe it has arrived, and I'm writing these words. I love this company and the team behind it, and I couldn't let this day pass about sending a note to you, to tell you how grateful I am for the outpouring and perfection you sent my way, for the way you've shown up each and every day, and most of all, for the privilege

of a lifetime serving as your leader. The truth is, whatever there is to say about my success, I know it is all because of you. You have brought out the best in me. In all my life, I have never seen or been with such an extraordinary team of people before, and every day I get to see more examples of that. There is something truly special about Apple. I am most proud of what an annual report could never capture. The place is proof that culture triumphs over everything. We share a belief that what we build matters and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. That purpose is part of what makes this place extraordinary. Apple helps nurture it, but I believe it lived within each of you

long before you arrived here. It is what brought you to this company and what continues to drive the work you do every day. Together we have created something far greater than any one of us could have imagined or accomplished alone. And that's the secret to our. our success. We bring out the best in each other. We lift each other up. We have made it possible to leave our, quote, dent in the universe, as Steve once described it, because of who we are and what we believe, because of what we value and how we see the world. How fortunate we are, how fortunate I am. As you know, I'm not leaving Apple, but I am stepping away from a role that I have loved deeply. I will miss the work in ways I can only begin to imagine, even as I remain completely at peace of my decision. I will miss leading you, and being with you for every step.

even as I take enormous comfort in handing the helm to someone as brilliant and wonderful and capable as John. Few people understand what it takes to build products that change the world the way that John does, and I could not be more excited for his leadership. I hope you know how much I appreciate you and one honor it has been to be your CEO. Most of all, I hope you will continue to be proud to be part of this remarkable place that we call Apple and always give it your very best, when we bring our whole selves to work, with care for one another and for the people we serve, there is no limit to the profound difference that we can make.

I look forward to seeing you in my new role at Apple Park and around the world. With all I have and all I am, I am always yours, Tim. Very beautiful. Yeah. P.S. Last week, I met Pikachu. I love the Pokemon's. He did meet Pikachu. I was so happy. I know, and I just immediately remembered him referring to them as Pokemon.

Well, that has been resolved. Because he's really into it. The fact that he is now, he has now met them. And that's, that's Tim Cook's legacy, really. Isn't it? Pokemon's? Probably. Probably.

Well, thank you, Tim Cook. Congratulations. Yeah, complex. Complex. 15 years of a big company is complex. But I think big picture, job well done. Yep. And I think it's a, I think there are many times that it might have been good to go.

I think that he felt like he needed to hold the ship together in some troubled times. And on to the next one, right? Like, yeah, let's, I can't wait to see what's next. I'm very excited for John Tennis coming in, too. So, yeah, for sure. It's going to be a good time. It's going to be an interesting time. So I'm very excited about that.

Yeah, I also appreciate Mark German wrote a piece where he referred to Apple's exact Decutive retirement policy is the Hotel California policy. And for those who don't get it, it's you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Because they don't leave, mostly, except for Jeff Williams is like, out of here. I'm gone. But pretty much they don't. Luca Meistery is still showing up one day a week? Tim Cook, he's still going to be kicking around.

Well, does Lucan Measchre managed into cafeteria, right? Some weird thing like that. Yeah, yeah, basically. According to German, he comes in like one day a week, but he's still there. And Phil Schiller, of course, has just is just a. an Apple Fellow now, but we also know that he runs the Apple events, and maybe the App Store. I personally

don't believe that Shiller works any fewer days than he did before. Yeah, I think he's gone from being there 80 hours a week to 40 hours a week, but that's just a guess based on he's a committed. So yeah, Hotel California strategy, for sure.

This episode is brought to you by FitBod. If you're looking to change your fitness level, it can be really hard to know where to start. That's why I want to tell you about FitBod because it is an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan that is made for you. Because everybody's fitness path is unique. So FitBod uses data to make sure they customize things just to suit you. It will adapt as you improve. So every workout is challenging, pushing you to make the progress that you're looking for because you will see the best results

when a workout program is tailored to your body, experience environment and goals. FitBod has all this information and stores them in your FitBod Gym profile. It will then track your muscle, fatigue, and recovery, avoiding burnout for you. so you'll keep up your momentum. And then it builds the best possible workouts by combining exercise science and AI. FitBod have analyzed billions of data points, fine-tuned by a team of certified personal trainers,

and they want to make sure you're learning your new movements the right way, and that is thanks to more than 1,000 demonstration videos inside of the FitBod app. Your muscles improve when they're working in concert with the entire muscular skeletal system, so overworking some muscles while underworking others will negatively impact your results.

That is why FitBod tracks muscle fatigue and recovery to design a well-balanced workout routine for you. You're never going to get bored because the app is mixing up your workouts with new exercises, rep schemes, supersets, and circuits. The FitBod app is super easy to use. You can stay informed with FitBod's progress tracking charts, weekly reports and sharing cards, letting you keep track of your achievements and personal bests and sharing them with your friends and family. It also integrates if your Apple Watch, wear OS Smartwatch, and apps like Strava and Apple Health. personalized training of this quality can be expensive. FitBOD is just $15.99 a month or $95.99 a year, but you can get 25% of your membership by signing up at FitBOD.me slash upgrade.

That is FITBOD.mee slash upgrade. Go now and get your customized fitness plan at FitBOD. You'll get 25% of your membership. Thanks to FitBod for the support of this show and Reli. Just truly incredible real-time follow-up. This is coming from the sheriff, Mark German. Apple's Phil Schiller, one of the most visible and influential executives

across both the Steve Jobs and Tim Cook heroes a step down from his role leading the app store and product events. Wow. For everybody who sent me an email saying that I missed the news

during the ad break. Congratulations to Phil Schiller. I guess this is it then, right? This is actually it for him now, I suppose. Except it's, I mean, except it's not, right? So now he's going from 80 to 40 to 20 maybe. Ah, okay.

Because, because German says he will still, he's remaining at the company with his Apple fellow title and told employees he'll be working on unspecified initiatives. So this is like, he's at, he's in the lobby of the Hotel California. He is. That's where he is. They're trying to push him out. That's it. Oh, wow. That is hilarious.

There was no reason to even bring him up. No. We did. And then we did. Did we make this happen? Well, well, have to talk more about Phil Schiller maybe at a at a later time but

but oh my God talk about a one of the I mean that really makes great Joswiak the the old hand who knows all the deep lore well I mean I genuinely though I just think it's all going to change over the next year it's all going to really do like and it makes sense

too here's my like before we move on topics here's my thumbnail take on all Apple executive stuff, which is Apple's executive team is really impressive and they did a lot of incredibly impressive things. The challenges that Apple got so successful that they all were, like, they made a lot of money. They were loving it. These people are true believers. A lot of them are kind of lifers, basically. The challenge is that most organizations don't have all their executives just stay for a decade. And that is healthy in a way because it allows you to cycle more people through while keeping a kind of cohesive thing. And this has been a challenge and we've been looking

at it for years now where it's like, all these people have to go at some point, right? And yet they've been there so long. And not even to get rid of them, but like just for natural progression. And so John Ternis is really that, that to me is that moment where it's like, I do kind of feel like it was this group of people

kind of bound together in the trauma of losing Steve. And I think that they were so connected. It almost felt like none of them could leave. It is very odd for them all have to remain so public and in the same roles for so long. And Mark German referred to a lot of them as being like their billionaires are close to it. I mean, the stock options have been very, very good to all of these people. David Shob in our Discord says, let them retire. Here's the thing, though, especially about this group of people, is these are people of the kind of personality where their heart and soul is in Apple.

they feel they helped make Apple. Apple is what they live for. Like Phil Schiller. Phil Schiller's on his second retirement. He's retired for the second time. I would talk to Phil this spring in New York. Like Phil doesn't do this because he needs the money. Phil does it because he loves it and he thinks it matters. And like, I think that's true for a lot of them. Do you think Eddie Q? Eddie Q doesn't need the money. Eddie Q loves it and he thinks it matters. And that's the challenge, right, is that how do you, how do you say goodbye? And I do wonder if Tim is, look, Tim is a model. And I think Phil is a model of we'll let you, you're so, maybe type A, you're so focused on this that you just can't ever let it go.

Jeff Williams, again, we applaud him for saying, I'm going to actually retire. But creating the Hotel California situation that says like, yeah, why don't you allow your lieutenant to become your job? but then take some pieces of it and keep your hand in because you don't want to let it go completely. That's not a bad strategy. And it has the great advantage of keeping those older heads who know the lore and know the history around because that is important. And you'd hate to lose all of that. So, but anyway, yeah, I've got, I mean, Phil, Phil, Phil, has been doing a long time. Phil deserves, this is what I say about all these, all these people.

And that's what I said about Tim Cook. We can even put a button on the Tim Cook thing again and say, I think I said it on an upgrade a few weeks ago. But like, I just want Tim Cook to be able to have fun and have a good time. And like he bought that mansion in Palm Springs. And it's like, I want, I want Tim Cook to have a pool party. I actually had a dream about Tim Cook last night where he appeared, but he had like a big Letterman beard. Oh, that would be quite actually. I was like, oh, retirement Tim Cook is doing the, he's like, David Letterman.

He's just like, and he was like sunglasses, big Letterman beard and he's just like more wearing like a Hawaiian shirt. He's relaxed. And like, I want, like, I think it would be a shame if they were so focused on Apple and their work that they didn't allow themselves a retirement to have a good time and relax a little. So I hope they all get there. but I think one of the reasons they've stuck around is because this is their life and they love it. And I get it. All right, before we get to the draft,

Apple released new Macs, or at least... New Macs. Well, released. Apple has shown... Announced. Announced New Macs. On Tuesday last week. Yeah. So that is Mac Mini with either an M6 chip, the first time we see in the M6 or the M5 Pro. And then also the M5 Max

and M5 Ultra Mac Studios. You've got the, you've got information about this, you wrote about it on Sixth Colors. Yep. I guess kind of a couple of highlights, right? The M6 chip is the first two nanometer chip.

Right. This is potentially the chip that Apple's going to jump over, according to Mark German. Well, it's the chip family Apple's going to jump over. They wanted to rev the M5 to the M6, but they, according to Mark German, decided to take a jump after that. rather than building out the M6 Pro and Max

and go to an M7 generation next year. It is really an interesting chip, though, even as a base model, and I think the most interesting thing about it, if you haven't been following this closely, is not only is it a 12-core CPU in a base chip, which is wild, right? It's like, oh, yeah, this is my MacBook error

with my 12-core CPU, but the way they've designed it, remember, in the M-5 generation, remember they had those chips that they said, you know, we said these were performance cores, they're actually super cores. And then they also had performance cores that were different.

And it was very confusing, but they were all in different chips. In the M6, they're all in there. There are three different core styles in the M6. And they've decided apparently that one of the more efficient ways to handle performance on

Apple's OS's is by having three different kinds of chips. The efficiency cores, which are really good at CPU cores. CPU cores. in the chips. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the efficiency cores, they're good at low power and great for background tasks

and just kind of like bubbling away in the background, keeping your computer running, but not working too hard, saving power, saving battery. Performance cores are good at multi-threading. So a lot of apps, running multiple apps at once, running apps that have a lot of different threads that are running, that this is your your geek bench

multi-core score comes out of this. The idea that you're running how fast can this thing run if I really need to run a lot of stuff at once? There are four performance scores and it will run all the cores

but the four performance scores are designed to work really well on multi-threaded stuff. And then there are two supercores and the supercores are optimized for single-threaded. They are super fast at running

give it a thread. So if you have a task, and this is all scheduled by the system, so if you have a task that is incredibly beefy, that is just on a single thread, the system scheduler will put it on a super core, and it will crank.

And so you will get your best single core geek bench score out of that. So they've decided that this is the way they want to build it, is they want some performance, they want some multi-thread, and they want some single-core performance, and then by the system choosing

how it uses those cores, you get the best balance of power saving and power at once. The M6 also has two neural engines, which is interesting. Buy one, get one. Yeah, I find that really interesting that instead of improving performance

of the neural engine, they just put in a second. Yeah, throw it in there. The 12-core GPU also has a neural accelerator on every core rather than just one. I feel like it's interesting. this, like, it feels like they're doing a lot. I mean, they get a lot of AI performance, local AI performance out of this.

Some of the quoted AI performance boost in the M6 is due to the fact that Apple is comparing it with the Mac Mini to the M4. Sure. Because they did a bunch of neural accelerator stuff in M5 generation, but the Mac Mini didn't have an M5. So they can do some comparisons to the previous Mac Mini.

That when they upgrade a system that had an M5, they're not going to be able to make those claims. They're going to have to compare it to the M5 Air when they put it in the M6 Air, assuming they do, that sort of thing. But yeah, they're pushing ahead with, this is the thing, too. They've had the neural engine for a long time, but then they realize that there's still a bunch of stuff where people just want to run AI stuff on GPUs.

And so they're like, all right, okay, we will make our GPUs better at AI stuff too. But it's interesting if the M7 generation is supposed to be the AI generation. Like, what here do they push, you know, to get to get to that? So that's going to be interesting to see. And how much of that is in the pro and the max versus the base model? we'll have to see, right? Because that's clearly the limiter. I think the big bummer of all of this is,

you know, not only is it more expensive, the mini now starts at 899, up from 799. But then you have to remember that 799 is the price they raised it to. From 499, right? Yeah, and so overall it's 50% more

expensive at the base than the M4 Mini was when it was introduced in March of last year. So in a short period of time the Mac Mini has gone from being what I think 599 to being 899 and like I get it we all know why yeah but I was I was saying this um over the weekend I was talking I think it's actually to Dan for six colors because we were in person at WorldCon in Orange County and we did a live six colors podcast in a secret lobby beneath the lobby of the Hilton.

Anyway, the feels to me, and I talked about this with Andy on Mac Break Weekly, too, I feel like I know why it's $899, but the Mac Mini at $599, and I know this is all kind of like squishy and perceptual, but like that felt like, if not an impulse buy, it felt like, you know, I could use a new Mac Mini. I do base model Mac minnie, you know, good enough for Marco. Like, I could use one of those. And I, you know, the one I've got is fine, but like, I could use one. I'm going to pop it in there.

699, 599. Like, yeah, great, great, right. Let's pop it in there. And 899 doesn't feel like that. I mean, I think that that's it. When you're dealing with prices like this, it goes from being, if not an impulse buy, a fairly easy sell. This is a good deal.

Why don't you just get one to being like, mm, mm. Yeah, but I think that this price kind of meets the Mac minis current moment. Like, I would expect more people are buying Mac minis at the moment to do AI stuff on than anything else. I'm not sure they're buying the base model, but you know, maybe.

You know, but like they might, right? Like, whatever, right? It just, well, and here's the truth. So we got a, it might even be an ask upgrade, but I could like pull it up here, which is the question is, you know, what does this say about affordability versus what they're doing with the MacBook Neo? And my answer is, what is a desktop Mac for?

Because the truth is, again, three quarters of the Macs that are sold are laptops. Yeah. Apple's affordability story is the MacBook Neo. It's not the Mac Mini. And it has been the Mac Mini in the past. I wanted to say, it's not the Mac Mini. It's never been the Mac Mini. But that's not true because desktops used to matter more.

But they don't matter as much now. And you're right. It is meeting the moment. It's unfortunate because there are a lot of people who still view the Mac Mini through a different lens where it's sort of like, this is the little cog that I can buy and stick into my workflow somewhere and it's $6.99 or $5.99 or whatever. Like, it's cheap. That is not happening right now. But you're right. It is meeting the moment in another way, which is who's buying a desktop Mac. A lot of it, it's servers and AI stuff. And it is, that is where it's been successful.

I would imagine that when this all blows over that Apple will try to get a base Mac Mini back down in price because I'm sure they're not satisfied with their cheap desktop being 8,000. 99, but this is where we are right now. Yeah, it's like, my feeling on it right now is, you know, as Apple, you could, you can approach this in two ways, right? You can continue pushing the Mac forward and putting up the price, or you can stop, right?

Like, you can stop pushing the Mac forward and just somehow try and protect the price. I don't know how you do that, but those are your two options, right? They're just taking the punch now. They know they can't do it right now, so they're not going to do it. At the moment, you have to just continue. you have to put up the prices because that's just the way that it is. And my feeling, you know, kind of like comparing, say, the Mac Mini and the MacBook Neo is I would like Apple to charge as much money as they possibly can for the Mac Mini to protect the

price of the MacBook Neo. Like, make the people that want to buy three of these to run Codex perplexity computer and claw code on it in a room somewhere. Make them pay $900 each and then protect the price of the MacBooke book Neo for actually the people that need a cheaper Mac. Because if this is where it's going right now, I just say, go ahead and do that. Like that would be my preference. Like, make the people that are making this more expensive, make them pay for this and

protect other people. That would be my preference on the way that these things are going right now. But we also have the Ultra, so we finally have M5 Ultra. So we have a new Ultra chip. With this, Apple is introduced. next generation UltraFusion technology to form a quad-dye architecture

for the first time. This is enabling them to give up to 26 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and a max RAM of 512 gigabytes. This computer is very expensive. It starts at $5,49. Yeah, it's two M5 Max together in the chiplet is basically how it works.

M5 Maxes. M5s Mac. Maxes. Anyway, It's an ultra. You do in the ultra thing. And the 512 is like they're not even selling it yet and it will cost a fortune. I think they're not selling it yet because they're using all the RAM that they need to buy the systems that are going to have a higher volume, which is the ones that don't cost, whatever that's going to cost. It's probably one of the reasons why it's like a three or four month, four week lead time on ordering this before you get it, right? It also is elevated. The Mac Studio was already kind of like headed there. The original Mac Studio was not like that like that. I mean, I have one.

I bought one, but we are in Mac Pro territory when it comes to the Ultra. This is Mac Pro territory. And as ridiculous as these prices seem, I'm telling you, there are people who want to do local AI who are going to buy multiple highest end M5 Ultra Mac studios and connect them via Thunderbolt and build a cluster like the one that Apple showed at WWDC. because as local AI performance goes, it is going to be amazing. But yeah, it's going to be people and companies who are buying it because it's going to cost like $100,000. But for them, they'll be like that's actually a pretty good deal.

And that's just how it's weird right now. But that product is getting elevated out of regular consumer talk. And that's, you know, it's just a different, it's an opportunity for Apple to make a lot of profit margin on very high end. And sometimes the Mac Pro was like this for a while too. Sometimes that's what the product is. It's not like not all products are for us people. They're for people with, you know,

they're for companies that have very specific applications. And that is kind of where Mac Studio and M5 Ultra is. And that's fine. Like they tech companies love the AI revolution in part because it's created. a market at the super high end for very high and high profit margin systems in an era where so much

of what even a high end user used to need to accomplish can be done by what are essentially consumer products. MacBook Air is a perfectly good HD video editor. So like Apple is left saying this is one of their examples. People are like, oh, it's all AI examples. That's not true. Apple still does

creative examples when they roll these products out. But these days, their creative examples are like real-time rendering of enormous 3D spaces and 8K color correction and DaVinci Resolve. Like, they have had to push it to the limit because their less capable computers are more than capable enough to do lots and lots and lots of formerly kind of pro system only jobs. So how do you sell an expensive system with a lot of margin? And AI comes along and you're like, oh, thank goodness. There's a thing we can do. So that's what Apple's doing. Yep.

So we're happy there's more Macs. It's interesting that they've announced them at the time they did. Obviously, I don't know if they ever would have played a part in the September event, but they're not the year. No, I think they're held over from June. They probably are. Yeah. Because also it's like, is there going to be another event? Maybe.

Maybe, right? And that's when we'll probably get, if we're going to get the new Macbord pro this year, it would be later in the year, but who knows? But yeah, this absolutely feels like the product that we were waiting for that is just taken a while for them to get it altogether again. But I'm happy that they're doing it. I mean, it's to say the prices are just upsetting, but I'm happy that they're just going to continue. And I hope that when this current moment changes, that prices will come down again. But in the meantime, here they are.

Jason, it is September, essentially. September is childhood. Cancer Awareness Month for the eighth time the relay community is coming together in support of St. Jude for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Every year, for so many years now, we have come together and raise money as a community. We're knocking on the door of $5 million raised in that time, which is truly an unbelievable statistic. And we're all so grateful for the support that our audience, our community shows each and every year that has gotten us to raising so much money for the kids of St. Jude. Before St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable.

Today, thanks in part to better therapies that have developed at St. Jude, they have helped to more than 80% of US childhood cancer patients are surviving, which is an incredible, incredible statistic. It's actually flipped in that time period, where it's gone from 2080 to 8020. it's unbelievable. And this is, you know, St. Jude, it is their care for some of the world's sickest children, regardless of their race, ethnicity beliefs or ability to pay, so it's making the difference. Is patients receive customized care that they need to treat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases, no matter what barriers they face? Because of supporters like you, St. Jude can provide children of cutting-edge treatments not covered by insurance. We've mentioned this before, but, you know, the thing that kind of pulls us all together is the fact that,

they saved Stephen Hackett's son, Josiah. They saved his life from when he was a little baby. He had a brain tumor and St. Jude have gotten him to the, you know, I think he's 16 now. Like, 17 maybe. 17.

The kids are man, you know? And that is thanks to St. Jude. And Josiah is just one of the greatest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and seeing him and seeing the care that St. Jude had for him and his family is what brought us all in to wanting to raise money. But then over these years, as I've been, St. Jude so many times now, you've been joining us too so many times as well, Jason.

Now I feel like my purpose for St. Jude is just extended to helping all of these children, you know? Like at first we were very focused on like, we want to thank St. Jude and give back to them for saving Josiah. but now I've seen so many stories and I've spoken to so many families and so many doctors and so many patients that now it just feels like a drive that I have to use our incredible platform and speak to our wonderful audience to encourage them to give money every year because it makes a massive difference to these families and to these children. This September, you can help St. Jude give kids with cancer hope for more to possible.

morrows. We're inviting you as the Relay community to help us reach our goal of $700,000 this year for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. As always, there are multiple ways to support the campaign. Go to st.jude.org slash Relay and make a donation. Your donation can unlock some great rewards. Donations, donors, I should say, making an individual gift of $60 or more will be able to redeem a digital bundle of campaign-themed wallpapers in macOS screensaver. Donors making a gift of $100 or more, and redeem the 2026 Western themed sticker pack. The theming this year, Yeah.

It made by jelly. Our wonderful friend is truly amazing. Just go to St. Jude.org slash relay just to look at the art this year. It is fantastic. And then, of course, make a donation. Give them more tomorrow's. Go to st. u.org slash relay to donate or start a fundraiser today.

It is time for the draft. What do I hear? Oh, it is. It is the marching band. The marching band has marched in. We have ushered out the summer of fun. And now the sun sets on the summer of fun. Goodbye summer.

And here we are. It's draft time. It's draft time. These are the rules for the September 2026 draft. There are 13 rounds, 26 overall picks. The draft will be split into two categories. We have eight. iPhone picks and five other picks. The draft champion gets first pick, that is Jason, as the reigning

defending draft champion. Items are chosen from a pre-determined list of choices. We have agreed they could be verifiable on screen and not ridiculously obvious. For an item to count, it must either be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation. Our friend Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case of a scoring stalemate. There are no partial points awarded. The points awarded on the episode of final and finalized during the scoring segment. In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question. The draft challenger, which is me, gets the pick of the tiebreaker question, and the draft champion has to give an answer.

The winner becomes the draft champion and will display the champion pennant. The loser becomes the draft challenger and displays the challenger pennant. I will say, like, since we, you know, obviously we did the show on YouTube, the video version of this show really enforces the fact that like because the panelists existed for a long time but you get the opportunity behind me always it says the word challenger and behind you it says the word champion until it changes you can play along at home during the keynote using our interactive scorecard you can find that over at upgrade.cars that is made and maintained by the Wonderful, Zoe Knox, who's a moderator in our Discord.

And you can buy your own draft tea. I am wearing mine proudly today, but going to Upgrade Your Wardrobe.com, and you can support the draft whenever we play it. So far this year, there have been three drafts. There was a draft of the ages because we hit episode, Who Even Knows, What, 600? Yeah, and I won that. Then Jason finally brought the draft Challenger pennant back home.

to Mill Valley by winning the experience draft. I feel like my challenger side of my penit is like sun faded now. It was just out there so long. Oh, really? Yeah, okay. So you won the, this was the MacBook Neo event. You won the draft for that. We knew something was coming.

We did the draw. The New York experience. And you successfully defended WWDC. So Jason is our current draft champion. This is our 11th September draft. Doing this a long time. Not as long as Tim Cook was CEO. close. So we have done 10 so far. Jason has won six and I have won four.

Hmm. Interesting. We have a tiebreaker. Okay. As we want to do. Yeah. I'm going to choose event runtime. Okay. I today went through the last six events and looked at their runtime. Mm-hmm. Very quickly. An hour and 12 minutes of 2025 and I'll go back. An hour on 40, hour on 38, hour on 22. hour and 35, one hour and 19, one hour and four minutes in 2020. I thought about clicking that video just to see and I was like, that's going to be sad. I don't want to see that. I'm going to get sad.

I'm going to get sad if I see that. So I was thinking, Jason, I had to really put some thought into this. I'll tell you my number and I'll tell you how I got here. So I'm setting the over under an hour and 35 minutes. Oh, wow. Okay. Now, I really went back and forward on this one a bit today because it's like, well, there are less iPhone.

potentially in this normal, because we're dropping some. But we're adding in a folding phone, and they're going to want to spend a lot of time on that. Sure. And we also reckon maybe home stuff? Maybe home stuff. And so it's like, are you going to do all that?

And it's going to be a new CEO. Are they going to do anything different? So I'm like, well, I'm going on the longer side and I'm going for an hour and 35 minutes. So I lost this draft so many times in a row that I just reflexively look at the over-under running times and try to decide what I would set the over-under at. Yep. And so I did that this time, not even thinking of the fact that, oh, Mike's going to set it. I don't even have to worry about it.

Just to be clear here, you're setting it at 135, which is longer than all but one of the previous six. fall events. That is bold. Yeah, man. That is bold. I think it's going to be a lot of stuff. Okay. I don't disagree. I would say that the number I was going to pick is lower, so I'm going to say under. Just for record's sake, what was your number? What would you have picked? 125. So not that much different. Not that much.

You were also thinking this is on the longer side. I think longer than the 111 and the 118. but I don't, I didn't think it would be, you know, up in the 138 range. So I'm going to go under. I might have set it too far under, but I get an extra 10 minutes because you set it a little higher. So I'll take it all. I'll take the under. Yeah.

Well, we'll see. Mm-hmm. This episode is brought to you by Notion. There are things, there are lots of things that AI can replace, but teamwork, it isn't one of them. Nobody wants a future where every company is one, founder of the fleet of agents. It would want that. It might be efficient, but work has always been about more than just the work. Nothing can replace the feeling of figuring something out with your team. And that's what the folks at Notion are building. And that is why it is so great. Now,

let me tell you, Notion is becoming more and more and more of my life. We're using it at designing California to plan out the all of the series that we're doing. It is allowing us to, you know, Notion at the moment, it's talking about think together. Like, that's like a thing that they're focusing on. And I would say that notion is absolutely helping me and Jason do that. We're able to plan out the shows that we're wanting to produce and the series that morning to produce. Then we're able to, we also got a bunch of like just like documents in it that we're sharing, you know, like these are expenses and that kind of stuff. But then also, I'm taking transcripts of our episodes and I'm saving them in Notion and then I can use Notion's

AI features to search through those transcripts for later date because it's also like this knowledge base where we're able to save things for the future and it's allowing us to connect together and really like work out how we want to plan our show so notion is unparallowed for this notion is the air workspace where your team's knowledge projects and agents can all come together in one place teams using Notion move faster, cut friction and costs by consolidating tools and stay aligned. In Notion, your documents, your meetings, projects, and more all live in one connected system where your AI has the context that it needs to help you do your best work. It's seamlessly integrated, infinitely flexible, and beautifully easy to use.

Because everything lives together, Notion has the context that it needs to answer your questions straight away, automate your busy work, and keep things moving. it's AI that is designed to strengthen teamwork, not replace it, which I love. With over 100 million users, Notion is trusted by 98% at the Forbes Cloud 100, 95% of the top 50 AI companies, including OpenAI, cursor, lovable, and more. I am in so many Notion teams now because it's just so helpful for me to be able to get my work done. Learn more about how Notion can support your business at Notion.com slash upgrade, as all lower can. case letters, notion.com slash upgrade, or you can just click the link in the show notes, and you can try out Notion today, and when you use the link, you support the show. Our thanks to

Notion for their support of upgrade and all of Relay. It's time for the first round, for the first iPhone picks in the draft. Jason, what do you got? I'm going to start, use my champion's discretion with the first pick to pick something that's a little bit, I think, on the easy side, which is iPhones powered by new two nanometer chip. Okay. boasting about the new A-series chip, which just got trumped by the M6, stupid M6 stealing its thunder. But I think it's going to be a two-nanameter chip,

and they're going to boast about it, and that's my choice. All right. I had that pretty high up. I didn't have that at the top, but now I'm looking at my list. So we have this list that we share, and then me and Jason kind of whittle it down. I have a list, and now I've looked at my top pick,

and I don't feel confident in it anymore for some reason. But here we are, and so maybe I'll pick something else. Oh. No, I'm just going to go for it because I think it will happen. One iPhone color contains the word blue. That is my first round pick. That's what I'm going for.

Wild stuff. Wild stuff. You're just, you're on the blue train now. You're a blue believer. Yeah. I do think that they will, like we've seen like that light blue one. I do think they'll have it.

I think it will have the word blue in it. I'm less convinced about the purple one and the name that's out there for that. I don't know if you're going to pick it, but dark cherry, that is also a potential pick. It's like they're going to call it dark cherry. I don't know. I actually don't like that name. If they do call it dark cherry, it's like, is there light cherry?

Like, what are we doing? Why do they just call it cherry? Why is it dark cherry? Well, there's bright cherries and then this would be dark. I mean, dark cherry is so close to my joke about midnight lemon. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes.

It's just like, like, it's like a color, but dark. You know, apple. Call it black for it. That would be a fun name, right? Black Forest. Yeah, that's a fun name. Just a peek behind the scenes, our list of items that we're picking from includes three iPhone color items.

One iPhone color contains the word cherry. One iPhone color contains the word blue. And somehow cosmic orange returned. Yeah, I, that felt to me like just like a wish casting for you. It's just a joke. I'm just making jokes in there. I enjoyed it. There's a few jokes in there.

I felt them. All right. I am going to, I'm going to break the seal. on folding iPhone. Okay. Rumors. And I am, so this means that I'm saying we're going to get a folding iPhone. And I'm going to say that our folding iPhone supports split view, which seems natural, logical, right?

Split view on that wide screen and the inside that you'd be able to put two apps on it, one on the left and one on the right? Yeah, that was a high up on my list. I think that this to me feels like the obvious thing that will happen with. Yes. Like there's a lot of question about what is going to go on inside of that folding display. Yeah, what is happening in there? But at this time, this feels like the one we can kind of take a lock on. Like if you've been paying attention to the tools available for developers,

Apple is very focused on apps that resize. That is essentially Splivio, right? Like it feels very much like the way they've done things. in the past. Feel very confident about that. My second round pick, I'm going for something where I feel like Apple just can't help themselves

with. Apple brands the folding iPhone display. I was so happy when I put this in here. Perfect. Yeah. Really good suggestion. They love giving a name. They can't help it. And they will. They will do this. They will do this. It's our new liquid flex retina bend.

Pro display. They won't be able to help themselves. There's no world in which they're, because we know that Apple's going to do for the folding iPhone that they all, the thing they always do, right? They are obviously late to this party, right,

compared to their main competitor. And even some of their not main competitors. Like this is something they have come to very late. Yes. They are going to. try to show why they have made the best one. And part of that will be talking about the display that they're using and all of the technology that they're using to make the display look good in the inside.

And so there's no way that we get out of this without being named something. Yeah, it's too bad they've used liquid retina because they could use that here. Extra liquid retina. Because it's like so liquid you can bend it. Yeah. Yeah. that's why I put it on there. I just, I, I had fun making this list because I built more of this list than I normally you build it. I built it. And then I usually just insert my dumb ideas. And here I just went all in on the dumb ideas. And that one made me laugh because I'm like, of course they're. Yeah. I've won points in games or drafts before with this exact. Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. It's good. I'm going to go again a little bit boring. And also, this is your bummer pick. But I'm going to pick it so you don't have to, which is folding iPhone, touch. button only touch ID.

Sorry. I know. Sorry. You get used to it. When I've been tested, when I tested iPads that use touch ID, like iPad Air, you get used to it. But you also get used to just flipping open your device and having it open, right? You know, I have this in here. I don't know if you're going to pick it, but I'm just going to mention here.

Because we've been talking about, like, this isn't my pick, by the way. You know, like, how many cameras is it going to have? is it going to touch a D or not. Rumors are resurfacing again as whether this thing has MagSafe or not. Yeah. And I feel like if this thing has two cameras touch ID and no MagSafe, I'm going to be struggling.

Like, it's going to be rough for me. And we know from the iPhone SE or the iPhone E, the 16E had no MagSafe. It didn't have MagSafe. It had wireless charging, but it didn't have MagSafe. And then they brought it back. Which is like, what a weird. area. So yeah. Yeah. What a weird thing. Would that, what that would be, this is going to be, you know there's going to be a spec. You know there's going to be a spec. And we may or may not draft it. You know there's going to be a spec on the folding phone where we're like, really? What? And MagSafe would be that. Like touch ID I'll be upset about, but I'll get it. Yeah. Because I guarantee the way they would deal with this is it, if they do this, it doesn't have MagSafe. It does have wireless charging. The case had

magnets in it. Like that, I feel like is the way that they go around this. And I just like, man, that would be... What does a case for a folding phone look like? You just... They're separate pieces. Ah, two piece case. So that you do a front case and a back case. Okay.

That's how Samsung do it. Oh, case. Okay. And then they'll put magnet on that. But we'll see. But touch ID. Sorry. You're going to be sad. I'm going to be sad. I actually think I would be more sad if they don't have MacSafe. Then I would even be for for the first ID. Because that would just be like, well, now how do I charge the phone?

How am I charging it? So we'll find out. If ever there was a phone that you want to not plug in, it's this, right? It's just so thin that it's going to have a little tiny, like, USB port somewhere. Yeah. Just lay it down. I'm here for the stories that this phone is going to create. All right. My next pick. So while we want this thing to be an iPad on the inside, it's not going to be, right? I feel that we feel it's going to be iPhone apps.

Mark German reported this weekend that they did test an Apple pencil for it, but that it probably wasn't going to ship with it. But I'm hoping that Apple has some interesting stuff going on with this device. That kind of makes it fun and interesting and cool to use. So I'm picking Apple introduces new features for apps running on the folding iPhone's internal displays. It's a very long pick. Now, what does this mean? I'm hoping that they have some things we haven't seen in iOS before

that enable the usage of these kinds of applications, maybe some kind of multitasking buttons, right? Maybe some fun ways and easy ways to swap the apps around. Maybe we've got some pairs finally, like stuff like this that make using that internal display different to how we've used an iPhone before. Yeah. When I wrote this pick, I was thinking also about just,

you know, maybe some APIs that they couldn't even talk about at WWDC that are like, oh, apps are going to be able to do this thing. Yeah. And then all the developers will be like, oh, no, I got to do that. But that just to, yeah, my idea was very vague, but it was sort of like ease the, and there is a corresponding external display pick as well, of like, what are they going to do? Because both of these displays are a little unusual, certainly on an iPhone. They're very unusual.

are there going to be affordances that they offer so that apps behave a little differently? Like, and I would even say like, for apps might also mean like reachability, right? That's a feature for apps because it like has to move your app on the screen so that you can reach the thing. That was a weird,

but that is a feature that's an affordance like this that I would say is in the ballpark. So we'll see. It's like, do they literally say, and with the folding iPhone, you can have split view? All right, next. Moving on.

Like my point, is they going to have other things, right? Is my thinking? I don't know what they are, but I would be surprised if that was like, hey, two apps side by side.

Now let's show you the camera. So we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. My next pick, I'm actually going to go back to the new chip, presumably A20 or E20 Pro,

but that new chip that's going to come out, that two nanometer I picked chip. And I'm thinking just, it's the spirit of the age, Mike. Apple will make a specific boast about on-device AI performance in their new chip. Huh. Interesting.

I think this is a, I think this is a gimmy. I think this is a layup, honestly. Do they talk about on-device AI performance with the iPhone? Yeah. Yeah. And in the context of Siri AI, right? Mm, okay. To say, to say, oh, the neural engines here, it's so much better.

It responds better. It's got this capability. It's got those enhanced voices or maybe even another feature. But I just feel like new chip, two nanometer. What's a money phrase is better AI performance. Even if it's just like 2x better AI performance than the A19 Pro. Like even if it doesn't mean anything, it sounds great. And it says we're on top of AI.

So I'm just, I'm going to put down a chip here that they got a new chip. They're going to boast about AI performance because why would they not? All right. Fourth round, that's the fourth round of my fourth round pick. Apple makes a specific claim about how there's essentially no crease on the folding iPhone. Oh, another one of my favorites that I wrote, because you can picture it, right? Which is that we've had all of these stories about creases and them trying to avoid the crease and how they finally, it was like they're going to make it creaseless.

And then there was that great story that was like, well, how do you define creaseless, right? So what are they going to say? And again, that's why it says essentially in parentheses there Is that do they Do they not say anything about it? Or do they say, you know, the big problem With folding phones is a big ugly crease in the center But we built this amazing thing

And you won't, you know, you can't even tell. It's just, it's perfect. Will they say crease? I don't know. I can imagine like... I don't know. They don't have to say crease. And look, we did the seamless. Yeah, like they're going to say something.

They've got to imply how great that screen is. How smooth and level and you'll never even know that it folded or whatever it is. That's what they're going for there. It is a dangerous game too, right? Oh, yeah. Because it could, it could backfire. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow.

Okay, so we're in the second half of the iPhone picks. This is where it gets harder. Yeah. I am going to make something that's almost a statement. Agecraft pick, but it's about the iPhones, so it counts, which is, we anticipate that what they will not do in this event is announce the iPhone 18 or 18 plus if it exists. The new kind of like what we think of as the base model iPhone, that this is going to be a pro-only iPhone event. And so the question is, what do they say about that? And so I'm going to make the pick, they will say nothing.

They will not mention that the iPhone 18 isn't coming out. They might mention the iPhone 17 and say, look, at our great product line now, we've got the iPhone 17 and we've got the iPhone 18 Pro. And like, all of your questions about where the iPhone 18 is are answered by my iPhone 17 t-shirt. Like, I just forget it. So that's, I never, never been against Apple not announcing future products, but I, I just, if they joke about it, then I lose this pick. But like, I think they're just going to stare at us and be like, what do you mean? We don't, you know, no, there's no 18. It's 18 pro. That's what we're doing. So, yeah, that's my, that's my choice is they will say nothing about the fact that they've omitted several popular phone models. from new product versions. Yep.

I'm going to make a pick. I'm going to have this pick, but I will ask a clarification question for it anyway. Okay. My pick is for round five, at least one new photo-related operating system feature is added to iOS beyond what we've already seen. Okay.

So that's my pick. If they have the variable aperture hardware, and there's buttons in the software, to control it. Does that count? Oh, I would say if it's just buttons to control it or like an auto, I would say maybe no. Yeah. But if it enables a mode, right? Like what if it enables like a deep, you know, deep, a depth mode or something?

That's good. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Where it's like you flip this in and the aperture changes and it looks different. I would give it to you, but I feel like if all it is is just saying, if it's like all happening automatically or maybe there's a thing that is like, you know, it shows that it's different or whatever, I don't think it would matter. But if it, if that new hardware feature enables like a new photographic mode of some sort. Maybe if it was like a new, new, new things in like, oh, we have this new set of pro features and da-da-da-da-da. But I also think it might be more. Anything else. Like I think they may show off more than that because they tend to anyway, right?

I agree. Things like photographic style. aisles to come now. So this feels like a good pick to me. Did they hold something back from WWDC that's in iOS 27 that's on these phones? And if they did, then that pick. And also the folding phone, the cameras are going to be, it's weird, right? Like the cameras are not necessarily in all the spots you expect them to be physically all the time. And they might do some stuff there. Like, I think it's the pixel phones. They have this feature where it will show animations on the outside screen to capture a child's attention to get them to look at the camera

which is like a really fun little feature that's in their camera app but also they might do some weird stuff about like what is going on when you're using these phones and like the cameras and like this display that display you know like so yeah I expect there's going to be some stuff across the devices There is. There is going to be some stuff. I think you nailed it. Stuff will be had by all.

Stuff will be had. There's a little bit more of a flyer, but again, like what you just picked, I feel like this tends to happen. And there's a lot of movement in this area right now. So I'm going to say, new satellite connectivity features on iPhone. Okay. What are they? I don't know. Tell me.

I don't know. Emergency calls with a partner. There's a lot of action right now in terms of satellite connectivity. Carriers are doing it. There are satellite constellations that are out there that are all trying to, like, connect to phones. It might not be. You might only have to support certain carriers or whatever. But like, just as they said, oh, now we, now you can text.

And it's not just emergency anymore. I just feel like there's. something going on with satellite and that this is the time where Apple would say, here's a great new satellite thing that you can do. And it might even be like a variant on what exists already, but it would be a new satellite-based connectivity feature of some kind. Because I feel like they're usually up for one. And now is the time to do it.

I have no, it's just vibes. I'm kind of going on vibes. But like, there's a lot of heat in this area. And this is the iPhone event. So if they're going to do it, now's the time. I'm going to go in a completely different direction for my sixth round pick. Claim of improved iPhone battery life. Oh, this is good.

I think this is a good pick. I think this is a good pick. Either as a result of your two nanometer chip that you mentioned earlier, right? Maybe there's some efficiency there. There's also a pick that maybe one of us will pick before this is over, but I'll spoil it now, about them using the C2 modems and more devices. And maybe one or both of those in some of, you know, maybe in the pro phone or whatever, Or the fact that, you know, apparently these phones are going to get a little thicker, right? Maybe they put a little bit more battery in there, a little bit more efficiencies.

I can imagine it's always good if they can do it. And I think they're always trying. So some of the stars could align this year for even more battery life in your iPhone. I think that's a pretty good pick because just the new chip will allow them to make a claim that the battery life goes up. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that will like that. Yeah.

And they will say that. I think that's a good pick. Thank you. Two picks to go. Oh, man. I did suggest we do a lot of iPhone picks because it makes the later picks a little weird. I'm into the danger zone now. Like some of the things that I have in my list, it's like these are things I would pick,

but most of them is like I've picked multiple things that all contradict each other. And it's about which one do I feel in the moment? Oh, I am, man, I'm going to go with a colors are pick here. Oh, wow. and I'm going to say the folding iPhone comes in monochrome colors. Okay. Silver, white, black, gray.

Okay. But not a, not a like a nice color that is a color. Okay. Keeping it bland for the first gen. That's my choice. Zah was out that day. They just, you know, start, start it simple. Keep it plain.

That's my, that's my theory. All right. Okay. Folding iPhone. is the thinnest Apple device ever. That was my other pick, actually, right there. I was going back and forth. It is entirely possible

that the folding iPhone will be claimed as being the thinnest Apple device ever over the 13-inch iPad Pro. Of course, it's when it's open. Right. And that's how they'll talk about it is when it's open, obviously not when it's closed.

I don't know. I mean, it can't... Maybe when it's closed. No, it can't be. Yeah, probably not. It can't be. You wouldn't be out to open it. No.

If you're like taking two pieces of paper or something. It's good. They're going to make a claim. The 13 inch iPad Pro, by the way, is the winner on this. It's 5.1 millimeters. The iPhone Air is 5.6. Yes. Right?

Isn't that amazing? But the iPhone, the iPad Pro is thinner than the iPhone? The iPad Pro is unbelievably thin. Yeah, it's unbelievably thin. and this phone would feel fantastic if it was if it was thinner than that like if it was like five millimeters when open that would feel really really really nice so i hope so final pick in the iphone round what you're watching wow wow i don't like it at all i got a lot of numbers here i'm not going to lie it a lot numbers in in my final ones yeah man um all of these are kind of like

Yeah, there's shots in the dark, aren't I a little stinker kind of picks? Oh. Do I want to be a bummer? Do I want to be a bummer? I'm going to be a bummer. Here we go. Okay.

iPhone Pro Models starting price is $200 or more above previous generation. Can I just hit you with my final round pick, please? Yes. iPhone Pro Model starting price is 100 to 100. $99 more than the previous generation. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll go. Which do we think? Which do we think? I put them this way because I wasn't sure. And now I'm just being like, yeah, they're just going to be like, who cares? It's going up. 200.

That's it. So? What's your reason for optimism there? Samsung and Google. Okay. They've gone up by 100 by and large on their starting models. Does that really say anything? Not really.

But I think it indicates maybe where the industry is. I think it does also make it difficult to go up much more. Yep. So you're basically saying it's going to be 1199 and I'm saying it's going to be 1299. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I have that moment.

of like Apple's just going to do it. Like they're just going to, they're going to, they're going to push it again. Like they, they have, they have not pushed it. It is sitting there at that price. They, it was up. It's been up in the past, but they haven't done it at all until now, right? They haven't raised that price. Maybe they won't raise it at all.

That was a pick. Neither of us pick. I just feel like they're just going to go all, all the way. They've got, they got lots of other iPhones out there. And this is the pro model and that they're going to push it. it, but I don't know. This is a real coin flip here between your pick and my pick. Yeah.

It's this, it's, I would not want to be the person making this decision, right? Because there is like a, I mean, it's going to go up, right? There is an amount that it can go up and people will accept it. There's an amount that it can go up and people will not. And how does this affect any sales? Like, it's so, I can't even, I, I, there are people who have been kept awake at night for months trying to work this decision out

because this is unbelievably complicated. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I agree. Yeah, my argument is basically like this isn't the base iPhone price at all. There are all sorts of other phones, the 17s that are down there at other prices and that this is the pro phone. Isn't this the seller though, like the pro?

Isn't this where they make their money? Yeah. I don't know. Does that mean that you need to make more money? Or does it mean it's hard? You are saying they're going to ask for more money, but not too much. And I'm going to say they're going to ask for too much. I don't imagine a world that they ask for nothing more.

I can't see that. I can't picture that. But I think they're going to try, I believe they're going to try to keep it below that 200 mark. And I actually do think it will be more around the 100 mark. Maybe we'll find out why the leasing program exists. Maybe so. This episode is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic. Claude is the AI for Problem Solvers.

It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model, or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. talking about actually your business moves. So I recently started listening to the Acquired podcast. It's, you know, it is a podcast. It is about the history of businesses, which is something that I'm thinking a lot about with designing California.

That show is very successful. They have a really interesting business model. And I wanted to know more about it. So I asked Claude to put together a report for me that kind of explained where they came from, how they got to where they are, and like what has made them successful so far. And it was fascinating to read through and to think about.

It's like I'm thinking about where we're going to go with design in California and how we kind of position it to the world. And this was really helpful for me to have this report made by Claude. Claude is built by Anthropic, a public benefit corporation, founded on a hard question. How do we make sure AI turns out well for people? They take on the hard questions about AI in the open, jobs, kids, trust, because a future worth hoping for can't be built behind closed doors.

Claude Co-Work is a product of Claude of Anthropic that I use quite a lot. Co-work brings Claudecodes agentic power to everyone, no terminal required. That is what I want. I don't want to be in the terminal. It's not for me. It's why I really like co-work. You point it at a folder on your computer or connect tools like Google Drive and Gmail. Describe what you need and it handles the rest.

Organizing files, building real spreadsheets, drafting reports from scattered notes, and now your work follows you. Co-work runs in the cloud so you. You can start a task at your desk, check it from your phone, and Claude keeps going even after you close your laptop. Then there's tools like deep research, which takes things much further than a standard web search, delivering deep, trustworthy analysis backed by real sources, turning what would take hours into minutes, surfacing links between over 50 sources that you'd likely miss on your own. And why do people trust Claude?

Well, Claude comes from Anthropic, as I mentioned, a public benefit corporation. There are no ads, no tricks designed to keep you scrolling. Anthropic puts out genuine research on tough topics like what AI means for jobs rather than avoiding them. And companies like Stripe, Shopify, Pfizer, Rakuten and Notion, trust Anthropic to help guide how they bring AI into their businesses. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude today at clod.aI slash upgrade. That is, C-L-A-U-D-E-E-I-slash-upgrade and check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features that I've mentioned. That is

Claude. That is clod. A thanks to Claude for their support of this show

and relay. It is time for the other draft picks. So this includes literally everything

else that we could possibly want to pick is in this round. There are five of these.

Everything but the And I will start us with the Apple Watch and I will say

ceramic. Now I'm see you had your bummers from me. I gave you your

bummers. Yeah. Now I'm going to make Mike happy, ceramic Apple Watch option. Man, and Mark said over the weekend, it's going to be, we're going to have a white one. Jason, I am going to be so happy. I am going to be so happy if they bring that white ceramic Apple Watch back.

I'll take this point and you'll like it. Yes. I want you to get this point. Jason, this was my round one pick two because I just want it to be true. I just want it to be true. Oh, man. I will. I mean, I'll miss the battery life from the Ultra, but see you, buddy.

I'm off. No problem here. I'll charge that thing twice a day if I need to. My first round pick, John Turnus has a major role in unveiling at least one product. Oh, stagecraft pick. Interesting, interesting. It's hard to believe that the new CEO is going to just be the traffic manager of the event when they have a major product like the folding iPhone

where he's the hardware guy. I just, I can't see it. It could happen, but I just, I mean, Jaws will get to do his pros and all that, and that'll be nice, and Ternus may throw to other people, but I think like a major, what we're really saying here is that he's going to do more than the Tim Cook thing.

Yeah. My expectation is he's at the beginning, right? He will say something kind of about being there doing, this, right? It would be weird if he didn't address it in any way. And then he'll go off and, you know, but then it will come back to him. I think he'll utter three special words, but I'll save that for a other time. Yeah, could be, could be. And then he will be the one to do the presentation about the, about the phone. I don't think he will do all of it, right? Like, I think he'll go to other people, but it will be him kind of guiding that part of the presentation. It's not going to go

to Jaws to do that part. I think Jolz would have already done his part. I think Jals will do the pro phones. It will come back. It may actually be, and I could imagine a scenario where they come back to the iPhone, right? Like it might be, they do iPhone, or they might do like iPhone, Apple Watch, maybe home and then back to the iPhone again, maybe. We'll see. But I'm not too. picking that part just that. John Turner's has a major role in unveiling at least one product. I think that's good. I like it.

Well, let's see. Let's stick with the Apple Watch and say that the Series 12 will have a new chip. New Apple Watch chip. Let's just do it. I know it's kind of boring. Ceramic, new chip. Move it forward. They don't always have a new chip, but I'm going to say, I'm going to put it down.

New chip. Let me pick something boring. to them. Previously unseen watch faces are mentioned. Oh, that's your, that's your classic. Unseen watch faces are mentioned or shown, I suppose. Yes, I mean, I don't think that'd be like, there's a new Apple Watch Face, but we're not going to show you. It's a secret. This is a secret. No, I don't know what it will be, but there'll be some features, some design stuff. You know, like maybe they make a big deal of the ceramic one and they have these new white, like, porcelain looking, you know, like ceramic looking,

watch face design or something like that. Okay. I'm going to say we will see an Apple Watch Ultra 4. Okay. That Mike won't buy. No. Because he's buying a ceramic. Unless I make that, it was ceramic.

And then we're, you know, and then I don't know where I'm going. Oh, boy. No, they won't look good. It won't look what they want it to look like. No. I'm excited for the thinness, too, you know. Like I was very tempted by the 11. It's great.

It's really nice. I was really tempted by it, but it wasn't enough for me to then lose the battery. Yeah. The ceramic, it's all ceramic all the time for me right now. I get it. I think I want to have a couple of watch picks. Just why pick those when you could pick something more fun? It's true.

Homepad device is announced. Yeah. There we go. Home part of a screen. Come on. Johnny T. Give me what I want. We all know what the home pad is.

We all know what it's going to be. We don't know what it's going to be called. We don't need anything about it. The home pad's in quotes. But you're like, it's finally going to happen. John Ternis came into CEO and he's like, I want that thing. I've had enough of this. Mark Herman has said that that product's been ready to ship for a year and a half.

Yeah. And it's just sat there because Siri was no good. And that Siri is good. So, yeah, Siri AI. is actually good. It's really good. And so they can't do it now. When on earth are they going to be able to do it?

It's true. I'm going to jump on the home train now. New home ponds. New home ponds. New home ponds. They're going to refresh. I think there's going to be a big home product refresh. If the home pad happens, I think they will also refresh them.

Yeah, I don't think it's going to be just that, right? Home products. That would be weird. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to I'm so I have my list here

right I'm jumping all over the place now I'm like yeah I'm in it I'm all up in it and I'm jumping now to the new Apple Watch models have enhanced Siri AI support

Ah okay this is this I think is risky but I think I like the concept of this which is why I wrote it which is which is the idea that they will they will talk about how great the Apple Watch is with Siri AI in some way

that probably I mean for this to be right it needs to be something that's enabled by the new models but it feels like that is a thing that they would boast about right

I could even imagine it being just speed like we mentioned earlier because it is a little slow you're doing stuff with Siri is a little slow on the new watches it is

and I think that might be why we've got that cutoff being as as I think I understand it more now. Like we, I expected, you know,

it's like, oh, Siri AI is the reason that they're doing the watch OS cut off on the older models, but using it is like, ooh,

is slow sometimes. Yeah. And so I, I could imagine that the new, like why, you know, it's been a while since we had like a full

new chip on these watches and like maybe this is part of lining all that up for them. Okay. I have, this is my last pick. Yeah, man.

Wow. Now where, right? That one's, that one's fast. Wow. This one's fast. Wow.

I am just like you I'm leaping around here I've got a boring pick that I think is probably a gimme and then I've got a more exciting pick I'm gonna join you on the Homepad train for one pick and I'm going to say

Homepad shown or described as docking with a speaker A rumored thing The idea that you attach, it's not just a floating tablet with no accessory. One of the configurations of it is you can have a speaker. You put it in a dock,

it's got a speaker, and then it plays music nice. I want to, I want to clarify this because I feel like this could be one of those ones where we have a fight about it later. Okay.

What if they have two configurations? One, it has a speaker. They have another. It goes on the wall. I think I get it. Yeah, so that's why I want to check. It's not docking then. It's just like home pad is shown or described as having a speaker,

which is less of an exciting pick, but nevertheless, here we are. Right, there's not really much of a pick. It's like, oh, if they announce this product, is it. Well, what it is is if they show it and say it's great too, because you can play music on a home pod through it, that's not good. It needs to be either that it's sold with. a speaker or it's sold and you can then buy a speaker dock to put it in. Those are the options here. Yeah. Well, okay. What do you got? Bring us home. You're thinking to do it's something weird?

I don't know, man. I'm sitting on this last pick of yours now because it's like if this product has a speaker, it's like, well, of course it has a speaker. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, we know, we know, we know, You know, an actual speaker, not a, not like an iPad speaker. Yeah. But I mean, can we just say good speaker? Sure. But I mean, like, it's just like, of course it does, though, right? Like, like the echo had, yeah, whatever.

We'll work it out later on. It's, we're going to have to know. You know what I'm talking about here, though, right? Like, if I'm like, well, it makes noise, that is not it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I just don't think that they would do that. I think if they sell this product, it's going to have a speaker base, like, as part of it. Except we don't know that because it's also been like, oh, and you can put it on a wall.

And it's, you can leave it on your living room table. And it's like, so is it. This is why I think this is a worthy pick is we don't know, Mark Herman's reported a bunch of stuff, right? We don't know whether this product is part of a larger ecosystem where if you want to play music, you tell a home pod to play music. Okay. You know what? One of the options is the, I can, that I can replace my stupid Google thing in my kitchen with one of these. And it has the, and it's not just an iPad in a little holder. It is a thing with a speaker that I can talk to when it will play music and sound good. Essentially, like we're not putting this, but like essentially a home, home pod speaker in it. Right. They give me like a home pod mini. It's like it is, it is like it actually is a music device. It doesn't just have a speaker in it. We're on the same page now. I get you. Yeah. Of course it has a speaker, but like it's not necessarily a music device.

If you're not going to be a speaker there, right? But I'm saying there's going to be a configuration somehow where you can put it somewhere and it will have a decent speaker on it. Yeah. Yeah. Because even the wall one, right, like it has to have something that if you ask Syria a question, it can give you a response. But that can be like a speaker and a phone or whatever, you know? Exactly. It's not like the thing you're going to fill your room with sound.

You're not going to do it. So we all agree on what this is. We know what it is. Cool. I love it. Thank you. I know I have no idea. All right. You've delayed long enough. I've delayed long enough, but I wasn't looking at my picks. Okay, so I'm just going to, I'll talk it through now because here we are. So I have a bunch of home pad ones, but that feels dangerous to double down on.

Yeah. Apple TV, I just, I don't know, man. I really don't know. I, yeah, okay. Are they going to do another home accessory? That is a pick that we have here. Could that be now? Is that too soon? And then also I have a couple of like somewhat boring watch picks. Do they add new features to certain places? Yes.

And Mark just reported about some changes to the fitness app, the activity app. If I said, what is new workout feature? What are we classing that as? New workout feature. It means that there's some Either a new workout or a new feature in the workouts app in terms of, you know, like when they added stories or when they added the buddy while you're working out. Oh, yeah, the buddy.

I'm just, I'm just being really broad here about like it could be, we've added this kind of workout or we've changed how workouts work to do this better. And I'm just like something, I don't know. I mean, it really is me throwing it at the wall. Apple Watch Series 12 adds a new workout feature. Okay. Very boring, but I would like it. I don't want to throw it away. I don't want to throw it away. I was very tempted to throw it away with the new home accessory category,

but I feel like that's exciting, but I would like to win. And so I'm going to try and just try and win. Is what I'm doing. Oh, we did it. Man, what a bumper episode today. So next week, it's... Yes, very important. Yeah. Zoe just mentioned something

which is surprised you didn't do any AirPods picks I don't know if there will be AirPods I don't know I think I think Kerman may have just reported that there will be AirPods 5 or something

and it's like that's fine but like I don't know what that is we're going to keep our hands off of that one and we'll see we'll see about that but yeah so very important programming note

yeah no episode next Monday because we're going to do what we do Happy Labor Day and bank holiday to all who celebrate. It's a bank holiday today. I know it is.

I know it's a bank holiday today, but we, you know, forget that. Who cares about that? But next week, we are not recording because we're going to wait for the Apple events. So September 9th, which is 9-9 in the U.S. And if you're in the UK, 99. What a day. What a magical day when we agree. And it's like that temperature that's way below zero where Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same.

Oh, what a time. on the fly. I didn't even know. So we will be back and probably, so I'm, I'm, last year I didn't go to the Apple event. And so we were able to do it right after. Yeah. So if I get invited at the last minute to the Apple event, then it'll be a couple hours after the Apple event. Because I'll have to get home to do it. But I'll have hands on.

Otherwise, we'll do it fairly quickly after the Apple event. Yeah. Live. And then, of course, we'll release it later in the day. But it'll be Wednesday instead of Monday. So it'll be a shocker of a. different kind of thing for you. But we'll get it out fast.

We'll be, we'll still, we'll still be out before ATP. Yeah. Because they, I mean, we'll see. I don't want to challenge Marco. Because Marco might be like, well, who cares, Jason? Now I'm editing it right now and all that. But like, we'll be,

give them man R.S. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to prompt him to. Also, they, they, they're, episodes are like nine hours long. Nine hours long. That's true. Yeah, they won't even be done recording until early Thursday morning. So we'll beat them.

We'll beat him out. So yeah, keep an eye on social media, Discord, places like that if you do want to listen live. But we will, at the moment at least, most likely be beginning the live stream shortly after the event ends. Maybe enough time to digest some thoughts and then we'll get going. So you can look forward to that. I'm very excited, Jason, actually. Yeah, something like 1130 or noon in that range, Pacific time. I'm really excited.

this could be a fun time. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting. Can't wait. Can't wait. If you would like to send us your feedback follow-up or questions for the show, you can always go to UpgradeFeedback.com. Thank you to our members to support us with UpgradePlus.

Go to GetUpgradeplus.com. This time we're playing the St. Jude Challenge where we have another game that we play. So have fun with that one. We're going to be going, if you remember, you'll be getting an extra game, which affects the Mike versus Stephen St. Jude points that we run throughout the entire month of September. You can go to get Upgradeplus.com. You can sign up, you get longer ad-free versions of the show. You can find us on YouTube by searching for the Upgrade podcast. I'd like to thank our sponsors for this week's episode. That is FitBod, Notion and Claude. Don't forget to go and sign up for designing California

to go listen to the show. New episodes beginning on Wednesday. So very excited about that. most of all thank you for listening we'll be back next wednesday until then say goodbye jason snow see you next wednesday everybody