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Upgrade

392: The Whimsy Committee

 

00:00:00   [BEEP]

00:00:00   [MUSIC]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 392.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by TextExpander, Capital One, ZocDoc, and Membr4.

00:00:17   My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:21   Happy birthday, Myke Hurley.

00:00:23   Thank you very much, Jason. It's very kind of you to say.

00:00:25   It is, in fact, my birthday today as we're recording this,

00:00:29   because that's just how the world moves.

00:00:32   - If you listen to this a different day,

00:00:34   it's not his birthday anymore.

00:00:35   So sorry, you missed out.

00:00:36   - No, unless you just,

00:00:38   everybody decides to like observe my birthday

00:00:41   at the time when they listen to this.

00:00:43   - To upgrade 392?

00:00:45   - Yeah.

00:00:46   - It's always your birthday in this episode.

00:00:49   - I have a question, #SnailTalk question from Zach.

00:00:51   Zach wants to know, Jason,

00:00:52   do you use the Genie or scale effect

00:00:56   when you minimize windows on the Mac?

00:00:57   I was actually surprised today.

00:00:59   I don't know why it has surprised me

00:01:01   'cause I was checking this,

00:01:02   that you choose between one or the other.

00:01:04   That was kind of a thought to me.

00:01:05   I was like, oh, isn't there just one

00:01:07   where there isn't an animation?

00:01:08   And the answer is no.

00:01:09   Which one do you use, Genie or Scale?

00:01:12   - So this is a classic OS X lore.

00:01:16   This is that thing where Steve Jobs demoed the Genie effect

00:01:20   and he did it like 10 times and he held down the key,

00:01:23   the option key to make it go slow

00:01:24   so you could see how cool it was.

00:01:26   And, um, that's great. And then everybody else was like, uh, it's kind of a lot. How

00:01:34   about just a simple scale effect? And, uh, they, they put that in there as an option.

00:01:38   It's like, you can choose the scale effect. You want, I choose the scale effect. I don't

00:01:42   like the genie effect. I agree with the people who said it's kind of showy and, and, uh,

00:01:47   it's unnecessary. I rarely see this effect regardless because, um, I very rarely am minimizing

00:01:52   a window into the dock on my Mac, but if I were to do that, I would see the scale effect.

00:02:01   I also, I just want to say this is like such a classic Apple bit of weird whimsy, and I'm

00:02:10   not sure whether this was like, I think Steve Jobs loved this stuff. I think it's like CoverFlow.

00:02:15   I think Steve Jobs had stuff that he just got a kick out of and he's like, "Yeah, let's

00:02:19   Let's put it in there. And I'm not sure Apple has whimsy quite like that anymore. I know

00:02:23   Marco Arment went on a tear about whimsy a while ago about Apple, but I think Apple wants

00:02:28   to do things that are whimsical. I just feel like today's Apple is probably more of a process,

00:02:33   the whimsicality process where they get a committee to get to the whimsy committee and

00:02:39   they have some scores and they have some analysis. They get some people in there to run the numbers

00:02:45   about whether this is too whimsical or whimsical enough. And then sometimes whimsy comes out,

00:02:49   but it's manufactured whimsy in a way that maybe back in the day it was really just like,

00:02:53   if you made Steve Jobs laugh, you got to keep your wacky thing in the product. And the Genie,

00:02:57   I think, is one of those. Also, it's showing off because they had every window as a texture,

00:03:04   because they were using, it was display postscript and then it was quartz, but it's like they

00:03:09   were using their compositing engine, which was at the time state of the art, best in

00:03:13   the business. And so you could do things like apply these wild effects on Windows. And so

00:03:20   it was also showing off on their part. But that's a long digression, just to say that

00:03:25   I have no whimsy in my settings. It's scale.

00:03:30   - Mine are all genie. I think that might be the default. And I've just never thought to

00:03:34   change it because I never minimize Windows.

00:03:37   - It's like a little memorial for Steve Jobs in every Mac, that thing. I really, seriously,

00:03:43   I think Steve Jobs just loved it and so it's just it's part of the lore and why change

00:03:47   it as we know from observing Apple over the years if Apple doesn't have to change an aspect

00:03:54   like the like the images in the login screen if it doesn't have to make changes it just

00:03:58   leaves things there for decades so that's the genie effect.

00:04:03   If you would like to send in a question to help us open an episode of Upgrade just send

00:04:08   out a tweet with the hashtag #SNELtalk or use question mark SNELtalk in the Relay FM

00:04:11   members discord. Please send them in, I would appreciate them. This one I pulled

00:04:15   from the archives, I would love some new Snell Talk questions. Oh yeah, please. I have some

00:04:20   follow-up for you Jason. Chris wrote in to let us know that the UK Warner store

00:04:24   has Ted Lasso merch now. Alright, get in there. Unfortunately everything that I

00:04:29   wanted was out of stock. Hmm. So I got a I got an off-brand Richmond t-shirt for

00:04:35   Christmas. Okay. Lauren wanted to find one and she actually found, ironically enough,

00:04:40   she found the one that John Moltz makes on Cotton Hero.

00:04:43   - I was about to ask if that was the place.

00:04:46   - And she didn't realize it.

00:04:47   And then she's like, "Oh, you know this person, right?"

00:04:50   Yeah, that's John Moltz's off-brand one.

00:04:53   And I was recognized on the street.

00:04:55   I wore it walking the dog the other day

00:04:58   and somebody was like, "Hey, Ted Lasso."

00:04:59   So they're out there.

00:05:01   Anyway, you can buy your,

00:05:03   you can not buy it because everybody in the UK

00:05:05   has already purchased Ted Lasso merch apparently.

00:05:08   - Yep, so I put my name,

00:05:09   like they have like an email thing and so I put it in and then once they restock.

00:05:13   I want the sweatshirt like the AFC Richmond sweatshirt that they have.

00:05:18   It's as it says on the website they're most popular and I'm not surprised so I want one

00:05:23   of those and so as soon as it comes into stock I will buy one and then I can I don't know

00:05:28   shave my beard with my mustache and walk around as if I'm Ted Lasso.

00:05:32   I wouldn't have a good enough mustache like my mustache wouldn't be.

00:05:36   No one does that's the that's the beauty of it is nobody does.

00:05:39   That's a real mustache, right?

00:05:41   Yeah, he grows that.

00:05:42   It looks real.

00:05:43   I think I saw a picture recently that seemed to suggest that they were starting shooting

00:05:47   again, someone on Instagram.

00:05:48   I think it was the guy who plays Coach Beard.

00:05:51   They were all getting on what looked like a private jet, which kind of looked kind of

00:05:55   cool.

00:05:56   Did you, do you think that it's possible that sometimes somebody's gonna either buy like

00:06:01   a lower division UK football team and just turn them into the Richmond Greyhounds or

00:06:07   or that there's going to be some sort of promotion

00:06:08   where somebody wears the Richmond kit for a game

00:06:11   or something like that.

00:06:12   Do you think somebody, a stunt like that?

00:06:14   - I could imagine Apple doing something like that,

00:06:17   like convincing a team to call themselves AFC Richmond.

00:06:22   'Cause they do stuff like this

00:06:23   and they've done stuff like this,

00:06:25   funnily enough, mostly in the US, right?

00:06:27   Where they like take over a store or something

00:06:29   and it's like they sell the shortbread.

00:06:32   I could imagine there being some kind of stunt

00:06:35   in an offseason game or something of AFC Richmond or something like that. And maybe having Jason

00:06:42   Sudeikis there, something like that, I could imagine that happening.

00:06:45   I'm actually a little surprised that a lower division, maybe they have and I just haven't

00:06:50   heard about it, a lower division team in America hasn't done that. Like in the second division

00:06:54   here just hasn't said. I know we're the Tucson whatevers, but apologies to my friends in

00:06:59   Tucson who are actually supporters of the Tucson whatevers. I can't remember their name.

00:07:03   And they're like, no, no, no, now we're AFC Richmond for a game. Maybe.

00:07:06   I mean, the Discord is mentioning, which is a good point, Ryan Reynolds and the Catherine

00:07:12   Miffit quest, oh my God, he's blanking on his name now, from Oisani.

00:07:16   McElhaney. Yeah, they bought a football club in Wales

00:07:19   called Wrexham. Yes, they did. And they're doing a little

00:07:23   show about that. It's FC Tucson, by the way. So of course, they're the Tucson whatevers

00:07:26   because they don't have a name. They're just FC Tucson. So they could be FC Tucson. And

00:07:29   now like oh surprise we're at AFC Richmond for a game.

00:07:34   - FC Tucson sounds like a Star Wars droid.

00:07:36   - See I was gonna say it's a rapper.

00:07:40   - FC Tucson.

00:07:41   - Yeah.

00:07:42   - And then we like MC Tucson.

00:07:44   - Like MC Tucson, yeah.

00:07:45   - Yeah.

00:07:46   Apple has made the first episode of their new show,

00:07:49   The After Party available for free on YouTube.

00:07:53   This is a Chris Miller and Phil Lord.

00:07:57   - Lord.

00:07:58   - Yeah, production.

00:07:58   This is Chris Miller's like solo thing I think but they're both executive producing it. Like

00:08:03   he's written it and is directing it like created it and directing it.

00:08:07   So it's the Lego movie and they're both involved in the movie.

00:08:10   21 Jump Street and Spider-verse and loads of other things.

00:08:14   Yeah so the first episodes on YouTube they dropped the first three this seems to be Apple's

00:08:18   model now right as they drop the first three if they can of a new show.

00:08:22   This show needed it this show needed the first three at once.

00:08:25   they put the YouTube, I watched the first two.

00:08:27   - Yeah.

00:08:28   - But yeah, you do need it 'cause the premise

00:08:31   is kind of like it's a murder mystery

00:08:33   where there's a sort of a locked room

00:08:35   with a bunch of guests in it

00:08:36   and then one of them is the murderer.

00:08:38   But there are, it's not quite what I thought it was

00:08:41   where they were like every episode is its own genre.

00:08:43   It's not quite that because there's lots

00:08:45   of framing sequence stuff that is--

00:08:47   - That's how they kind of pitched it,

00:08:49   but it's like there's these two things going on at once.

00:08:52   There's like the crime trying to be solved,

00:08:55   and then the interviews that are occurring.

00:08:58   And the interviews are then all told from that person's

00:09:02   kind of imagination and memory.

00:09:04   And they are then set within different kind

00:09:06   of TV and movie genres.

00:09:07   So, right, Tiffany Haddish is the lead, basically.

00:09:11   And she's the detective who's got one night to solve

00:09:13   the case because then they're bringing in some fancy detective

00:09:16   to solve it.

00:09:17   But she's the local detective, and she's

00:09:18   going to try to solve it.

00:09:20   And so she sits people down and she's like, you know,

00:09:24   tell me your point of view

00:09:25   because she's very knowledgeable about like every—

00:09:28   everybody's got their own movie that they are the star of.

00:09:31   And that is the premise of the show.

00:09:32   So the first episode is this is a romantic comedy.

00:09:35   And the second episode is this is a Fast

00:09:37   and Furious movie essentially. And she's great.

00:09:41   -The third is a musical. -Awesome.

00:09:44   And the cast is kind of amazing.

00:09:46   There's a lot of people in there where you're like, "Wait, what?"

00:09:48   -Yeah, the cast is absolutely incredible.

00:09:50   - I had a funny moment where there's a guy,

00:09:53   character's name is Brett,

00:09:54   is kind of the star of the second episode,

00:09:57   which is just incredibly good.

00:09:59   - Yeah, it's good.

00:10:00   - And the whole time I'm like, I know this guy,

00:10:03   I know this guy.

00:10:04   And he really reminded me of a character

00:10:08   in the show Superstore, NBC Superstore.

00:10:11   And it's because it's his brother.

00:10:12   - It's his brother, yeah.

00:10:13   And I was gonna say, I also know this actor

00:10:15   because I refer to him as not Wahlberg.

00:10:18   - Yes, I mean, I think that's why he was cast

00:10:20   - Honestly, 'cause he's-- - Uh-huh, he looks like

00:10:21   a Wahlberg, but not-- - As soon as I saw him,

00:10:23   I was like, "Oh, I know who you are."

00:10:25   - Slightly melted Wahlberg? (laughs)

00:10:26   - Yeah, yeah, he looks so much like Mark Wahlberg,

00:10:29   but also like his brother. (laughs)

00:10:32   - Who's the big dummy in "Superstore," yeah.

00:10:34   - This is a very fun show, but the first episode--

00:10:37   - I think so. - Is okay.

00:10:39   - It's okay.

00:10:39   - It's the second episode, and then it gets even better

00:10:42   with the third episode.

00:10:43   I think they kinda ramp up.

00:10:44   - Because you gotta understand that the premise is that--

00:10:46   - Yeah. - They keep cycling

00:10:47   through these different, everybody's got a different view

00:10:48   of what happened and it is a Rashomon thing.

00:10:51   I mean, it is literally, you keep seeing the same events

00:10:54   for that night through everybody's film genre perspective.

00:10:58   That's the big idea.

00:11:00   But after two episodes, I can say, I'm three for you,

00:11:02   that it's a pretty well executed, it's a fun idea.

00:11:05   - Yeah, I like, you know, like when these things

00:11:08   are done well, it's like you see how it's the same goings on

00:11:12   but they're different.

00:11:13   Like they're slightly different in important ways

00:11:17   from person to person.

00:11:18   My understanding of this show is like,

00:11:21   the way that it was pitched is,

00:11:22   it is possible for us to work out who it is before the end.

00:11:27   Like that's how I was reading about,

00:11:28   that's how they were pitching this.

00:11:30   Is like, the clues apparently are there

00:11:33   and you can try and come up with your own idea

00:11:37   before the end.

00:11:38   That's my hope.

00:11:39   I really hope that this isn't one of those ones

00:11:41   where they kind of cop out

00:11:42   and it's a thing you never could have worked out.

00:11:44   You know what I mean?

00:11:45   It's like, oh, it was this person, which is a character that wasn't in the show, and they

00:11:51   did it?

00:11:52   Yeah, they seem to be playing fair because they have to go, they're crossing over the

00:11:55   same time, iterating over the same time again and again, and although it's all from individual's

00:12:00   perspectives, there's a limit to how much you can cheat on that.

00:12:04   So I think they have to have it all locked down about exactly what happened, and then

00:12:08   it's just in the ways that it's revealed.

00:12:11   I want to throw out another show, by the way,

00:12:13   that is not on Apple TV Plus, it's on Peacock in the US.

00:12:17   It was a BBC show, so you already, I guess,

00:12:22   saw it or missed it.

00:12:24   But speaking of mysteries, it's just on Peacock now.

00:12:28   It's called "Vigil," and it's a six-episode, I think,

00:12:32   series about a murder on a submarine,

00:12:37   a British Navy submarine.

00:12:40   And because it happens in UK territorial waters, they actually send a police officer to the

00:12:50   submarine while it's on its mission to find out the truth.

00:12:58   And it's kind of a, it's like a locked, it's a really locked room mystery, right?

00:13:02   Because it's everybody's on the submarine.

00:13:06   And the reason I wanted to mention it is that there's a moment in the second episode, I

00:13:09   I think where you wonder if they're playing fair or not and then you realize that it's

00:13:13   that it's that reveal of like oh this is more complicated than we thought it was kind of

00:13:17   kind of thing but I I'm loving that show and people should check that out too so vigil

00:13:23   it's on Peacock in the US and it's probably available somewhere readily available in the

00:13:27   UK because you know it's from there yeah maybe she's a bit weird yeah I don't know I don't

00:13:34   know whether they go away or come back or go to some strange streaming service or what

00:13:39   even though I pay for it, because it's basically a tax on the UK people.

00:13:43   After a certain period, things come off iPlayer and they go to Brickbox

00:13:46   and I have to pay for them.

00:13:47   - I see, well... - So, you know,

00:13:49   got to get them on both ends, I suppose.

00:13:51   Dutch regulators are unhappy with Apple's plans

00:13:54   for allowing third-party payments for dating apps.

00:13:57   So you remember we were talking about this.

00:13:59   This is one of the things that Apple then published,

00:14:01   the support documentation, developer documentation

00:14:04   for how to get the entitlements to be able to be

00:14:07   offering third-party payments or links out to go and pay,

00:14:12   like for people to pay you if you want to use a dating app.

00:14:16   Well, Dutch regulators are unhappy with the way

00:14:18   that Apple is doing this.

00:14:19   They are saying that it's against their rules

00:14:23   that they've set out that developers must choose

00:14:26   between whether they send customers to a web page

00:14:28   or integrate a third-party system.

00:14:30   Dutch regulators say they should be able to do both.

00:14:32   So Apple has set out this thing where they're like,

00:14:34   hey, you can apply for an entitlement

00:14:37   and you can either A, integrate a third party payment system

00:14:40   or B, send your customers out to pay on the web.

00:14:45   - Right.

00:14:46   - Dutch regulators are saying no,

00:14:47   they should be able to do all of these things.

00:14:49   This wasn't in the ruling, but I wouldn't be surprised

00:14:51   if they're also gonna contest the separate binary thing,

00:14:54   but we'll see how that goes.

00:14:56   The regulators are also unhappy that the system

00:14:59   hasn't actually been implemented,

00:15:00   it's kind of just been announced and put your email address

00:15:03   in here and maybe we'll get back to you.

00:15:05   And they're now fining them. They're fining apples.

00:15:08   - $5 million a week for the maximum of $50 million,

00:15:12   which, you know, is --

00:15:16   This is that classic thing, which is that if you're --

00:15:18   if you've got all the money in the world, a fee --

00:15:22   a fine is just a fee,

00:15:24   and you can just keep doing the thing you're doing because --

00:15:27   -How much is it gonna pay for us to do this?

00:15:29   How much is it gonna pay for us to do this?

00:15:29   -Yeah, can we just write a check

00:15:30   to make you go away at that point?

00:15:32   Like, and I know that that's not what the purpose

00:15:34   of the Dutch government is

00:15:34   and that they can change their finding structure and they can do whatever. But I think it's

00:15:38   interesting that it is a find that I would say Apple is not going to care about. Apple

00:15:45   is worried more about the big picture about what this means internationally than it does

00:15:49   in this one market.

00:15:50   I mean that fine though, like I mean it goes up to then what happens once they've got that?

00:15:54   I mean then we might start getting into even murkier legal waters, right? It's like okay,

00:15:58   we fined you the maximum amount, you still haven't done it, so now we're gonna go through

00:16:02   this all over again, you know.

00:16:03   I think it also shows Apple's gonna be put on its own pace.

00:16:06   It's not gonna be put on someone else's pace

00:16:08   and they don't like that.

00:16:10   The Dutch regulators are like,

00:16:11   "No, no, we told you to do this."

00:16:12   And I think there's an argument to be made

00:16:14   that a regulator coming down and saying,

00:16:16   "Change this technical thing right away."

00:16:20   There's, I have no doubt that Apple is dragging its feet,

00:16:24   but also it's unrealistic to say,

00:16:26   "Do this thing, we told you to do it."

00:16:28   It's like any of these court orders

00:16:29   that say you have to do this.

00:16:31   I think even if Apple is trying to long play it

00:16:33   and drag its feet on it, there is to a certain degree truth in the fact that this is highly

00:16:39   technical and I can't just flip a switch.

00:16:41   No, they're making part of this more complicated than it needs to be. You shouldn't need to

00:16:44   have an entitlement to go outside of the App Store.

00:16:48   Oh sure, like I said, this is what I mean about dragging their feet, but I don't think

00:16:51   it's as easy as just saying "okay, we'll just accept it now."

00:16:54   The integrating of third-party options is complicated, but the idea of having a link

00:16:59   where someone could then just go out to the app store and then come back.

00:17:03   That's true.

00:17:03   That doesn't require anything.

00:17:05   They're just making that more complicated than it needs to be so they can try and control it.

00:17:09   Sure.

00:17:10   We're just going to say to everybody who didn't believe us, we told you so.

00:17:15   Back in episode 299 of Upgrade, when Spotify bought the Joe Rogan experience,

00:17:22   we said, "This is going to be a problem for Spotify."

00:17:26   And we were right.

00:17:27   It is.

00:17:29   - And without getting into the whole debate,

00:17:31   because there are a lot of people out there like,

00:17:33   oh, this is, of course this was gonna happen,

00:17:34   and you know, Spotify's business strategy.

00:17:37   All we said was, by funding a very controversial podcast,

00:17:42   they are going to bring trouble onto themselves

00:17:48   that they didn't need to do, but they've chosen to do

00:17:51   by funding this very popular,

00:17:54   but also very controversial podcast.

00:17:56   And we predicted at the time

00:17:58   that there would be things that Joe Rogan would say or do

00:18:02   that would lead to controversy

00:18:04   that would then reflect badly on Spotify

00:18:07   and cause Spotify to have to deal with the PR mess of it.

00:18:11   And that that was the price they were going to pay

00:18:14   beyond the money of funding Joe Rogan

00:18:17   and making him a Spotify exclusive.

00:18:19   And we heard from a few people, one in particular,

00:18:22   and I don't actually even remember who it was now,

00:18:24   but one in particular stuck with both of us.

00:18:26   They're like, no, this isn't gonna happen.

00:18:29   They will never regret this.

00:18:30   It'll be fine.

00:18:32   And every time something like this happens,

00:18:35   you and I send messages back and forth saying, no regrets.

00:18:38   It's all fine.

00:18:39   - Always.

00:18:39   - But it's really exploded in the last week.

00:18:42   And again, in the long term of Spotify's business,

00:18:44   will it matter?

00:18:45   Will it not?

00:18:46   I don't know.

00:18:47   It just feels to me like they made a decision

00:18:50   that was like their big, bold business move to say,

00:18:55   haha, we own the most popular podcast. And maybe we're not properly estimating all of

00:19:05   the cleanup they were going to have to do again and again and again. But here they are.

00:19:12   So yeah, we told you so.

00:19:14   Let me tell you the mistake that they made, which I think is a mistake that we knew was

00:19:18   the issue at the time. Joe Rogan hasn't changed the type of content that he's making.

00:19:23   No, the show is the show.

00:19:25   This is the show.

00:19:26   This is what it always was.

00:19:27   It's not like, "Oh, you know, Joe Rogan was just a normal guy and then he got that Spotify

00:19:30   money and he got all wacky."

00:19:32   No.

00:19:33   The problem is, like, there was people that didn't like him, they had nowhere to go, right?

00:19:40   Because, like, he wasn't really doing things that could get him thrown off of Apple podcasts

00:19:45   like Alex Jones was, right?

00:19:47   Like, Alex Jones is just way worse, you know?

00:19:49   Like he was, it was like lots of hate speech and racism and to my knowledge at least, Joe

00:19:57   Rogan's not in that boat, otherwise people would be asking Apple podcast to take him

00:20:01   off.

00:20:02   He just says lots of things that are very controversial, not very well thought out and

00:20:07   most of the time like are not based in fact.

00:20:12   And you know, it's like you can question then whether you know, he should be taken off of

00:20:16   every single podcast platform around.

00:20:19   But the issue here is Spotify employ him basically.

00:20:24   - Yes, that's exactly it.

00:20:25   They fund him.

00:20:26   It's not a, or am I gonna be,

00:20:29   'cause Spotify wants to have it both ways.

00:20:31   They wanna say, "Oh, we're an open platform."

00:20:32   And so we let everything on and you know,

00:20:34   there's weird podcasts on Apple's podcast too.

00:20:37   But it's not the same because he's funded

00:20:40   specifically by Spotify.

00:20:43   It would be different if he was on all the podcast services,

00:20:46   including Spotify, and then everybody would be like,

00:20:49   "Should Joe Rogan have a platform?"

00:20:51   And all the platforms would say,

00:20:52   "You know, we're not gonna intercede here."

00:20:55   But it's not that argument.

00:20:56   The argument is Spotify owns him and they pay him.

00:21:01   And so that is a higher standard

00:21:03   that they have to answer for.

00:21:05   - And then it gave people the ability to write articles

00:21:10   and to complain to this company.

00:21:11   And now it's like Spotify is Joe Rogan.

00:21:14   And now we're into different waters now, right?

00:21:17   like I mean if you had an axe to grind you could grind it and attack him with it but

00:21:21   then also just more people were paying attention and the more people that pay attention the

00:21:26   more stuff we can pull out and say like this guy says wild things does this match with

00:21:33   Spotify's corporate guidelines and so now Spotify have made some really kind of laughable

00:21:39   I think in some places corporate like speech guidelines again as if like the really funny

00:21:44   thing to me about this is they have created a series of things you can and can't talk

00:21:49   about kind of like YouTube has but YouTube doesn't own the content. Spotify owns this

00:21:57   content like that's the difference.

00:21:59   M: They put out in there in there again because the point here is that they're doing massive

00:22:03   damage control over Joe Rogan because they decided to fund Joe Rogan yeah despite the

00:22:08   fact it was clear this sort of stuff was gonna happen yeah and clear to us anyway in episode

00:22:13   299 almost a hundred weeks ago now.

00:22:16   So, but the issue is also they're like,

00:22:18   "Oh, well, we've got some new guidelines in place

00:22:20   "and we're gonna look at every podcast."

00:22:22   And like, okay, what does that mean

00:22:24   you're gonna look at every podcast?

00:22:25   Are you gonna have somebody listen

00:22:26   to every podcast on Spotify?

00:22:27   Is it only the ones you fund or is it all of them?

00:22:30   'Cause they're like, "We're gonna put labels on

00:22:31   "about anything that covers COVID-19."

00:22:33   It's like, well, are you now analyzing every podcast?

00:22:36   That seems unlikely that you're actually gonna do that.

00:22:39   Or is it just the ones that you fund?

00:22:41   - And they don't need to do this.

00:22:42   Like they don't, this is the thing,

00:22:44   I don't think they need to do this part, right?

00:22:46   Like now they've gone too far, now they're like YouTube.

00:22:49   All anyone's asking them to do

00:22:51   is focus on the content they own.

00:22:54   And then outside of that,

00:22:56   just respond to people's complaints, right?

00:22:58   Like this is how everybody else works.

00:23:00   'Cause it's, no one owns this content.

00:23:02   YouTube has to go the extra step

00:23:03   because they make money from all the content, right?

00:23:06   And so they only have these rules in place

00:23:09   because they wanna have rules to say,

00:23:11   you broke the rules and advertisers complain to them

00:23:13   that this content's on the platform, right?

00:23:15   So like Spotify is doing this huge run around

00:23:19   just to try and quell the anger that people have.

00:23:23   - It's a distraction, it's damage control.

00:23:25   And our point here, by the way,

00:23:28   is not to reopen this whole issue of platforms

00:23:31   and whether Joe Rogan should have a platform

00:23:35   or anything like that, it's really not.

00:23:36   Our point here is to say Spotify made what they thought

00:23:39   was a galaxy brain move to take the biggest podcast

00:23:43   on the internet and make it a Spotify exclusive.

00:23:47   And a bunch of people were like,

00:23:49   are you sure you wanna go down the path

00:23:51   of owning and operating what this guy says?

00:23:55   'Cause this guy says a lot of kind of wacky stuff

00:23:57   and makes a lot of people really angry.

00:24:00   And you're gonna have to justify it

00:24:01   because you own it now.

00:24:03   Like literally, I know they don't really own it.

00:24:05   And when it's done, Joe Rogan,

00:24:07   I think walks away with the content.

00:24:08   But like, metaphorically, you own your actions,

00:24:12   you own this podcast.

00:24:14   And I think Spotify probably, you know,

00:24:18   you could give them credit and say that they just

00:24:20   were clueless, but I think the truth is probably

00:24:22   that they were just arrogant and they're like,

00:24:23   nah, it'll be fine, we're great.

00:24:25   - Who's gonna care, yeah, it'll be fine.

00:24:26   - It'll be great.

00:24:27   - He's gotten by this far, we'll be fine.

00:24:28   - And this is not the first blow up,

00:24:30   it is the biggest blow up.

00:24:31   They will continue to happen because Joe Rogan,

00:24:34   bless his heart, is not changing.

00:24:37   He's just gonna do what he's gonna do.

00:24:38   It's made him wildly successful.

00:24:39   - He put out this thing, which I cannot believe,

00:24:42   and he's just like,

00:24:43   "I don't even prepare for these conversations."

00:24:45   It's like, "You're not surprising me, Joe.

00:24:47   "I'm not surprised that you don't do

00:24:49   "even the basic level of work

00:24:51   "for your massively successful podcast."

00:24:53   You know, it's hilarious to me,

00:24:56   how much more work we do for this show

00:24:58   than he does for his show, but hey ho.

00:25:00   So the fact that he says that and he's kind of proud of it,

00:25:03   is like, that means he's never gonna change.

00:25:05   I was thinking about this a bit over the weekend.

00:25:08   Amazon have got this right.

00:25:10   Amazon are doing, they're smart.

00:25:12   Amazon are smarter because what they're doing,

00:25:14   when they just did another one of these deals

00:25:17   with My Favorite Murder, they don't own the content.

00:25:22   They just have exclusive first rights to the content

00:25:25   and sell all the ads.

00:25:26   That's the better way to do this

00:25:28   because then you don't own it.

00:25:30   You're just distributing it like everybody else.

00:25:32   You distribute it just earlier.

00:25:34   And I think that that is a more separated thing

00:25:38   and you're still benefiting because people

00:25:40   that love the show will want it before,

00:25:42   will want it a week before everybody else gets the show.

00:25:45   So maybe they'll check out Amazon Music for their podcasts.

00:25:48   By the way, Amazon Music has been a previous sponsor

00:25:50   of the show, I'll just say that.

00:25:51   This is absolutely zero to do

00:25:52   what I'm talking about right now.

00:25:54   - Sure.

00:25:55   - But then they sell all the ads,

00:25:56   which is where all the money comes from anyway.

00:25:58   And because they sell all the ads,

00:26:00   they're gonna get more listeners,

00:26:01   they get more money in, right?

00:26:03   which is where Spotify are kind of locking it down.

00:26:05   I think that Amazon's is the smarter way.

00:26:07   - It's all distinctions, right?

00:26:08   The Amazon, you've got a business relationship

00:26:10   and you can put pressure on that,

00:26:11   but it's not the same as saying,

00:26:12   this is a Spotify exclusive, we own it, it is our baby.

00:26:17   It is, it's a different thing.

00:26:18   And again, their issue this last week has been with,

00:26:23   with musicians pulling their music off

00:26:28   in protest of Joe Rogan being on Spotify,

00:26:31   which comes up with another thing,

00:26:32   which is, again, I have to ask the question,

00:26:36   is the opportunity to own podcasting

00:26:40   worth it to Spotify to have issues

00:26:44   with its core business, which is music?

00:26:47   - You've got to imagine there's some very tense meetings

00:26:52   between division heads at Spotify right now, right?

00:26:54   Like the head of music and the head of podcasts,

00:26:56   they're probably not friends at the moment.

00:26:59   - Yeah, yeah, and it's funny too,

00:27:00   'cause this is a very different kind of business

00:27:02   for Spotify because music doesn't really have,

00:27:04   as we said back in episode 299,

00:27:06   music doesn't really have exclusives in the same way.

00:27:08   I mean, yeah, there's like live sessions

00:27:10   and stuff like that.

00:27:11   But for the most part releases just are released

00:27:13   and they're everywhere.

00:27:14   And this whole thing was an idea of like,

00:27:16   we're not gonna just put podcasts in Spotify,

00:27:18   we're gonna force some podcasts to only be in Spotify

00:27:21   and you're gonna have to get them there.

00:27:22   By the way, I wanna, before we move on from this topic,

00:27:25   I wanna mention another couple of things.

00:27:26   One of the top five, no,

00:27:28   it's probably the top 15 podcasts in Apple Podcasts

00:27:32   is a podcast with a picture of Joe Rogan on it

00:27:34   and the words Joe Rogan Experience

00:27:37   in the name of the podcast,

00:27:39   but it's actually a podcast about what happened

00:27:41   on that week's Joe Rogan podcast.

00:27:43   (laughing)

00:27:44   - It's the Joe Joe Rogan,

00:27:45   Rogan Rogan Experience experience.

00:27:47   - It is, and it is in the top charts

00:27:50   because people are looking on Apple Podcasts for Joe Rogan

00:27:54   and not finding it.

00:27:55   It's number nine at the moment.

00:27:57   It is the Joe Rogan Experience Review Podcast

00:28:00   - With a big fat picture of Joe Rogan right in the center.

00:28:03   - Oh my, how?

00:28:04   (laughing)

00:28:06   - And like good for the guy who does that

00:28:09   because he is, that is the ultimate search engine squatting

00:28:13   going on there.

00:28:14   So, yeah.

00:28:16   - They got Joe Rogan Experience Review Podcast

00:28:18   is one that I see.

00:28:20   There's probably quite a few of them.

00:28:22   - That's the number nine,

00:28:23   number nine podcast on Apple Podcasts right now.

00:28:26   - That's just, there's something to that.

00:28:27   - Because people are looking for it, right?

00:28:28   And that's what they're getting.

00:28:30   - So one thing, I don't think this story is over.

00:28:33   Really the question is,

00:28:35   if there's gonna be a musician big enough.

00:28:38   - Right.

00:28:39   - No offense to Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.

00:28:41   - Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.

00:28:44   - Not big enough, not important enough in Spotify's eyes.

00:28:48   I mean like look.

00:28:49   - Because the point too, their point is not to--

00:28:52   - Look Neil Young, very smart,

00:28:53   what Neil Young did here I think.

00:28:54   Neil Young knew that this wasn't gonna make a difference,

00:28:57   but what Neil Young has gotten is exactly what's happened,

00:28:59   which is it was, it started a fire.

00:29:02   - Yep, that's it.

00:29:04   - And so, but the question now is,

00:29:06   will there be an artist big enough?

00:29:08   - Right.

00:29:09   - Like if Taylor Swift is like,

00:29:11   this is the one everyone uses, but like, you know.

00:29:13   - That's the ultimate leverage

00:29:14   that everybody has over Spotify,

00:29:15   which is Spotify's business is a music streaming business.

00:29:18   And if Spotify deciding we're gonna spend money

00:29:20   on exclusive content in podcasts,

00:29:23   is if their decisions there are so questionable

00:29:27   that they're harming their music business appreciably,

00:29:30   this becomes a much bigger problem.

00:29:32   And I wouldn't, you know,

00:29:34   I doubt there's gonna be much of a change here,

00:29:37   but there is a scenario where Spotify just decides,

00:29:41   you know what, we're not gonna fund.

00:29:45   This is similar to the argument about Substack,

00:29:47   where people are like really angry

00:29:48   about some of the content that's on Substack,

00:29:50   but what intensifies the argument

00:29:52   is that Substack chose some people

00:29:56   and gave them essentially funding

00:29:59   to launch their sub stacks.

00:30:01   - That's a different thing. - And it changes

00:30:02   the conversation 'cause then you're not a platform anymore.

00:30:05   Now you are funding the content.

00:30:07   You are a publisher of that.

00:30:09   You have more responsibility.

00:30:11   And so that would be my question for Spotify is,

00:30:15   yeah, at what point do you say

00:30:16   this whole exclusive podcast thing

00:30:21   turned out to be too much

00:30:23   and with too much potential harm to our music relationships.

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00:31:41   Got a couple of stories for our Rumor Roundup, Jason.

00:31:44   I snuck, this has become a new segment in my brain,

00:31:46   I think this is probably obvious to everyone at the moment.

00:31:49   I like doing Rumor Roundups, and we said before,

00:31:52   especially because Mark Gurman seems to always publish something over the weekend.

00:31:55   And I have a couple of Bloomberg stories for you today.

00:31:58   The first is that Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is working on the ability to allow for

00:32:03   iPhones to natively accept card payments via the built-in NFC reader, removing the need

00:32:08   for something like a Square reader.

00:32:11   It's unclear whether the payment accept-- this is a quote, sorry, I'm going to read

00:32:15   a quote from the article.

00:32:16   It's unclear whether the payment acceptance option will be branded as part of Apple Pay,

00:32:21   Though the team working on the feature has been working within Apple's payment division

00:32:25   since being brought over from a company called Mobywave, which was a credit card payments

00:32:30   company like for phone for this exact thing, Apple acquired in 2020 for around $100 million.

00:32:39   This is an interesting one to me, like, because my feeling is right.

00:32:44   This feels like a strategic play, not a technology play, which is why they bought this company

00:32:49   'Cause I feel like Apple could have worked this out.

00:32:51   Like if it was just, if they were creating say an API,

00:32:55   which is like we're opening up the NFC reader,

00:32:57   then they can leave it for the other tech companies

00:32:59   to work out how to make that a thing

00:33:01   that they can charge from, right?

00:33:03   'Cause NFC is a pretty known technology at this point.

00:33:06   - Yeah, although, I mean,

00:33:07   NFC is really locked down on the iPhone, right?

00:33:09   - I mean, what I'm saying is they could have,

00:33:12   if they were just gonna be like, oh, hey Square,

00:33:14   I know you wanna be able to do this about the reader,

00:33:17   we're just gonna let you do that.

00:33:18   - Yeah, no, this is strategically,

00:33:21   they're like they want it to all go through Apple Pay, right?

00:33:23   - Yep, and so my fear on this is like, if Apple does this,

00:33:28   the logic in my brain would be like,

00:33:30   this is just gonna be an Apple Pay thing

00:33:32   and third parties will not be able to use this technology.

00:33:36   - Yeah, I think that's a good question, right?

00:33:37   Like, will it be, that would be my guess, my guess.

00:33:41   And I wonder how much of this gets calibrated now

00:33:44   thinking of future regulation and court cases and things

00:33:47   for Apple because there are two ways that Apple could do this.

00:33:50   Apple could say, we are making this an API

00:33:53   for approved apps who want to accept payments.

00:33:56   Or they could say, all payments go through Apple Pay,

00:33:58   which is probably what they'll do

00:34:00   because this sounds like very much part of their financial,

00:34:03   building their financial empire

00:34:05   that they're trying to build and saying,

00:34:08   you no longer, the person down at the farmer's market

00:34:11   that is currently struggling with a square terminal,

00:34:14   now all they need to do is just hold out their iPhone

00:34:17   and you can tap and you can accept payment and it's done

00:34:21   and you don't have to do anything else.

00:34:23   So you could argue that they missed their chance

00:34:28   and that they should have done this.

00:34:29   I don't think they have the hardware to do it years ago

00:34:32   and that now more entities have built like little terminals

00:34:37   and stuff where you can tap and all of that.

00:34:39   And that's, you know, tapping on a payment terminal

00:34:41   is a better experience than some dude handing his phone,

00:34:46   holding his phone out to you and saying, "Tap here, man." So, I don't know. But I'm sure

00:34:52   Apple views this as being a way for them to kind of insinuate themselves into another

00:34:55   part of the financial picture.

00:34:58   My hope would be at least that they could offer it as some kind of technology that third

00:35:03   parties could integrate with. Like, Apple could still process the payment. They're still

00:35:06   going to make the money. But at the same time, then, I don't know if a company like Square,

00:35:11   I mean, they make money from processing the payments. So why would they give that to Apple?

00:35:15   This is just, do remind me, do iPads have NFC chips in them?

00:35:20   - No, so I have to wonder if this is going on,

00:35:23   if one of the other conversations

00:35:24   that's going on inside Apple is maybe we need

00:35:26   to start putting NFC chips in iPads,

00:35:31   so we can sell them as terminals.

00:35:33   'Cause right now, I could see them saying cellular iPad,

00:35:38   NFC terminal built in, iPad Pro for your business,

00:35:42   you put it, right, there's a sales pitch there,

00:35:45   but they don't currently have NFC stuff in iPads.

00:35:48   Also Apple Pay Cash, I wanna point out that

00:35:51   when we talk about this,

00:35:52   and I know that you and I talk about this a lot,

00:35:54   like Apple's got all this financial services plans,

00:35:58   but like Apple Card and Apple Pay Cash

00:36:00   are like in the US, right?

00:36:03   - Yeah, I just saw there's a link from Matt in the chat.

00:36:07   Some might have NFC chips, anyway, that are unused.

00:36:11   - Oh yeah, apparently the iPad Air 2 has an NFC chip.

00:36:14   - That's hilarious, so that's from a long time ago.

00:36:17   So, but that was probably like they put it on the board

00:36:19   'cause it was cheaper to put it on the board

00:36:20   with something else.

00:36:21   - If they have them, Apple doesn't talk about it.

00:36:23   But yeah, so there's a breakdown.

00:36:25   Apple Pay is worldwide, not everywhere,

00:36:28   but in many, many, many countries.

00:36:30   And this is the ability for you to use your phone

00:36:33   and your watch as a card.

00:36:35   But Apple Pay Cash, which is the,

00:36:37   I wanna send money to somebody else, that's US only.

00:36:40   And Apple Card is US only, 'cause they require other things.

00:36:44   I'm still really surprised that Apple Pay Cash has not left the US.

00:36:49   Me too.

00:36:50   Even if they just kept it as inter-country, like not international.

00:36:56   This seems like a strategic play.

00:36:58   For me to be able to send money in the UK, I mean what I'll say is, maybe the reason

00:37:04   is the UK's payment system is very advanced and very good and free.

00:37:11   I can send money to anyone in the UK using my banking app

00:37:15   and it's immediate.

00:37:16   We have a better system here.

00:37:19   Maybe, I don't know what your system's like there,

00:37:21   but everything I've ever done with an American bank

00:37:24   seems vastly more complicated.

00:37:25   - Oh yeah, no, our system, I had somebody,

00:37:28   when we were learning how to do payments

00:37:30   to people for our business that were direct payments,

00:37:35   we have to use a system called ACH for that.

00:37:38   And a bunch of other stuff like Zelle has been created,

00:37:41   which is like a bunch of the big banks

00:37:42   trying to create their own Venmo, and there's Venmo.

00:37:45   But ACH, I was told by somebody who actually has worked

00:37:49   at the place that does the ACH payments.

00:37:51   What this person said to me was,

00:37:54   your vision, my vision of it being like

00:37:58   a big windowless room with a bunch of people

00:38:00   dressed like their accountants from the 30s,

00:38:02   and they've all got adding machines

00:38:04   and little green eye shades.

00:38:05   This person was like, you're really not that far off.

00:38:08   It is an incredibly outmoded system that for whatever reason has not changed.

00:38:14   And that's the US.

00:38:15   So yeah, the US banking system is so slow to change.

00:38:21   And yet Apple is doing these things in the US, which I find that fascinating because

00:38:26   there are other countries where you think it would be easier to deploy this stuff.

00:38:29   Then again, those countries also probably have more advanced alternatives.

00:38:32   So there's less of an opportunity there.

00:38:34   But still, wouldn't you think that when Tim Cook goes on Financial Call and boasts about

00:38:39   Apple Card and Apple Pay Cash, that he would really like to be able to boast about how

00:38:44   they're in other countries and they're not.

00:38:46   Yeah, Apple Card is the biggest surprise to me than Apple Pay Cash.

00:38:51   Are there credit cards in other countries?

00:38:54   I think there are.

00:38:55   There are.

00:38:56   And, you know, I just for that one, it's like it seems like much more of a longer term strategic

00:39:01   move and they could find credit card companies in most countries around the world that would

00:39:07   be willing to partner with them on that. But they have yet to do it. So this is an interesting

00:39:12   one to me. Honestly, this feels to me like they could do this anywhere that Apple Pay

00:39:18   is accepted because that's all this is. It's just a credit card or debit card transaction

00:39:24   via NFC.

00:39:25   I'm not entirely sure because you need to be able to accept it, which is why I was thinking

00:39:31   gut feeling is that the way this will work is that it'll take the money and put it in

00:39:34   your Apple Pay cash. So it'll only work in the US because it'll work with Apple Pay cash.

00:39:38   Because you got to take--

00:39:39   >>JAY: Oh right, because they're not going to want to do the work of having people sign

00:39:42   up--

00:39:43   >>DAVID: Right, and you can't do like a reverse-- a reverse Apple Pay where it charges on one

00:39:47   card and debits to the other card. Instead you have to have a like a linked account and

00:39:52   that-- that is the Apple Pay cash infrastructure.

00:39:54   >>JAY Good point. Good point.

00:39:55   >>DAVID Maybe if they do this, that might finally be an impetus for them to roll out

00:39:59   Apple Pay Cash elsewhere. Yes. But that's my guess is that it'll be like you can

00:40:04   take a payment for your bread at the at the farmers market and you just ended up

00:40:08   with Apple Pay Cash on your phone and then at the end of the day you can

00:40:11   transfer that back to your bank account. That's my guess about how they're going

00:40:15   to implement this. If they do this the interesting part is nothing new is

00:40:21   needed like every device that has an NFC chip in it a software update would turn

00:40:27   this feature on. NFC is a very simple technology that does a lot of complicated things. I remember

00:40:34   when I was first thinking about when the Apple Watch and the iPhone got NFC, got Apple Pay,

00:40:42   I was thinking, "How's it going to work on the tube? I'm underground and I don't have

00:40:45   any reception." And I was like, "Well, neither does my debit card. My debit card has no reception."

00:40:52   As we know from Apple explaining it to us all these years ago, it's basically just creating

00:40:56   a fake card. That's all it's doing. It's just like changing the numbers and giving it a

00:41:00   weird number.

00:41:01   Yeah. Well, Lauren was asking me about this because she took her—she didn't have her

00:41:04   phone with her and she was at Whole Foods. She was like, "Can I pay my Apple watches

00:41:08   in cellular?" she said. "So can I use Apple Pay?" And I'm like, "Yeah, because it doesn't—it's

00:41:12   just a credit card." It knows what the credit card is. It's stored on the device. It isn't

00:41:16   calling home to the internet to do anything. It's literally just providing the digits to

00:41:22   the receiver.

00:41:23   Mark Gorman has also given some details on the larger iMac that we've been pontificating

00:41:30   over.

00:41:31   So Mark is saying it will be the iMac Pro, it will feature an M1 Pro and/or M1 Max processors

00:41:39   as an option with a similar design language to the 24-inch iMac.

00:41:44   Yeah, yeah.

00:41:46   I think it is going to be what we thought it was, right?

00:41:51   I don't think there are gonna be some surprises maybe like is it gonna have a

00:41:54   better webcam is gonna face ID or something like that or is it really

00:41:58   gonna be my guess would be it's gonna be straight up just a big 24-inch iMac

00:42:03   same look no colors probably or bad colors. What size do you reckon it will be the

00:42:09   screen? I think it's 27. 27? I don't think they're gonna make it 30 or whatever I

00:42:15   think that that's too big for most people. So it would be physically smaller

00:42:19   larger screen than the one it replaces, right? Because the 24 is, like, physically

00:42:23   similar size, larger screen. Yeah, that's my guess, and then it'll come in, like,

00:42:28   space gray and maybe silver and then, you know, again, it's the usual, you know,

00:42:34   midnight green and, yeah, twilight yellow, I don't know, like, again, boring things

00:42:42   that are very boring, I think, and not bright and fun, but that are pro. And the

00:42:47   black bezels, right?

00:42:49   Black bezels, not the light gray bezels,

00:42:51   but the black bezels.

00:42:52   It's what we predicted,

00:42:54   and then it'll have the processors in there.

00:42:56   And what I find interesting is Mark Gurman

00:42:58   is like really cagey about like what Mac

00:43:01   might ship in the spring event.

00:43:02   He's like something, and he talks about this product,

00:43:05   but it's still like, "When's it gonna ship?"

00:43:07   And I'm gonna hold that hope that it's a spring event thing,

00:43:09   and they're gonna actually ship it in the spring event

00:43:11   'cause they wanna get it out there.

00:43:12   But Mark Gurman doesn't seem to know.

00:43:13   - He doesn't know.

00:43:14   He seems to not know this one, so I don't know.

00:43:17   But bring it on, I'm gonna, almost certainly I will buy this, right?

00:43:21   Almost certainly this will be my new Mac.

00:43:24   Even though I, you know, the idea of an external display and something like that is tempting,

00:43:28   I think it will probably just be this.

00:43:30   I've been very happy with my 27-inch iMac lifestyle that I started back when the 5K

00:43:35   iMac came out.

00:43:36   I'm pretty happy with it.

00:43:37   I think I'll just continue that.

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00:45:12   So there are some new betas that came out

00:45:15   tail end of last week.

00:45:17   - Big beta time.

00:45:18   - That were a bit chunky, I think.

00:45:21   So we've got iOS 15.4 and Mac OS 12.3.

00:45:24   I'm not 100% sure how that happened, but it did.

00:45:28   - They rushed out a iOS update, a 15.1 update

00:45:32   while Mac OS was still kind of spinning.

00:45:35   So they got offset.

00:45:36   Ah, yeah.

00:45:37   Cause it took a while, didn't it, to come out.

00:45:39   Yeah.

00:45:39   I forgot about that.

00:45:40   Probably the biggest thing, the most attention grabbing thing is, cause it's

00:45:44   a new thing and an expected thing is face ID while wearing a mask.

00:45:49   No Apple watch required.

00:45:52   So this uses quote unique features around the eyes as the way to

00:45:58   authenticate you so you can be wearing your mask and you set this up as a

00:46:02   separate process like you go in and redo face ID again because you have to make

00:46:06   the choice I would assume is safe to assume this is less secure and I mean

00:46:12   Apple say it's less accurate but like it's got to be less secure right then

00:46:17   without think so right because you got the full face or half the face I'm

00:46:22   wondering which of these is better from a security perspective out of this or

00:46:28   the watch unlock. What do you think?

00:46:30   - Well, watch unlock is probably better because it's a pure, you know, password. You've got

00:46:37   your watch on your wrist and as long as it stays on your wrist and you've entered the

00:46:41   passwords, it knows that it's you because it's still on your wrist. So I would probably

00:46:45   call that higher security. I also would think that Apple wouldn't do this if they weren't

00:46:50   fairly confident in the level of security of this thing.

00:46:55   Yeah, I wonder. Sure. What I wonder about is like where does touch ID sit?

00:47:03   So like if you've got like if you imagine we've got four things here we've

00:47:08   got face ID, face ID with watch, face ID of a mask, and touch ID. What is the

00:47:13   security spread across these four things? I would think that touch ID would

00:47:23   probably be the highest security? That's my guess.

00:47:27   I thought they said face ID was more secure than touch ID.

00:47:29   More secure than touch ID. I believe they did. I believe they did. I

00:47:32   think they said that face ID was more secure. It's less likely to misidentify somebody as

00:47:36   you than somebody's fingerprint is you. I'm just going on what I remember. I might

00:47:42   not be accurate about that. Yeah, the watch unlock, I mean, the beauty

00:47:45   of the watch unlock is it's biometric based on your knowledge of your own passwords. So

00:47:51   That's pretty powerful.

00:47:52   But beyond that, then you're just back to biometrics and saying, "This is the person

00:47:56   that I recognize."

00:47:57   Yeah.

00:47:58   Yeah.

00:47:59   And the truth is Face ID, the whole idea is convenience, and now they've got Face ID in

00:48:04   all these phones.

00:48:05   So they need to do—even if Apple spent the last two years trying to get back to Touch

00:48:09   ID, they need to do something like this because there are so many Face ID phones out there.

00:48:17   And even though it's coming now at this point,

00:48:19   I think it's reasonable to accept

00:48:21   that there are gonna be lots of situations

00:48:23   where people are masked

00:48:25   or have a scarf around their mouth or something.

00:48:30   I don't know.

00:48:31   - Which has always been a thing.

00:48:32   Masking has always been a thing,

00:48:34   an issue with Face ID around the world

00:48:37   prior to the pandemic.

00:48:38   I remember the first time I read face masks

00:48:42   and my initial thought was the things that you wear

00:48:45   a spa, like a beauty face mask.

00:48:48   And I was like, I don't understand

00:48:49   why are we talking about this?

00:48:51   And then it took me a while to realize, oh no,

00:48:53   because there are countries in the world

00:48:55   where they wear face masks, like when they're sick.

00:48:58   This was like a very long time ago.

00:48:59   By the way, Zach is letting us know

00:49:01   in the Real AFM members Discord,

00:49:04   by Apple touch ID is claimed to be one in 10,000,

00:49:07   face ID one in a million.

00:49:09   - Well, that's pretty, pretty good.

00:49:10   So assuming that this new face ID is,

00:49:13   if it's less, it's probably still better than Touch ID.

00:49:16   - But then my thing about the watch unlock is

00:49:20   I expect there is a massive variance of security

00:49:22   depending on what kind of passcode you have.

00:49:25   'Cause you can have a four digit passcode

00:49:27   on an Apple Watch, right?

00:49:28   - Sure, although I think you have to have entered

00:49:30   the passcode on the watch and on the phone

00:49:32   in order to enable the biometrics.

00:49:36   - But yeah, there is an interesting kind of scale.

00:49:38   It's just funny, I think, to consider the path

00:49:40   that Face ID has been on when you look back at Touch ID.

00:49:43   I mean, look, there is a,

00:49:45   the pandemic has kind of upended all of this, right?

00:49:48   Like I don't think that either the watch unlock

00:49:50   or like the watch unlock feature

00:49:51   would never have been introduced, in my opinion.

00:49:53   - No, and it was obviously a rush attempt

00:49:56   to get that out there while they worked on this

00:49:58   in the background, which is something that's,

00:50:00   this is literally the feature that we were talking about

00:50:03   during the pandemic.

00:50:05   Like the beginning, early days of the pandemic was-

00:50:08   - Can you do this instead?

00:50:10   can you do face ID with a mask on

00:50:12   based on the parts of your face you can see?

00:50:15   And the answer is, yeah, give us two years

00:50:16   and we'll get right back to you.

00:50:17   - I'm not surprised though, honestly,

00:50:19   like you gotta do the security work on this

00:50:22   and really be comfortable that what you're,

00:50:25   'cause you've got base,

00:50:26   I would expect that to make sure this worked,

00:50:29   they had to go back to like the very beginning of testing

00:50:32   for like they did with face ID.

00:50:34   - For sure.

00:50:35   - Right?

00:50:35   And so it's gonna take a really long time.

00:50:38   And honestly, I say like hats off to them

00:50:40   for the interim solution of the watch unlock.

00:50:43   Like I think they obviously knew

00:50:45   that this is something that they wanted to do

00:50:47   and like, all right, but that's gonna take us too long.

00:50:49   What can we do in the meantime?

00:50:51   Oh, we can do this.

00:50:53   So there is a little bit more to this.

00:50:54   So also they have introduced the ability

00:50:57   to do a face ID scan wearing glasses

00:51:01   to improve scanning for if you wear glasses.

00:51:03   And they recommend doing multiple scans

00:51:06   if you wear multiple pairs of glasses.

00:51:09   This is also better for sunglasses.

00:51:10   However, the face ID while wearing a mask feature

00:51:14   specifically will not work at all if you wear sunglasses

00:51:18   'cause it cannot look at your eyes, right?

00:51:20   It needs to see your eyes,

00:51:22   which is not something face ID required

00:51:25   'cause it had your entire face, right?

00:51:27   So when I was reading this, I was hearing about this,

00:51:30   I was like, "Eh, I'm not gonna enable this."

00:51:32   I wear an Apple Watch every day.

00:51:34   If it was the only reason I was wearing an Apple Watch,

00:51:36   it was one of the main reasons

00:51:38   when I started wearing an Apple Watch again,

00:51:40   then I would maybe consider it,

00:51:41   but now I wear an Apple Watch for a bunch of things,

00:51:44   as I'm back in kind of that life.

00:51:46   So I was like, no, I'm fine with the Apple authentication,

00:51:49   so I'm just gonna stick with it

00:51:50   and keep what I expect as a higher level of security.

00:51:54   But then I read this following quote from MacRumors

00:51:57   and it changed everything in my brain.

00:51:59   Unlike the Apple Watch Face ID feature,

00:52:01   Face ID of a mask is fully identical to standard face ID in terms of what can be authenticated.

00:52:07   You can use face ID with a mask for Apple Pay purchases and in lieu of a passcode in third party

00:52:13   apps. So if you do the watch thing, you still have to put a passcode in for Apple Pay and any app that

00:52:20   uses authentication. So that would suggest to me, Jason, that Apple believe face ID of a mask,

00:52:28   I expect is more secure than the watch version because otherwise why would they let you do this?

00:52:33   Yeah I do wonder about it. Yeah so this is exactly what happens to me when I'm in in the store or

00:52:39   somewhere because that's generally right that the only time I'm ever inside wearing a mask is

00:52:43   is in stores. That's in Bay Area has a mask mandate we wear masks inside. So I'm in the store

00:52:48   and I need to look something on on 1Password. Guess what? I need to put in my password because it won't

00:52:55   to watch unlock or I'm paying something at the register and occasionally my Apple Watch

00:53:01   will be like, "I can't do Apple Pay right now." And I don't know why it does that, but

00:53:05   occasionally it does that. It's like, "Ah, I don't know." And I'm like, "Okay, well,

00:53:09   I guess I'll use my phone." And then I go to my phone and it says, "Please put your

00:53:12   password down." Oh, gosh. So this is great.

00:53:14   - I just habitually use my phone for Apple Pay and never think to use my watch. I think

00:53:21   I wore that habit out in the time

00:53:24   that I wasn't wearing an Apple Watch

00:53:26   and it's just never come back to me.

00:53:28   - Right, yeah, that's true.

00:53:29   Even if you have Apple Watch authentication,

00:53:31   this is a superior method of authenticating

00:53:34   because it unlocks everything that Face ID does

00:53:38   and the Apple Watch authentication does not do that.

00:53:41   So it's a big deal.

00:53:43   I think people are gonna be really excited about this

00:53:45   when it comes out.

00:53:46   Keep in mind, it's just developer beta.

00:53:47   They'll probably do a public beta this week or next week

00:53:50   and then it'll be like a month or two before everybody else gets it. But it's great. I

00:53:57   am surprised that this exists and I'm very happy that this exists. And in the long run,

00:54:02   like I said, in the long run, we are probably, certainly in many countries-

00:54:07   Oh, the public beta's out now, Jason.

00:54:09   Public beta's out. Okay. So in the long run, there are lots of places that have masking

00:54:13   culture and there are probably more now than there were before the pandemic. And I fully

00:54:20   expect that there will also be periods where something will be going around and they'll

00:54:24   say, "Okay, everybody should wear masks inside now." And again, there are also other uses

00:54:29   in terms of people covering up parts of their face because of the weather and stuff like

00:54:32   that. Like, this is great. It's like a face ID for your eyes and you're probably not,

00:54:38   you know, going outside, like, completely covered.

00:54:43   If you're Spider-Man, face ID will not work.

00:54:46   Sorry, Spider-Man.

00:54:47   -Well, unless -- I think there is a version of the suit

00:54:50   where he does show his eyes, so, like, maybe, you know,

00:54:53   like, maybe that would work.

00:54:54   Like, he could just retract them.

00:54:56   -But generally, it's a whole face thing.

00:54:58   He's gonna have to do touch ID, and, you know,

00:55:00   touch ID is hard for him.

00:55:01   -Oh, I don't know, 'cause he wears gloves, too,

00:55:03   and he will just -- Yeah, he'll stick to it.

00:55:05   -He does, but somehow his stickiness

00:55:06   goes through the glove. So maybe his, I don't know. Anyways, don't be, if you're Spider-Man

00:55:11   and you need to unlock your phone, you're going to have to swing to the top of a tall

00:55:13   building and take your mask off.

00:55:15   The whole way, not just that halfway that he does sometimes, because it's still not

00:55:18   the right part of the face.

00:55:19   It's the right, yeah, that's right. It's not mouth ID.

00:55:23   They've also in 15.4 added the ability to add a note to a iCloud keychain entry. So

00:55:29   you can go into passwords. It's passwords, isn't it, on the iPhone and iPad. You could,

00:55:36   now like the ability to add a note field in there.

00:55:40   Getting closer and closer to that full password manager.

00:55:43   - Yeah, I'm starting to think that one of our iOS 16

00:55:47   predictions should be that passwords will be an app

00:55:51   because it's so fully functional

00:55:55   and yet it's in the settings app.

00:55:57   And I wonder if they might actually break it out

00:55:59   even if it's literally the same functionality

00:56:01   into a password app just so that there's something

00:56:04   on your home screen that says passwords.

00:56:06   - I do think we are getting closer.

00:56:08   I mean, we're always getting closer to that eventuality.

00:56:10   I think it's speeding up.

00:56:11   Because I think the impression I get

00:56:14   from conversations with and also seeing the output

00:56:18   of people that work on passwords and security at Apple,

00:56:22   they are very passionate about this as a project

00:56:26   and have done just some truly incredible things

00:56:30   like the way it pulls in the authenticated text messages

00:56:34   and stuff like that.

00:56:35   really truly like just like life-changing things in software.

00:56:39   - Yeah, you see Ricky Mondello on Twitter,

00:56:41   they talk about this a lot.

00:56:42   And the idea that they are working very hard to integrate

00:56:47   sort of like the messages come in

00:56:49   and then they auto-fill in Safari and like all of that stuff.

00:56:52   Yeah, they are very proud of it.

00:56:53   But also I think that there came a point where

00:56:56   they realized that this was a platform feature

00:56:59   that like Apple security of users

00:57:03   should not be left to third parties, right?

00:57:06   It is that moment.

00:57:07   You could say, yeah, they're eating OnePassword's lunch

00:57:09   and all the rest, but the truth is--

00:57:11   - Well, they're not even nearly doing it yet.

00:57:13   - But I think they're right.

00:57:14   I think you have to do this in the operating system.

00:57:19   This is not an optional thing.

00:57:21   People have passwords.

00:57:22   Just to say, hey, passwords, it's your problem.

00:57:24   It's not my problem, it's your problem.

00:57:25   I don't think you can do that.

00:57:26   So they have to do it.

00:57:27   I'm glad they are doing it.

00:57:28   This is also why companies like OnePassword

00:57:31   that have their own password manager are pivoting

00:57:33   to be enterprise solutions, right?

00:57:37   It's because just serving regular users,

00:57:39   and I know people are angry who are regular users

00:57:41   of 1Password, they're like, why aren't they listening to me?

00:57:43   The answer is because they see the writing on the wall,

00:57:45   which is the way you use 1Password when you started using it,

00:57:49   that's gonna be an operating system feature.

00:57:50   And it may not be exactly what you want,

00:57:52   but it's gonna be the base operating system feature,

00:57:54   and it's going to prevent them from having a rich market

00:58:00   for people who want this because what Apple provides

00:58:04   will be good enough.

00:58:04   And so they got to pivot to something that like businesses

00:58:07   care about for their business information.

00:58:08   And the good news is what Apple's doing in this area

00:58:11   is really quite good because it would be different

00:58:15   if Apple was scaring everybody off

00:58:16   and that what they were providing was bad.

00:58:18   But it's actually quite good

00:58:20   and I'm very impressed with it.

00:58:21   - I wonder if, I wonder with 1Password,

00:58:24   like how much has Apple got to do

00:58:27   to start eating into these things?

00:58:28   'cause like one of the big things is they don't do,

00:58:31   there's no like sharing, there's no like group stuff,

00:58:33   there's none of that.

00:58:34   And if that's the thing that you care about, which I do,

00:58:36   I mean, you're kind of, you're stuck with a bigger solution.

00:58:39   - Certainly iCloud family sharing of password information

00:58:43   is a frontier for them, right?

00:58:46   I would imagine that they might get there down the road,

00:58:49   but you're right.

00:58:50   If you've got, and Lauren and I have a shared thing

00:58:54   that for 1Password stuff.

00:58:55   So that would be a thing that if we dropped one password,

00:58:58   we would need to figure out another way to do that.

00:59:01   But anyway, it is like in true Apple style,

00:59:06   I feel like they are going to cover most of the bases here.

00:59:09   They're gonna get most of the needs of people

00:59:12   and it's getting better all the time.

00:59:14   - Federico Vatici, friend of the show,

00:59:16   found that you can run shortcuts automations

00:59:19   without getting notifications anymore.

00:59:21   So if you have some kind of automation that happens

00:59:23   for timed or some kind of action triggers a shortcut,

00:59:27   you would get a notification for it.

00:59:28   They don't appear anymore.

00:59:30   I'm pleased about this.

00:59:31   I have a focus mode that when it detects exercise activity,

00:59:34   it sets a focus mode for me.

00:59:36   And then I get two notifications from the shortcuts app.

00:59:41   We won't get those pop up anymore.

00:59:43   They still show in notification center.

00:59:45   So there's like a summary of all the things

00:59:48   that have happened, but they don't like pop up

00:59:50   and get in your way anymore.

00:59:53   As it stands right now, you will still get them

00:59:56   when launching from the home screen.

00:59:59   So you put like, make your own like home screen thing

01:00:01   and you press it and you get like, hey, opening this app.

01:00:03   I expect they'll probably change that.

01:00:05   I'd be surprised if 15.4 came out with that still

01:00:07   as the thing, because they've done the other part of it.

01:00:11   And I saw on MacRumors that third party apps

01:00:14   will now be able to take full advantage

01:00:16   of the 120 Hertz promotion.

01:00:18   There was a, we spoke about this at the time,

01:00:20   but there was a bug in core animation

01:00:22   where some animations were locked to 60 hertz.

01:00:26   This has now been fixed

01:00:27   and developers don't have to do anything.

01:00:29   So it will now just do this automatically.

01:00:31   So some scrolling stuff was being kind of constrained

01:00:35   and that won't be the case for 15.4.

01:00:37   Mac OS 12.3 has universal control.

01:00:43   - Yeah, it does. - Are you surprised

01:00:45   about this?

01:00:46   - No.

01:00:47   - Okay, 'cause I was wondering, honestly,

01:00:50   I thought it might come back around again in 16 and 13.

01:00:53   - No, I assumed that this was gonna be,

01:00:57   they promised it for the spring.

01:00:58   They promised it for the spring.

01:00:59   - Oh yeah, I forgot that.

01:01:00   I forgot that, yeah.

01:01:01   - Yeah, and so this is the logical place for it.

01:01:04   I think we were all, I mean, originally 12.2 turned out

01:01:07   to be a, and 12.2 and 15.3 turned out to be like a,

01:01:12   they wanted to get a bunch of stuff out,

01:01:15   like bug fixes and all that,

01:01:16   and saved their new features for this round.

01:01:19   This is the mid year feature update.

01:01:23   So they seem to have held a bunch of this stuff

01:01:27   for this set of releases.

01:01:30   And so, yeah, so here's universal control.

01:01:33   And I wanted to test universal control.

01:01:36   So I installed the betas on my Mac and on my iPad,

01:01:40   just so I could test universal control.

01:01:43   And it is real and it works and it's a beta.

01:01:47   and it lost my keyboard at one point.

01:01:49   And I was like, okay,

01:01:50   I guess I can't use the keyboard over there anymore,

01:01:52   but it's a beta.

01:01:54   But it is,

01:01:55   it works as advertised,

01:01:59   until it doesn't 'cause it's a beta,

01:02:00   but I'm very impressed with it.

01:02:02   I'm sure, you know, ergonomically,

01:02:03   I'm not sure it's the best fit for me.

01:02:05   Although that said,

01:02:06   being able to prop up my iPad

01:02:08   and being able to mouse over to it

01:02:10   instead of reaching over and tapping on it

01:02:12   when I wanna have the iPad open to something is nice.

01:02:15   And there definitely, if I was traveling

01:02:17   and I had my laptop on my iPad, it would be great

01:02:20   'cause I would have like a little control system

01:02:22   and I wouldn't have to have two keyboards

01:02:24   and two track pads and move my hands around.

01:02:27   I'm impressed by it.

01:02:29   The thing though, using it, that impressed me the most.

01:02:33   I mean, the setup is nice.

01:02:34   The displays control panel that lets you arrange

01:02:37   the height and stuff,

01:02:38   just like you would for an external monitor,

01:02:40   but it's for this keyboard and pointing device sharing.

01:02:44   That's really nice.

01:02:45   My favorite thing is that in doing it, I thought,

01:02:49   oh, see, this is the feature that is enabled

01:02:53   by the fact that they put the pointer support in a year ago.

01:02:57   And since I have a Magic Trackpad on my Mac,

01:03:02   I move it over to the iPad,

01:03:05   and it's completely familiar

01:03:10   because it's what using an iPad with the magic keyboard

01:03:14   with trackpad is like.

01:03:16   It's exactly the same, all the gestures, everything.

01:03:19   And so it's super familiar.

01:03:21   And I know for some people who've not used the iPad

01:03:23   with a pointing device, it'll be weird.

01:03:25   It'll be like, whoa, now my trackpad is over on my iPad.

01:03:28   But we've had a year now where iPad users

01:03:32   and app developers and Apple have had this keyboard

01:03:36   and trackpad mode available.

01:03:39   In fact, part of me wonders,

01:03:41   was universal control invented for the pointer?

01:03:45   Was the pointer invented for universal control?

01:03:48   I don't know, but they obviously have a plan here.

01:03:52   And the pointing stuff from a year ago

01:03:54   feeds directly into this.

01:03:58   I guess it was two years ago now.

01:04:00   Two years ago.

01:04:01   Yeah, it was like,

01:04:02   that was a bright spot at the beginning of the pandemic.

01:04:06   It was like, it's this interesting thing

01:04:07   to talk about and look at.

01:04:09   And it really does just feel that natural.

01:04:10   It is not any different than attaching a track pad

01:04:15   to your iPad to have it be via universal control.

01:04:18   It just happens.

01:04:19   And I know one of my criticisms of Sidecar at the time,

01:04:23   when Sidecar came out as part of Mac OS,

01:04:26   was I love my iPad because it has iPad apps on it,

01:04:31   and it's running them on the device,

01:04:34   as opposed to, you know, oh, I could run Slack.

01:04:37   I move Slack over in Sidecar and put it on my iPad.

01:04:40   Or I could just run Slack on my iPad, right?

01:04:43   And the only reason you would use it as an external monitor

01:04:47   for something that you could run on your iPad

01:04:49   is so that you wouldn't have to take your hands

01:04:51   off your keyboard and your mouse.

01:04:52   Well, this is way better

01:04:53   because you're literally running those apps natively

01:04:57   on the iPad.

01:04:59   You're just controlling them

01:05:00   from your Mac keyboard and mouse.

01:05:01   It's really good.

01:05:03   And it's not gonna be for everybody.

01:05:05   There's very certain circumstances

01:05:06   where it's gonna make sense, but I'm really impressed

01:05:10   with it, even though it is a beta and it's got some bugs,

01:05:12   but I'm very impressed with it.

01:05:13   It's strange, but I think it's good.

01:05:15   - So it still does that automatic,

01:05:17   like it's all on, right, by default,

01:05:18   and it does that thing where like you just push off

01:05:21   the screen and that kind of, it's trick,

01:05:23   it's like a reverse kind of thing where you're telling

01:05:26   the computer basically where the device is,

01:05:28   but just biologically where would you go?

01:05:30   Like for example, if you did the opposite side

01:05:33   of the screen, initially it would work,

01:05:36   but wouldn't make any logical sense.

01:05:37   So they're kind of relying on people to be logical.

01:05:40   But once you've connected the two devices

01:05:42   by doing that, like, pushing membrane thing,

01:05:46   I honestly find it kind of gross-looking,

01:05:48   but in the image -- I haven't run this myself,

01:05:51   but there's something about that that freaks me out a bit.

01:05:53   -My experience was it just, like, popped over,

01:05:55   and I, like, didn't even notice.

01:05:57   It just happened so quickly that --

01:05:59   -But then you can, in system preferences,

01:06:01   rearrange the placement, like it's an external monitor.

01:06:04   - Including heights.

01:06:05   So I had my iPad sitting on my desk

01:06:08   and so it was below the height of my iMac.

01:06:10   And so I could make it geographically appropriate

01:06:13   that it was down below.

01:06:14   And then I put it in a stand

01:06:16   and then it was sort of parallel

01:06:18   and then I moved it up to be parallel.

01:06:20   And actually another way that this is superior to Sidecar

01:06:24   is that I am a right dock person.

01:06:26   And if I put an iPad to the right of my iMac

01:06:31   and I use Sidecar, the dock goes all the way out

01:06:35   to the right side of the iPad.

01:06:37   - Which is terrible.

01:06:38   - Which is terrible, I don't want it there.

01:06:40   I would have to use Switch Glass by John Syracuse

01:06:44   in that case, by the way.

01:06:45   But instead with universal control,

01:06:49   the Mac still ends on the right.

01:06:52   And so when you move your mouse over

01:06:54   to the edge of the Mac screen

01:06:55   and move it over onto the iPad,

01:06:57   the dock is still right where it is

01:06:58   'cause there is no Mac to the right,

01:07:00   It's just this iPad.

01:07:02   A funny thing that happens though is that there,

01:07:04   it does a little creepy,

01:07:06   I don't know if they're going to change this.

01:07:07   As you push the cursor over to the iPad,

01:07:09   it sort of leaves the dead body of the Mac cursor behind.

01:07:13   - Oh, I don't like that.

01:07:14   - You can actually see like the edge of the pointer

01:07:17   off on the right edge, sort of ghostly.

01:07:22   And in fact, if it's hovering over a dock item,

01:07:26   the dock item stays with its name highlighted.

01:07:30   which is, again, I think this is something

01:07:32   they probably need to address in the beta,

01:07:35   that that cursor should sort of disappear from the Mac

01:07:38   and not just have its astral body be cast over to the iPad

01:07:43   while its physical body remains a shell on the Mac.

01:07:49   It's a little weird, but maybe they'll fix that.

01:07:52   - I had a lot of very funny text message

01:07:55   from a friend of the show, one true John Voorhees today.

01:07:58   He said, "Top tip, don't restart your iPad

01:08:02   "when it has control of your Mac's trackpad and keyboard."

01:08:06   - Oh no.

01:08:07   (laughing)

01:08:08   - He said, "It was fine once everything was back up,

01:08:11   "but it doesn't currently kick the input devices

01:08:13   "back to the Mac."

01:08:15   - Oh dear, oh dear.

01:08:16   - He just turned off his iPad

01:08:18   and then his Mac couldn't do anything.

01:08:20   (laughing)

01:08:21   - I love it.

01:08:22   - It is.

01:08:22   - Yeah, 'cause it does work both ways.

01:08:23   If you've got an iPad with Magic Trackpad

01:08:25   and you wanna sit on that

01:08:27   and then you've got a Mac next to it,

01:08:28   You can use the keyboard and trackpad

01:08:31   and it'll work the other way too.

01:08:32   - I would expect it would be easier to deal with

01:08:34   with the iPad in that situation.

01:08:35   I bet if you took it off and put it back on the trackpad

01:08:38   that would like kill the trackpad and restart it

01:08:41   'cause you took the power away.

01:08:43   Yeah, I don't know.

01:08:44   But that was just very funny to me of like,

01:08:46   well, you could just, you know, bye bye, bye bye mouse.

01:08:51   - Yeah, yeah.

01:08:52   Oh, oh, did you need a keyboard?

01:08:54   Well, we don't have one anymore.

01:08:56   It's gone.

01:08:57   I don't know what happened to it.

01:08:57   - Is this tied to your Apple ID in some way?

01:09:01   - It's only in the sense that it is a proximity feature

01:09:06   like AirDrop continuity, I guess they call it, right?

01:09:09   And continuity only works with devices

01:09:12   that are logged into the same Apple ID.

01:09:15   - Okay, cool.

01:09:16   'Cause I was gonna say like,

01:09:17   imagine you're sitting at the library

01:09:18   and you're accidentally pushed.

01:09:20   (laughs)

01:09:21   - Sorry, ma'am, that's my cursor.

01:09:23   I'll get it out of there immediately.

01:09:24   Okay, there you go, back to you.

01:09:27   I don't know, this is fun.

01:09:28   I'm very into this.

01:09:30   Does this work Mac to Mac too?

01:09:32   Yes, it does.

01:09:36   I'm intrigued about this feature.

01:09:37   I wonder if it will be a pain in any way.

01:09:41   I'm not, I haven't put the betas on.

01:09:44   I am not a mid-cycle beta person.

01:09:47   I never install these.

01:09:48   I only ever install the big Tempo releases, like 15, 16, that kind of thing.

01:09:56   It's very very rare that I will put one of these on because the features tend to be interesting

01:10:01   but not like "oh I feel like I have to run this" you know?

01:10:06   Because it's not really my bag.

01:10:09   I don't really like to be on the beta to be honest but I kind of just do it for the WWDC

01:10:14   one because it's so important.

01:10:18   But I'm intrigued to see if universal control would be something that I would like or whether

01:10:23   it would annoy me.

01:10:25   I don't know, yeah.

01:10:26   - As a, you know, it's like a virtual KVM,

01:10:29   well, not KVM, but like a keyboard mouse switch

01:10:32   that if you're somebody who has two Macs at your desk

01:10:35   for some reason, or a Mac like desktop and laptop

01:10:38   or whatever, yeah, that's one of the use cases of this too.

01:10:41   This is super edge casey in a way that we don't always see

01:10:45   for Apple features, but it is built on all

01:10:49   of these other features that it's been working on.

01:10:51   And yeah, I think what happened is that they built it

01:10:54   and they're like, "Whoa, this is actually really cool."

01:10:56   They made it a centerpiece of WWDC

01:10:58   and then they didn't ship it until a beta in January,

01:11:01   but it's cool.

01:11:03   Is it useful?

01:11:06   Like you really need to be somebody

01:11:08   who's got two devices at once,

01:11:09   but I occasionally will set up my iPad,

01:11:11   even at my desk to stream video

01:11:13   or do something else while I'm working on my Mac.

01:11:15   And the idea that I can do that

01:11:17   and then just sort of mouse over in order to control it,

01:11:21   that's, it's great.

01:11:22   That's like really nice.

01:11:23   - I like it.

01:11:25   - I'm wondering when this is gonna come out.

01:11:27   Is this, 'cause sometimes they have these point releases

01:11:31   in beta for a while because they're also going to include

01:11:35   his information about product you haven't seen.

01:11:38   - Well, two things.

01:11:40   One is this is the big feature release.

01:11:42   So I feel like the beta cycle will be longer

01:11:44   because they added so many new features essentially

01:11:47   to the operating systems

01:11:48   that we just have detailed in this segment.

01:11:50   - In the past has been kind of like a March thing.

01:11:53   - Yeah, I will also throw out there,

01:11:56   are they gonna do an event?

01:12:00   Is that event gonna have something

01:12:01   that's enabled by an OS update?

01:12:03   Might this be tied to that?

01:12:05   Maybe?

01:12:05   - Maybe. - I don't know.

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01:14:36   Apple's Q1 2022 results.

01:14:40   Obviously top line.

01:14:41   Money, money, money, money, money, money.

01:14:43   Cha-ching.

01:14:44   It's that time again where we talk about inconceivable amounts of money.

01:14:49   Money, money, money, money.

01:14:51   It is, yeah.

01:14:52   123.9 billion dollars of revenue.

01:14:56   That is, of course, an all-time record for Apple.

01:14:59   It is, as anticipated.

01:15:00   11% year-over-year increase.

01:15:04   and that was the previous record holder

01:15:07   because Q1 is actually the holiday quarter.

01:15:11   So it's the end quarter of last year,

01:15:14   but it's just about the way these things are done

01:15:16   from financials and stuff like that.

01:15:18   That is $34.6 billion of profit,

01:15:22   which of course is also an all time record.

01:15:24   - Of course.

01:15:25   - $71.6 billion in the quarter for the iPhone.

01:15:28   This is the largest quarter ever for the iPhone.

01:15:32   I can't remember, Jason, if that's a surprise or not.

01:15:35   Was that, did we expect this?

01:15:38   - Yeah, I think they, so they don't forecast,

01:15:41   during the pandemic, they have not been forecasting,

01:15:44   but they said it would be a winner,

01:15:45   and they said that most of the stuff that they had

01:15:49   that would not be sold because they couldn't keep it

01:15:51   in stock that demand outstripped supply

01:15:53   would not be like the iPhone.

01:15:56   And we know that that's the big iPhone quarter, right?

01:15:58   Because it's the iPhone release quarter.

01:15:59   - Oh, but it was the iPhone 12.

01:16:02   Everyone expected would be a massive one

01:16:04   because it was a new design

01:16:06   and there were new sizes and stuff

01:16:08   because there was a bigger version then, right?

01:16:11   Of the big phone.

01:16:12   - If you look at the last sort of three year cycle,

01:16:15   it was a big year, then a step back,

01:16:18   then a little bit of a step forward.

01:16:20   And then they did the new design and we got a big year.

01:16:23   And then instead of a step back, we got a step forward.

01:16:26   So it is a little surprising sort of cyclically

01:16:29   in terms of the life of a particular iPhone model.

01:16:32   I don't know how much the pandemic has affected it.

01:16:35   Also, there's just this general growth.

01:16:36   Like, the in-between quarters,

01:16:40   between last holiday quarter and this holiday quarter

01:16:42   for the iPhone, were way higher

01:16:45   than the in-between quarters any previous year.

01:16:49   So I think that's the rising tide

01:16:51   kind of lifting all boats,

01:16:54   that like the base of the iPhone continues to grow

01:16:59   even though we're in a sort of secondary year,

01:17:03   I mean, not that people aren't buying iPhones all the time,

01:17:06   but there is like an impetus for a lot of people

01:17:08   when there's a new look in an iPhone

01:17:10   to buy the iPhone then.

01:17:11   And so that's usually,

01:17:12   you usually get a little bit of a spike

01:17:14   and then it slides back and that did not happen this time.

01:17:18   - So that is up 9% year over year,

01:17:21   which is in the iPhone business.

01:17:23   - Forget over the all time high, which was set last year.

01:17:26   - Yeah, I just, when I read it,

01:17:28   I was like, hang on a minute.

01:17:29   Like, I don't know what I was expecting specifically,

01:17:32   but I wasn't expecting that it would be bigger by a margin,

01:17:37   like a chunk, 'cause it was like,

01:17:40   oh, I thought that this might be a bit of a calmer iPhone.

01:17:45   Yeah, but what's going on?

01:17:46   - 6 billion more in sales than a year ago.

01:17:50   - $10.9 billion for the Mac.

01:17:52   So once again, the largest Mac quarter ever.

01:17:55   The previous was 9.2 billion, which was last quarter.

01:17:59   - Which was last quarter, yeah.

01:18:00   And the six highest Mac quarters of all time

01:18:05   are the last six, the six most recent.

01:18:08   This is the--

01:18:09   - But this one is shot up though, right?

01:18:11   Like it went up to nine and then was just hovering

01:18:14   around nine and now we're basically up to 11.

01:18:18   - Exactly, they went up whatever that is,

01:18:22   1.7 billion in sequential from their high,

01:18:27   from their all time high to this number,

01:18:30   25% up year over year.

01:18:33   If you look at the four quarter moving average,

01:18:34   again, biggest ever in the Mac.

01:18:37   Apple lays this at the feet of the Apple Silicon transition.

01:18:42   They're like, this is about the M1.

01:18:45   And I'm sure it is to a certain extent,

01:18:47   it's also about the pandemic,

01:18:50   maybe pulling some people forward and saying,

01:18:52   "Oh geez, I really need to buy a new Mac

01:18:55   'cause I'm working at home."

01:18:57   But they also said that like in China,

01:18:59   half the people who bought Macs were new to the Mac, right?

01:19:02   Like this is that rising tide too.

01:19:04   Like Apple is not just cycling through people.

01:19:07   They say they set all time records in their installed base,

01:19:12   which is not the sales figure, right?

01:19:14   That's the how many devices they feel

01:19:17   are being actively used at any one time.

01:19:20   So when something gets retired and recycled,

01:19:22   it leaves the install base.

01:19:24   A new model adds to the install base.

01:19:26   And Apple says their install base continues to grow

01:19:28   and their installed base in fact was all time highs

01:19:31   in all product categories.

01:19:33   That means there are more people,

01:19:34   more Macs in active use today than ever,

01:19:37   according to Apple, which is not surprising given the sales,

01:19:40   but it's something to keep in mind.

01:19:41   So that's part of the rise here too,

01:19:44   is now you have more users in the ecosystem

01:19:46   who will then buy a new Mac when the old Mac retires

01:19:49   or they'll roll that down to somebody.

01:19:50   So, yeah, this is the highest the Mac has ever been.

01:19:53   Again, not bad for a product that is pretty old.

01:19:58   You know, this is a product that's 38 years old this month,

01:20:03   and it's at its highest point now.

01:20:07   But Apple Silicon, right?

01:20:08   Like the Apple Silicon transition certainly did not hurt.

01:20:11   That not only is that forcing people sort of like,

01:20:13   oh, well, I'm gonna get rid of my Intel Mac,

01:20:15   but it also is telling a great story.

01:20:17   Like that MacBook Air is such a great product

01:20:19   for that price.

01:20:20   And it's aided by the fact that it is running that M1 chip.

01:20:25   - I guess this is just people getting laptops for Christmas.

01:20:28   Right? Like that's-

01:20:29   - Well, it's the MacBook Pro, right?

01:20:31   It's a lot of people buying the new MacBook Pro.

01:20:33   - Yes, the MacBook Pro.

01:20:34   - And that is an expensive product.

01:20:36   So it's gonna drive more revenue.

01:20:38   - Yeah.

01:20:38   - And we don't get to see unit sales anymore.

01:20:40   - Right, yeah. - So it's all that.

01:20:41   But it's like, the Mac is just,

01:20:43   The Mac is firing on all cylinders right now.

01:20:45   And Apple is aided here probably by the fact

01:20:47   that these new Apple Silicon designs probably don't rely

01:20:50   on some of the older tech that is the stuff

01:20:52   that is supply constrained.

01:20:53   - And they make more money as well, right?

01:20:55   - Yeah, exactly.

01:20:57   - 'Cause I just feel like we got a big bump,

01:21:01   probably got the working from home bump.

01:21:03   And that's surely over, right?

01:21:05   Like anyone that needed a computer for working at home

01:21:08   by and large has already gotten one or been given one.

01:21:11   - Probably.

01:21:12   you know, like in the large scale, right?

01:21:15   I feel like we've had the large scale purchases

01:21:18   like that happened, you know, throughout 2020.

01:21:23   And so it's just, I again,

01:21:27   was not expecting such a jump.

01:21:30   I mean, if you would have asked me, I would have said,

01:21:31   yeah, it's probably gonna do the highest ever again.

01:21:35   But I wasn't expecting, you know, close to,

01:21:38   We're not far off of a $2 billion quarter over quarter change as well.

01:21:44   So yeah, that was a surprise to me.

01:21:47   The iPad, $7.2 billion is down 14% year over year.

01:21:53   And again, you'll be like, "Oh, that's a shame and a surprise.

01:21:56   It's the only one here."

01:21:58   But I believe from reading your analysis, they actually specifically said the biggest

01:22:04   product that they'd struggled with with the supply chain was the iPad.

01:22:07   Was that right?

01:22:08   The iPad is apparently built out of legacy nodes.

01:22:11   - Yeah, it's just loads of legacy nodes.

01:22:13   - The Tim Cook phrase for the older,

01:22:17   this is the stuff when we talk about

01:22:18   like semiconductor shortages and supply chain issues

01:22:21   and people aren't building cars or like Tesla is shipping

01:22:24   cars without USB ports in them and stuff like that.

01:22:27   This is why, right?

01:22:28   It's this stuff.

01:22:29   And for whatever reason, the iPad has more of those.

01:22:32   Some, an astute analyst asked, is it because of that

01:22:36   or is it because you prioritized all the parts

01:22:38   to be in the iPhone instead?

01:22:39   'Cause it's like the iPhone launch.

01:22:41   And Tim Cook sort of said,

01:22:43   he didn't quite say a little from column A

01:22:45   and a little from column B, he said, primarily not.

01:22:48   He said, we could do a little,

01:22:49   he had a very funny line where it was like,

01:22:51   we could do a little, but we can't do a lot.

01:22:55   And so when you look at that behind the curtain,

01:22:57   you could say, are we back there?

01:22:59   And we are back there, but we're not, but not that much.

01:23:02   It was sort of like a little bit, but not,

01:23:05   I'm sure that there was some prioritization of parts

01:23:08   to fulfill iPhone orders,

01:23:10   but it sounds like it's more than that.

01:23:12   It's also just like there are iPads in their lineup,

01:23:14   maybe not all of them, but at least some of them

01:23:16   that are using kind of the older technology

01:23:18   that other people are also using, and it's constrained

01:23:21   because of the pandemic causing the factory shutdowns

01:23:25   and then restarts and all the things that have led

01:23:27   to these supply chain issues that we see everywhere.

01:23:31   And so they warned that they were gonna sell

01:23:33   out $6 billion less than they could have in this quarter, this record quarter could have

01:23:38   been $6 billion higher than it actually was, and that the iPad was going to be the most

01:23:43   constrained by that. And so you could chalk that up to that the iPad just—they couldn't

01:23:51   make them fast enough, and that's what they said, is that the iPad sold pretty well given

01:23:56   that they had some severe constraints. And I heard from a couple of people when I tweeted

01:24:00   that out who said, "Yeah, I ordered an iPad Mini in November and I got it, you know, the

01:24:04   first week of January."

01:24:05   I knew people similar. Like, I have a couple of friends who ordered them, like a couple

01:24:10   of weeks after they came out and just got them. It seemed like, you know, the iPad Mini

01:24:15   seemed to be pretty hit by that, along with, you know, maybe some of the others, but that

01:24:19   one...

01:24:20   So I don't, I mean, we used to do on this podcast, we've been going long enough now

01:24:23   that it used to be the "Is the iPad gonna hit bottom?" And we've reached the point now

01:24:28   where my chart doesn't even show that era, because my chart only goes back to 2017, the

01:24:36   normal one that I publish. And the iPad has been on the upswing since then, and to the

01:24:42   point now that even with this lower quarter, the iPad has basically turned into an $8 billion

01:24:48   a quarter business. When it was sort of stabilized, it was a $5 billion a quarter business. So

01:24:55   So a big upswing in just a handful of years for the iPad.

01:24:59   And I suspect that that's where the iPad will live now is in that seven, eight, nine billion

01:25:04   a quarter range.

01:25:05   So this is at $19.5 billion up 24% year over year.

01:25:10   The most boring chart I could possibly do because it's just a bunch of purple bars that

01:25:14   go up every single time they go up.

01:25:19   They went up again.

01:25:20   It's an all time high.

01:25:22   24% year over year increase.

01:25:25   They have done five straight quarters

01:25:29   with a 24% or higher year over year growth rate,

01:25:33   which is wild.

01:25:34   And that's coming off of a period

01:25:36   where they were in the 17, 18, 19% year over year.

01:25:40   So it just keeps going up.

01:25:41   This is, and it's not seasonal, of course,

01:25:44   'cause it's just a subscription service.

01:25:45   And they talked about it

01:25:46   and how many subscriptions they have now.

01:25:48   And that does include App Store subscriptions.

01:25:51   They include subscriptions on their platform,

01:25:54   aren't just Apple TV Plus subscriptions,

01:25:55   but they are if you pay for carrot weather.

01:25:57   - I had some thoughts on this.

01:25:58   So 785 million paying subscribers

01:26:02   is the number that they gave.

01:26:04   - Yep.

01:26:04   - Which is, that number specifically is up 27%

01:26:09   in the last year.

01:26:11   - Yeah, mm-hmm.

01:26:12   - Yeah, amount of people and value

01:26:16   are not gonna be the same.

01:26:18   But as you say, it includes all subscriptions.

01:26:20   And so like as you say, Carrotweather, Tweetbot is the same in this number as Apple TV+, iCloud.

01:26:29   And this was like another reminder for me of why they do not want to give any of these

01:26:34   people up.

01:26:35   You know, why they want to keep everyone in their system.

01:26:40   Because Wall Street at the moment really, really, and have done for a couple of years,

01:26:44   but really care about this specific number for Apple.

01:26:47   That's why Apple pushed so hard on it because this is their like,

01:26:52   we know we're going to grow here.

01:26:54   I mean, look, we're talking about the numbers, the iPhone seeing that stopped

01:26:57   happening for a while. Right. And it was like, well,

01:27:00   they've reached the top with the iPhone. I mean, we now know they haven't,

01:27:03   but everybody, including Apple, I think thought that for a bit.

01:27:07   And so they started pushing on their services more and they want that chart to

01:27:11   just keep going up. And I mean, to me, honestly, like, you know,

01:27:16   So basically Apple choose how they want to slice these numbers and serve them up in a way that looks good for them because they could

01:27:22   also

01:27:22   break that out right of like

01:27:24   This is what we get through the App Store

01:27:26   And this is what we get for our actual

01:27:28   Services that we provide that we talk about because you know when Apple were talking about their services revenue

01:27:34   I'm sure they talk about all of their own ones and not like hey an X amount of these are for this thing

01:27:41   Which is what nothing to do of us?

01:27:43   And for me as well, I think what actually really matters

01:27:48   is Apple's own stuff.

01:27:49   And that should only be my opinion

01:27:51   what actually matters to Wall Street

01:27:52   because Apple can't change that positively or negatively,

01:27:57   the number there,

01:27:58   because they are actually not Apple's customers.

01:28:01   They're the customers of the third party developers

01:28:03   or whatever.

01:28:04   - Yeah, but that's not how Apple views it, right?

01:28:05   Apple talks a lot about the subscriptions on their platform

01:28:08   and the revenue on their platform.

01:28:09   And that gives you an insight

01:28:11   into why Apple behaves the way it does with regulators.

01:28:15   - Yeah, I mean, but it's what they choose,

01:28:17   is what I mean.

01:28:18   Like they choose that.

01:28:20   I think realistically, they're aware that they're not,

01:28:24   it's not that, you know, that customer relationship

01:28:26   is provided by somebody else,

01:28:29   but they also just want the money, you know?

01:28:32   I think there's that jewel part of it, but.

01:28:34   - They do.

01:28:35   - So I find that weird.

01:28:36   I honestly, I find that a little bit weird, but here we are.

01:28:39   and $14.7 billion of wearable home and accessories.

01:28:44   That is up 13% year over year,

01:28:46   the largest ever quarter in that as well.

01:28:49   AirPods, three maybe?

01:28:51   Driving some of that and additional growth.

01:28:55   - And I think Apple Watch doing pretty well.

01:28:57   - I always forget Apple Watch is in this category.

01:28:59   - They didn't have an Apple Watch Superlative, right?

01:29:03   So, you know, it may not have been

01:29:05   the best Apple Watch quarter ever.

01:29:08   - That wouldn't be a surprise for this one.

01:29:10   I feel like, breakdown, iPhone is 58%,

01:29:13   service is 16%, wearables 12, Mac 9, iPad 6,

01:29:17   as like percentage of overall revenue.

01:29:20   - Yeah, the Mac, that shows you too,

01:29:21   the iPad is growing, even though they didn't have

01:29:23   a great quarter and so it's down a little bit there.

01:29:26   But the iPad is growing, but it shows you the Mac growth.

01:29:28   When I was doing the pie chart a year or two ago,

01:29:31   the Mac and the iPad were at the, basically the same size.

01:29:34   For a very long time, the Mac and the iPad

01:29:35   were the same size.

01:29:37   And now it's Mac 9, iPad 6.

01:29:39   Like they are appreciably different

01:29:41   parts of Apple's revenue composition.

01:29:42   And that's because the Mac's done so well

01:29:44   and the iPad is doing well,

01:29:45   but it's not growing like the Mac is growing.

01:29:47   And then services.

01:29:48   And then you talk about like put them together

01:29:50   and what does that add up to?

01:29:52   15%, well services is 16%.

01:29:54   So the Apple services business is now greater than the Mac

01:29:57   and the iPad put together.

01:29:58   And wearables is at 12% too.

01:30:00   So it's yeah, there's a lot.

01:30:03   And then iPhone 58%

01:30:04   'cause this is the quarter where iPhone

01:30:05   is always like way over half of Apple's revenue.

01:30:09   - One of the things that they didn't give

01:30:13   was any guidance, right?

01:30:14   - So this is how I've decided to interpret Apple.

01:30:17   Apple did a lot of stuff back in the day

01:30:20   because they decided this is how they're gonna report.

01:30:24   Maybe there were some regulations.

01:30:25   And at some point in the last few years,

01:30:27   somebody at Apple, maybe it was Luca Maestri,

01:30:30   the CFO when he took over as CFO,

01:30:33   somebody said, "You know, we disclose more than we're legally obligated to." And you would think

01:30:40   that would have been a Steve Jobs thing, but it's not a Steve Jobs era thing. It is this Tim Cook era

01:30:44   thing where they're like, "Okay, let's not disclose more than we're legally obligated to." So what did

01:30:51   they do? They stopped talking about unit sales because they weren't legally obligated to talk

01:30:55   about them. They just stopped doing that. The calls that they do with analysts got more and

01:31:04   more scripted, fewer questions and answers. The answers have been less informative because they're

01:31:10   much more disciplined about staying on script and not disclosing more information. And the only

01:31:15   information that they do disclose that goes above and beyond is the stuff that they've decided makes

01:31:19   them look good. Like you mentioned, subscriptions and install base are figures that they don't have

01:31:24   have to quote and they don't report legally,

01:31:26   but they mention them because they make them look good.

01:31:30   When we talk about guidance,

01:31:33   Apple has always traditionally given guidance.

01:31:38   And I think that it's a best practice to give guidance.

01:31:42   But the moment the pandemic happened, Apple said,

01:31:44   "We are unable to give guidance

01:31:46   because guidance should be made with confidence."

01:31:48   I think that that's probably one of the, again,

01:31:50   best practices of this sort of financial stuff is,

01:31:53   if you're going to tell investors something about the future, you need to have some confidence

01:31:58   in it because otherwise there are some legal issues if you tell investors things that you

01:32:02   don't actually believe. So, okay. And they famously, Apple used to sandbag their numbers

01:32:08   and they'd guide to something lower than what they actually were thinking and they stopped

01:32:11   doing that. They started being much more accurate with their guidance. Pandemic happens, they

01:32:15   stopped guiding altogether. And instead they give these things that are like fake guidance

01:32:19   where they're like, "Well, we're not going to guide to a number, but we do think it's

01:32:22   going to be a record, which they've done several times, and they did this time. They didn't

01:32:28   give guidance, but they said it will be a March quarter record, but growth will decelerate.

01:32:33   That was the other thing they said, which means that they're not going to shrink, but

01:32:36   the growth rates will be lower year over year than they have been recently. And they gave

01:32:42   some reasons for that, including continued supply chain issues that will not be, again,

01:32:46   without specifying a number, will not be as bad as they were last quarter, but they will

01:32:51   still be bad. And so they, again, this is just, it's all part of the same thing, which

01:32:57   is I think Apple has decided they're going to milk the "we're not giving guidance as

01:33:01   long as possible." And so even though they could, you know, the pandemic is changing

01:33:08   and they probably have a better gauge of how they're doing than they did when they stopped

01:33:13   giving guidance, but they're not going to go back to giving guidance, specific guidance

01:33:18   of what their revenue number is going to be next quarter until they absolutely have to

01:33:22   because why disclose something you don't have to?

01:33:25   >>ANDREW: Or maybe they'll just never do it again, you know.

01:33:28   >>DAVID I mean, maybe. I think they will have to at some point because I do think that Wall

01:33:32   Street kind of really does expect that as a publicly held company and that when they

01:33:37   are more confident about it—and I don't think that they're lying about it. I think

01:33:41   that there is more uncertainty than they're comfortable with, but they are comfortable

01:33:44   enough to say it's going to be a record quarter, it's going to be the best March quarter ever

01:33:48   They were comfortable enough to say that, but just not to put a number on it.

01:33:52   Because I would expect it's also like, you know, some of the guidance is based on stuff,

01:33:56   "Oh, we know we're releasing this thing," but I would expect at the moment don't know

01:33:59   they're releasing anything at the time that they want to release it, you know, or they

01:34:03   have to make that decision late.

01:34:05   And keep in mind, when they do this conference call, they've already got figures for the

01:34:09   first month of the next quarter.

01:34:10   So they actually do have some idea of how that quarter is going, and they know what

01:34:14   they're going to be announcing and they know what the, you know, do they have extras or

01:34:18   are they having trouble building things? Like they have a lot of data and that allows them

01:34:21   to make a guess about it. But as to what that actually is, I mean, I guess all we really

01:34:30   know is that it will be more, it'll probably be 90 plus million just because their record

01:34:36   is 89.6. That was last year and it will be more than that. So you could say they're guiding

01:34:42   to above 90, but we don't actually know what that means. But anyway, Wall Street will take

01:34:48   that and I'm sure it's already built it into the price of the stock, which we don't care

01:34:53   about because we don't invest in Apple, but there it is.

01:34:55   MATT: Money, money, money, money, money.

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01:35:55   Thanks, sounds great.

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01:36:38   of this show and all of Relay FM. Let's finish up with some #AskUpgrade questions. First comes

01:36:45   from Zach who wants to know, do you use any specific DNS servers like Google's 8.8.8.8

01:36:53   or Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 for example?

01:36:56   - No, I don't.

01:36:58   I actually, at one point I tried, I think Google's,

01:37:02   and I found it unreliable for me,

01:37:06   less reliable than using my ISP's DNS server.

01:37:09   So I am currently using my ISP's DNS server.

01:37:13   And I actually had to figure this out

01:37:15   because I had to manually configure it

01:37:17   when I changed my home network around.

01:37:20   And I thought about using one of those,

01:37:21   but honestly, my ISP is the closest to me on the network

01:37:26   and it's done a pretty good job.

01:37:28   So I've accepted that for now.

01:37:30   If it displeases me, I will try those out.

01:37:32   But like I said, I tried them in the past

01:37:34   and actually wasn't happy with them.

01:37:37   - Maybe this makes me a bad nerd,

01:37:39   but I don't even know why I would wanna use

01:37:42   any of these things.

01:37:44   And you know what, Jason?

01:37:47   I'm fine not knowing.

01:37:48   - It's okay.

01:37:49   You know, I think on this one,

01:37:52   - Don't need no mic.

01:37:53   - I don't need to know, I'm good.

01:37:54   I've never needed it, I'm fine.

01:37:55   My internet's great.

01:37:56   - You know, my only complaint honestly,

01:37:58   'cause I switched to AT&T for fiber

01:38:01   is their DNSs do that thing.

01:38:03   I wonder if I can turn it off.

01:38:04   I bet I could turn it off in my account.

01:38:06   Their DNS does that thing

01:38:07   where if it doesn't find a domain name record,

01:38:09   it redirects you to like a search page that it manages.

01:38:13   And I don't like that.

01:38:14   Like don't, like you're not the domain,

01:38:17   you're AT&T, don't pretend to be the domain.

01:38:21   When you fail, when you type something in wrong,

01:38:23   I don't like that part.

01:38:24   But anyway, I'm also a bad nerd

01:38:28   and I know more about it than you, but I also don't do it.

01:38:31   So shame on us, I guess.

01:38:33   - Shame, shame.

01:38:35   Brant asks, "Do you feel that Apple should offer Face ID

01:38:40   on an iPad model that doesn't start at $800

01:38:43   with the 11 inch iPad Pro?"

01:38:44   - I don't.

01:38:46   I mean, maybe they'll get there at some point, but should?

01:38:49   Like Face ID, that Face ID sensor stack is expensive

01:38:52   and it's really good and it differentiates their products.

01:38:57   And they chose to make the iPad Air have Touch ID.

01:39:01   I think the iPad Air might get Face ID at some point,

01:39:03   but you do have to do a lot of like redesigning to get that.

01:39:07   And I think the whole point is you're differentiating

01:39:09   between the different models.

01:39:10   So I don't think they should or that they need to,

01:39:15   They could, and forgive me if I'm reading this wrong,

01:39:19   but it reads to me like Brant is like saying,

01:39:22   why must we pay so much money to get face ID?

01:39:25   And I think the answer is embedded in your question,

01:39:27   which is because Apple wants you to pay them money

01:39:30   for face ID, but also the sensor stack is not cheap.

01:39:35   It is pricey and it's on their premium products.

01:39:38   So yeah.

01:39:39   - The experience is so much better though.

01:39:41   Like I use an iPad mainly all the time now

01:39:43   and I get really annoyed having to touch the sensor.

01:39:46   I actually was thinking about this today

01:39:48   'cause we were thinking about the Face ID thing for 15.4.

01:39:53   I think where I've drawn the line is,

01:39:56   Face ID is better for iPads and Macs

01:39:58   and Touch ID is better for iPhones

01:40:00   because you already have the phone in your hand, right?

01:40:04   Your hand is on it.

01:40:05   Like you can't use it, not in the hand, right?

01:40:09   Where those other devices are further away,

01:40:12   like you can or can be further away or a bigger.

01:40:15   So like your hand might not be in the natural place.

01:40:18   So I've kind of, I've kind of calmed down on that.

01:40:21   I think that it's, it's easier for, for an iPhone.

01:40:25   - Pressing the space bar to open my iPad

01:40:27   when it's in the magic keyboard case

01:40:29   and having it just read my face and open, it's really nice.

01:40:32   And then I do it with a MacBook Air

01:40:34   and I have to reach my finger up and do touch ID.

01:40:36   And it's like, it's not as nice.

01:40:37   It's not an incredible burden,

01:40:40   but it's, it's not as nice an experience.

01:40:42   I would say I like Face ID on the iPhone

01:40:44   because there are scenarios where people don't have,

01:40:47   are wearing gloves and things,

01:40:48   and I think it's good for those.

01:40:49   But that's why I think in the long run,

01:40:51   they probably should do both.

01:40:53   - I think they should do both.

01:40:54   - Yeah.

01:40:55   - I think they should do both.

01:40:56   I think they should go back to that.

01:40:57   Man asks, "Now that podcast descriptions

01:41:00   have been out for a while,

01:41:01   have either of you tried any premium content

01:41:04   in Apple podcasts?

01:41:05   What would it take for either of you

01:41:07   to create your own premium podcasts of Apple?"

01:41:10   Just kind of two questions in there.

01:41:12   - Part one, have you tried any?

01:41:14   - No.

01:41:15   - No, neither have I, 'cause none of the shows

01:41:16   that I listen to do it, you know?

01:41:17   - And I use Overcast, so we would create

01:41:20   a defacto Spotify situation where I would have

01:41:22   to get a custom app, the podcast app,

01:41:25   in order to listen to a specific show.

01:41:27   And not only, yeah, do those shows not exist,

01:41:30   but I don't wanna use an app that's not my podcast app.

01:41:35   - And that is also kind of the answer

01:41:39   to the second question.

01:41:40   Like, I mean, I can speak for me, you can speak for you.

01:41:44   I'm not interested in, it's kind of the same

01:41:47   as when we spoke about it the first time.

01:41:49   I'm not interested in offering paid content

01:41:52   that is walled off to one application

01:41:54   'cause it limits the amount of people

01:41:56   that could consume that content.

01:41:58   And also with the way that Apple system works

01:42:01   is two things.

01:42:01   One, you have to do a bunch of additional work

01:42:04   to make it work, which is not something I have to do

01:42:06   for any other podcast app, including Apple's podcast app

01:42:09   if people just sign up on our website,

01:42:10   they can just subscribe, right?

01:42:13   And then also, I don't believe that Apple

01:42:16   should get 30% of the money.

01:42:18   - Yeah, so I have a similar answer.

01:42:21   So the incomparable, we just started doing a,

01:42:25   essentially the equivalent of upgrade plus

01:42:27   on the incomparable, the incomparable special edition.

01:42:30   And I made that available to incomparable members.

01:42:32   All the members get it, no special kind of thing to do.

01:42:36   You just, if you're a member of the incomparable,

01:42:37   you can subscribe to that and you get it.

01:42:40   And like Upgrade Plus, it's got extra content and no ads.

01:42:42   - It's longer ad-free, which wasn't a thing

01:42:44   that the incomparable main show had before, right?

01:42:46   - No, we hadn't done it before, which is funny

01:42:48   'cause I should have, and somebody asked why we didn't

01:42:50   and I thought, "I have no good answer to that,

01:42:52   "maybe we should do that."

01:42:53   So, okay, great.

01:42:54   I could put that on Apple Podcasts too

01:42:59   and I've thought about it.

01:43:01   First thing you have to look at is who are your listeners?

01:43:03   And unless your listeners are predominantly

01:43:06   Apple podcast users, it doesn't make sense. The incomparable has more of that than the

01:43:11   tech podcast do, right? Because the tech podcasts tend to be people who get a third party podcast

01:43:15   client. But a general entertainment podcast, you have more people who are not as techie

01:43:20   and they use the platform podcast app if they're on iOS. On Android, it's a whole thing, but

01:43:26   on iOS, they do that. So I could do that. But then as you said, I would have to go to

01:43:31   Apple's website and upload a special version of it every time. And so it's extra production

01:43:36   work for me or somebody I pay in order to get it up there. And also there's the complexity

01:43:41   of it, which is I already have a membership program. It's at the incomparable. You can

01:43:46   go there and give us money and get stuff, including podcasts. So even if some people

01:43:52   might buy it via Apple instead of at the incomparable, what happens then? Well, first off, what's

01:44:00   my messaging? Do I tell people that it exists or do I just let them find it? How do I communicate

01:44:05   that we have two different subscriptions. There's the one on Apple's site and then there's

01:44:09   the one on our site. And then the big one is, I can't—they're Apple's customer. Not

01:44:15   only am I sharing my money with Apple, but I don't know who they are, which means that

01:44:19   if they pay on Apple's podcast platform, they don't get any of the other benefits of being

01:44:24   an incomparable subscriber.

01:44:26   Oh yeah, I forgot about that, because like one thing for us is—one of the other reasons

01:44:30   is the Discord wouldn't work.

01:44:31   - Right, so Spotify has this API thing that they're,

01:44:34   the OAuth thing they're doing,

01:44:35   where you can link your paid account with Spotify.

01:44:40   Apple doesn't even offer that yet.

01:44:43   Maybe they will in the future and that would be good,

01:44:46   but then it would also mean that Apple was allowing you

01:44:48   to know more about these people

01:44:49   who they sort of perceive as their customers.

01:44:51   So would they do that or not?

01:44:53   But it also, so yeah,

01:44:54   it means you're paying for this content,

01:44:56   but you don't get it all.

01:44:57   You only get the one thing and its extra complexity

01:45:00   for the messaging of like, what do you offer?

01:45:04   And it's more work.

01:45:06   So it doesn't make sense.

01:45:08   I would love to try it out

01:45:09   if I had something where it made sense.

01:45:11   But at this point, nothing I do makes any sense.

01:45:13   - The UI is really nice.

01:45:15   And the way they deliver the episodes is really nice.

01:45:17   And like all that kind of stuff,

01:45:19   like they've done a really good job with it.

01:45:21   But they did it too late.

01:45:22   And then everybody that wanted this

01:45:25   and was gonna, you know,

01:45:26   most people that would have been able

01:45:27   to make a success out of it had already done it.

01:45:30   Now, like there are companies that do it

01:45:32   and there are companies that are at the scale

01:45:33   where it makes sense to them,

01:45:35   but I don't think there's many.

01:45:36   - And we should say that we relay an incomparable

01:45:39   both use memberful, which is a sponsor

01:45:41   of this episode today, but just to say it.

01:45:45   But there are other options out there too,

01:45:47   that's what we use.

01:45:49   I would say if Apple supported external authentication

01:45:53   or something, where I could sell a podcast subscription

01:45:56   on the podcast app and make them a subscriber with all the other options. I would consider it.

01:46:05   I'm not sure I would do it, but I would consider it. But to have it be this weird standalone thing,

01:46:10   you really would just have to have, it would have to be worth your while. You would have to have no

01:46:15   other options and an audience that's almost entirely listening on the podcast app. So no,

01:46:22   No and no is the short version of that. And Super Happy asks, "What do you think about using a Home

01:46:28   Pod as a de facto replacement landline? Our kids are too young for their own phones, but it would

01:46:33   be cool if they could use it to ask Siri to call or FaceTime their grandparents or even make

01:46:39   emergency calls. Is this even possible?" I did some research today. Yeah, I see that. This was

01:46:45   was not accidental. It's yes but. So you can do this but there has to be an iOS

01:46:52   or iPad OS device that the HomePod can run the core through. It has to be there

01:47:00   to do it. It's like a it's like a and this is a weird omission from the HomePod.

01:47:06   There's no reason it shouldn't be able to do a FaceTime. The landline call like

01:47:11   the phone because it could do phone calls that I get but the why can't it do

01:47:15   a FaceTime call. - Yeah, it's got intercom now,

01:47:18   but it doesn't have FaceTime.

01:47:19   So anyway, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense, it should,

01:47:21   but that's how it works.

01:47:22   So you need to have a phone in order for it to make

01:47:25   a phone number call, right?

01:47:28   You need to have basically an iPhone within your network

01:47:32   so that it can use it to do the call.

01:47:34   But if you've got an iPad that's connected,

01:47:39   again, it has to be the iPad that's connected

01:47:41   to the HomePod, you can then say to the HomePod,

01:47:45   a Hoi home pod, call grandma or face,

01:47:49   no, you have to say FaceTime grandma.

01:47:50   You can't say call or it'll try to use a phone.

01:47:52   FaceTime grandma.

01:47:54   And it will place that call on the iPad

01:47:58   and pipe it back to the home pod.

01:48:00   So this should be way easier than this.

01:48:03   You should be able to just-

01:48:03   - And it's weird to say FaceTime, right?

01:48:06   'Cause FaceTime is,

01:48:07   like it's just weird to say FaceTime when there's no faces.

01:48:10   - 'Cause it's FaceTime audio.

01:48:11   There's no faces, but FaceTime audio is a thing.

01:48:13   It's a thing.

01:48:14   There is an interesting caveat when it comes to emergency services,

01:48:18   which is one of the parts of the question.

01:48:20   So it will first try to do what you expect it to do,

01:48:24   which is it will look for the phone or iPad on the same account,

01:48:28   connected and try and make it. If it can't find that,

01:48:31   the HomePod will start looking for any iPhone on the same wifi network.

01:48:37   So it doesn't have, so for example,

01:48:42   me and Jason live together and the HomePod's on my phone.

01:48:46   - Man, that's a sitcom.

01:48:47   - And then I've left and taken my iPhone with me

01:48:50   and someone wants to call 911,

01:48:53   it would then make the call through Jason's phone,

01:48:56   even though he's not registered to the HomePod,

01:48:58   which is kind of cool,

01:48:59   as long as we're on the same wifi network.

01:49:02   I wouldn't want to rely on that.

01:49:04   So basically my answer to this for you, super happy,

01:49:09   is if you do not have like an iPad that is always at home,

01:49:12   don't do this.

01:49:13   Actually no, 'cause the iPad

01:49:16   wouldn't call the emergency services, would it?

01:49:18   So if you literally have a device, like a phone,

01:49:22   like an iPhone there all the time,

01:49:25   I wouldn't rely on this as a thing for,

01:49:27   this is how you call the emergency services

01:49:29   as a way to teach your children.

01:49:31   So yeah, I'm not gonna, you know,

01:49:34   that would be my recommendation.

01:49:36   This is, I don't know,

01:49:37   I understand what you're trying to go for here,

01:49:39   but like, would you assume as well that every call

01:49:43   should be a loudspeaker call, right?

01:49:47   That you wouldn't have that with a regular landline.

01:49:50   So. - Yeah, but I like the idea,

01:49:53   the way I would phrase it is,

01:49:55   using the grandparents as an example,

01:49:59   like if you can set it up so that your, you know,

01:50:02   your iPad is attached for personal requests for the HomePod

01:50:06   and there's a contact called grandma or grandparents

01:50:09   or whatever, and you train your kids to say the right phrase

01:50:13   and it gives them a call, then great, right?

01:50:18   I would treat it like that, which is can I set this up

01:50:23   in very specific circumstances so that this works?

01:50:27   And if you can, then great, like that would be how you do it.

01:50:29   But it's not, I will come back to my previous thing.

01:50:32   I get it's complex because you have to like say,

01:50:34   well, what are the contact lists?

01:50:36   if I'm going right on the HomePod,

01:50:38   what contacts list am I using?

01:50:39   And it's like, okay, I get that,

01:50:41   but it should be able to do this.

01:50:43   If I've got my Apple ID and it's got my contacts on it,

01:50:48   and honestly, if I've got my Apple ID

01:50:50   where it can recognize different users

01:50:53   and know different people have different devices,

01:50:56   like you should be able to use their contacts

01:50:58   and like it should be able to do this

01:51:01   without having to resort to another device,

01:51:03   but it doesn't right now.

01:51:05   So interesting hole in HomePod that maybe they need to fix.

01:51:10   - If you'd like to send in a question

01:51:12   for us to answer on the show,

01:51:13   just send out a tweet with the #askupgrade

01:51:15   or use ?askupgrade in the Relay FM members Discord,

01:51:18   which you get access to along with longer ad-free episodes

01:51:22   if you go to getupgradeplus.com.

01:51:25   And thank you so much to everybody that has done that

01:51:27   and we really appreciate it.

01:51:28   I bet you're gonna love it.

01:51:29   It's more upgrade, no ads.

01:51:31   It's amazing stuff over there.

01:51:33   If you wanna find Jason online,

01:51:34   go to sixcolors.com and use that Jason L. and Twitter J S N E double L. I am @imike. I am Y K E.

01:51:41   Thank you so much to Zocdoc, Memberful, TextExpander, and Camp1 for the support of this

01:51:45   episode. Next week's episode, what are we going to be doing, Jason?

01:51:49   I'm going to be giving out grades. Well, okay, my panel is going to be giving out grades. It'll

01:51:55   be the Apple report card for 2021. Well, I'm going to set you some homework.

01:52:00   Uh-oh. I want your grades as well. Okay, fine. Because that's the thing that you don't do.

01:52:07   I don't do that. That's going to be an upgrade exclusive. That's what it's going to be. My

01:52:11   grades are only going to be on an upgrade. Yeah, and I saved my grades too. So we can look at the

01:52:16   overall and I have my grades. I want you to bring your grades. Oh, I have your grades. I know you

01:52:19   have them. I have your grades. But I have them. And we're going to talk about how a large community

01:52:24   of Apple observers have graded Apple's 2021. We're going to talk about that. It's going to be

01:52:30   be a very interesting episode to get into the weeds on next week. Thanks so

01:52:35   much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade and we'll be back

01:52:37   next time. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snow.

01:52:40   Goodbye everybody.

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