Upgrade - 641: A Fashion Chimney

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

From Relay, this is Upgrade. Episode 641. Today's show is brought to you by FitBod and Notion. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. Interesting calendar things happening. Our last episode we recorded on a Saturday.

A very long time ago. Tuesday. It was a long time. We were together a long time ago. Now we're back in our places and it's a Tuesday. Yeah. Because we might as well get this. out of the way at the beginning. I won the draft.

Yes, okay. So obviously we're recording a day late because Apple had an event-ish experience thing. We didn't know it, we didn't know it was going to happen when we recorded, so we couldn't draft. So therefore, you automatically win the draft that we did. And there's literally no way for us to, we could not have prepared for a draft the day after the podcastathon and recorded live in Memphis. Well, we want, me and you had an inkling at that point, but nothing was, it wasn't as set feeling as some of the other stuff that we've done these drafts for before. Yeah. And yeah, we, there was no way we could have handled it. And then, there's no, there's no missing episode

where we did the draft that I won and we're not going to score anything because, um, but just by default. You, I guess and whatever. By default. There's, no, I just continue with my old title and there is no new draft. So, so yes, new Apple product announcements, yeah, no drafts. But we still were able to anticipate it. I mean, I set my alarm, got up at, you know, before six in the morning here so that I could sit down and write stories about new Apple product announcements and then talk to you. Yeah, so we've done a bunch of reading. And yeah, obviously, we decided to record today's episode on Tuesday and on Monday because it would have been pretty silly to record yesterday, knowing that this is happening today. You just delete that episode out of your podcast player,

right? Because it's already out of date. And I feel pretty good, actually. I feel like this is one of the times where the least amount of people have reached out to ask what we're doing, though we never said we were going to do it because everybody just understands what's happening here. Oh yeah, there's a thing tomorrow. They're probably waiting for that. The upgradians get it. But I have a Snell talk question for you and it comes from Jared and Jared wants to know. Jason, have you ever had to buy a new bag or luggage to accommodate some embargoed Apple products? We're just really on a tear here where I just answer no. But it's fun though, right? What do you mean on a tear? What is this on a tear? I've been doing a lot of no answers the last few weeks where I just say no.

I propose to you. There is a thing. thing called the upgrade feedback form. There are snow talk questions in the form. You can feel free to pick whatever questions you would like to do it. No, I mean, no, I don't want to, I don't want to, you do it. I'm just going to say my answer is no. Okay. There's just no, I just don't have a, there's no

a new bag or luggage. First up, I mean, the idea here would be you'd receive an embargoed product while traveling, or you'd have an embargoed product. It happens for a lot of people. It doesn't happen for you, but it happens for a little people, right? Where they're like, oh, here's your thing, but you're in Cupertino or whatever. And then people have to

go home. Here's the, here's, here's, here's the truth. It is almost never the case that we receive a product before it's announced. And once it's announced, it's not that big a deal. Um, like, you're not supposed to, if you're under an embargo, I guess this is what I would say is like, you get the new iPhone. Yeah. And you have a reviews embargo. Well, the new iPhone is announced. Everyone knows what it looks like. if you take it out and take pictures with it or are using it and people are like oh is that the new iPhone I mean something that's very obvious like the iPhone duo even that I would say you all you need to do is you know and you're not supposed to post it on social media and stuff but like it's announced already so it's just not that big a deal um you're not supposed to use it for content because you're waiting for it to for your review embargo to drop but that's not a thing you conceal even then, really. So it would only be the case

that you'd need to do something like this if you received product that had not yet been announced in advance and that doesn't happen, basically. So if you had an iPhone duo before it was released, would you feel comfortable using it in public or would you choose not to,

like what would you do? If I had an iPhone duo before release, like right now, which I don't, there's your canary in the cool mine, I do not have an iPhone duo. But if I did, would I be comfortable just walking around with it? Yes.

Okay. Would I show it on upgrade on the video version or post it to my socials? No, because that's not allowed. That's the shame. I'm not, I mean, and I wouldn't go around giving people demos of it, probably, but like it's just not that big. Probably. I mean, somebody asks real nice.

But honestly, and if they did, I would show it to them because, again, the embargo is really about disseminating lots of content about it widely for a product that everybody already knows is coming out and they know what it is and they've seen the videos. So it's just not, it's not a scenario that comes up because almost nobody ever, ever gets an Apple product in hand before. Sometimes we'll get information about an Apple product before it's announced. But that's not the same as having it. And the way it generally works is you might get pre-briefed, very rarely. Then there's an announcement. Then maybe you get a review unit. But everybody knows that product exists then. So the answer is, is no. I've never had to buy a suitcase in order to stuff iPads or iPads or iPhones or Macs in it. The closest that I've come is sometimes you go to these events and they give you the review unit and then you've got to take a flight home and you're like, where am I going to put this thing? Because, you know, I sometimes tend to pack pretty light.

And then I'm like, God, now I've got a big MacBook box. What do I do with that? See, look, we have actually gotten to the answer for Jared's question. Oh, yeah. This was Jared's question. We got to make it work. Well, yeah, that's not really what Jared's question was, but that's the closest I can come. If you would like to send in a snow talk question of your own,

please go to UpgradeFeedback.com. Maybe ask an open question. Send in your snow talk question. and we can answer it on a future episode of the show. We have some follow-up. Matthew wrote in and said, I've recently binged the entire first drop of designing California, and then following Jason's suggestion, read or listened, to Steve Jobs in exile.

With these two fresh in my head, hearing you both talk about Apple failing to rapidly expand their product line, I wonder if some of that hesitation comes from the history of Apple's low point of a blow to product line that Steve took a chainsaw with upon his return. Do you think that there is some kind of, you know, we talk about Apple's kind of like historic cultural DNA, right? And like this being some of the reason why maybe they can hold on to money, maybe more than they should sometimes. Do you think that there has been a kind of hesitancy to a bloated product line? I'm reluctant when we're 30 years out from that to say that that is something that people are really thinking about.

I would say Apple is a culture that was built by Steve Jobs upon his return. And you get all of that. You get all that culture for good and for bad. And so I don't think everybody's like, oh, remember how many products Steve was confronted with when he returned to Apple? I don't think people do that. And maybe the issue was those products were bad. One day we'll find out on designing California.

How about it? Also, the, you know, honestly, people talk about the four product grid that he did. Yeah. It's like, you know, yeah. And then he came up with a G4Cube and an X-Serve and they did the iPod. And they, like, it was four product grid for a very small amount of time. And that was really just for Mac. And it was really him saying, we're going back to basics.

That was, I run into people who think four product that every company that's successful should have four products in a square. And it's just not true. It's just not true. It wasn't true then. And it was a, it's like saying the, if you see a stylist, they blew it and saying, see, Apple Pencil shows that Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave. And it's like, that's not what he meant. I was just this morning talking to Adina about the zombie arms thing when it came to the touchscreen laptops. It's like it's all that stuff. It's like it's only, no one wants to watch video on an iPod. All of this stuff is just a thing that he said for the time that it said. And some of it is contextual, right? The whole point with a stylus is if you had to use a stylus because there was no touch screen, it was. was, you know, you had to push with a stylus in order to get it to work. Then they blew it because you shouldn't need that. You should be able to use your finger. Adding a stylus as an

option for drawing is not the same context. So the four product grid, also in a context, very silly. That said, do I think that there may be some Apple cultural thing about restraining the number of products they do? I mean, I think the bar is high to release a product at Apple. I do think that that's true. So I do think that that comes from this. But that's not quite the same. Like, they just need to decide, as we're going to talk about today, that there are some products that they want to do and that they can do them. I'll also point out today's Apple makes way more products than Apple made when Steve Jobs came back to Apple because they make a zillion iPhone models and iPad models and Mac models and Apple Watch models. Even just the iPhone wouldn't

fit into a four product grid today. It's true. There's more than four. There's more. More than four. So you just got to think beyond that. But to Matthew's point, I'm sure that within Apple there is at least something that is about crossing a threshold of, do we think we should be doing this product? And I think sometimes it bites them. I think that you could argue that maybe that was what was going on when they stopped making displays and when they kill the airport. Yeah. Last week we spoke about like if Apple were lucky to pick Burgundy and light blue or if there had been some kind of.

trying to guess trends. You know, and I was thinking, while we were talking about that, I was thinking to myself, if only we knew somebody at Pottery Barn, who could answer this question for us. Stephen wrote in and said, I used to work a pottery barn in the product development department.

Every year, a company that Pottery Barn paid about $75,000 would come and do a presentation about the next year's trends, including colors. They called it forecasting. But what we realize is if every Fortune 500 company or whatever paid the same firm believing that they gave them insight,

was that forecasting? were you just following what the trend company said, which then created a trend, is it chicken and egg, we can't be sure. And then Edward wrote in and said, there was a fantastic podcast from 99% Invisible from about 10 years ago that stuck with me. They talk about the role of WGSN,

a trend forecasting company for the fashion industry. They provide insights and inspirations to designers, retailers, and marketers through its reports, images, and design templates. Yeah, this is, this is great because there's all, look, there is identifying trends and there is solidifying trends. And I think the answer is, it's not quite that it's chicken and egg.

I think what happens is that there are people intensely watching. It's like a funnel, right? Like there are things that are happening and people notice them. And then they're like, oh, that might be a trend. And I think that's how fashion works in general is you kind of notice a thing happening. And then there are people whose job it is to like say, hey, did you notice? And there's other people whose job it is to say,

let's quantify what's going on. And there are people who pay a lot of money, even pottery barn will pay a lot of money to get a leg up on what people are doing. And it may be fake. It may be real. But it's a little like iPhone cases. It's like if you can get a jump on it,

you know the shape of the iPhone. If you know sort of where the trends are going, then you, then you can be there. But it does make it potentially a little artificial, right? Because you may be surfacing things that happen to surface because of reasons that are not necessarily, right? So that's your mystery, your chicken and egg kind of thing.

I want to mention here one of my favorite books ever is called Pattern Recognition. It's by William Gibson. It's a novel. Main character pattern recognition is a cool finder. her job is to determine what is emerging as cool from culture. Oh, you've told me about this book before. Yeah.

And she's allergic to brands, which is the other funny thing about it. She's allergic to brands. She sees the Michelin Man, Babendam, the Michelin Man, and has panic attacks. She's allergic to the Michelin Man. It's a great book. I love it. It is William Gibson famous for Neuromancer, soon to be an Apple TV series. Cannot wait for that.

I think pattern recognition is best book if you haven't read it. I highly recommend it, especially because it is about Gibson in general, and that book in particular is about like observing culture and observing brands. And he talks about sort of the business of it a little bit too, a fun book. But that's kind of what's going on here, I think, is, is it real or is it synthetic? And the answer is, again, there's probably a funnel of trying to notice trends in advance, but it gets magnified and maybe distorted and maybe it's real and maybe it's not. but I'm sure, you know, because it's not as simple as there's a conveyor belt and a, you know, a, a, a, a burgundy egg comes out of the conveyor belt and there goes, ah, it's burgundy. Or we, I got the, I got the, I got the smoke from the, from the, the chimney from the, for the pope wrong last time. The white smoke means there's a pope.

Black smoke means there's not a pope. We had a couple of people right in, but I felt like it wasn't necessarily worthy of follow up, but I'm happy you brought it up. I'm just saying somewhere in like maybe Milan, some other part of the Italian peninsula. There is a there's a fashion chimney and the like the burgundy smoke comes out and everybody goes, what does it mean? And then they're off with that. You did say like, you know, is it real or is it manufactured? And I think the answer to that question is just yes.

Yeah. It's both. It's a whole process that goes from emergent to manufactured from real to, I mean, not fake, but like from real to artificial. Yeah. At lightning pace probably too. Yes, but it is so fast today how these things move.

Yeah, imagine. You're just on an Instagram feed somewhere. That case Pollard of pattern recognition of today is probably just scrolling Instagram and has built an AI algorithm to log everything that appears on influencers Instagrams and correlate it or something. There's a William Gibson call me. I got an idea.

Tim Cook has been hanging out with the King again. So they visited the Apple Music Hall together and announced the partnership with the King's Trust to launch a new education program to help young people build careers in creative industries. So they're going to be giving people access to what they're calling Apple experts. It's people that work at Apple and their creative kind of endeavors, guiding through workshops and stuff like that. And then while speaking to the media during the event, Tim Cook told the Independent how he's feeling about his new role and working alongside John. Turner. He says, John and I have an incredible level of trust in each other. The relationship must be based on trust and the communication must be frequent and significant. But other than that, what I'm focused on right now is worldwide policy and the interface of governments around the

world matters because there are lots of things where we're trying to advocate, sorry, trying to advance or advocate for change. There's a significant amount of work in that and I'm doing that and helping John in any way he sees fit. I'm not meddling. I'm not a meddler. Not a meddler. Not a meddler, everyone. Oh, and by the way, this guy over here, he's the King of England. Yeah. Well, they ain't Medlin, all right? Not meddling.

No meddling, okay? I'm just doing advancing and advocating over here. With the King of England. There's literally, you know, a picture of Tim Cook and the King of England standing next to each other. I just, it's wacky. I think that's so weird. They get on. I don't know why.

I just have a feeling that the two of them would just get on. Well. Well, it's that Southern charm that Tim brings to the day. And the English charm from the, like, you know, like I feel like the two of them together. Right? Classic, famous English royal charm. Yes, absolutely. You kidding me?

Super charming. Come on. Prince Charming, he was for many, many, many years. Indeed. Right. Now he is King Charming, the third. We call him. King Charming the Third.

Speaking of John Turnus, his first earning call is set for November 2nd. I'm sure you've got your calendar already locked in. I don't. I don't. You know? genuinely, when I see this news story, I'm like, I'm bringing it to the show just in case. This is Jason's first time hearing about it. It's not November, but you got it wrong.

It's not November 2nd. It's November 29th. No, you link to the 9 to 5 Mac article, and they got it wrong in their lead. They say, it's November 2nd, but it's November 29th. They've dropped the 9. They're not going to. Look, look, they're not going to do it. Oh, no, except this says it's the, oh, man, this is a mess.

What is happening? Monday, November 2nd at 2 p.m. Pacific. So it is November 2nd. Oh, okay. I don't know what the 29 is for because that's really weird because that's like a Sunday. So November 2nd, that's it. They don't usually doing on a Monday, but they're doing it on a Monday. I don't know what's going on there.

So it's November 2nd, the November 29th is in the arts course station. Does that mean, oh, what does that mean for upgrade, though? Hmm, we're going to have to think about that one. The question is, no one knows. That's what it means. Nobody knows. What does it mean for upgrade? What will we do?

What will we do? That's the... Yeah, okay. Well, we'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Do we wait a week for Apple results? Probably. I don't feel like it's worth delaying the episode for that.

You got to hold the podcast for two days. No, because it's Tuesday afternoon, too, so that wouldn't work. Anyway, stay tuned. Lots of six colors charts that are built in JavaScript now on that day. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by FitBod. you want to change your fitness level, it can be hard to know where to start. That's why I'm pleased to let you know about FitBod because it is an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan that

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going to get new exercises all the time, different rep schemes, different supersets and circuits. The app is super easy to use. You can stay informed by using their FitBod's progress tracking charts, their weekly reports and sharing cards, it let you keep track of your achievements and personal bests, and share them with friends and family. I love that the app has all of these videos in, that I can learn the exercises with, but if I know the exercise, I can just carry on because I understand it, and I get that information on my Apple Watch. It tells me what's coming up next and what I should be doing. It also integrates with wear OS smart watches and other apps you may use like Strava and Apple Health. Personalized training of this quality could be expensive,

but FitBod is just $15.99 a month or $9.99 a year, but you can get 25% of your membership by signing up at fitbod.me slash upgrade. So go now and get your customized fitness plan at FITBOD.b.D. dot me slash upgrade. Once again, that is FitBod. me slash upgrade for 25% of your membership. A thanks to FitBod for their support of this show and relay. So today at an event in New York and on the website,

Apple unveiled a product that is called the Apple Home View. This is what we have been calling the Home Hub or the HomeP It is called the Apple Home View. It is a 7-inch kind of square. It looks square, but I'm not sure if it's exactly square. Liquid retina display. Sitting on an aluminium body, which is available in four colors, silver, starlight, rose pink, and space grey.

I will say the main version of this device, so there are two versions of it. The main version has a stainless steel hinge that attaches to the aluminium body that you can use to adjust the angle. It is lightly reminiscent of the G4. Yeah, the IMAC G4. The rumor from Mark German is that, remember, this is,

I'm going to say the words now, Mike, I'm going to say the phrase. Do it. Tabletop robot. Do it. It's not a robot, but the rumor is that the home view two will come out next year. I know, this hasn't even shipped yet,

and I'm talking about the next one, but they've been backed up for a while. This product was supposed to come out last. It was supposed to come out in, early 2025, but it's waited till now, and then a year later, you know, presumably it's going to get replaced with one that the tabletop robot version will probably be even more like the G4 because it will probably have an arm and then we'll be able to move itself to adjust, which is wild.

But this one has got a hinge and it's a little pod. Like, it's nice. It's, I will say adorable. This is an adorable looking piece of technology because it's little. It's a little guy, which I appreciate. It's a little guy sitting there. on your counter or whatever. And as somebody who has had,

I have been staring at the screens from Amazon and Google that I've had in my kitchen for like, I don't know, it must be almost 10 years now thinking, come on, Apple, give me something, give me something. And they,

like, suffice it to say, I bought one immediately in space gray, which is going to be great to see because of the space gray will be almost exactly the same color as the silver. But, you know,

whatever. So, Jason, I also bought one. And I was sending pictures to my wife. I'm like, which, which shall we get? And at first,

she's like, get the white one. I'm like, there isn't a white one. There's a silver one. Because the color selector is like, it's impossible to understand. And she was like,

maybe the space gray. And I was like, yeah, but what about the pink though? And she's like, oh, maybe. So we ordered a pink one. You've seen my house.

There's lots of pink in my house. You got, you have the pink in there. Yeah, my kitchen is kind of green. Yeah. So I didn't have an option here, so I want a space gray.

Yeah. Apparently, this screen can get really dim to 0.3 nits. Apple says this is quote perfect for the nightstand which made me chuckle because like, how many do you want me to have? It just like every room. It goes anywhere where it doesn't

go. Have you got a room? Put it in all of them. I think that may be more important for the other use of this too, which is you can also buy it with a wall mount. Yes. And put it on a wall. And for that, depending on where you are, you might not want it.

It being dim when it's nighttime is a good thing, right? Like when everybody's asleep or whatever. And we'll have to see how that goes. The mounting stories for these are going to be fascinating. The wall mounted one looks fascinating to me. It just looks like an Apple watch stuck to a wall. Stuck to a wall, big Apple Watch on your wall.

It still has speakers in it, apparently, too. So, I mean, I'm sure we're going to talk about this as we go, but you can see all the different aspects of Apple's technology that they've kind of like pushed together here too because the faces look like Apple Watch. but I would say they also look a lot like standby, but the standby faces on the iPhone also look a lot like Apple Watch.

So they're all kind of feeding each other here, but that's the idea, is that there are these different faces or views that you can have on when it's asleep, basically. The wall-mounted version can be attached using a set of three, well, you choose

and three-purpose-built mounts from Schneider home with options for self-installation or professional installation. And this version has power over Ethernet support, which is kind of wild. It's great, but like... I can tell you, that is a... That is a...

Talk about professional installation. I think that's a home installer. We're going to put, you know, we're going to wire your home, and we're going to put in a bunch of smart tech, and we're going to put in a control screen. And sometimes what happens there is they're running stuff via POE. Yeah.

And like, if you've got a mount... you've got, you know, you're running somewhere on a wall, in a wall with POE, and that gets you your networking and it gets you your power. Like, to me, that's what that says is, is this is a message for, especially people who want to, you know, have a whole system installed by a professional install. But this is like, I think this is fantastic. I get the reasons why they would have it. But like this is the company that, you know, like the home pod was a non-detachable cable, right?

It's like, this is the logical thing to have as an option for a product like this, which clearly will be installed as a smart home screen to have power over Ethernet. I'm just happy that they've made that decision. Like, yes, we're going to give that as an option. It's like, it's brilliant. I think that's great. So this is a product that works for up to six individuals can be kind of like registered to the HomeView. I'm going to read a quote from Apple's press release, which was from Greg Joswiak.

Apple Home View is designed to be shared by everyone in the home, yet feel completely personal to each user. It recognizes your face to shift from a household screen to your own experience. Fills the room of incredible sound, keeps you connected to people who matter most of FaceTime, and makes it easy to control your smart home. And it's powered by Apple Intelligence, it's Syria AI at its core, drawing on personal context from your iPhone to help you find what you need and get more done, all while keeping everyone's information private and secure. So your personal content, they also say,

personal content stays private from others, while shared photo albums and music can be easily enjoyed by everyone in a household, including guests. So it feels like you will get the best experience in this product if you're in an ICloud family, because then content that is readily shared amongst the users that are using the Home View can just easily be displayed because everybody is agreed. It's a shareable thing. That's what I read from this, the way that they're talking about it. So that's interesting. I will say I've got some quotes here from The Verge and from Wired.

It feels like, I think, surprisingly, Apple pre-briefed on this product. They did. They pre-briefed. Which is not a thing that they do very much, but they did for this. Nope. It does happen. It does happen. I didn't get a pre-brief for this.

My briefing is later today. I had published their story 20 minutes early, which is rough. Yeah. That didn't go well. It didn't go well for them. Great story, though. I'll put a link in the show. So yeah, so how do you, we've been asking all along, like, how do you deal with Apple intelligence?

How do you do with personalization? And like, they're trying to make this thing where it's recognizing the voices, it knows who is making the request and it's switching contexts. And personal context, and this is true of the Apple TV as well. And I think the HomePod Mini is there's, what seems to be going on is there's a way to farm out a personal context request to, to the connected iPhone. Yeah. iPhone or iPad, it says. Or iPad, yes, which is nice.

These devices don't have all your personal data on them. They're ancillary. They're not syncing and all of those things. But your iPhone does. So what they do is they take the request and presumably are passing it on to the more powerful, more capable iPhone or iPad, and it's able to look at your personal context

and send a reply back. And then when there's not an iPhone around, I think there's a lighter version of Siri AI that is probably basically cloud-based. Yes. That all of these devices, I think, use as a fallback. And then there's also some projection. We were wondering about the app story here.

And am I skipping ahead? Should we talk about it now? Wait, you're skipping ahead. There's no, there's no constraints on what we're talking about. Okay. So the app story here, they say it's going to have like Apple, kind of Apple apps, but also some other things,

will be supported, but also they're supporting, especially for audio, a bunch of other things. It sounds like, this is kind of wild, but it sounds like they're using CarPlay as the mechanism to project certain apps from your phone, which is kind of wild. So, I don't know. Yeah. It's been a little unclear. A lot of people are writing about this today. So this is from Julian Chiquatu at Wired.

A handful of third-party media apps like Spotify are available, and developers can bring over existing CarPlay apps. If your iPhone already has one of these CarPlay apps installed, it can automatically appear on the Home View after setup. My understanding of this, my understanding of this, is it is a set of select media apps that Apple has chosen. Yeah. This is not all CarPlay apps,

and it's not even all CarPlay Media apps. Right. Although, although if this is the method that they're using, there will probably be a process, I would think. Yeah, people will ask. So let's talk, let's say, let's say Overcast. Overcast is a media app and it has CarPlay. It wouldn't really surprise me if Marco is able to put Overcast on this thing.

But maybe not right away, right? maybe that takes time and you have to go through a thing and you have to apply for an entitlement or apply for approval to be in the program and all that. But I do think that Wired mentioned in CarPlay and that was where I saw it. Yeah. It's like, that's interesting, right? Like, how do I get stuff from my iPhone on this device that doesn't have an app store? And I was thinking it would be kind of like pushing widgets and all that.

But straight up CarPlay for selected apps, that works too, right? Like if if all I want is to see my now playing and control it from my little screen, CarPlay solves that problem. And it's just from iPhone anyway. It's essentially playing it from my phone, but that it gives me the heads up display while I'm in the kitchen listening to a podcast. Like, that's cool. I like that. So interesting approach to them trying to figure out how do we get personal stuff from your iPhone and from your apps on here without building yet another app store. Yeah, so primarily, like we expected, like Apple's built a bunch of apps, like a bunch of versions of their apps that are on the device natively.

You know, things like Messages and FaceTime, obviously, the home app and their media apps. And then there is this selection of CarPlay apps that are other media apps. Spotify has been mentioned as one of them, and I believe Audible I've seen people reference to as being available. but there seems to be, as you say, some kind of process that they'll probably open up. But initially, they've worked to have a selection of partners and they're not just kind of like throwing the doors open. Well, clearly what they didn't want is

it only does Apple stuff and otherwise forget about it. Instead, it's more like... You can't launch this thing and be like you can't listen to your Spotify music. Like, it's just not the... Exactly. You can't do that. Exactly. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, but I'm really curious about the mechanisms here. I'm sure we will learn more about technically. how this is going to work as we go. But I think that's really interesting that they're talking about carplay. I kind of assumed that they would do widget projection and maybe they will at some point. It is unclear.

So I'm trying to, I'm sure like many people, I'm trying to get an answer on this. But David Pierce at the verge says when Idle the home view can display photo faces, clock faces and Snoopy faces or you can use a modular face to show widgets from your most used apps such as your to do list,

world clock and podcasts. Now, what I don't understand from what David's saying, and maybe, I assume he didn't know necessarily either, can third-party apps be in that? I would expect, but I have not seen anything that would suggest the answer is definitely yes yet. Also, and this is a thread that has run through all of Apple's announcements this fall, some of the software stuff's just not ready yet. And so this is a brand new product. I know it's been hanging out there for a while, but like the, the software, key software issue here with Siri AI, I would not be surprised if over time the third party story here evolves,

right? But this is what they were able to ship. Yeah, I think so. So there's some other interesting details. So this is also from David at the verge. A Home View uses facial recognition and the presence of your recently unlocked iPhone on the home Wi-Fi network to authenticate you. So it's using other signals to try and make sure if you're in the house and then it knows to look for you or listen for you and then give you what you need. Like you mentioned this already, but obviously it uses your context for Siri AI requests. And anybody can ask HomeView a question and it will use the broad world knowledge kind of answer base. Right.

To give an answer for that. Like, you know, like what's the weather like all that kind of stuff. The more generic Siri AI. That needs authentication. Or setting a timer or whatever. Yes, exactly. Stuff like that. Yeah.

And any conversation you start on HomeView is saved in the Siri app on your devices too. On your device that it knows it to you. Because it's really, it's going to the iPhone at that point. This is how they've chosen to handle sort of like Siri handoff in the Siri AI era is the same thing, which is it's going to your iPhone. Your iPhone knows all that stuff that it doesn't know. So talking a little bit more about the kind of the user interface for this. Here's a fun detail. the HomeView interface intelligently adjusts based on the user's distance,

showing simpler information that's viewable from across the room and richer details as they step closer. I really want to see what that's like, because that sounds really cool, but... Yeah, it's like a discoverability thing where the closer you get, it becomes a higher density display. And this is one reason why there probably isn't a real app story yet of any kind. Complicated. even if eventually you third parties will be able to like project from an iPhone like that's a whole new idea right that that you have a software display that adjust based on the distance the user is away from the display it's a cool idea right it's a cool idea but that's a

new that's a new one for apple yeah and the user interface overall it is like this weird mixture as you said of a bunch of different things but mostly kind of from a UI It's a lot of like Apple Watch and TVOS kind of stuff, big chunky buttons, some high contrast elements. Minimal, like overall, the user interface is very minimal. I do a good job filling the screen. It has a faces system, like they call it faces for kind of like the home screen views. And they have different face options. So they have photos faces with the clock on them, which, you know, is very much like my favorite Apple Watch face.

These are the big Apple Watch faces, basically. They have something called the Flowfaces. which dynamically responds to physical presence and movement, transferring home view into a piece of interactive art. So whatever it is that's doing the kind of the UI visibility thing. They're also doing something visual. A visualizer, yeah, of some kind. They have Snoopy options because they got it. Newpy lives there.

Something called home modular, which is basically a, like, overall, like, mission control kind of view of your home stuff. You can have nine camera views going. or a bunch of buttons. Right. That's again, it's for those home using it. Because clearly one of the things that they want this product to be is a smart home controller. So if you lean into that, you can have it be configured like that. Yep.

And then they have like weather, some widget-focused view, faces, calendar views, Apple Watch style clocks, and a bunch of them look basically the same as the iPhone Duo standby stuff. some of the calendar views. That's so good at reusing their same stuff in different places. They are obviously really selling.

There's a lot of information that I don't understand in the press releases about the quality of the speaker system. Essentially this is a home pod, right? Like it's good for audio, supports handoff, multi-room, all that kind of stuff. Right, and the primary speakers are in the display, so you get it in both configurations, but there's some additional audio support

in the base for the version that's got the base. You would expect that one's probably got the better audio, right? I would assume so. Just based on physics. Well, it's got that other hardware, they said, that makes it, that is channeling audio or enhancing it or something. I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see. It features the center stage camera for, obviously, it's for FaceTime calls, but it's clearly how they're doing the facial recognition too. They even say that, right? So they're doing some form of facial recognition there. And I found this interesting. When you find a recipe in Safari, just tap. the start cooking button to view a streamlined format that's easy to follow. What does that,

what does that mean? What start cooking button is there in Safari? Well, in this, there is, right? Yeah, but how does that? I mean, you reckon it's doing like Apple Intelligence. Are you thinking Safari on a device? Because I'm assuming it's Safari on the home view. There is Safari on Homeview, yeah. But I just, so it's like, yeah, you pull up a recipe and then there's probably it detects that there's a recipe and it puts up a little button that says start cooking. Kind of like the read of you, right? Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, yeah, there's, recipe detection is not new. So that's, that's what's going on there. Yeah. Because at first I was like, oh, is this just the Apple News recipes thing, right? When I first saw it, it's like, that's where that's coming from. But it's like, no, it's just like all over the web, which is cool. I think it's great that they've got Safari on this thing. I could have, it would not have surprised me if Safari was not on this device. Like, if it could do basically like what the Apple Watch can do, right, where it can render a web page, but you're not browsing the web. Oh, a lot, I'll tell you, a lot of these devices, this is the classic fallback. And some of the car interfaces are like this too

where it's like, well, we don't have apps for you. But the web. Want to watch a YouTube video? Have you heard of YouTube.com? Yeah, you go to YouTube.com and you can watch it there. It is, or I did that on my, was that on my Echo show? I forget. There was one of these home devices I've got.

I did try that actually because there was a streaming service that it didn't support. and I could go to their website and press play and it would play video kind of. So it's a fallback. It's not ideal, but it's good that it's there. Yeah. I wonder if you'll do,

presumably you can also do like, you know, airdrop or some other kind of sharing handoff thing that'll say, I've got this on my phone and now like take it over there, little guy, take this. Yeah. My kind of, my feeling on this is like,

I'm, this product seems to be kind of just what I was looking for. I would love the option for a little bit more third-party stuff like widgets, but it wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me. It feels very much like an Apple Watch, which just lives on my kitchen counter, which I'm very happy with that. It's what I've been looking for. You know, it says, I love, I hope that the photo stuff is really thought out well. Like I would, you know, they talk about collections which I was pleased about or shared albums or collections that you can choose to have as a kind of a photo gallery. That's a key feature. Yes. But I want to choose like show my favorites, which is not really something Apple supports anywhere else. Like in their widgets and stuff, they're like choose an album or we just show you stuff. And I would like to have a little bit of control over it, but obviously I can find that.

I think it looks really fun. Overall, I'm excited about this product because it is just at a basic level. It's what we've been asking for, right? Yeah, I appreciate the niche that this can fill, and I haven't been satisfied. Like I said, this is Apple coming very, very late to a party, but the party isn't very good. Yeah. Maybe they can make it a better party with a product like this. And part of that is that those other devices aren't very good.

and part of it is also that my stuff is primarily in Apple's ecosystem. So that makes this a lot easier too. So yeah, I'm excited to see this. I am curious how it works in that sort of more utilitarian home control on the wall kind of thing. But this is all part. I mean, Apple as a part of this and we'll get to the rest of it, introduced a whole bunch of other home stuff. And so this is Apple kind of like recommitting to the home, the smart home in some ways. and so we'll see how this product fits into that too.

But I think that's one of the things they're hoping is that one of the selling points of smart home stuff is always like, oh, I got to get out of my phone. And, you know, like there's a complexity there that this, you know, stick one of these on the wall. And it's your, again, that's like in the olden days of home control systems, you always had to have like a control pad somewhere that you used to do all this stuff. And so that's another role this thing can have. I did just do that classic thing where I said a thing. and then checked it and my information is outdated. You can now choose something like favorites in the widgets for Apple's field. You used to not.

It used to not really be much of a choice that you can make, you can't do that now. So that makes me even more excited about, I will have that as a thing, right? Because me and Edina maintain like shared favorites, like in shared albums, on this kind of stuff in our shared photo library. And I want that to be,

basically just all pictures of our daughter. And that's all I really want. on this display. And so that's going to be fantastic. I'm looking forward to this. And I am also looking forward to what is undoubtedly going to be a thousand edge cases for how this product works and doesn't work, that we just cannot know until we use it.

It doesn't come out until November 13th a month from now, which is, it's interesting to announce it a month away. The prime and the pump. Get it out before Christmas. Yeah. Yeah. And there's going to be lots of hubbub about the iPhone duo next week. So now's the time. That's true. And pre-orders are available now. U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand. And it's not available for sale in the European Union because of Siri AI. Huh. Sorry. In the terms of, you know, like the little, what would you call it, like the asterisks at the bottom, you know, you've got your kind of footnotes.

Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward. So that's a change of tune though, right? where it's like, screw those guys. It's like, oh, our friends in the European Union we're trying to work with them now. I thought that was funny. And congratulations to everybody at Apple because as we know from Mark German's reporting, this product's been kicking around

for a couple years. Yeah. Yep. And like people at Apple are like, I don't know, I'm going to ship this thing. You can talk about it now, I guess, after two years if you remember it. You remember that product that you got,

your house two years ago? Well, they finally shipped it because the Apple Intelligence, this is this is the product that was the greatest victim of the failed Apple Intelligence rollout. This product was supposed to be part of a big, all products today, I think, but this one especially,

that was supposed to debut with the very good Siri that didn't happen. And so now here it is. So great, great, glad it's here. It is interesting though, right? Because it's like, obviously Siri AI is a part of this. It doesn't feel particularly like it needs it to me? Well, I think that there's a base of being able to have a voice controlled device in

your kitchen or whatever that you have to have. And I think it shows you that Apple, I think, constructed this on that premise and then they felt like they couldn't ship it. To them, for whatever reason, they felt like if Siri was not better, it was not worth making. Which I think maybe that's the tell. I don't necessarily agree with that, but they obviously felt that way. And so here we are. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Notion. There are a lot of things that AI can replace, but teamwork is simply not one of them,

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by going to notion.com slash upgrade as all lowercase letters, notion.com slash upgrade to try Notion today. And when you use our link, you're supporting the show. Our thanks to Notion for their support of this show and all of Relay. So we also got today the Apple Home Collection, which is...

Apple Home Collection. It's not a lineup of perfume or something it feels to me, or like candles or something. Apple Home Collection, a new lineup of smart home accessories, including indoor and outdoor cameras, thermostats, temperature sensors, and a video doorbell and door lock

designed in collaboration with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. Did we talk about this? I don't think so. These reports came out in our dark time between these two episodes. I think so. So because Mark German reported that they were working with LG,

and then there's also Schneider Electric here for a couple of these. And the idea, as German described it as, these are second party, which is, yeah, this is Apple says up front, which is different when sometimes there's a product that is very clearly from Apple and that Apple doesn't talk about it and the vendor doesn't talk about it. That happens sometimes. This is like Apple saying, yes, we collaborated with them. This is part of the Apple Home Collection.

We work with these manufacturers to make sure that these would be, great and that they would have minimal aesthetic and premium materials, which is the big flag that says Apple was involved in the creation of this product. There's no logos on them, right? There's no OG logo. There's no Apple logo. They're just very simple, plain products, right? Yeah, it's very much this minimal minimalist kind of thing. So there are cameras from LG, there are, there's a lock from LG, and there are thermostats from LG and Schneider. and they're coming in December and onward. They didn't specify. Some of them will ship in December and some of them will be later. Pretty much all US only as well, which I found interesting. Could be a wiring thing and maybe they just don't want to commit yet. I don't know.

Yeah, it's a good question. Or this is what they could get out in time to launch it and then they'll spread it out. Also, I would say, as somebody who's been paying some attention to this category, what's announced doesn't strike me as being particular. groundbreaking. No. I think that you could probably we'll see, right? It's possible that Apple has added a little secret sauce that makes

these things better, but everything that was described, I think you can do with existing smart home products, because they're like, oh, it instantly connects when you're with your iPhone. It's like, well, products do that now unless they've got a new method of doing that. And it only needs the home app. And it's like, well, some products really want you to use their app,

but a lot of them only need the home app. I think that is the key for me is the two things, which is the one tap set up with probably NFC and that everything is 100% managed in the home app. And what I'll say for that is the LG indoor camera is the only one that seems to be doing anything slightly novel, really, which is like, it's a camera that flips, you can flip up and down, right? So like you can flip up to look and flip down.

And in fact, you don't need to, if you come home, you can set it so that if people who live in your house, so it's detecting with HomeKit, right, come home. you can set it to automatically point down to the ground. So I can't see you. The reason I mention this is you can choose that in the home app where there are other cameras that do things like this, but you have to use the third part. You have to use their app to do that. So that's nice at least. I don't know if that's secret sauce or if that's a new thing they're added that now everybody else is going to be able to use.

Which I think is fine. I think ultimately I think it would be better if these are not able to do things. I'd like these to compete because they're high profile and they're at the Apple store and they're simple and they're elegant, et cetera, et cetera, and not because they have access to features that nobody else is going to ever get access to.

But we'll have to watch that. But otherwise, from the product perspective, yeah, it's a video doorbell that looks like a little kind of long oval blob that you stick on your door. There's a floodlight camera, so it's a camera with two big lights so that you can have a do motion sensing

and then blast the light on your, I might get one. of those for my driveway. There is an outdoor camera that is that doesn't have

the floodlights or anything but it's like an outdoor security camera. I've got one of those from Kara. And there is an indoor camera that we talked about that kind of pivots up and down.

So that's your, so Apple isn't making a video doorbell, it turns out. LG is making a video doorbell with Apple's design influence. And that Apple talks again about how it all goes together and all connects together and all of that.

But again, with Apple Home stuff, they already kind of do. I'm not sure there's anything special there. They're just using that as a thing to sell these. Yeah. I like that someone will be able to go to the Apple Store next year, and they will be able to leave the store with a home view, a bunch of cameras, video doorbell, a thermostat. Right.

It's like you've got everything you need now, and we can just give it all to you. And the Apple Store will work to have somebody come and install. solid, which is another thing that they're doing here with these products. That is that, because they're going to, they're going to, these products will be trained up for people. I think, again, our audience is very savvy. I hear a lot where people say, um, yeah, but there are other options that could do this. You don't need to go and spend the extra money or whatever on, on what Apple and LG are selling you. And that, there's some truth in that, but it's the same thing

that I, I say about iPhone cases and other accessories. It's like, it's so a lot of people are not going to do the comparison shopping and they're not going to do the research and and having the imprint of apple even if it's not an apple branded product it is part of apple's home collection it's at the apple store the apple store people know about it and it allows you to feel confident when you walk out with that video doorbell and that security camera and that home view that it's all going to work together yeah in a way that you know we may say well a savvy buyer will go and get the Akara camera and it works too and it's maybe its specs are better and all that. It's like, yes, yes, yes, yes, that's true.

But there is another market. And in fact, if you want to popularize smart home stuff, you do kind of need to disarm and demystify a lot of it and make it like as simple as Apple's got a bunch of these super clean, easy to spot boxes with these products that are part of the collection and you just go into the Apple store and you get them and you bring them home. there's value in that even though you're going to pay for it, the value isn't not having to worry about it. And that's just going to reach people who are just never going to do the other thing,

but they might. Like the idea of anybody who has thought about a doorbell, smart doorbell or has one and is frustrated about like Amazon owning it or whatever, like saying, well, this is an LG one, but it's got Apple, backs it. And it's all, you know, part of the secure, private home kit system, Apple Home System,

then they might like that. They might prefer that. So I did just have a quick look because I was wanted to check something about one of the products. And I realized some of these products are going to be available in the UK next year. It's on the...

The price releases are different, different places because it is a different set of products. They don't have everything. So it seems like in the UK will only be the LG products. Maybe. it's a little Well the thermostat is a real issue

outside the US right where there's a, it's a different kind of product that you need. Yeah. And that is like what I was talking about the wiring stuff.

It's just different. So there are two smart thermostats from LG and Schneider. It says that it tries to explain why there are two and the answer is something vague

about different configurations. My guess is that they have some specific differences that probably affect things like what HVAC systems they work with. They do all, both of these thermostat support remote sensors and of course we'll work

with not only their own remote sensors, but we'll work with like if you have a HomePod Mini, if you have a home view, it's got a temperature and humidity sensor in it too. So you can, those will all talk and allow you to adjust, intelligently adjust the thermostat in your home. So that's fun and good. And then for me, the thing that I am most excited about is, the LG Smart Deadbolt, which is the, I don't know, maybe the third UWB SmartLock I've seen hit the market so far where there was, I have reviewed the first two.

Akara had the first one. Schlaga came out with theirs. And now there's going to be this one. And we'll see how it differs, but it'll have ultra wideband support, which is the, that is the gold standard. That is the thing that makes smart locks relevant to me. for a broader audience because instead of having to fiddle with it,

it'll do NFC, you can tap your Apple Watch to it or whatever. With UWB, if you've got ultra wideband capable devices, including most recent Apple Watches and iPhones, as you walk up to the door,

your door unlocks. That's it. That is what you want. That's the dream. And it does it. So that's great. It does have a pin pad as well as NFC

and a hidden backup key place where you can slide it off and stick in a key. And if it loses, if it loses power, if it's battery drains and you need to get into your house, you can actually like plug a USB cable into your phone and into the bottom of the lock.

And the Schlauga does that too. And it'll power up and then unlock. Yeah, that's cool. Because it was one of them where it was a battery and one of them where it did the battery, like the little. Well, the older ones, it was like a 9-volt battery slot. And so you had to like keep a 9-volt battery in your car or hidden under a rock or whatever. And now these, you just have USB.

I mean, if you get a USB cable in your car and you've got a phone, you can power. you can power it up to get into the house. So it has that feature too. So that's fun. And we don't know anything more about these. And they may just be pretty standard. But again, the point may not be that these are incredibly groundbreaking,

more that like, there's an offering. They're nice and they're available at the Apple store. Which is super helpful to people. And like, you know, even to me, there's like an element of like,

this is just an easy thing to do. Like, I like the Apple Home app. I like the Apple Homeup for my cameras. I hate that I also have to use the Akara app for some of my stuff. Now, they don't have a product for me to replace my main Akara product right now, which is the video doorbell. Akara is the only company that makes a home kit, wireless video doorbell,

like a battery powered one, which is fantastic. I hope Apple do this one day. I have my fingers crossed because the LG doorbell is called the wired doorbell. And it's like, well, if you were not planning a wireless one, why would you call it a wired one? You know what I mean? That's my hope. That is my hope.

Because it's just helpful for the way that our kind of houses set up. We can't have it wired. So we'll see. But yeah, I think this is just a good offering to have. I will definitely be getting one of the indoor cameras to replace a camera that I hate, but is super helpful.

And it would be even better based on the fact that it does the moving thing. And I have been wanting to get a floodlight camera. Because we have a floodlight. I think of why not have a floodlight? like that camera instead for our garden. So that will be in my future. But Jason, huge news. The Apple TV and the HomePod Mini got an update as well today.

It's true. It's true. It finally happened. The other shoes dropped. So the Apple TV 4K, yeah, I mean, Siri AI, obviously, is what held all these up. Yep. What is Siri AI I look up on the Apple TV? They're like, you know, you can ask it questions, including contextual questions about what you're watching, apparently. And it brings up, it looks like, it looks like.

It looks like it brings up like almost like a lower third or something. They said it was a non-intrusive response card that comes up that doesn't like cover up all your video and stuff, which is smart because it's Apple TV. But they're also going to add it to older ones. Yeah. Okay. So this I need to understand a little bit more of. Apple is saying Syria AI is available as a beta on Apple TV 4K second generation or later. Now, I don't know what Apple TV that is, honestly, because I'm so lost with the generations

at this point. But I think we're up to, like, this is like Gen 4 now, I believe. Yeah, I think this is four. And so that's quite a lot of people's Apple TVs. Yeah. I figure here, it's because the Apple TV is $299 now that they just need to find a way to put Siri AI if they care about it on these other things because I think they know they're not going to sell a lot of these. And also Siri AI, I mean, in the end, it's probably just Siri in the cloud or maybe it's handing off again to an iPhone or something for personal context. So all they did is update the software to talk to an iPhone. If that is a feature, I'm not sure 100%. Yeah, that's a little bit weird. You know, the big updates are it's got a, it's got microphones in it. In the Apple TV box itself. In the Apple TV

bucks. So if you don't have a home pod or a home view in your room where your Apple TV is, you can still shout out, hey, dingus to it. And it will listen to you, which is interesting. I figure for a lot of people, this is going to be the absolute worst device. Right. Because it's like you put them in a unit or whatever and close a door on it. Like if a home pod, you don't do that. They're out. Like, by design, they're out. It's an interesting choice. It's not, yeah, it's an interesting choice. And then also you've got a new remote, another new remote. And this one has precision finding and a little speaker on it. So it'll chirp at you and you can find it more precisely. So that's a new version of that remote, which is also available separately, which is fine. My Apple TV is,

yeah, is behind a door. So it's not going to listen to anything anyway. You know, new chip in it. It's going to be much, you know, more responsive and all that stuff is nice. But the bottom line, and this is what I've already heard. This product was in us three hours ago as we were recording this is $2.99. It's $2.99. And like they were selling Apple TVs not very many months ago for what? $1.29 at the base? $1.39?

Like it's, and then they raise the price. And now it's even higher. It's $2.99, a $300 TV box. And like, I'm sure that as spec, the Apple TV box makes sense at $2.99. But what doesn't make sense is who's buying a $299 TV box? I mean, very, very high end of the market, I guess. But like, it is frustrating that right now this is what you need to do to get into an Apple TV. It's very, and I heard from all, there's so many people who waited, like I waited for a while.

And then I finally just went ahead and bought an Apple TV. six months ago or whatever. And I'm glad I did because like, come on. This is just, uh, yeah. Yeah, I, my Apple TV here at the studio is, whatever generation it is,

which means it's old enough that it doesn't get 27, I think. Um, like there, there is a cut off and I'm in that. And like my thought's like, oh, okay, well, when the new one comes out, I'll replace the one at home and shuffle it down. I'm like, I don't think I want to do that for 300. Like I just, I'll live with it.

until it becomes a problem for me. And I'm willing to push that out quite far into the distance, honestly. I mean, again, I'm impressed by the specs on this thing, A-19, right? But on the other hand, this feels like a high-end model. Yeah.

Not an only model. It's the same price as the Home View, which is a little screen and everything, right? Yeah, yeah, screen and speakers and stuff on the Home View. Yeah, again, I don't know. I don't know what they're doing here. Like, I appreciate that they're building a home strategy, but the Apple TV strategy still is baffling to me.

I don't know what they're, I don't know what they're doing there. Yeah. Yeah, it's not great. Again, not that this product is, it's probably good. It is a, and even, the way it's, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's my primary interface for this. That's great. And the way it's spec, $2.99 almost makes sense. It doesn't, but nothing makes sense anymore. But almost, but like, for it to be the only one. is so weird.

And all I can hope is that they are having conversations about what the lighter Apple TV looks like. Because there should be a lighter Apple TV product that you could buy. Like, please, something. We'll see. Also, I'm going to bring out one of my usual Apple TV hardware complaints now, which is I'm so frustrated because it's, FaceTime on the Apple TV is so good. I'm so frustrated that they still have not made an accessory that is like a camera that you can stick on top of your TV to do FaceTime.

I mean, you can use an iPhone for it, but like it's super inconvenient to do that. How about a soundbar? Because a soundbar has to be uncovered, right? You have to be able to have essentially have liners. But camera and microphones. Camera, microphones. Make it a proper product. You know?

And charge that, charge $2.99 for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's... The pricing of the home view just makes this very awkward. Because $2.99 for their home view is a surprise to me. I would have expected more. It is such a Rorschach test for people.

Yes. Because the home view, I don't know. So, again, it's only been three hours. Yeah. The home view for $2.99, all I've been hearing is, oh thank goodness that's a that's a reasonable price for that product yeah and the apple tv for 299 is like what are they doing and it's the same price but i'm sorry like that thing is like a speaker with a screen and and it moves it's got moving parts in it and yeah it's not a tabletop robot but

you can you can move it around and stuff and then there's the apple tv which is just a a block that you plug into your tv also 299 it is a mysterious david shab in our discord was pointing out Like the Apple TV specs now are verging on like MacBook Neo specs. Oh my God. I'm sure, like, I'm sure it's good. I'm sure it's good. But again, why are those the specs? Yeah.

And why is that the product you're selling? Again, not that you couldn't sell this product, but why is that it right now? Is this an issue with like the system on a chip kind of idea of like if you, needed to support something, it's got to have an A19 in it. If it's going to have an A19 in it, it has a minimum amount of RAM, it has to have.

So my gut feeling here is that they have issues with chip production, which everybody does. And when they make an Apple TV, because they don't do Apple TV versions very often, what they need to do is commit to having chip availability for years. And so I wonder if what's going on here is

they kind of got stuck in this moment where they don't really have enough availability of their older chips. And the newer chips cost. And so the Apple TV gets kind of like stuck in between. I think that may be what's going on here. But like they got to find a way out of this. They need to, they need to find a way to have a more reasonably spec, low-end product.

Because the truth is Apple TV, yes, the lower spec Apple TV is are slower. They're a little slower and more. But in the bottom line is you can move around the interface just fine. and then you play a video and the videos play just fine. And like, that's 95% of what they are. So 99% of what they are. So I think we just got to put that on the,

on the to-do list for John Turnus is have a lower end TV solution in addition to this product. But I do wonder if it, it, I don't know enough about this and a lot of it is shrouded in mystery, but my gut feeling is a lot of this is about chip availability. and that they have the chips that they've got,

and with an Apple TV, you're guaranteeing you've got enough A19s for years with this. The HomeView has an A18 in it, by the way, just as a thing. All right, so the Home View, that's how it can be $299 like the Apple TV, is that it's got a screen, but it also has a slightly lesser processor.

Again, from a different bin of the bins that, this is the downside of the Apple Silicon thing, I suppose, is this, which is, they have to manage their chip resources, right? It's a challenge for them. And I think sometimes it does lead to weird distortions of product decisions because of their chip availability. That's what I think. HomePod Mini 2.

I'm going to get to the most interesting thing last. Can we talk about product names? That's the least interesting. But I just want to point out that it's the Apple TV 4K fourth generation. But the HomePod Mini 2? Yeah, I don't know. Like some numbers are in the names. Some are not in the names.

Yeah. I don't know what it means. It doesn't make sense. And they come in colors. There's a pink. You can get pinks. Pink green, blue, white, and midnight. Yeah.

They have a new feature called SoundGlow. So this is the ongoing HomePod question, which is, what are we do with that thing on the top that they had from the beginning, which is like this kind of blobby thing that, like, it shows you're listening except you can't see it because it's on the top. And with SoundGlow, what they're doing is it's a visualizer, so it moves to the music. So it's not fake, it's moving to the music. And it's based on the album art, which you can't see on it. But if you know what the album art is, ooh, this is blue, it'll be blue of the song that's currently playing. So that's going on. They got a little visualizer on the top.

It obviously is more modern in a bunch of ways. It's still got what it had before, which is I think thread radio and humidity sensor and a temperature sensor. So it'll work in the Apple Home in that way. Jason, do you remember when they shipped the AirPods Macs update? And for a period of time, you couldn't plug a cable in. Do you remember that? And then all of a sudden, they were like, hey, cables. That cables back.

Well, the HomePod Mini 2 supports Siri AI. But later. But later, not yet. This is the moment. We were all, in our little text thread, we were looking at the press releases together. and Stephen Hackett and I simultaneously were typing wait a second

the HomePod Mini 2 has Siri AI support via a future software update and like I don't know like it's been a busy time for Apple Software Group and and they had to ship Siri AI and they had that big setback two years ago

and we know the backstory here that these products have kind of been waiting for the software to catch up. And I feel like this is the little tiny place that peeks through where it is revealed the thing that Mark German's been reporting all along, which is all these home products were let down by the software.

They were let down. The people who built the hardware built this hardware, and then it sat because the software wasn't ready. And here's the little clue about that backstory. Is one of the banner features of the HomePod Mini 2 is that like these, other products, it supports Siri AI, except it doesn't yet. It's a coupon in the box to get

Siri AI later at a later time. And it's like, what are they doing? There's no indication. It's just future. Future. Future. Like I, I don't understand. The year is 2045. A software update is released. How does HomeView and Apple TV support Siri AI, but HomePod Mini doesn't. Like, What could be different? But what could be different? Didn't get to it. Not enough time. Didn't get to it.

I don't understand. Too busy. I don't understand. Had a lunch. How to go. Obviously, I don't understand software development enough. Isn't it all just doing the same thing? Ultimately, like it all just calls to a server and it gets something like?

I don't know. Obviously, it's not. Right. Obviously, there's something different or this wouldn't be happening. Yeah. But I don't understand. It just, and again, like, I mean, it is what it is. But you look at that and you say,

what are you doing releasing a product to the world where one of its banner features is but not yet and like this isn't the only one the pencil support on the iPhone duo is one of those right where it's like this is going to be great not yet

and we may know the backstory there that they were trying something else I'm not convinced that that's actually the reason I'm not convinced that the iPhone pencil that they killed and they're just going with a USBC pencil. I'm not convinced those are any different from a technical standpoint, really, in terms of the receiving. I think that's a feature that they kicked to the curb because they didn't have enough

time to get it right. But like, these are signs. Hey, the software is there. The software story this fall has been pretty good. Siri AI is pretty good. Like, okay. But, boy, like, it's still not great. There's still issues with the software, let's just say, if they ship.

Because, like, obviously, I was like, we got to ship this product. It's got to go out with the rest of them. And from the software side, somebody is like, we just can't get it. We can't commit to this being ready for launch. So we'll roll it into the next version. And they're like, all right, I guess we'll go with it. I mean, you're not going to not give the HomePod Mini to its launch with all these other products.

They all kind of do need to go together. But woof, it just is a, it's just a bad sign. It's just a red flag, right? Of like something is wrong here. Yeah, it's, um, peculiar. It's a very, and like, and I agree with you, right? Like, I understand, like, there are features in products very often that are like, it's going to come later, right?

But this one feels pretty core to the product experience, right? It does. Like, it's actually, actually, let me rephrase that. It is the entire product experience. It's the entire product experience. It's like, they were like, we're going to, we're going to ship this iPhone, but iOS comes later. I was going to, so what I was going to say is, you're going to love the camera on the iPhone and 18 Pro, which would be enabled

by a future software update. The touchscreen. Sorry, camera doesn't work right now. But you enjoy the rest of it and we'll update that camera. I agree. I feel bad for the whole team. Yeah. I feel bad for them. This whole thing,

this whole nightmare. And again, this is the legacy of decisions made years ago. Yeah. So it may be that they're all in a better place right now. It may be that they're just cleaning up the It is. It is. Like, what they have shipped, I think, has been pretty good. Yeah.

I think it may be that they're just picking up the pieces. They're cleaning up all the garbage, all the damage of the last couple of years. And this is a thing that they just couldn't get. And they decided to move ahead with it. But again, putting on, I'm putting on John Ternis's to-do list. Like, if this is not handled, this needs to be handled. If something is wrong. And everything we talk about with like AI stuff in the pace of AI, this is the thing.

Look, Apple, I've never really been concerned about the future of Apple since it came back, and I'm not really now. I think they've got so much money and so much brand equity and all of that. But still, you can't be complacent. What I would say is, as a hardware company, Apple is unparalleled in the world. They are the best. They are executing. Look at that iPhone do is another example of it. like amazing hardware, just they are at the top of their game.

They build their own chips. The chips are great. Top of their game. The software, they are playing a different game from anybody else because they've got all these different devices and all these different OS variants that they're doing. I get it. And they're very clever in how they reuse parts and all of that. But that all said, like, I'm worried about their software game.

It was already shaky. and the pace of change in software, especially with the AI stuff, is breathtaking. And their pace was plotting. So that's my, that's like my number one agenda item for, for our friend JT.

Yeah. Is how do we revamp, and via J.T, Craig Federigi, of like, how do we change how Apple approaches software? Now, the advantages, they will be able to take advantage of AI tools to help them.

accelerate and that's great but like and I know that it's we're looking at things that that are kind of a year delayed from where it is right now but like still feels like there's a house on fire over there

that you just got to deal with it but like the benefit not benefit so I agree of you about obviously like the AI pace but I feel like at least with operating system stuff they're much and much

the same as they're competitive in the case that sometimes things just don't feel finished when they ship, right? Like, there's a, there's been a lot of conversations about the Google books in the last week, so Google released a bunch of products. And I was listening to the Vergecast and they were like, there are just places of this operating system that just don't feel like they're done. And like, Marcus Brownlee's review, he's like, there's a screen rotate toggle and control center. It doesn't do that.

Like it doesn't. So it's like, you know, these things, they happen. And it's not an excuse, but it's like, because I, the reason I mentioned is I agree of you that from a hub perspective, they are unparalleled. Like, I don't believe anyone comes near to them. And they have a lot of software foibles, but so do their competitors. So maybe they kind of get away with it. But software is changing.

And are they equipped to handle that world? That's the one we need to wait and see and find out on. but these are the products today. It's an interesting offering overall today. It's very obviously home focus. That was the design of the event. And from like an overall suite of products with some odd areas, you know, the Syria and HomePod,

the pricing of the Apple TV. Otherwise, I think a pretty solid offering today. Yeah. My biggest disappointment of, well, okay. I'm disappointed by the Apple TV price. I'm disappointed that the HomePod doesn't ship with Siri AI. But I think they missed an opportunity to do a video, at least, explaining the Apple Home philosophy and why you want this stuff. And I know they'll have ads and stuff.

And they do. They're like what I'm calling their Apple product manager influencer marketing that they do on the Instagram page where they have like a very mini stripped down presentation. but it wasn't super in depth, but I did do one today. Yeah, I would like to see something on front and center on Apple.com that says, here's what our vision is for the home.

And that didn't happen. I don't know, I'm a little concerned about that because I do think they need to kind of explain their strategy, but maybe they'll do a piecemeal. But yeah, anyway,

it's very interesting. And a day that, you know, I'm sure everybody at Apple wished it happened early last year. Yeah. But here we are.

We got it October 13th, 26. We, uh, we did it. Everybody. I would say just, I agree with what you said, at least they, at least they gave this some kind of event, right? It wasn't just. Press releases. They did some, they did, yeah, I mean, they did media work and they did a little, uh, influencer event in New York City. So pre-briefing too, which is very interesting, right? They, they, they at least gave it a push. A push, of course, of course. But they didn't give it as big a push as I think maybe they could have. I would have liked to have seen the Home View in the iPhone keynote, honestly.

I know it would have made that keynote really long, but I think that would have been a nice thing to put into there, because I think it would have been fun to show the duo in the Home View, like in one video. Like, I feel like that would be very interesting. And I also think it ties into the Intelligent Personal Hub idea pretty well, like, is this little device. So, again, even if they would have had John Turner say that phrase again

and point at this thing, right? Like in a video today, would have been a nice thing to add to the overall package. Jason, let's take a moment to talk about designing California because it's a big week. We have our first new series since the show launched coming this week. It is the origin of the iPod,

which are very excited about. Just talking about the personal hub. We've been thinking a lot about hubs and personal hubs, digital hubs, personal hubs, personal huts. Because, and we talk about it. So like if, you know, we've been referencing the intelligent personal hub idea because John Turner spoke about it and we'd all thought about it at the digital hub, which goes back to the iPod in this series, which starts this Wednesday. There is an episode which is focused on the digital hub. There are five episodes in our series on the origins

of the iPod. So we're going to tell the story of how Apple goes from having no music strategy to building the iPod in a year, essentially. We talk about Digital Hub. It's two years, but it's like year one is, oh, digital music is a thing, and iTunes comes out of that. And that's 2000. And then in 2001, they go from,

perhaps we should build a music player early in 2001 or late in 2000, to announcing it 25 years ago this week and shipping it 25 years ago next month. Yeah. In like less than a year from conception to ship. shipping. Yep. And yeah, so we tell that story in five episodes, where episodes one, episode one is going to be out

this week to everybody and all five episodes out this week to our members. So, yeah, it's a great story. It goes from the origins of the MP3 itself, which is an interesting story. It's a really interesting story all the way through to Apple announcing and shipping the iPod in very weird times. Yeah. There are some, I want to spoil it. There are some twists and turns to this story, which you may not consider until we get to them. And also, personal story as well in this series. It's really... Did I shed a tear while recording this? Indeed, yeah, I did. This, I love this series so much and I cannot wait for people to hear it. You can go to relay.fm slash design and check it out if you have it yet. Maybe. Maybe. you felt like a story about macOS wasn't for you,

and maybe the iPod is for you. And I hope that you'll listen to this, if you haven't already listened to Design in California, and then you'll realize actually this is really fun and you'll go to listen to everything we've done. There'll be YouTube versions, as there are always. And speaking of YouTube, I want to try, every time we do a series,

I'm trying to think of fun ways to celebrate these series because they don't happen that often, really. It's like one a month, most likely. And so this Wednesday, at 11 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time on the Designing California YouTube channel, there'll be a link in the show notes. I am planning to do a live stream where I am hoping to mod an iPod

with an interesting upgrade kit which should add wireless charging and Bluetooth to an iPod. Okay. We'll see how it goes. All right. I have bought this kit. The instructions are dubious at best. So that will be something you can tune in on. It'll be fun. And you can watch later on as well.

and we will talk a lot about the iPod during this live stream if you want to come and hang out. But the most important thing is to go and check out designing California at relay.fm slash designed. And then, hey, if you listen to the first episode and you're like, oh man, I want all of it, you can sign up to become a member and you will, in fact, get all of it.

So that is available to you, if you would like. It's room around up time, Jason Snell. Yeah, ha. What we didn't get today is any, news on Macs. So there's still these Macs out there in the ether. According to Mark Goerman, Apple is getting ready to host another event this month on October 27th, focused on Max and the iPad Mini. This is where we will see both 14 and 16-inch OLED MacBook Pros with touchscreens and a dynamic island. Mark also recently reported that this laptop will

be significantly lighter than the current MacBook Pros. A long time ago, he had said significantly thinner, which he has said is not happening. They will not be significantly thinner. Maybe it was like, I don't know what, but lighter, not thinner. And a new iPad mini of an OLED display, Mark is hearing this will be considerably more expensive than the current model, which is currently priced at $599, along with M6 powered iMac and entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro.

Busy month. So that is like a few days after the duo comes out. Wow. We're in for one this time. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot. So I wonder how they'll roll this out.

Again, I'm kind of, who knows? German says they're going to be like an influencer, touch the laptop thing, touch the iPad at, in L.A. In L.A., yeah. focused around creatives, he said. So maybe it's like, yeah, you're a music producer and you go to touch the screen of your computer. Well, yeah, I've been to those in New York before where it's like,

here's a music producer, here's a video editor. we're going to show how they use this to do their creative work and it's a whole like a little dog and pony show that they do about how you can use these things. I once had a conversation with someone who'd been on one of those demos. Like they were the person doing the demo all day and they described it as like hellish. Just doing the same demo over and over and over again

for like eight hours for like two days or something. It seems pretty intense but yes, that's what they do. and then you go there and they do the whole thing and et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I am really excited. I don't believe I want, well, okay, I obviously want the new MacBook Pro with a touchscreen OLED.

It's not the product for me, but I really want to try one. But man, that is going to be expensive, right? Like, that is going to be, oh, boy, that is going to be something. Yeah. But I'm excited about it. Just to be clear, what we're expecting is that these are going to be,

the models with the M5 Pro and Max chips. Yeah, yeah. I don't expect there'll be an M6 MacBook Pro OLED because I think the Or an M7. No, yeah. Yeah, well, I just,

I think that the M6 is out there and they could put it, but like that's for the cheaper version. I don't think the cheaper version's going to get OLED touchscreen. I think that cheaper version is going to stick around as a base model. Maybe they put an M6 in it. I don't know, but I don't think it'll be in the,

old-led version. That's my prediction anyway. I think that they're going to, it would make it too expensive. Yeah. And they want that thing to be more affordable. So that's my, my, my guess anyway. The conversation is we're not getting the M6 Pro Max at all. Yeah, exactly. There'll be M5, M5 Pro and Max, according to Mark Herman. They're not doing the M6 pro and max. They're going to do these now, and then next year, into next year, they'll have M7 Pro and Max to put in it. But that's a couple of weeks away. Like, really is just apparently two weeks away. So maybe next week, we'll find out. the week off that we're doing this. Yeah, I guess your notes,

your notes say IMac and that entry level model with M6, maybe, but again, it'll be the entry level model. So, I mean, M6 is out. You can stick it in all the places where you currently got an M5 and move on, but the OLED is going to be pricey and expensive, so it's not going to be it's going to be higher

skewed than the base model. Let's finish out with some ask up great questions. Tim says, what do you make of Apple using the vintage six color logo and the welcome home event invitation? It's cute. It warms my heart. Apple has been using the six color logo and the six color rainbow in lots of places over the last few years.

There was a period where it was just not thought of and now it's sort of pleasantly retro. So yeah, it warm my heart, but you know, the rainbow stage in Apple Park is in those six colors. They show up. You can buy Apple rainbow shirts at the Apple store at Apple Park. Like, they're not running away from it in a way that they were. I think back in the, you know, when Steve Jobs came back, he was like, get rid of that thing. And, but now I think it's, it's okay. It's, it's pleasantly retro in a way that they embrace.

It's a little like how I was watching football yesterday and the New England Patriots played a game in their throwbacks, which are like, normal New England Patriots that they won all their Super Bowls in. they're like dark blue uniforms with silver helmets with this stylized Patriot on the side that is often referred to as Flying Elvis. You see it, you get it. But they were wearing their throwbacks. So the throwbacks, it's red, not blue, and it's a white helmet

with this cartoon Patriot playing football on it that is called Pat Patriot. And it's, you know, when they replaced the Pat Patriot uniform, I was like, yeah, modern uniform. And I still feel like the Patriots uniform is good,

it's modern. They won all those Super Bowls in it. It's got the legacy. Then they boil those throwbacks. I'm like, oh, look. I mean, again, I wouldn't have welcomed them.

I was glad that they were gone. But now when they bring them back once or twice a year, I think it's adorable. That's the Six Colors logo. Yeah, I agree. It's gone from being banished to being classic.

Or like Pepsi does this sometimes with their throwbacks where they put like sugar instead of corn syrup in their sodas and they pull out the old Mountain Dew logo and stuff like it there is a point at which after being in the bin

for a while the old logos and stuff become classic and retro and charming and they're allowed back out into circulation that's where Apple is with the six color Apple rainbow now yeah I I feel like I love the six color logo I feel like if Apple used it

as their logo it would not hit me as hard as when we see it in these environments right we're like also you know how logos work. Like, you need logos in various ways of, like, if you say our logo is a rainbow, you're committing to putting a rainbow on every product you make. And like, it's not practical in an etched aluminum laptop case to have a rainbow there. You could do it. But like, they want more flexibility. So I wouldn't be surprised if the brand guidelines actually specify everything about the Apple rainbow and say, you know, you got to get permission. This is very specific,

only used in specific ways as a throwback variant and all of that. Like, I'm sure they've got all of that. going on. But, you know, the Apple logo is the Apple logo and the rainbow is a recognized way you can use it for special occasions, I guess I would say. I saw this a little while ago on social media, I think it's on threads. I'll see if I can try and find it for the show notes. And it was some 1987 identity guidelines that Apple made. And it was like a PDF. Well, it's not a PDF. now it was a brochure then. And they reference specifically the colors for the logo because six-color printing is very expensive. So they had a cheap version and a pricey version and how the colors would differ depending on what you had access to.

I mean, they also just, it's very funny this document because it's all like, yes, no, yes, like different ways that you should show it. I'll see if I can try it out and I'll put it in the show notes. But anyway, yes, six-color printing. is very expensive. Like it would make every bag that they made way more expensive to produce because six colors rather than just one color.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that scales up in a horrific way, right? The price of printing, the box, everything would just get more expensive when she'd go to six distinct colors. But yeah, and also just difficult to color match everything all the time. Last question today,

has been running along. Aaron wants to know, what is Jason's opinion of Goodreads adding half and quarter stars? Oh yeah. So Goodreads for years, the book site, limited you to star ratings of 1 to 5.

And they finally decided we don't care anymore. You could do halfs. You could do quarter stars. We're adding half blades is what they said, basically. I, what's my opinion? I think

rating art in a quantitative way is silly. I do put Goodreads ratings up, but they're mostly reminders to myself and hints to other people about how generous I felt about the book. I don't think you can measure books by halves and quarters, even more than by whole stars.

However, you know, if you list, if rule one of building a website is listening to your users, you can't go more than a couple of reviews before you see a Goodreads review. that says, you know, four stars. And then in the text of the review, it says 3.5 stars, rounded up to four for good reads.

So, like, the users hate that there aren't half stars. There aren't fractional stars. So on that level, like, I'm glad they've given that power to people. I think it's silly, but people want it. And so you should give it to them. We had a long argument at Macworld back in the day about whether we should even allow half ratings for Macworld reviews. And we ended up doing it. But like, the argument was that we didn't know if there were, if you do halves, then you've got like 10 points. Are there 10 points

of gradation across products? Is, is it meaningful to have three and a half versus four versus four and a half? Maybe 10 is at least quantifiable. Before I worked at Macworld and when I got to Macworld, They actually had two rating systems, which folks, bananas, what are they doing? And the two rating systems were a star rating, which was no halves. Okay, solid. And a 10 point scale to a tenths of a decimal. Wow. So you would get these star ratings that were like three stars, 5.6.

And I remember having that conversation with the lab director when we went over to Macworld where we're like, are there 100 points of gradation in a product review? Because 10 with a 10th place, it's literally just zero to 100 score. And you see this, I think, I mean, you see this on sites to this day.

Like, I think it's too much. I don't think, I don't think, I think it implies, let me put it this way. I think it implies a precision that doesn't exist.

I don't like it. Good reads, you know, it's even more squishy because it's just, did you like this book? So I'm against it personally, but I think I'm for them adding it

just because I admire them holding their ground for so long and then being like, fine, we don't care, whatever. Leave us along. Because the fact is their user base wants to give three and a half stars to a book.

So who am I to stand in their way? And at least it removes those really annoying prefaces to good reads. Worst thing about good reads reviews is that I have opinions about good reviews. Oh boy, Aaron.

Aaron, you open the Pandora's box here, folks. Is so many of them, because these are like amateur book reviewers. They're just explaining their process. I got a second. You can say that now, right? Could you like, I review for the Wall Street Journal. Well, yeah, but also, like, I'm a professional product reviewer and have been for a long time. But I'm just saying, you can say everybody else is an amateur book reviewer now.

I guess so. The point is that when you've got it, when you've got, when you've got, just regular people writing book reviews. Sometimes what you get is a lot of the classic things as an editor you would cut, which is it's all throat clearing. It's like, I get this three and a half out of four. And when I got this book,

I was really excited to read it. And you're like, get to the review of the book. Anyway, I have issues with Goodreads, book reviews. But in the end, if it shuts them up to give them quarter stars,

just shut them up, give them what they want and move on. But I think it's also ridiculous, but probably good. It's better to do this than to move it to a 10 point scale, right? Like 10 stars. Because at least if you're taking five stars and adding stars, we're not a stars in the sky for that many stars.

It just means that like people that want to still do one, two, three, four, five can still do that? Right. Like you are never going to half star sometimes. Oh yeah. I just, I just rated a book the other day and I gave it three stars. And I tried, I clicked a little bit wrong and it was like, do you mean three and a quarter stars? I do not. Thank you for asking.

I want a setting that says, just do the four stars. full stars. It's fine. But, you know, the fact is, there are moments where I'm like, is this a three star or a four star? And I will probably, in a moment of weakness, give it three and a half. That's fine. Whatever. Let people do what they want. It doesn't matter. Not really. It's fine. If you would like to send in a question of your own for us to open on a future episode, to ask, I should say, or to open on a future episode of the show. Just go to UpgradeFeedback.com. You can send us in your follow up there as well. Thank you to our members, support us to Upgrade Plus. You can get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week.

the podcast by going to GetUpgradeplus.com. There's getupgradeplus.com where you can find the link in the show notes and you can sign up for Upgrade Plus. You can find us on YouTube and you can watch us there if you like. I would like to thank our sponsors for this

week's episode. That's Notion of FitBud, but most of all, I would like to thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.