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Upgrade

448: I'm Choosing Optimism

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   - From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 448.

00:00:13   Today's show is brought to you by Rocket Money,

00:00:15   Ooni Pizza Ovens, and ZocDoc.

00:00:17   My name is Mike Hurley,

00:00:18   and I am joined by my guest cohost, Mr. Casey Liz.

00:00:22   Hi, Casey.

00:00:23   - The time has finally come, baby.

00:00:25   I am so excited. - I know, here you are.

00:00:27   - I am so very excited.

00:00:28   I'm excited that Jason is getting a well-earned vacation.

00:00:32   I'm super excited to be here with you.

00:00:34   Gotta confess, a little nervous, it's a lot of pressure,

00:00:36   but I am here for it, I am stoked.

00:00:39   - Well, I know the upgrade ends are happy

00:00:40   'cause oh boy, did I get a lot of questions for you.

00:00:43   So we're gonna start off today

00:00:45   with a ListTalk question from Peter.

00:00:47   Peter wants to know if Apple released a new version

00:00:50   of your beloved 12-inch MacBook

00:00:53   with Apple Silicon and cellular,

00:00:55   but the only color option was pure white,

00:00:58   Would you buy it?

00:00:59   - So I feel like I need to channel Jason

00:01:02   and go on like two or three tangents

00:01:03   before I answer the question.

00:01:05   First of all, I-

00:01:07   - Not necessarily burning, but I'm here for it.

00:01:09   (laughing)

00:01:11   - I actually didn't mean that as a burn,

00:01:12   but I think it did come across that way.

00:01:14   (laughing)

00:01:15   I really did, I really honestly didn't,

00:01:16   but I think, and now that I play that back,

00:01:18   I think about it come across that way.

00:01:19   Sorry, Jason, I love you.

00:01:21   Anyway, so my first Mac, my very first Mac,

00:01:24   literally my very first Mac,

00:01:25   was a white polycarbonate MacBook,

00:01:29   which I affectionately referred to as a polybook,

00:01:32   which infuriated our mutual friend, Stephen Hackett,

00:01:35   probably still does.

00:01:36   - It started to annoy me now, you know.

00:01:38   At first I was all on board and now I'm like, please stop.

00:01:41   So, you know.

00:01:42   - Okay, well, so the white polycarbonate MacBook,

00:01:45   which I loved, I really wanted the black one,

00:01:48   but I was too cheap to spend the 50 or $75,

00:01:50   I forget what it was, to get that one,

00:01:52   which was I think also marginally faster if memory serves.

00:01:55   But it was my first Mac, I didn't know if I would like it.

00:01:58   - Yeah, I think the black one came

00:02:00   in a specific configuration.

00:02:03   - Right, exactly.

00:02:05   And so I had that machine, I love that machine.

00:02:07   The problem with that machine though is that

00:02:10   it would get a little discolored from your finger grease

00:02:13   slash oil slash just the things that are part of your body

00:02:16   to keep you alive, that would rub off

00:02:18   onto the white polycarbonate material.

00:02:20   And so more so than any other computer I've ever owned,

00:02:24   I needed to take like a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

00:02:26   I don't know if the scrub daddy would have worked

00:02:28   in this capacity, but the Magic Eraser,

00:02:31   the Magic Eraser was very good at cleaning all that off.

00:02:32   And I had to do that like a couple of times a month

00:02:34   because even though I'm not that precious

00:02:36   about my computers, it still would look like Brown and Gross

00:02:39   and I really just like that.

00:02:40   But I loved that machine nevertheless.

00:02:44   Also, you know, I don't need to belabor the point,

00:02:46   but I freaking adored my 12 inch MacBook, adorable.

00:02:50   also known as the MacBook One.

00:02:52   I adored that thing.

00:02:53   It's still in service as Aaron's computer,

00:02:55   although it's getting quite long in the tooth at this point.

00:02:57   - I think you've got your own lore incorrect there.

00:03:00   - Why, what's, oh no, the MacBook One was,

00:03:02   no, I thought the MacBook One was this one.

00:03:04   - Wasn't that one the 13-inch MacBook Pro?

00:03:07   - The Escape, that was MacBook Escape,

00:03:09   because it had the Escape key, right?

00:03:10   I thought-- - Okay, yeah, yeah,

00:03:12   that's it, mm-hmm.

00:03:13   - No, I mean, I wouldn't put it past me

00:03:15   to be wrong about this.

00:03:16   - No, I was wrong, you were right.

00:03:17   I was wrong.

00:03:19   - All right, see, all right, we're off to a good start.

00:03:20   I'm still cruising.

00:03:21   So anyway, I love that computer.

00:03:23   It's so tiny, so small.

00:03:24   It felt no bigger than an iPad.

00:03:26   It quite clearly was bigger,

00:03:27   but it didn't feel bigger than an iPad.

00:03:28   But it was completely crippled

00:03:30   and had like 17 different Achilles heels

00:03:33   the moment we bought them.

00:03:34   And I still miss that machine and I still love it.

00:03:37   Well, my dad just recently got the M2 MacBook Air.

00:03:40   I don't know if you've heard about this machine, Mike,

00:03:41   but people like it.

00:03:42   - AKA best Mac ever made.

00:03:44   Is that the one you're talking about?

00:03:45   - That is the one.

00:03:46   And I was helping him get it set up

00:03:49   and so on and so forth.

00:03:50   I gotta tell you, that is a nice computer.

00:03:52   It really genuinely is.

00:03:53   And so the thought of having that computer,

00:03:56   but it's shrunk down just the teeniest bit,

00:03:58   not that it's big now,

00:03:59   but if you could shrink it down just a teeny, teeny,

00:04:01   teeny bit and oh my word, if you could put cellular on it,

00:04:05   that thing could be as yellow as a Rivian R1S.

00:04:09   And if you're caught up on ATP,

00:04:10   you'll understand that joke.

00:04:11   And I would still buy it because oh my word,

00:04:14   a computer that size with cellular, I'm in baby,

00:04:17   I'm in a hundred percent, absolutely.

00:04:19   I would like to thank Peter for sending in that question.

00:04:22   If you would like to send in a question of your own,

00:04:25   you can do that by going to upgradefeedback.com

00:04:28   and you can send in your,

00:04:30   well, usually they would be snow talk questions.

00:04:33   You can do that there.

00:04:35   - Indeed, now may I interrupt the flow here?

00:04:37   May I do a very brief Hurley talk, if possible?

00:04:39   I would love to throw one.

00:04:41   You've probably discussed this in the past

00:04:43   and because I'm the most forgetful human alive,

00:04:45   I don't recall if you have or if so what the answer is,

00:04:47   but I was curious.

00:04:49   I adore the USB Type-C SEA beach towel.

00:04:54   That is my preferred beach towel.

00:04:56   Because I thought that everything about that

00:04:59   was so darn clever, and as with so many things

00:05:02   that happened on the show, I was so jealous and annoyed

00:05:03   that I didn't come up with it.

00:05:04   And so, my actual Hurley talk question for you is,

00:05:07   leaving aside Cortex brand, which you should check that out,

00:05:10   it's excellent, would you like to plug that now, Mike?

00:05:12   - You can go to cortexbrand.com

00:05:14   and buy yourself a beautiful Sidekick notepad.

00:05:16   There's a video on the page if you're interested.

00:05:18   - A very well done video.

00:05:19   So, leaving aside Cortex brand,

00:05:22   what is your favorite upgrade merch

00:05:24   that you have sold over the years?

00:05:26   - It's probably the Beech Tale.

00:05:27   - Is it? Okay, good.

00:05:29   - I was thinking about it just recently.

00:05:31   Obviously, the OG Dungletown t-shirt,

00:05:33   like the orange one, is a classic, right?

00:05:37   But the Beech Tale is so ridiculous,

00:05:40   and I will always be thankful to Cotton Bureau

00:05:45   that they did it, because at first, they were like,

00:05:48   we don't really want to do this and we can't.

00:05:51   Like it's not a thing we can do.

00:05:52   I don't think our machines can even handle that size.

00:05:55   But we worked together, we got it done.

00:05:57   And that's a classic.

00:05:59   It was part of the,

00:06:01   it was like, it was the Surf Club range,

00:06:04   the Dungletown Surf Club range that had the beach towel.

00:06:07   - I love that one.

00:06:10   It is easily my favorite.

00:06:12   'Cause it just works and lands that much better

00:06:14   as a beach towel.

00:06:15   'Cause didn't you do a shirt with like similar stuff on it

00:06:17   - Sure, and a tote bag.

00:06:20   - Okay, there you go.

00:06:21   See, to me, the beach towel,

00:06:22   that's the pro move right there.

00:06:23   - I mentioned a moment ago the form that we have.

00:06:29   I'll just say it now.

00:06:31   If you go to upgradefeedback.com,

00:06:33   you can fill out our feedback form.

00:06:35   If you now wish, you can designate your questions

00:06:38   as Snell Talk, Ask Upgrade, Follow Up, or Feedback.

00:06:42   We have like a new type where you can just click

00:06:44   and choose from a list.

00:06:45   You don't have to do this,

00:06:46   But if you want to, and I'll say for me,

00:06:49   it's really nice to be able to just get

00:06:51   the Snell Tour questions and just get the Ask Up Big

00:06:54   questions in our back end.

00:06:55   So it's up to you if you want to do that.

00:06:58   We'd appreciate it.

00:06:59   I would appreciate it, especially if you did.

00:07:02   - Yeah, that's excellent.

00:07:03   I'm super jealous of this for ATP.

00:07:06   And I don't remember if, are we using this for analog?

00:07:08   We should if we're not.

00:07:09   - Yeah, we are, yeah.

00:07:10   - Okay, I'm super jealous of this for ATP

00:07:12   because we had a system which,

00:07:15   I don't know if it was identical to what you guys were doing

00:07:17   but was spiritually the same as what you were doing

00:07:19   for Ask Upgrade, especially since SKTP is stolen,

00:07:23   borrowed from Ask Upgrade.

00:07:24   And so we were crawling, or we had,

00:07:27   if, ttt, crawling Twitter and adding things

00:07:30   to a Google Sheet.

00:07:31   And Thetaverse-wide search in Mastodon

00:07:35   doesn't seem to really be a thing.

00:07:37   - Doesn't work.

00:07:38   - Yeah, so a listener's actually written something up

00:07:41   that I haven't had a chance to look at yet

00:07:43   that might accomplish this for us.

00:07:44   I need to dig into it and see what the situation is there,

00:07:47   but I'm very jealous of your fancy-schmancy form.

00:07:50   I'm maybe gonna have to put something together,

00:07:52   or maybe Marco put something together for ATP.

00:07:54   Or maybe we'll just steal yours.

00:07:55   - Very happy with the form?

00:07:57   - Yeah, I'm jealous.

00:07:59   - Are you ready to saddle up?

00:08:01   - Is it room around up time?

00:08:03   - Oh boy, is it room around up time.

00:08:04   - Yee-haw, I'm ready.

00:08:06   - 9to5Mac have discovered references

00:08:08   to a new quote compute module, or one word.

00:08:12   Is that camel case when it's like,

00:08:14   There's a capital letter in the middle.

00:08:16   - Well, it could be camel or Pascal if memory serves,

00:08:19   and now I'm either confirming

00:08:21   that I know what I'm talking about

00:08:21   or confirming that I'm a dope.

00:08:23   I believe that is Pascal case

00:08:24   because the first character is capitalized,

00:08:27   and camel case would be lowercase C, uppercase M.

00:08:30   Pascal case is uppercase C and uppercase M.

00:08:32   - Well, anyway, it's...

00:08:35   (laughing)

00:08:37   Nine to five Mac have discovered references

00:08:39   to a compute module device class in the new Xcode beta.

00:08:43   They are pontificating that this could be referencing some kind of module that the Mac

00:08:48   Pro could use, or some kind of processing device for the upcoming headset.

00:08:53   It runs a variant of iOS in some capacity.

00:08:58   If it was for the Mac Pro, this could be an answer to expandability.

00:09:03   So you could have this module that could provide expandable and upgradeable graphics for example.

00:09:09   like you can plug in different modules

00:09:12   that have different graphics capabilities,

00:09:14   or maybe even a way to swap in a new M chip completely

00:09:19   in the entire package.

00:09:20   What do you think?

00:09:21   I just really was very excited about the possibility

00:09:25   of forcing you to talk about the Mac Pro with me

00:09:27   for a minute or two.

00:09:28   - See, Jason's coming back around, just like that.

00:09:31   I saw this and I spent a lot of time thinking about this

00:09:35   this morning as I was prepping for today's episode,

00:09:37   And I'm really not sure what to make of this.

00:09:39   So I was trying to think to myself,

00:09:42   well, what makes Apple Silicon unique

00:09:44   and what makes Mac Pro unique separately,

00:09:46   two different unique things, and then, okay,

00:09:48   let's suppose we're gonna mash them together.

00:09:50   How are we gonna handle that or what are we gonna do?

00:09:52   And what makes Apple Silicon so cool,

00:09:55   or one of the things that makes it so cool,

00:09:56   is that it has this whole unified memory architecture thing.

00:09:59   And you've talked about this on Upgrade

00:10:01   and on your other shows,

00:10:01   but in case you aren't familiar, people, listeners,

00:10:05   The idea is in most computers, the video RAM is separate from the traditional RAM, and

00:10:12   in order to move stuff from one to the other, you have to actually spend the time to do

00:10:17   that.

00:10:18   And what makes that one of the things that makes Apple Silicon very different is that

00:10:20   they're all globbed together.

00:10:21   It's just one big, big, big bucket, which has some advantages.

00:10:25   Like, for example, you don't need to move stuff in memory from system memory to video

00:10:30   memory or vice versa.

00:10:31   It's all the same memory.

00:10:33   It's all already there, which is great.

00:10:35   the thing that's different about Apple Silicon is that for the most part it's

00:10:37   an entire system on a chip it's an SOC you know so all of these different

00:10:41   components that may be in disparate modules or really in disparate you know

00:10:45   pieces physical pieces of hardware they're all kind of squished together

00:10:49   onto onto one platter so to speak and what makes me really curious about the

00:10:55   Mac Pro and what actually kind of excites me about the Mac Pro God help me

00:10:58   is that how are they going to handle

00:11:03   any sort of expandability for a thing that by definition,

00:11:07   like one of the primary advantages of Apple Silicon

00:11:10   is having the entire system on one chip.

00:11:13   And I think what you had said, Mike,

00:11:15   it does potentially make sense

00:11:18   that maybe the compute module is the entire system on a chip

00:11:21   and whatever associated sundries

00:11:24   that need to be right next to it.

00:11:26   And then you take out this maybe big

00:11:28   or maybe not big, but you take out this box

00:11:30   and you throw it away 'cause your M1 is useless now

00:11:32   and now you plug in your M2 or your M3 or what have you.

00:11:35   I don't see any reason why that couldn't work,

00:11:38   but it just doesn't feel like that's what they would do.

00:11:42   That doesn't feel like an Apple-y thing to do to me.

00:11:45   Like can you, I can't recall a time,

00:11:47   and I know we really need Steven for this kind of question

00:11:49   or Jason for that matter, but like was there ever a time

00:11:52   that you could realistically and semi-easily replace

00:11:55   a CPU and a Mac ever?

00:11:57   - I don't think so.

00:11:58   - Not in a way that they would have allowed.

00:12:00   I mean, maybe during the lost times, right?

00:12:03   (laughing)

00:12:03   Let's say under the like Steve Johnny era of Mac design.

00:12:08   No, I don't think that's ever been possible.

00:12:10   - See, that's what I thought.

00:12:11   And so even though that's the thing

00:12:13   that makes the most logical sense,

00:12:15   because again, as I've been hammering on

00:12:17   for the last few minutes, it's a system on a chip

00:12:20   and you could put that chip in a box

00:12:22   and then that box becomes compute module.

00:12:23   It conceptually makes sense, but I just, I don't buy it.

00:12:27   So then I started to ask myself,

00:12:28   well, okay, let's put that aside for a moment.

00:12:31   What do you really wanna swap out in a computer,

00:12:34   particularly a Mac Pro?

00:12:34   Like what are the things you would wanna change?

00:12:37   Well, you're gonna wanna change the SSD in all likelihood,

00:12:39   either add more, change what's there,

00:12:42   or maybe even add spinning disks

00:12:44   for time machine purposes or something like that.

00:12:46   And from everything I can tell,

00:12:47   there is no reason that wouldn't work

00:12:49   in even an Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

00:12:52   That should be no problem.

00:12:53   But everything else that you would potentially

00:12:55   be interested in changing the GPU, you know, the graphics card, so to speak, the RAM, the

00:13:00   video RAM, if such a thing was relevant, which again, in the Apple Silicon world, it isn't

00:13:06   really relevant. But all of that is integrated, right?

00:13:08   >> But it doesn't have to be. >> And it doesn't have to be, and you're right.

00:13:14   But I would be surprised if Apple spent the time and engineering effort to unravel this

00:13:21   thing that they worked so hard to put on one chip, the whole system on a chip. I'm not

00:13:26   saying you're wrong by any stretch. Like it is certainly possible, but I would be surprised.

00:13:31   You know? Like do you think I'm bananas?

00:13:34   It's complicated because, I know this isn't particularly helpful for your question, but

00:13:39   I really do see both sides of it. It looks like where they're going right now indicates

00:13:46   that everything is going to be contained within an M,

00:13:49   we'll call it module, right?

00:13:51   - Sure.

00:13:52   - It's all in the one package.

00:13:54   So it seems like the possibility of you can add more RAM

00:14:00   to this so you can increase the,

00:14:02   you can have a more powerful GPU,

00:14:04   swap in another GPU, seems unlikely.

00:14:07   But then what's the point of the Mac Pro,

00:14:11   which makes me feel like there is something.

00:14:13   whether it is we have these cards that are kind of like Afterburner cards but now they're

00:14:19   full graphics stuff or they're full RAM stuff and it's these weird things you can plug and

00:14:24   play or it is this idea that like you buy the enclosure and then you can get an M4 system

00:14:32   on a chip in two years time and an M5 and then they just never have to worry about this

00:14:37   quote unquote never have to worry about designing a Mac Pro again because they've just got this

00:14:41   one thing and they just, every two to three years, throw out a new chip that you can plug

00:14:48   in.

00:14:49   Do I think that's going to happen?

00:14:50   No.

00:14:51   But I also didn't think the 2019 Mac Pro was a product that could have existed.

00:14:58   That on its own just seems like a weird product because of all the things you could do to

00:15:01   it and how easy it was to get in it and swap stuff around.

00:15:07   in this area that we're in now, it seems logical to stop at the Mac Studio. So what's the point

00:15:13   of the Mac Pro if not for something like this?

00:15:16   I agree, I agree. And I also can see both sides of this. So to go back to my mind journey,

00:15:24   my walk through the woods, if you will, I got to thinking, okay, so we said we can do

00:15:28   the SSDs, no problem. GPU, RAM, VRAM, maybe not. So what else could you put inside a Mac

00:15:35   Pro like what else do you really what would you really be interested in and

00:15:40   the only real I could think of a couple of things number one the afterburner

00:15:43   card which was of is available for the current Mac Pro and this is a thing that

00:15:50   basically if I understand it properly does hardware video trans codes

00:15:55   particularly for like ProRes and ProRes RAW so it makes things like Final Cut Pro

00:15:59   a lot faster well maybe there would be an afterburner like thing for particular

00:16:04   or industries or--

00:16:06   - They put that on the package now.

00:16:07   - You're right, no you're right, you're absolutely right.

00:16:10   - Which is kind of wild,

00:16:11   everything that entire unit used to do

00:16:13   is now just in the chip.

00:16:15   - Shoot, I didn't even think about that,

00:16:16   you're 100% correct.

00:16:17   - But I think you're on the right sort of lines though,

00:16:20   right, of like, well they did that before,

00:16:22   what if it's something like this,

00:16:24   if it's not like a full thing,

00:16:25   but it's like plug this in

00:16:27   and you can do accelerated AI stuff.

00:16:31   But then even the afterburner felt niche,

00:16:33   So like, yeah, it's weird.

00:16:36   - I don't know, maybe like a neural engine,

00:16:37   like a secondary neural engine or something like that.

00:16:39   The only other thing I could come up with,

00:16:41   which I will be the first to tell you

00:16:42   is a bit of a stretch, is like,

00:16:43   maybe you would wanna swap out wired networking.

00:16:46   You know, maybe it comes with like a gigabit card,

00:16:49   if you will. - That's not enough.

00:16:50   - Right, like, it's not enough.

00:16:53   - I mean, and that's really stretching compute

00:16:55   to its breaking point, right?

00:16:56   Like that's not really a compute module

00:16:58   by any reasonable definition.

00:17:00   - But also it's like, you wanted modularity.

00:17:02   you can change from one to 10 gigabit ethernet on this thing.

00:17:06   Enjoy.

00:17:07   - Right, I mean, or maybe you could plug in

00:17:09   like an SFP for fiber optics if you're a lunatic like I am,

00:17:12   but I agree with you, like that's really, that's a stretch.

00:17:15   So I just, I'm struggling in the same way,

00:17:18   and we'll be talking about this momentarily,

00:17:19   in the same way I'm struggling to understand

00:17:22   what is the purpose, what's the value add

00:17:24   of this mythical headset?

00:17:26   Like what is the purpose of the Mac Pro?

00:17:28   If it's not going to be, you know,

00:17:31   the M1 Extreme or M2 Extreme or what have you.

00:17:34   You know, if the point is not simply,

00:17:36   let's put the biggest, both in every sense of the word,

00:17:39   you know, physically biggest, figuratively biggest,

00:17:41   let's put the biggest chip we can in this box.

00:17:44   And other than that, what's the point?

00:17:45   I mean, yeah, you could mount your SSDs

00:17:47   or spinning disks internally, yay, but like what?

00:17:50   I just don't, I don't get it.

00:17:52   I don't get it.

00:17:53   And maybe the answer is exactly what you said earlier, Mike,

00:17:55   that maybe they do make it possible to add extra RAM.

00:17:58   Maybe they do make it possible to add a different GPU

00:18:01   or VRAM or something like that.

00:18:03   But given all the work they've done

00:18:05   to make it all right there

00:18:08   and all the work they've done

00:18:09   to physically put these things close together,

00:18:11   even within the package,

00:18:12   so that there's less space for the information

00:18:16   to travel internally within the chip,

00:18:18   I just, I'm hard pressed to think that's what they would do.

00:18:21   But who knows?

00:18:22   - And just to reiterate, as 9to5Mac said,

00:18:25   maybe this has nothing to do with the Mac Pro at all

00:18:27   it's something to do with the headset.

00:18:29   (laughing)

00:18:30   But who knows?

00:18:32   - The other thing I loved is somebody theorized

00:18:34   it might be a NUC, like a Raspberry Pi

00:18:36   or something equivalent, which would make me very happy

00:18:38   and make me laugh quite a bit.

00:18:40   But there's no way. - That did not make it

00:18:41   into my right up here from around the house.

00:18:43   - I don't buy it at all, but it would be funny.

00:18:45   It would be very funny.

00:18:46   - Ming-Chi Kuo is reporting that the iPhone 15 Pro

00:18:49   will feature an improved LIDAR scanner.

00:18:52   This new model is more power efficient

00:18:53   and could therefore benefit other camera features

00:18:56   of the upcoming iPhones, like night mode or autofocus.

00:19:00   I wanted to test you.

00:19:02   Have you ever knowingly used the LiDAR feature

00:19:05   of your phone?

00:19:06   - So maybe I'll be stretching knowingly

00:19:09   to the breaking point here.

00:19:10   I think yes or at worst, yes asterisk.

00:19:15   So like portrait mode, for example,

00:19:16   to the best of my recollection,

00:19:18   I thought that that used LiDAR in most circumstances as well.

00:19:21   - I probably, and also the camera's already using it

00:19:24   for autofocus and stuff, but that's my point of like,

00:19:28   you don't know, I don't know, and neither do I care.

00:19:31   I'm not like, oh, let me fire up the LIDAR

00:19:33   for this portrait mode, you know?

00:19:35   - Yeah, that's totally fair.

00:19:37   But I think I have a couple of examples where it is knowingly

00:19:40   the Measure app, which I'm pretty sure

00:19:42   is a first party app now, isn't it?

00:19:43   It's an Apple app?

00:19:44   - It always was, yeah.

00:19:45   - Okay, yeah, 'cause I knew that there,

00:19:47   for a few years before Apple embraced it,

00:19:50   I thought that there were some third party ones

00:19:52   that did similar stuff.

00:19:53   stuff and then they developed one when the LIDAR came out I think. There you go.

00:19:57   So the measure app I use it very rarely but I do every great once in a while if

00:20:02   I just want like a thumb in the wind kind of measurement it's not you know

00:20:05   for a complete accuracy I will use the measure app from time to time and then

00:20:10   I've done this a few times mostly it's just an interesting party trick but

00:20:14   there's an app called polycam p-o-l-y-c-a-m I'm sure Michael put a link in

00:20:18   the show notes and that will let you take a 3d scan of a room or a floor of a

00:20:25   house yeah and so as an example I did this some friends of ours just recently

00:20:30   moved within the greater Richmond area and just for you know grins and giggles

00:20:35   while the new house was empty I did the poly cam scan and so on and so forth and

00:20:40   I got a pretty cool 3d scan out of this what would I what either us or the

00:20:45   family that's had moved into the house will do with this 3d scan I have no idea

00:20:48   but it was cool, so we have that.

00:20:50   - It's a fun demo.

00:20:52   - It's a very fun demo, but other than Measure and PolyCam,

00:20:55   I can't think of anything that I have knowingly done

00:20:59   with Lidar, or I guess the three times in my life

00:21:03   that I've done the AR visualization with an Apple product,

00:21:06   like see the Mac Pro in your office,

00:21:08   which I think I tried once just to say, oh, there it is.

00:21:12   - And again, I don't even know if they're using Lidar,

00:21:14   like are they even using Lidar as AR models?

00:21:16   I'm not even sure if they are.

00:21:18   I had assumed so, but you very well could be right.

00:21:19   Are there times that you have done it,

00:21:20   or are you not knowingly using LIDAR at all?

00:21:25   - It's the same thing as you.

00:21:26   I've tried some of these apps that have some kind of like,

00:21:30   "Oh, look at this, you can map out a room

00:21:33   "just to have done it," but I'm not doing it frequently.

00:21:37   I'm sure there are people that are,

00:21:38   but it's not something that I ever really think about.

00:21:41   So on the last episode of "Under School,"

00:21:43   we spoke about some CAD models of the iPhone 14 Pro.

00:21:48   I know you're talking about it on ATP as well.

00:21:51   Well, there was something missing,

00:21:52   which was the iPhone 15 Pro Max,

00:21:54   and 9to5Mac is reporting more information from a CAD model.

00:21:58   This features everything we spoke about on the Pro last time.

00:22:01   So USB-C, thinner bezels,

00:22:04   curve from the display to the body.

00:22:06   So it's the same on the iPhone 15 Pro

00:22:08   as it is on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

00:22:10   However, on this model,

00:22:12   The thickness of the camera bump has gotten smaller from the 14 Pro Max, along with a

00:22:19   reduction in the overall thickness of the device.

00:22:22   These are both tiny reductions, but the thing that's surprising to me is that the rumours

00:22:26   are talking about periscope camera.

00:22:28   I just expected it would get way larger, but it hasn't.

00:22:33   Maybe you don't need as much.

00:22:36   Maybe one of the reasons I'm thinking aloud right now that the camera keeps getting bigger

00:22:40   is because they need, they could put in a larger optical sensor in there right for the zoom,

00:22:44   because you know we've got like 3x now rather than 2x, but if they go into the periscope maybe they

00:22:49   don't need that amount of space because it's going along inside of the body of the phone anyway.

00:22:53   I don't know. Well see I'm not sure and I say that not as a kind way to disagree with you,

00:22:57   I literally am not sure. My understanding was that the sensor for the 1x camera,

00:23:04   what they previously called the wide camera, was physically largest. And I thought that the

00:23:10   the size of the plateau, as my co-host John Siracusa likes to call it, you know the camera bump,

00:23:15   I thought that that was more about the glass, more about the lenses, than it was about the sensors or

00:23:20   anything like that. And then I got, you know, as you're talking I'm thinking about how is this

00:23:24   periscope thing going to work? And again, if you're not familiar, the theory is, and I guess

00:23:29   this is happening, you would know Mike, this is happening from time to time in android phones.

00:23:32   - It's been happening for years in Android phones.

00:23:34   - Okay, so the idea is, you know,

00:23:37   you have the light come in the lens

00:23:39   in the back of the camera, just like it always would,

00:23:41   but then you reflect it internally within the phone,

00:23:44   you reflect it down the body of the phone,

00:23:46   so that somewhere else you have more physical space

00:23:50   within the body of the phone,

00:23:51   such that you can put like a larger sensor

00:23:53   or something like that.

00:23:55   I have also seen that this periscope idea

00:23:58   seems to be about having an improved zoom.

00:24:01   I think I'd seen somewhere somebody's citing a 6x zoom.

00:24:04   - That's the point of the periscope.

00:24:06   - Yeah, see, but I think I don't understand

00:24:10   why a periscope is necessary for this

00:24:12   because I don't think it's a sensor issue.

00:24:15   I think it's a glass issue, isn't it?

00:24:16   - Yeah, so they put lots of lenses, right?

00:24:20   You have to like stack lots of lenses.

00:24:22   - Sure.

00:24:22   - And so you need vertical space in theory,

00:24:25   like you need physical space.

00:24:27   So to save the camera from getting three times further out

00:24:31   of the phone, they turn it on its side

00:24:33   and put it into the body.

00:24:34   So it's not actually the sensor you need space for,

00:24:37   it's the glass.

00:24:38   And so it has to go somewhere.

00:24:39   So that's why I'm wondering if maybe it's gotten smaller

00:24:42   because they don't need as much glass for the three times

00:24:45   because it isn't three times anymore,

00:24:46   it goes up to five or 10.

00:24:47   Just on this one though, just on this one.

00:24:51   - Can you promise me not to do a victory lap, please?

00:24:56   Can we just be adults about this?

00:24:58   - Oh, well, when I get the great phone and you don't?

00:25:01   - I'm gonna have a bombshell to drop.

00:25:03   - Okay.

00:25:04   - I am, I'm really thinking about the big guy.

00:25:06   - Oh, I think this will be the year to do it.

00:25:08   It's gonna be different again,

00:25:10   and I think it's gonna be different

00:25:11   in ways that could be interesting.

00:25:13   And also you'll give yourself like the ability

00:25:15   to get used to it before they bring out the ultra phone,

00:25:18   and then you've kind of got no choice, right?

00:25:20   (laughing)

00:25:22   - I don't know.

00:25:23   I've always been, I haven't been such a proponent

00:25:26   of smaller phones that I like ever had an SE or a mini

00:25:28   or anything like that.

00:25:29   Even though my word, those small phones feel so good in hand

00:25:33   but I currently have a 14 Pro and I love this phone.

00:25:37   I really, really do.

00:25:38   I am a super fan of the Dynamic Island.

00:25:40   I agree with most people, it hasn't been quite

00:25:43   as revolutionary as we had hoped yet but my goodness,

00:25:45   when it is doing something like a sports score

00:25:48   or a timer or what have you, it is extremely cool

00:25:51   and extremely convenient.

00:25:53   But this phone is already darn big

00:25:55   And at that point, like, is it really

00:25:58   that dramatically different for the super big one?

00:26:03   And if I can get a better zoom, that might be worth it

00:26:07   because I was thinking to myself,

00:26:09   you know, why do I still have my micro four thirds camera?

00:26:12   You know, a quote unquote big camera.

00:26:13   They're small as big cameras go,

00:26:15   but nevertheless, it's still a big camera.

00:26:16   Why do I have it?

00:26:17   Well, I have two lenses for it that I use regularly.

00:26:21   I don't remember the statistics offhand

00:26:22   and honestly it's irrelevant,

00:26:23   but basically one of them is a prime lens,

00:26:25   which means it doesn't zoom in any way.

00:26:27   And so if you need to zoom, you need to move your feet.

00:26:30   And it's a really, really good lens

00:26:31   with a huge wide aperture.

00:26:33   It's like f/1.8, I think, or something like that.

00:26:35   So you can get really good bokeh,

00:26:37   or however you pronounce it.

00:26:38   And I love that lens, but it's only really good,

00:26:42   like outdoors in good light.

00:26:44   You know, inside it can work, but it's not great.

00:26:47   But most times if I'm indoors,

00:26:49   I'm gonna grab my iPhone 'cause the camera's

00:26:51   probably gonna do a better job of taking that picture.

00:26:53   The other lens I have for the Micro Four Third

00:26:55   zoom lens and I forget exactly how deep the zoom goes but just thumb in the

00:26:59   thumb in the air I would say it's like maybe a like a 1x to 5 6x something like

00:27:05   that roughly and so if I can get like a 6x zoom in my phone do I really need to

00:27:12   carry my big camera like really ever and I don't even do it that much now but you

00:27:17   know if we go on like a beach vacation or something like that maybe I'll bring

00:27:20   the big camera and I usually get phenomenal pictures with it but golly I

00:27:24   I would really, really be interested in a big honking

00:27:29   6X zoom or something like that.

00:27:31   And if I can get a 6X zoom out of my everyday carry phone,

00:27:35   is it worth getting the little bit bigger device?

00:27:38   Meanwhile, as I mentioned, I was at my parents'

00:27:41   this past weekend, and when I wasn't playing

00:27:43   with Dad's new M2 MacBook Air, have you heard about those?

00:27:46   I hear they're good.

00:27:47   So when I wasn't playing with that,

00:27:49   he has a iPhone 13 Pro Max,

00:27:52   and he was carrying on all weekend,

00:27:55   I don't know what brought this on,

00:27:56   but he was carrying on all weekend

00:27:57   about how amazing the battery life is on his phone,

00:28:00   and this was his first Max phone.

00:28:02   I was like, "Well, Dad, these things are related."

00:28:04   Like, the Max has effectively infinite battery,

00:28:07   from what I understand, and again,

00:28:08   jump in when you're ready, Mike,

00:28:09   but the battery is just phenomenal.

00:28:10   And so I'm looking at this big honking battery,

00:28:14   and I'm looking at this big honking Zoom,

00:28:15   and I'm wondering to myself, is this year the year?

00:28:18   I have been so vehemently anti plus phones and max phones,

00:28:22   but I'm really, really wondering

00:28:24   if this year might be the year.

00:28:26   - It should be.

00:28:28   Mark Gerwin is reporting that the upcoming headset

00:28:31   that Apple should be releasing at some point this year

00:28:33   would feature in-air typing as the text input method,

00:28:37   using a combination of both the eye and hand tracking

00:28:40   to make it work effectively.

00:28:41   But this feature has been described as finicky.

00:28:45   - You don't say.

00:28:46   - So there you go.

00:28:48   - Gerwin also states that the headset

00:28:49   will be able to work independently from an iPhone,

00:28:52   including the setup process, if you so choose.

00:28:54   That is good news to me, I think.

00:28:56   I have the concern that it's gonna be like Reality Kit,

00:29:03   you know, rather than an actual OS.

00:29:05   We don't wanna go back to Apple Watch 1.0.

00:29:07   So if they are expecting it to be independent from day one,

00:29:11   that's good news, I think, for the headset.

00:29:14   - Yeah, yeah, I wholeheartedly agree

00:29:16   that independent is the right way to do it.

00:29:18   In the article that you had linked,

00:29:21   the MacRumors post, they had mentioned something

00:29:24   about how maybe a lot of your iCloud data

00:29:27   would be pulled down directly to the device.

00:29:29   Some of the things that you could grab

00:29:30   from your phone, for sure, but the device would just go

00:29:33   and grab it from iCloud, which I think is really smart.

00:29:35   And as more and more of us are turning to Apple One

00:29:39   and whatnot, a lot of our stuff is an iCloud.

00:29:42   So in that sense, it's super convenient.

00:29:45   I'm super skeptical of this just type in the air thing.

00:29:50   Like I don't see that as working

00:29:53   and I'm sure this is where Jason would say,

00:29:55   "I type 130, 160, whatever it is, words per minute."

00:29:58   I don't think I can type 160 words per minute,

00:30:00   says this hypothetical Jason, in the air.

00:30:03   And I'm not as fast as Jason, but I'm pretty quick.

00:30:06   And here again, I don't think I could get that fast

00:30:08   from something that's just relying on my fingers in the air

00:30:11   and a little bit my eyes.

00:30:13   I'm super skeptical, but as with all things Apple,

00:30:16   so often they come out with something

00:30:19   that works way better than we expect,

00:30:21   maybe even to the point that you can shrug off

00:30:24   an error here or there.

00:30:25   And I mean, heck, AutoCorrect has gotten so bad

00:30:27   on the iPhone recently that it's probably no worse

00:30:29   than that at this point.

00:30:32   - Well, I guess that's what they're hoping, right?

00:30:33   That by the time they release this thing,

00:30:35   they will be able to wow some features like that,

00:30:37   like it will just work, trademark.

00:30:40   - Yeah, and also in this article,

00:30:43   I thought there was an interesting little side thing

00:30:46   that they mentioned, I'm reading from the article.

00:30:48   While the first generation model will contain the M2 chip

00:30:51   alongside a secondary chip for AR and VR processing,

00:30:54   come to think of it actually,

00:30:55   I wonder if that's your afterburner

00:30:56   we were talking about earlier,

00:30:57   like having something specific.

00:30:59   You don't think so?

00:31:00   - No, I mean, you know what though, Casey?

00:31:02   Maybe, right?

00:31:04   Like that is an interesting point that you've made up.

00:31:06   It's like some other chip.

00:31:07   Yeah, yes.

00:31:09   So maybe a normal person wouldn't care about it,

00:31:11   but if you're a developer doing work for this headset,

00:31:14   maybe you would want that,

00:31:15   I'm gonna call it an afterburner, but--

00:31:16   - You can offload some stuff.

00:31:18   So you know what, we just fixed it.

00:31:19   That is a full circle, like lasso circle rumor rounder,

00:31:23   where from rumor one to the final rumor,

00:31:26   we actually solved it.

00:31:27   Good one. - Yee-haw.

00:31:28   Anyway, so I'm sorry, going back to this quotation.

00:31:30   So while the first generation model,

00:31:31   we can see in the MT chip

00:31:32   alongside a secondary chip for AR and VR processing,

00:31:34   it is apparently not powerful enough

00:31:35   to output graphics at the level Apple wants.

00:31:37   For example, FaceTime will only support realistic VR representations of just two people at a

00:31:42   time rather than everyone in the conference call with a first generation headset.

00:31:46   I don't know, I just found that very interesting that even with this thing allegedly pending

00:31:53   any minute now, it's still going to be, I'm going to use the word crippled, I think that's

00:31:57   more negative than I intended, but limited is a much better word for it, thank you.

00:32:00   Also not a great word anyway.

00:32:01   But like I- Oh good point, I didn't even think about that,

00:32:03   thank you very much.

00:32:04   That's alright, we point it out, it's language.

00:32:07   This has been referenced before, Mark Gurman was talking about how Apple was working on

00:32:14   some high quality representation of you that wasn't Memoji, which I was surprised about,

00:32:24   but that's for one on one calls and if it's more than two people then it would fall to

00:32:28   Memoji instead.

00:32:30   So that might be again, that's what he's referring to again.

00:32:34   - But that still surprises me,

00:32:35   if like I wish that they would have just found a way

00:32:40   to make it high quality.

00:32:41   So like, or just not bother, like, I don't know.

00:32:45   But I think a lot of this is,

00:32:47   I think the whole point of this device is gonna be like,

00:32:49   hey, this is what we can do now.

00:32:51   We're releasing it now with the idea that by 2025, 2026,

00:32:56   it's gonna be incredible.

00:33:00   - Yeah, yeah.

00:33:01   I mean, I'm super interested to see how this turns out.

00:33:03   I mean, I know I'm not the only one, but I just,

00:33:05   this is so out of left field.

00:33:07   You know, in a way, when we were thinking about the iPad,

00:33:10   it was, okay, it's just gonna be a big phone,

00:33:12   and that's kind of how it's been.

00:33:13   The watch was a little bit more interesting,

00:33:15   like what are they gonna do with that?

00:33:16   But looking at it today, maybe not the original one,

00:33:20   but the watch of today, okay,

00:33:22   it's kind of like a Fitbit, but better.

00:33:24   Yeah, all right, that makes sense.

00:33:25   But with the headset, like, I really just don't know

00:33:29   what they're gonna do with it,

00:33:30   and I'm really excited to see.

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00:35:34   Let's talk about moonshots.

00:35:39   In a pair of reports this week, Mark Gurman spoke about Apple's moonshot team and their

00:35:45   progress on Apple Watch glucose monitoring.

00:35:48   So I'm going to read a bunch of stuff, Casey, and we're going to talk about it.

00:35:52   So this team is called the Exploratory Design Group aka the XDG team.

00:35:58   They are even more secretive than any other design team at Apple.

00:36:03   I'm going to read from Mark Gurman's report.

00:36:07   The team originated several years ago and was long led by Bill Athas, one of the few

00:36:12   people to have had the title of engineering fellow at Apple until he unfortunately passed

00:36:17   away unexpectedly at the end of last year.

00:36:20   Athos was seen by the late co-founder Steve Jobs and current CEO Tim Cook as one of the

00:36:25   brightest engineering minds at the company.

00:36:28   Functionally, this team sits within the hardware technologies group.

00:36:32   So this is the group that's led by Johnny Srouji.

00:36:34   And this is interesting to me, their offices, so the XDG's team's offices are at Apple

00:36:40   Park but outside the ring, they're in one of like the buildings, there's like these

00:36:45   buildings on the outside, right, and they're in one of those, which kind of, they are almost

00:36:50   like a skunkworks project. So they operate kind of if they're a separate entity, they

00:36:55   have this kind of management style, the way that this has been employed for the XGG team.

00:37:00   It means that they don't have to go through the typical rules and bureaucracy that other

00:37:04   teams in Apple might have to go through. So they're less constrained. They're able to,

00:37:07   they've got a lot of money in the team, so they're very heavily funded. And this will

00:37:12   will allow them to more easily think outside of the box.

00:37:14   I kind of think of move fast and break things

00:37:17   as the mentality here, right?

00:37:18   That's kind of the idea of this.

00:37:21   So the XGG team consists of a few hundred people.

00:37:23   This is considered small for a team at Apple

00:37:26   working on any kind of product development.

00:37:28   Like they are apparently significantly smaller

00:37:30   than the team that's working on the car, Project Titan.

00:37:33   So we have become instantly familiar with this team now

00:37:38   because this is due to Mark Gurman reporting

00:37:41   on apparent breakthroughs that the team have made

00:37:44   on a non-invasive glucose monitoring system

00:37:47   for the Apple Watch.

00:37:48   The aim of this technology is to measure glucose levels

00:37:52   in someone's bloodstream without the need to prick a finger

00:37:54   or insert any kind of probes into a person's skin.

00:37:57   These are currently the way that you have to do that.

00:37:59   Like if you have to monitor your glucose levels,

00:38:02   like if you're a diabetic or for other health concerns,

00:38:05   it's inconvenient, painful, just not awesome basically.

00:38:10   Basically. Obviously if Apple are able to do this, which is why they've been working on it for years,

00:38:17   this would improve the lives of diabetics immensely and provide another incredibly

00:38:21   compelling use case for wearing an Apple Watch. I'm nearly at the end of this setup.

00:38:26   So this is how the system works according to Mark Gurman. It uses lasers to emit specific wavelengths

00:38:32   of light into an area below the skin where there is interstitial fluid. I don't like that phrase.

00:38:38   These are substances that leak out of the capillaries.

00:38:41   I don't like that either.

00:38:43   This can be absorbed by glucose.

00:38:45   The light is then reflected back to the sensor

00:38:47   in a way that indicates the concentration of glucose.

00:38:50   An algorithm then determines a person's blood glucose level.

00:38:54   This team has been working on the project for 12 years

00:38:56   and has now entered a proof of concept stage.

00:38:59   The team believe they've made the project viable,

00:39:01   but it needs to be shrunken down

00:39:03   to actually work with an Apple Watch.

00:39:05   Mark Goerman says engineers are working to develop

00:39:08   a prototype device about the size of an iPhone that can be strapped to a person's bicep.

00:39:12   That would be a significant reduction from an early version of the system that sat atop

00:39:16   a table.

00:39:17   This is how this stuff goes, right?

00:39:18   Like it's always huge and massive and they get it smaller and smaller.

00:39:21   So Mark Gurman states that Apple has visions for this system that could warn someone if

00:39:26   they're pre-diabetic, as well as helping them monitor their glucose.

00:39:30   So the way that I've read this too, this seems different.

00:39:35   So if they're gonna go ahead and do this,

00:39:37   I think they will take more of the approach

00:39:40   of the heart monitoring stuff

00:39:42   than the VO2 or the temperature sensors.

00:39:46   So these are like, you know, the VO2 sensor,

00:39:49   you know, the blood oxygen sensor,

00:39:50   the temperature sensor for like ovulation,

00:39:53   like what do they call it?

00:39:55   Retroactive ovulation or something like that.

00:39:57   Where I could just tell you afterwards, yes, you ovulated.

00:40:02   Those two sensors, they're not preventative,

00:40:07   they're not in your face.

00:40:10   You know, it's like the idea of like,

00:40:12   you can't use it to take your temperature

00:40:13   and it can't warn you if, you know,

00:40:16   they could never tie the VO2 sensor to COVID, for example.

00:40:22   These were things, they didn't go through

00:40:23   government health approvals for these,

00:40:25   so they can only be kind of like, hey, you know, maybe.

00:40:29   where the heart stuff is way more in your face, right?

00:40:32   Like something's wrong with you right now.

00:40:34   Or like you can do the full ECG.

00:40:37   To get that to work, Apple have to go to health bodies

00:40:40   in all of the different countries that they're in

00:40:43   and like get the approvals, which is why it's a system

00:40:46   that's rolled out more slowly over time.

00:40:49   I expect if they're gonna do this

00:40:51   with all the time, effort, money they've put into it,

00:40:54   this is the route they're gonna go down.

00:40:56   Because if they're like, "Hey, in the last week,

00:41:00   your glucose might have been a little bit high."

00:41:03   It's kind of not worth it, I feel like.

00:41:05   What they want is the ability to say,

00:41:08   "You are prediabetic," or, "You are spiking right now,"

00:41:11   or, "Your blood sugar's too low."

00:41:13   Because that's when they take the Apple Watch

00:41:17   and double its audience again

00:41:19   because it can now do this other thing.

00:41:22   Now everyone wants them again.

00:41:24   What do you think?

00:41:25   - Yeah, I think you're exactly right

00:41:27   that this would be a, like your heart rate.

00:41:31   Oh, your heart rate's been high for a little while,

00:41:32   you should look into that.

00:41:34   It would be kind of like a, hey, what about this?

00:41:39   - Yeah, something's wrong right now.

00:41:41   - Like, you might wanna check this out.

00:41:43   They're not gonna say, I don't think,

00:41:45   oh, you're pre-diabetic.

00:41:46   They're just gonna say, well, based on trends,

00:41:49   this is looking abnormal, or this is unusual for you.

00:41:53   Do you wanna look at that?

00:41:54   And I think that's, the EKG or ECG, whatever it is,

00:41:58   I think they're more direct about it.

00:42:00   You know, they're very clear to say

00:42:01   this won't detect a heart attack.

00:42:03   Not for heart attacks, just AFib, just AFib.

00:42:05   Not a heart attack.

00:42:06   No, we don't know, we don't know.

00:42:07   Just AFib.

00:42:08   Well, they're very particular about that.

00:42:09   When they introduced the temperature stuff for ovulation

00:42:13   and the blood oxygen stuff, you know,

00:42:15   especially the blood oxygen stuff,

00:42:16   all of us were waiting to be like,

00:42:17   "Okay, so you're gonna warn us when you have COVID, right?"

00:42:19   And they were very clear that that's not what's going on.

00:42:21   This is what you were saying earlier.

00:42:23   It's more about looking at trends

00:42:26   and just noticing if something's different.

00:42:28   And we already see a lot of that in health.

00:42:30   We see it with heart rate.

00:42:30   We see it with walking pace, if I remember correctly.

00:42:34   There's a bunch of other trends in there.

00:42:35   VO2 you had mentioned earlier.

00:42:37   And it seems to me that that's what it would be,

00:42:41   is look, this is trending in a direction

00:42:44   that you may not expect.

00:42:47   Do you wanna take some sort of action on this?

00:42:50   And as David Schaub is saying in the chat,

00:42:52   Nobody ever fired for telling you to ask your doctor

00:42:54   or going to IBM, but nevertheless,

00:42:56   it's not gonna be bad if they just ask you to look into it.

00:43:00   And I suspect that's where this is gonna go.

00:43:03   And as someone who writes software, at least occasionally,

00:43:07   it's a very far cry and the stakes are much lower

00:43:12   if you say, "Hey, look into this,"

00:43:14   rather than, "Oh, your current reading,"

00:43:17   and forgive me, I know nothing about this stuff,

00:43:18   "Your current reading is 100 and it should be 50."

00:43:21   And that is a much more explicit, much more concrete thing.

00:43:25   Or goodness, if you're plugging this into an insulin pump

00:43:29   or something like that, you cannot mess that up.

00:43:32   And I think that's not the normal sort of thing for Apple.

00:43:37   Project Titan, if it's real,

00:43:38   those are things you can't mess up.

00:43:40   But that's about it.

00:43:41   Almost everything else is just, hey, would you look at?

00:43:45   And that's as far as I think this will go.

00:43:47   - Well, Goodman does report that one of Apple's goals

00:43:49   of technology is to create a preventative measure that warns people with their pre-diabetic.

00:43:54   Like that is something they are actively trying to do and their regulatory teams have held

00:43:58   other discussions about getting approvals.

00:44:00   Like they want to do that.

00:44:02   They want, you know, like I know you said, like it seems heavy, but that's what they

00:44:06   want to do.

00:44:07   And I guess they seem to see this similarly to like, we think you're having a heart attack

00:44:12   kind of thing.

00:44:14   And like, I'm not saying this isn't, I believe this is amazing stuff that they're doing,

00:44:19   But again, how great is it for them if they release this

00:44:22   and then a year later they have another of those videos

00:44:24   where seven people were able to change their lives

00:44:28   and avoid diabetes, right?

00:44:30   It's not the reason to do this stuff,

00:44:32   but it's one of the many reasons.

00:44:35   I was listening to you guys talk about this in ATP.

00:44:40   And something Jon was saying was about the cost stuff,

00:44:43   which I just thought was really interesting.

00:44:45   So he was referencing the idea

00:44:47   that they would need to create a cheap,

00:44:48   he feels they would need to create a cheaper model

00:44:51   if they're gonna have this technology,

00:44:53   and I just don't think that's the case at all.

00:44:56   - Yeah, and it's funny you say that

00:44:57   because some of the feedback we've gotten,

00:44:58   which has been tremendous based on that segment,

00:45:02   is a lot of people say, well, particularly Americans saying,

00:45:05   "Look, we're already in an obscene amount of money

00:45:07   "for insulin and supplies and whatnot,

00:45:09   "so what's another shot?"

00:45:12   Well, that's a terrible choice of words, actually,

00:45:14   but what's another dose of another--

00:45:17   - How do you keep using these phrases?

00:45:19   - Oh my gosh, this is going right off the rails.

00:45:21   What's another few hundred bucks gonna do?

00:45:24   - No, wait.

00:45:25   - No, not that either.

00:45:27   Oh man, you're never having me back, are you?

00:45:29   Well, it's been fun.

00:45:30   So anyway, so if it's a few hundred bucks,

00:45:34   even a thousand bucks, like whatever,

00:45:36   if it makes my quality of life that much better,

00:45:38   I will pay infinite money for it.

00:45:40   - And this is like a $400 charge every three years

00:45:45   when you upgrade your watch,

00:45:46   rather than like, I'm gonna pay X amount of money

00:45:50   every month potentially for the medication

00:45:52   that I would need if I wasn't somehow

00:45:55   looking at this information.

00:45:57   And also it's one of those things where

00:46:01   I don't know if I would find,

00:46:04   I don't have any immediate use for this in my life,

00:46:06   I believe, but I don't know that to be the case.

00:46:09   So like for me, it's like, this is just another reason

00:46:12   to wear an Apple watch every day.

00:46:14   I have many reasons where I would much prefer to watch,

00:46:19   sorry, to have like a watch which is a mechanical watch.

00:46:23   That's what I want.

00:46:25   I have a selection of mechanical watches

00:46:27   that I bought over multiple years and I love them,

00:46:29   but I wear the Apple Watch every day

00:46:32   because I like tracking my fitness.

00:46:34   And I wear the Apple Watch every day

00:46:35   for this reason and that reason.

00:46:37   And Apple keeps making that list of reasons

00:46:41   longer and longer and longer.

00:46:44   And that is what they should be doing.

00:46:47   That is the thing.

00:46:48   And this health stuff, it makes it a no brainer.

00:46:52   Also, it kind of in a way, it's like if you have an Apple Watch

00:46:55   or you have the means to get an Apple Watch and you don't,

00:46:59   it almost feels like irresponsible.

00:47:01   - Yeah.

00:47:02   - Because you have the opportunity to have all of these health things in your life monitored.

00:47:08   Right?

00:47:09   Like if I'm ever unfortunate enough to have a heart issue,

00:47:12   I want to be wearing an Apple Watch just to make sure.

00:47:16   I know I have two personal friends

00:47:21   who have potentially had their lives saved

00:47:24   by wearing the Apple Watch for hot stuff.

00:47:27   - It's slowly becoming like a different form of insurance.

00:47:30   Right?

00:47:31   And like fall detection is another example.

00:47:34   Like what if something just catastrophic happens

00:47:36   and you hit the deck and you're unconscious

00:47:38   and your Apple Watch could potentially help you call,

00:47:42   call for help.

00:47:43   I mean, I could agree with you 100%.

00:47:45   And another piece of feedback,

00:47:46   specifically around glucose monitoring,

00:47:47   and this is coming back to what you were saying about health,

00:47:50   we got a few people writing in saying,

00:47:52   "Hey, I am super into health and fitness,

00:47:56   "and it seems,"

00:47:57   I am talking way out of turn right now,

00:47:59   but it seems, just based on the feedback we're getting,

00:48:01   that it's becoming in vogue, from what I can tell,

00:48:04   to have at least some amount of awareness

00:48:06   of what your blood sugar and glucose level is

00:48:10   for the purposes of health.

00:48:11   So these are people with no insulin problems,

00:48:14   no diabetic problems whatsoever,

00:48:16   but they are just trying to pay attention to this

00:48:19   in the same way that a health conscious person

00:48:20   would pay attention to cholesterol or something like that,

00:48:23   just because they want to try to make better decisions

00:48:25   for their body, and they are not in risk currently

00:48:28   of becoming diabetic or anything like that.

00:48:30   They just wanna be healthier, and apparently,

00:48:33   it is becoming, in some circles, kind of useful,

00:48:38   or in vogue, like I said, or interesting,

00:48:40   to try to keep track of this stuff and consider,

00:48:43   oh, well, I just had a sugar bomb.

00:48:45   I had Froot Loops for breakfast or whatever.

00:48:47   Maybe I should have something not so sugary for lunch,

00:48:49   or whatever the case may be.

00:48:51   So yeah, I think that there's a lot here,

00:48:53   even for those of us who are not actively in need of this,

00:48:56   which is exactly what you were saying a minute ago.

00:48:59   - So the Moonshots team as well has been working

00:49:03   on next generation displays.

00:49:04   I expect potentially foldable displays,

00:49:07   AI stuff, headset features for the VR AR headset

00:49:12   that could help people with eye diseases,

00:49:14   as well as low-power processors

00:49:16   and next-generation battery technology.

00:49:18   - Yeah, I mean, you said something about eye diseases,

00:49:22   I'm here for that, 'cause I have a very unusual disease

00:49:25   called keratoconus, which basically, in summary,

00:49:28   means my eyes are trash, and when I wear hard contact lenses,

00:49:31   I actually see pretty well, but it is possible

00:49:34   that one day in my future,

00:49:36   I will need to have a corneal transplant,

00:49:37   which I'm not looking forward to.

00:49:38   So yeah, when you talk about eye diseases,

00:49:40   my ears perk right up and my eyes get even bigger.

00:49:43   I say, tell me more.

00:49:44   I think having a team like this,

00:49:47   it is not surprising that Apple's done it.

00:49:49   It is slightly surprising that this is really the first

00:49:52   that I've heard of it.

00:49:53   I mean, obviously the whole point of this

00:49:55   is to be extraordinarily secretive.

00:49:56   So I mean, I guess it's not that surprising,

00:49:58   but yeah, I think having this moonshot group

00:50:03   is a very smart, very savvy, very reasonable thing to do.

00:50:07   And it's funny because earlier you were reading something

00:50:08   about how having this group kind of be off on its own,

00:50:12   off on an island, some of that is to get rid

00:50:14   of the bureaucracy.

00:50:15   And before I started talking about this stuff for a living,

00:50:19   but I was still interested in Apple,

00:50:21   I had always been told, oh Apple, small team,

00:50:23   small team, small teams, it's a small company,

00:50:25   which at the time, 10 years ago it was, now not so much,

00:50:28   or at least was smaller.

00:50:30   But now over the years I've gotten friendly

00:50:32   with a handful of Apple rank and file engineers

00:50:35   and a few product managers and things like that.

00:50:38   And what's become clear to me,

00:50:40   and I don't know Mike if you feel the same way

00:50:41   'cause I know you also know a bunch of people on the inside,

00:50:44   what has become clear to me is there's a,

00:50:48   it's a big company, it's like any other big company,

00:50:49   and there's a lot more bureaucracy and red tape

00:50:52   and process than you would expect for a company

00:50:55   that allegedly is move fast and break things.

00:50:59   - Impossible. - And there's a,

00:51:00   it's impossible. - Biggest company

00:51:01   in the world. - A company that size.

00:51:02   - They can't not have it, right?

00:51:04   Like everything that leaves Apple

00:51:06   has to go through a system of checks

00:51:08   to make sure that it's okay for the public, right?

00:51:11   For the millions, billions of people that use their devices.

00:51:15   But this team doesn't have to worry about any of that

00:51:16   because nothing that they do at their stage

00:51:20   reaches the public.

00:51:21   - Right.

00:51:22   - They get done with it, I'm sure,

00:51:23   and pass it on to another team

00:51:25   who will then go ahead and implement it.

00:51:27   So like they are kind of, and should be, like,

00:51:29   freed from some of the checks and balances

00:51:33   that would otherwise be in place.

00:51:35   And I think it makes a lot of sense

00:51:36   for this kind of stuff to happen.

00:51:38   - Definitely, and man, if there is a team

00:51:42   of just superstars at Apple that is basically

00:51:45   given a blank slate and saying, "Go build something cool,"

00:51:48   first of all, how fun would it be to be on that team?

00:51:50   And secondly, I can't wait to, in 30, 40, 50 years,

00:51:54   read the tell-all memoir about what happened

00:51:57   what came out of the XDR or excuse me XDG team because I bet some of the stuff is so

00:52:02   cool.

00:52:03   I'm so pleased that I didn't well from my to my memory never said XDR today convinced

00:52:08   I was gonna say it.

00:52:10   I'm happy that it was you that did it.

00:52:12   I'm here for you Mike.

00:52:14   Always.

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00:54:28   So I know that you are a fan of the segments on upgrade. I know it's just you, you tell

00:54:32   me that you love our segments. And so I thought in honor of having you as a guest on today's

00:54:39   episode, I would create a segment for you.

00:54:42   Oh, I'm excited.

00:54:43   So I haven't got a good name for it yet. I also don't know if it'd be successful, so

00:54:47   who knows if he'll ever come back.

00:54:49   But I'm calling this vibe check slash word association.

00:54:54   - Oh no.

00:54:55   - That's where we are.

00:54:55   So I have 10 words slash phrases

00:55:00   that I'm gonna throw out at you.

00:55:03   - Okay.

00:55:04   - And I want you to give me the first word

00:55:07   that comes into your head for each of them.

00:55:10   - Okay.

00:55:11   - And then for some of the interesting ones,

00:55:13   we're gonna double back on

00:55:14   and I'm gonna probe you a little bit more on them.

00:55:17   But we're not gonna stop and talk about each of them

00:55:19   because then you'll start to fill your brain up

00:55:21   with other words.

00:55:22   And I want the just like pure word association

00:55:26   you're gonna give me, all right?

00:55:27   - Okay, so this is like lightning round

00:55:29   and then we may or may not have a revisit

00:55:32   of some of these in a minute.

00:55:33   - Exactly, so maybe some of them may be more interesting ones

00:55:37   we'll double back on.

00:55:38   Or maybe if there's any that you will wanna take

00:55:40   another crack at, I'll let you double back on them.

00:55:43   Alright, how does that sound? Are you ready for this?

00:55:45   Casey didn't know what I was doing to him today.

00:55:47   No, no I didn't. I am, uh, I'm deeply nervous but I am ready.

00:55:52   My body is ready. Hit me baby one more time.

00:55:56   Alright, clear your brain, alright? You're gonna clear your mind.

00:55:59   I just want you to give me the first word or words, but short sentences at most.

00:56:04   Sure. Okay.

00:56:05   You ready?

00:56:06   Mm-hmm.

00:56:07   Headset.

00:56:08   Silly.

00:56:10   WWDC 2023

00:56:13   I hope I get to go

00:56:15   Apple Watch Ultra

00:56:18   Too big

00:56:20   Mac Pro

00:56:22   That's it, that's all I got

00:56:25   That's perfect

00:56:27   15" MacBook Air

00:56:29   Also too big

00:56:31   Periscope Lens

00:56:33   I hope not, because I'm gonna be real jealous

00:56:37   Tim Cook

00:56:39   - Uh, getting older.

00:56:42   - App Store.

00:56:44   - Just a total pain in the pine quarters.

00:56:48   - iPad Pro.

00:56:50   - I love it, but I don't know why.

00:56:53   - Apple.

00:56:55   - Getting too big as well, actually.

00:56:59   - This is great.

00:57:00   I actually wanna touch on all of these.

00:57:01   - Sorry, I know I repeated the same thing a couple times.

00:57:03   - No, that's fine.

00:57:04   - Okay. - This is good.

00:57:05   This is good information.

00:57:06   All right, so,

00:57:08   headset then, you think silly.

00:57:11   - Yeah, you know, so here's the thing.

00:57:13   One of the things I love so much about Upgrade,

00:57:15   and something that I've been thinking,

00:57:16   and I've talked to you about it privately a handful of times,

00:57:19   but I've been thinking a lot about,

00:57:21   is I wonder and I'm worried,

00:57:23   and now we're getting into analog territory,

00:57:25   but I wonder and I'm worried

00:57:25   that I'm getting to be too much of a curmudgeon

00:57:28   as I get older.

00:57:29   And I wonder and I worry that I'm not being enthusiastic

00:57:34   or perhaps open enough to new things.

00:57:38   But that being said, the first word that jumped into my head was silly.

00:57:41   And as I think that's because as I said to you before, I just don't get the point.

00:57:45   Like I don't think I'm going to want to cut myself off from the world from the world and put on this

00:57:50   headset probably look like a dummy even though I'll just be in my house and it's just my family

00:57:55   but still. I don't know. Sitting here today not having been sucked into the reality distortion

00:58:01   field, it just seems silly. It seems like they're doing it just because they feel like they should,

00:58:06   not because they have something to say.

00:58:08   But I hope that when the time comes,

00:58:11   I bring an upgrade level of enthusiasm.

00:58:15   I hope I upgrade my enthusiasm, but I'm pshh.

00:58:17   No, but I hope I bring an upgrade level of enthusiasm

00:58:19   to this product because I admire so deeply

00:58:23   that both you and Jason do such a good job

00:58:26   of really just giving everything a chance

00:58:28   and really kicking the tires and seeing if it's for you.

00:58:30   And if it isn't, at least you gave it an honest shake.

00:58:33   And I hope that when the time comes, I do the same.

00:58:35   I'm just choosing optimism, right?

00:58:37   That's kind of where I've decided.

00:58:40   I'm not saying I'm right or wrong,

00:58:41   but because there would be people that are like,

00:58:43   "Oh, you shouldn't just trust that everything they do is going to be great."

00:58:46   And I'm happy to do that because I think I have a long history at this point

00:58:51   of really saying when I don't think something's great.

00:58:54   And so my choice is just like,

00:58:57   I believe this is going to be really interesting and they have something.

00:59:02   I keep saying this, I think they need to and I believe they have the opportunity to have an iPhone, original iPhone like Keynote.

00:59:12   I think it's possible, I really do think it is. And I keep thinking back to when the iPhone was first released, and I forget what phone I had at the time, but when the iPhone was first released, I remember talking to people, not just nerds, people.

00:59:27   and being like, "Oh, are you gonna get a smartphone,

00:59:29   "or are you gonna get an Android,

00:59:31   "or a droid is what they were calling them

00:59:33   "at the time here in America.

00:59:33   "Are you gonna get a droid or maybe an iPhone?"

00:59:35   I was like, "No, why would I want that?

00:59:37   "I don't wanna stick a brick next to my face

00:59:39   "to talk on the phone."

00:59:40   And quickly it was made apparent

00:59:42   that I could not have been more wrong about this.

00:59:44   Like I was just deeply and utterly wrong.

00:59:46   And so here's a time that before I really gave it

00:59:49   an honest crack, my natural reaction was,

00:59:51   "Eh, it's not for me."

00:59:53   And I really want to get better

00:59:55   about choosing optimism, exactly like you said.

00:59:58   And my natural gut reaction was, oh, that's silly,

01:00:02   but I'm really trying very, very hard

01:00:06   to be, at the very least, cautiously optimistic,

01:00:09   if not genuinely enthusiastic.

01:00:12   - So one of the things that made

01:00:13   the original iPhone presentation so good

01:00:17   was the sound of the audience, right?

01:00:20   - Yeah. (laughs)

01:00:21   - So, WWDC 2023.

01:00:24   Is there a possibility here that it's so good they're willing to show it in person live in the keynote rather than a produced video?

01:00:36   Oh I didn't see where you were going with this at first but I do now.

01:00:39   I just had this thought.

01:00:40   You know I think if they really are releasing the headset I could see them doing it.

01:00:48   I'm just now thinking of this.

01:00:50   It wasn't in the show notes so neither of us cheated.

01:00:52   We didn't have a chance to really have a think about it.

01:00:54   I think it is certainly possible because you're exactly right.

01:00:58   Like so much of what made the iPhone keynote so amazing was hearing and to some degree seeing

01:01:05   everyone's reactions to what was happening on stage.

01:01:08   And for better or worse, and I'm not here to get into this conversation,

01:01:12   most of America, from what I can tell, not all, but most of America seems to have come to the conclusion

01:01:18   that COVID is over. I'm not looking to pass judgment one way or the other.

01:01:21   I'm just telling you that's my observation.

01:01:22   And so with that in mind, doubly so if they could do something that's like indoor/outdoor like they did last year,

01:01:29   it wouldn't surprise me if they did perhaps some sort of hybrid presentation where maybe they do an opener live,

01:01:38   they play a bunch of videos and then for the less important segments including maybe even iOS and macOS.

01:01:45   But then perhaps they come back and do a middle portion live or something like that. I don't know.

01:01:51   I mean, I've petitioned this as a question,

01:01:55   but I still don't believe it's the way they're gonna do it,

01:01:57   but it just popped into my mind.

01:01:58   Like for me, WWDC this year,

01:02:00   I think will be a more organized version of 22,

01:02:04   where they do everything they did in 2023,

01:02:08   but with notice of more than a week for most people.

01:02:11   - Yeah, you mean everything they did in 2022, right?

01:02:13   - Yes, so like when they announce it,

01:02:15   which I actually think is probably due

01:02:17   within the next two weeks,

01:02:20   my expectation for when they'll be announcing WWDC's date. It will be with a kind of breakdown

01:02:26   of exactly all those things like you can apply to come and if you do here's the stuff and

01:02:31   they maybe will do a couple more things in the week for the people that come in maybe

01:02:35   like on Tuesday and Wednesday but I don't expect it to be and I you know if we're looking

01:02:41   a spectrum here, that spectrum with WWDC22 and WWDC2019, we are vastly over towards the

01:02:50   2023 with like a slight kick back up. But like, I don't think they're ever doing this

01:02:55   in the convention center again. And I think most of them are just most likely to do a

01:03:00   little bit of what they did in 2022. But with a little bit more structure and notice. So

01:03:05   I don't think they're going to bring out the headset on stage and do like they're going

01:03:08   to keep doing the videos because also if you've got something which is by all rumors suggesting

01:03:14   still needs a bit more time in the oven, don't show it live when you can show it.

01:03:18   That is a very good point. That is a very, very good point. Yeah, the more we talk about

01:03:22   it, the more I'm convinced that you are correct that it's just going to be like 22 but better

01:03:26   and maybe slightly bigger. But I mean, if they really are confident enough that this

01:03:31   is the real deal in the same way they were with the iPhone, or surely it seemed to me

01:03:35   like they were with the iPhone. I could see them doing it live in person, but yeah, the

01:03:41   more you talk, the more you're convincing me that they probably will just do a repeat.

01:03:45   But what they will probably do is have the ability to let you go and try one on, which

01:03:50   is also funny, right? Like this, but like they can clean it down. They'll find a way

01:03:53   to do it. But that's probably what they're going to do. Alright, so I want to jump a

01:03:57   few ahead because I think I already know how you feel from some of these. For Tim Cook,

01:04:01   you said older.

01:04:03   Getting older, thank you.

01:04:04   or whatever, but I wrote down older in my notes and I think that makes much of a difference.

01:04:08   Tim Cook is 62 years old.

01:04:10   What do you mean by this?

01:04:12   And what do you, well, how are you feeling?

01:04:14   Expand on it a little bit.

01:04:16   How much time do you think we have left with Tim Cook?

01:04:18   I like Tim Cook.

01:04:19   I don't have any particular problem with him.

01:04:21   I think he's made mistakes as any human is going to do.

01:04:24   But on the whole, I think he's done a great job.

01:04:27   I don't think he's been a bad CEO.

01:04:28   Tim Cook is Apple's best CEO.

01:04:29   Like, there's no question in this, right?

01:04:33   by any normal measure he is their best CEO.

01:04:35   Every measure.

01:04:37   Every measure.

01:04:38   I don't know if he could have brought them back from Brink like Jobs did though.

01:04:41   But I don't...

01:04:44   Whatever.

01:04:45   You know what I mean?

01:04:47   I mean yes obviously that was an incredible thing but that was like the one thing that

01:04:53   made Steve Jobs a good CEO.

01:04:55   Like if you look at every other measure Tim Cook is a better CEO.

01:05:00   Yeah yeah I would I would I would say that's correct.

01:05:03   - I mean, when you go down to like charity matching.

01:05:06   - Oh, it's not even questions.

01:05:07   - Right, do you know what I mean?

01:05:08   Like Apple didn't have a policy for charity matching.

01:05:11   And so like all these kinds of little things,

01:05:13   but then also the huge things and like, yeah,

01:05:16   Steve Jobs saved the company from going out of business.

01:05:21   Tim Cook took it to become the most successful company

01:05:24   in all history.

01:05:26   - Yeah, yeah.

01:05:27   - Right, so like that is Steve Jobs' great thing,

01:05:32   and then he was great at product,

01:05:33   but there has been this, I think,

01:05:37   warped thing over time because of Steve Jobs

01:05:39   with the idea that the CEO needs to be the product person.

01:05:43   - Yep.

01:05:44   - But I don't think that's accurate.

01:05:45   - No, certainly. - This is that idea

01:05:47   of now all CEOs believe they should be the ones

01:05:50   standing on stage producing their products.

01:05:52   That was just the Steve Jobs thing.

01:05:54   It's not what a CEO needs to be.

01:05:56   - Yeah, I completely agree with you there.

01:05:57   Yeah, I think you're right.

01:05:58   He probably has been Apple's best CEO.

01:06:01   Again, I like Tim Cook.

01:06:02   I don't have any particular problem with him.

01:06:04   I think the thing that jumped into my mind,

01:06:06   I have no idea why, is he is getting older.

01:06:10   He's by no means old, but he's getting older.

01:06:13   And what did you say, 62, something like that?

01:06:15   - 62, yeah.

01:06:16   - He strikes me as the kind of person,

01:06:21   having interacted with him once

01:06:22   at the Brooklyn Apple Store for literally 15 seconds,

01:06:26   he strikes me as the kind of person

01:06:29   that would get to the point where he said, "I'm good. Not in a bad way, not in a nasty way,

01:06:34   not in any particular way. Just, 'I'm good. I've accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

01:06:40   I'm good now.'" And I feel like that could happen at any point. Now, he seems like the kind of

01:06:46   person that will have quite the plan around it. Like, he will have all of his T's crossed,

01:06:52   all of his I's dotted, but that sort of thing would happen internally. Like, we wouldn't

01:06:57   necessarily get wind of that. And especially since it would presumably be

01:07:00   happening mostly within the C-suite, right? You know, like I don't know that

01:07:04   anyone outside the the chosen few at Apple would necessarily need to know

01:07:07   about a succession plan or whatever the case may be.

01:07:10   Unless they're in it.

01:07:11   Right, that's my point. The C-suite and whoever else may be affected might need to know.

01:07:17   I believe at his level, you know, once it becomes serious he would have to talk to the

01:07:22   Security and Exchange Commission and so on and so forth, so there will come a

01:07:24   time that he would have to make a formal announcement if he's looking to retire but I just I just

01:07:29   feel like that time is coming and coming sooner rather than later I think well I mean it was

01:07:34   on a timeline right like it's it's closer than it's ever been because it will happen

01:07:38   I I from everything that we've read about him in books and stuff I don't think he's

01:07:47   will plan to retire until we literally can't do it anymore whether he's told to go or yeah

01:07:54   That the only real account that we have of him is the is that book that we read right

01:07:58   what is the name of the book?

01:08:00   The Trip Meikle one?

01:08:01   Yeah the Trip Meikle one and that Trip Meikle book indicated all he does and all he cares

01:08:06   about is his job like he has nothing else that he does and like I don't think that that

01:08:12   is a criticism I mean honestly in his position like isn't it better to feel that way like

01:08:20   if you're the CEO of Apple that is your entire life no matter what you want right?

01:08:24   - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:08:24   - Like realistically, how could you,

01:08:27   you can't get away from your job

01:08:28   because you're always, there's always something going on.

01:08:33   Like you are like politician level of needed, right?

01:08:38   - Yep.

01:08:39   - Like you can never be like, all right gang,

01:08:41   I'm gonna take a week off, nobody call me.

01:08:44   This is not gonna happen, right?

01:08:45   So if you are the type of person that like you live for that,

01:08:50   great, like you are now the right person for this job

01:08:53   because you're gonna be able to handle it better than other people, I think.

01:08:56   Yeah, I agree with everything you said, but didn't we see...

01:08:59   Like, wasn't there a news article like six months, maybe a year ago,

01:09:01   where he said he's gonna be out in the next five to ten years or something like that,

01:09:04   or am I making that up?

01:09:05   Yeah, he said something along the lines of like,

01:09:10   someone asked him, "When are you gonna retire?"

01:09:13   and he said that he didn't imagine it being even five years, or something like that.

01:09:17   Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I don't know.

01:09:22   I mean, I agree, like we were talking about earlier,

01:09:25   I see both sides of this coin, right?

01:09:27   Like on the one side, he has poured a significant portion

01:09:30   of his life into Apple, and he strikes me as a man

01:09:34   who wants to make a difference in good ways and in,

01:09:38   not bad, but different, in capitalistic ways.

01:09:40   I think he wants to make a difference with social,

01:09:45   with the rights of LGBTQA+ people.

01:09:50   He wants to make a difference with the environment.

01:09:51   He wants to make a difference socially.

01:09:53   He also wants to make a difference by making a,

01:09:56   by helping build a company that makes products

01:09:59   that makes our lives better, we think.

01:10:02   So I think he wants to make a difference,

01:10:03   and obviously the best way to do that, one would think,

01:10:05   would be to be at the helm of the good ship Apple.

01:10:08   But there's no reason he couldn't take

01:10:10   what I would assume to be his considerable wealth

01:10:12   and pour that into charity like Gates did,

01:10:15   although it's unclear to me whether or not

01:10:17   Gates was particularly successful at it.

01:10:19   I genuinely have no idea.

01:10:20   I don't know that about Tim Cook.

01:10:23   Like, I've never gotten any sense from him

01:10:27   that he does things philanthropic.

01:10:31   Like, he seems to do good via his role in Apple.

01:10:34   Like, I don't think it's clear to say

01:10:36   that he's gonna join the wealth pledge.

01:10:39   He could have done that already.

01:10:41   He doesn't need to have retired before he does that.

01:10:43   - Yeah, that's a very good point.

01:10:44   I don't know, he's just,

01:10:46   he strikes me as a reasonably decent and nice guy

01:10:50   who I think, I guess I just want him to have more to his life than just Apple,

01:10:55   and maybe he doesn't, maybe that is his life, but I don't know, I just I get this,

01:10:58   I get this the vibe check, the vibe is that he is slowly on his way out. I can't

01:11:04   really justify that in any concrete way, it's just the vibe I get is that he is

01:11:09   slowly meandering on out. And last one I want to talk about is Apple too big.

01:11:16   Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, my job, nominally, is to be enthusiastic about Apple and Apple-related things.

01:11:25   I don't know, I don't think it's bad for Apple to be as big as it is necessarily, but

01:11:30   I've gotten the feeling in the last year or two that they have reached a size that has either brought--

01:11:41   It has come with a level of hubris that I think I'm getting uncomfortable with.

01:11:48   Like what's going on with the app store and regulation in several different countries around the world

01:11:54   where Apple has had every opportunity to rein themselves in.

01:12:00   They've had every opportunity to make a concession here or there.

01:12:03   And given that it's Apple, you know, dummies like me would cheer from the streets

01:12:10   and from the rooftops and say,

01:12:11   "Oh, look at what Apple did, they're so kind to us.

01:12:13   "Oh, they did this extremely tiny thing

01:12:16   "that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

01:12:17   "Oh, that was so kind, it's so much better now."

01:12:20   And they haven't done it.

01:12:22   They're just marching down this road of,

01:12:24   we know best, everyone else is a dummy,

01:12:27   nobody should listen to anyone but us.

01:12:29   And I just, I don't love that.

01:12:32   I don't love that at all.

01:12:33   And I think that's always to some degree been the case,

01:12:36   especially around the App Store

01:12:38   and the butterfly keyboard for that matter, but I don't know. I just feel like maybe I'm just

01:12:43   having less tolerance for it and I'm misconstruing it as Apple being too big and maybe the problem is

01:12:48   inside the house so to speak, but I don't know. It just feels like they're getting a little big

01:12:57   for their britches and I don't love that feeling. Does that make any sense at all?

01:13:01   Well I mean at the point where they're brought into courts around the world for having two

01:13:08   large of a market and put in a stranglehold on it.

01:13:11   I think that would indicate that you're too big, yeah.

01:13:14   - Exactly.

01:13:15   I don't know, I'm getting a little nervous that,

01:13:18   you know, are we the baddies is starting to happen,

01:13:20   like for real this time.

01:13:22   - Well, I mean, that's interesting how it plays

01:13:24   into what you're just talking about with Tim Cook, right?

01:13:26   - Yeah, exactly.

01:13:27   It's because of Tim Cook.

01:13:29   Well, I don't love this whole everything is the CEO's fault

01:13:33   thing that all of us can do from time to time,

01:13:35   and I just did it just a second ago.

01:13:38   - But eventually the buck stalks with him.

01:13:40   - When it gets to a certain point, right,

01:13:41   so like a lot of this stuff around antitrust,

01:13:43   and he has the ability to steer the company

01:13:47   in a different direction if he thinks that it's wrong.

01:13:51   - Yeah, exactly.

01:13:52   - And that's not happening.

01:13:53   - That's not happening.

01:13:54   Yep, that's what I got.

01:13:57   - How did you enjoy your segment?

01:13:59   Did you like it?

01:14:01   - It was very stressful, but I enjoyed it.

01:14:03   Yeah, I'm not sure.

01:14:07   I don't love my answers because I really tried to play honest.

01:14:10   I really tried to come up with the first thing that, you know, say the first thing that came

01:14:13   to mind.

01:14:14   But I don't know.

01:14:16   If I'm ever lucky enough to come back, let's do it again.

01:14:18   Even if you don't do it any other time, let's do it again.

01:14:20   Let's see if I do a little better.

01:14:21   I especially feel guilty.

01:14:22   I repeated the same thing like two or three times, but you know, what are you going to

01:14:25   do?

01:14:26   I mean, if it makes you feel any better, you could ask me them.

01:14:30   That's true.

01:14:31   So you can get me on the record if you want?

01:14:33   Yeah.

01:14:34   Well, okay.

01:14:35   So do we have the time for this game?

01:14:37   'Cause I'm happy to play this game.

01:14:38   - We don't have to dig into them.

01:14:39   I can just give you the words.

01:14:41   'Cause I think if anything, it's the words that you feel

01:14:44   like, "Oh, did I reuse the right words?

01:14:46   "Did I say the wrong words?"

01:14:47   Well now you can get me on the record and then--

01:14:49   - Oh, I love this.

01:14:50   See, this is why you're such a professional podcasters.

01:14:52   - What can I say?

01:14:53   - This is good.

01:14:54   - So you've got the words here, right?

01:14:55   So you can, I'm not gonna look at them

01:14:57   and now you can just--

01:14:57   - Yeah, I was gonna say, look away from the show notes

01:15:01   because I'm gonna just jump around

01:15:02   and if you see my cursor, it's gonna be obvious.

01:15:04   - All right.

01:15:05   15 inch MacBook Air.

01:15:07   - Exciting.

01:15:07   - That's the most mic answers,

01:15:10   this is what I was talking about.

01:15:10   That's such a good mic answer.

01:15:12   Dub dub 2023.

01:15:14   - The same.

01:15:16   - Okay, Mac Pro.

01:15:17   - Smack Studio.

01:15:19   - Sick burn.

01:15:23   iPad Pro.

01:15:24   - Snooze Fest.

01:15:25   - Ooh, that is an even sicker burn.

01:15:29   Now we're getting aggressive.

01:15:30   Periscope lens.

01:15:31   - Give it.

01:15:33   - Oh yeah, no.

01:15:34   I don't want it because I'm gonna be so jealous.

01:15:36   App Store.

01:15:37   - Monopoly.

01:15:39   - That's the truth right there.

01:15:42   Tim Cook.

01:15:42   - Influential.

01:15:46   - No, I'll allow it.

01:15:48   Headset.

01:15:49   - I was gonna say exciting again, so I'll just be like,

01:15:53   New Dawn or something like that, we'll go with that.

01:15:55   - Okay, all right, that's fair.

01:15:56   Apple Watch Ultra.

01:15:57   - Tantalizing?

01:16:02   And then I believe this is the last one, Apple.

01:16:04   - Monopoly.

01:16:06   (laughing)

01:16:08   I mean, I don't know what to say, it's how I feel.

01:16:10   I think the App Store is,

01:16:15   that they have too tight control over it

01:16:17   and they're doing things that don't make any sense to me

01:16:19   and it's just gonna be a problem for them.

01:16:22   And so really, the App Store is Apple,

01:16:26   Apple is the App Store.

01:16:29   That for some, like, the app store is like this perfect

01:16:33   market cosm, if like, if Apple had its way,

01:16:35   this is how it would do everything.

01:16:37   - That's a good point, that's a very good point.

01:16:39   - If Apple had its way, they would only sell their products

01:16:42   in their own stores, right, their own retail stores,

01:16:45   they would never sell them outside.

01:16:46   They would put the prices up even further

01:16:48   if the market wouldn't, if only they could control

01:16:52   the entire market, like, this is how they would do it,

01:16:55   Right?

01:16:56   But unfortunately, they had to inherit the retail

01:17:01   and being in retail and selling products

01:17:04   before they could create their own market.

01:17:06   - Yep, that is such a excellent way of looking at it

01:17:10   and I could not possibly agree with you more.

01:17:12   Like if they had their druthers,

01:17:14   if such a thing were really possible,

01:17:15   this is exactly how they would do everything.

01:17:18   And I agree.

01:17:18   And that just feels gross to me

01:17:20   because I don't agree with the way

01:17:22   they're handling the App Store.

01:17:23   - Well.

01:17:25   they're not gonna be able to do it forever.

01:17:26   It's just gonna be how they go down,

01:17:28   or if they go down kicking and screaming.

01:17:30   - Yep, couldn't agree more.

01:17:31   That was fun, I enjoyed that.

01:17:33   It's much easier on this side of the table.

01:17:35   I appreciate you being willing to trade places

01:17:38   with me for a moment.

01:17:39   - Anytime.

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01:19:24   It's time for some Ask Casey Questions.

01:19:28   I wonder what form they would take. The first one comes from John who says

01:19:35   Casey is a noted fan of sporty cars with manual transmissions, but the future is electric.

01:19:42   When does he see himself moving to an electric car? Would he still prioritise the sporty

01:19:45   driving experience or what other factors matter more? Or if you had to buy an EV today, which

01:19:50   one would you pick and why?

01:19:53   You know, I tie up more of my personal identity with my car than I should, but it's something

01:20:00   I've been thinking about a lot, especially as now we're starting to get options that

01:20:03   are at least in the vicinity of affordable that are not made by Tesla. I think my next

01:20:11   This car will be an electric car.

01:20:14   I've talked to Erin about this and she is 100% on board.

01:20:17   - I mean, depending on when you buy it,

01:20:19   if you want a new car, you won't have many choices.

01:20:21   - Well, that's true and that's exactly

01:20:23   what I was gonna say actually is that my current car,

01:20:25   it's a 2018 model year.

01:20:27   It's a Volkswagen Golf R for what it's worth.

01:20:30   It is a six-speed manual transmission.

01:20:33   It only has like 20,000 miles on it.

01:20:35   I put very few miles on my car.

01:20:37   And so I don't expect to need a new car

01:20:40   probably three to six years, but that being said, if something happened to the

01:20:46   car where it got like totaled or something like that, what would I get?

01:20:48   Well, the first thing I'll probably look at is are there any good replacements

01:20:52   for my car? There is a brand new version of my car, the Volkswagen Go Far. It's

01:20:58   still available with a stick surprisingly, but my understanding is

01:21:01   the interior is garbage and there's not a lot else that's available that's kind

01:21:05   of sporty and also has four doors and also isn't a hundred plus thousand dollars that also has you

01:21:11   know a six-speed transmission and so that leaves leads me to electric so if i were to do it today

01:21:16   i think i would try to find a kia ev6 gt so the kia ev6 is the same as the hyundai ionic

01:21:24   ionic 5 i believe i think i have that right um and it is basically a kind of a crossover

01:21:31   hatchback-y sort of thing, but the EV6 GT specifically is like an all-wheel

01:21:37   drive, you know, we'll sacrifice range for ridiculous speed sort of version of the

01:21:42   EV6. 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds which is like a almost double as fast as my

01:21:48   car today and my car today is not slow. So I would probably do that but I would

01:21:52   also take a look at the Ford Mustang Mach-E. I don't love the fact that it's

01:21:56   a Mustang like it doesn't offend me but it seems silly but I did drive one very very very briefly

01:22:03   a couple of years ago and I loved it I was surprised how much I enjoyed it so I would take

01:22:08   a look at both of those if I were to buy today they're both they both appear to be very very

01:22:12   good cars. Joe asks if you were suddenly in charge of developer relations at Apple in addition to

01:22:18   improved documentation which you've written about before what other changes would you make? The first

01:22:24   The first thing I would do is I would burn Feedback Assistant.

01:22:27   I would burn it with the fire of a thousand suns.

01:22:30   Gosh, do I really dislike, you know,

01:22:33   we have two small kids at home,

01:22:34   and we've been trying not to use the word hate,

01:22:37   and we've come to the conclusion that

01:22:38   if you think you hate something,

01:22:40   the correct phrasing is, "I'm still learning to like it."

01:22:43   So let's just say,

01:22:44   "I'm still learning to like Feedback Assistant."

01:22:46   - Is there like a kids' TV show

01:22:47   that taught you this phrasing or something?

01:22:49   - I don't think so.

01:22:50   This was Erin that came up with this.

01:22:51   - Okay, that's really good.

01:22:51   - I don't know where that came from.

01:22:53   I think that maybe she found it somewhere, I don't know.

01:22:55   I thought it was an original composition, but yes,

01:22:57   I'm still learning to like Feedback Assistant.

01:22:59   In the defense of Apple,

01:23:00   their documentation has gotten better,

01:23:03   but it turns out when you're in a desert

01:23:05   and you haven't had water in three days,

01:23:08   even the world's crappiest water

01:23:10   is still better than nothing.

01:23:12   So yeah, I would absolutely improve documentation.

01:23:14   I personally would make some amount of documentation

01:23:18   a requirement for shipping an API.

01:23:21   So you as a developer at Apple,

01:23:24   working on Swift UI or something like that,

01:23:26   you cannot release your new Swift UI code as Apple,

01:23:30   unless you provide documentation for that code, period.

01:23:33   No exceptions.

01:23:34   - I'm not, I don't understand how to do any of this stuff,

01:23:38   but that does seem like a,

01:23:40   just a bare minimum thing to do.

01:23:43   - You would think.

01:23:44   - You should be able to, if you want people to use it,

01:23:47   tell people how to use it.

01:23:49   - Right? - Like I agree with you.

01:23:50   I'm doing the Steve Carell, smack the desk, thank you,

01:23:53   right motion right now, because that's so true.

01:23:55   And then the other thing I would really love,

01:23:57   which I think, again, to Apple's credit,

01:24:00   they've been getting better about this,

01:24:02   but I still think they have a long way to go,

01:24:04   is I would love to have more frequent access

01:24:06   to internal developers, or maybe even product managers.

01:24:10   They've been doing these things on Slack

01:24:11   for like a week at a time, once or twice a quarter,

01:24:15   which are okay, and that gives people access

01:24:18   to their internal team to some degree.

01:24:20   It's one of those like, oh, throw a question over the wall

01:24:23   and you'll see if they answer it sort of things.

01:24:26   That's an improvement, but it would be,

01:24:28   and gosh, I don't know how they would make this work,

01:24:30   but it would be cool if I could get the attention

01:24:34   of an internal developer or do a better job

01:24:37   of singling out, I would love this team

01:24:40   to answer this question, and maybe they wouldn't,

01:24:42   and I understand that this has a trillion

01:24:43   different problems. - It's too many questions.

01:24:45   - Exactly, no, it's too many, it's too much.

01:24:47   There's a million reasons why this wouldn't work,

01:24:49   But if I was waving my magic wand,

01:24:52   I would love to have some way somehow

01:24:53   more frequent access to internal developers or PMs.

01:24:56   - Apple, I got it.

01:24:57   This is, Tim, I'm speaking straight to you right now.

01:25:00   We'll call it Developer Plus.

01:25:02   - No, no, please no.

01:25:03   - Pay $150 a month and you get the ability to ask questions.

01:25:08   Come on, just make it happen.

01:25:09   It's what Casey wants.

01:25:10   - To save you some feedback, there are things,

01:25:13   oh gosh, what are they called?

01:25:14   They're like instants or something?

01:25:15   I forget the term for it.

01:25:16   - Yeah, you get tickets, right,

01:25:17   you can raise a couple of them a year.

01:25:19   - Exactly right.

01:25:20   That I think it's, you get a couple of freebies

01:25:22   and then I think it is actually,

01:25:24   I'm doing major air quotes here,

01:25:26   only $100 after that per ticket.

01:25:28   But you can throw something,

01:25:30   what is it, a technical support instant or something like that?

01:25:33   I can't remember the name of the darn thing.

01:25:35   But you can throw something over the wall

01:25:37   and allegedly and ostensibly,

01:25:40   they will actually pay attention to it,

01:25:43   which is different than feedback assistant.

01:25:44   So I do need to avail myself of this from time to time.

01:25:47   In fact, now that I'm thinking about this,

01:25:49   I'm working on something new

01:25:51   that I could totally use one of these incidents

01:25:54   on something I'm fighting in that new project.

01:25:56   So maybe I should do that now that I think about it.

01:25:59   -I had an e-mail the other day

01:26:01   about a feedback that I'd raised.

01:26:05   "Changes have been released

01:26:07   that should have addressed this report.

01:26:08   Could you please confirm that the behavior

01:26:10   is working as intended?

01:26:11   "Feedback ID FB8822070, enabling assistive touch

01:26:16   "changes the size of the iPad OS pointer."

01:26:19   This was maybe 2018, I read this,

01:26:23   and it was fixed in 2018, like I don't know why now.

01:26:28   - Wasn't this what you and Grey were talking about

01:26:29   for a long time?

01:26:30   - No, this was, do you remember before they released

01:26:36   the Magic Trackpad, the iOS version as Magic Trackpad,

01:26:39   there was the ability to have a cursor connected, right?

01:26:43   And this was a bug that I found where for some reason

01:26:47   the cursor size was changing a bunch.

01:26:50   - Oh, okay.

01:26:51   - I don't remember.

01:26:52   I'm seeing if I'm trying to log in now

01:26:54   to see if I can find my feedback that I raised,

01:26:57   which is, let's say it's actually quite complicated

01:27:00   to find, excuse me, whatever, of course it is.

01:27:03   iOS 14.3.

01:27:07   - Goodness.

01:27:09   a few minutes ago. Yeah it was some time ago so it taken a-- oh this was from October 2020

01:27:15   that I erased that so maybe it was something with the trackpad. When assisted touch is enabled the

01:27:20   cursor immediately switches to maximum size it no longer accepts the size that is set elsewhere in

01:27:25   settings is what I said. It's taken them nearly three-- it's two and a half years to get back to me.

01:27:32   Yeah I mean they must receive just a mind-boggling amount of feedback so I do as much as I

01:27:38   grumble and complain, I do empathize with what they're fighting, but at the same time,

01:27:43   like, this is your job is to manage these sorts of things and figure out a way that works for both of us.

01:27:50   But like, I am a known feedback hater, you know, I'm always hating on the feedback and like,

01:27:54   what I've just given you there is one of my reasons of like, I raised this so long ago and it was

01:27:58   fixed so long ago, but it almost feels like it had nothing to do with the thing that I raised, right?

01:28:03   Yeah, totally.

01:28:04   So like, you know, it's just like, I'm not really sure how helpful it is to actually raise

01:28:08   these things, I just prefer to talk about them on a podcast instead.

01:28:12   Yep, well running the press never helps, except it always does.

01:28:15   Yeah.

01:28:16   Anuk asks, "What do you think of SwiftUI and Combine now that it's almost four years ago

01:28:21   that it was released?

01:28:22   Do you still crawl back to RxSwift?"

01:28:26   So very, very briefly, a little bit of context.

01:28:28   RxSwift is an open source third-party package that you can use to do what's called functional

01:28:35   reactive programming.

01:28:36   So again, I could go on a tangent of a tangent of a tangent, but suffice to say with RxSwift,

01:28:40   and Combine is like the Apple version of RxSwift, or functional reactive programming, the idea

01:28:45   is hey, if you treat everything as like a sequence of events over time, like a mouse

01:28:51   click or a tap for example, it's going to happen periodically.

01:28:56   And if you just treat that as a sequence of events over time, you can do things with it.

01:29:01   And I really, really have come to enjoy that style of programming, and I think it's really,

01:29:07   really good.

01:29:08   I was devoutly and vocally into RxSwift a few years ago.

01:29:13   I really enjoyed Combine.

01:29:15   It made some different choices than RxSwift, some better, some worse, but all in all I

01:29:18   really, really liked it.

01:29:19   And honestly, once Combine came out, I mostly stopped using RxSwift simply because Combine

01:29:23   got me most of the way there, and it was first party, which was nice.

01:29:28   So it's ostensibly well tested and reliable.

01:29:31   And so not that RxSwift wasn't, but you know what I mean.

01:29:34   That being said, especially over the last couple of years,

01:29:36   I've really started to enjoy SwiftUI.

01:29:38   And some of that is powered by Combine, but not all of it.

01:29:40   I really have come to like SwiftUI quite a bit.

01:29:43   And I've also really enjoyed in the last year or two,

01:29:47   I guess two years, Swift's async/await,

01:29:49   which accomplishes some similar things,

01:29:52   the asynchronous side, particularly of Combine

01:29:55   in RxSwift, but it does it in a very different way.

01:29:58   And there's also been some motion

01:30:01   with regard to async/await.

01:30:02   There's async_sequence, which is sort of kind of,

01:30:05   if you squint just right, it's kind of like a publisher,

01:30:07   which is the, or a observable,

01:30:09   which is kind of the main thing in RxSwift and Combine.

01:30:12   And there's also a Swift async_algorithms,

01:30:15   which is, if you squint and look just right,

01:30:17   kind of sort of combined, but for async/await.

01:30:21   And so between Async algorithms, Async sequence,

01:30:26   and Async await, that gets me most of what combined

01:30:32   and RxSwift got me before.

01:30:33   But that being said, in my new thing,

01:30:35   I needed to do something called debounce some user input.

01:30:38   So users typing in a search field,

01:30:41   and I need to go search against some web server somewhere.

01:30:44   And I don't wanna do a new search

01:30:45   every time they type a letter.

01:30:47   So you wait for them to stop for a half a second

01:30:50   or something like that before you send that search

01:30:52   across the internet.

01:30:53   And what I ended up doing was using Combine for that

01:30:56   because Combine has these affordances

01:30:57   that unless I bring in async algorithms,

01:31:00   I don't have an async await.

01:31:01   So that's a lot of words to say.

01:31:03   I'm not using RxSwift.

01:31:04   I am using Combine, but mostly I'm only in on SwiftUI

01:31:08   and particularly async await.

01:31:09   - I agree.

01:31:11   - Totally.

01:31:12   - Brad asks, "How is Apple Photos treating you?

01:31:14   You have to be dragged to the app kicking and screaming.

01:31:17   Do you like it yet?

01:31:17   Do you have hundreds of albums and memories?

01:31:19   Can we all celebrate Erin having more than 30 days of photos on her phone?

01:31:23   (laughing)

01:31:24   Yeah, so for context, what I would do is, I would,

01:31:27   and with her full knowledge, you know, I would take Erin's phone every month

01:31:29   and I would suck in, you know, the last 30 days of pictures,

01:31:33   and then I would leave, you know, only the most recent month on her phone

01:31:38   and then I would remove all the rest of them.

01:31:39   Now we're on, you know, I'm on the Apple Photos train,

01:31:43   happened for a while, then we jumped on the shared photo library thing

01:31:46   as soon as that was available.

01:31:48   I gotta say, it has been very reliable,

01:31:50   surprisingly reliable.

01:31:51   I have not yet known, as I knock on my relay block

01:31:54   that you gave us many years ago,

01:31:55   I have not known there to be a problem with Apple Photos.

01:31:59   Erin, surprisingly, hasn't really said much

01:32:00   about having the ability to go way back in time.

01:32:03   Perhaps she's just not thinking about it most times,

01:32:06   because she has 10 plus years of not being able to do that,

01:32:09   so it's still new to her.

01:32:11   Search is terrible, as compared to Google Photos,

01:32:16   which I don't love, and this is why I'm so religious

01:32:18   about geotagging my pictures, and even the ones I take

01:32:22   with my aforementioned Micro Four Thirds camera,

01:32:24   I will make sure that I geotag them so that if I need

01:32:28   to find a picture that I know was taken at Mike's wedding,

01:32:31   I don't remember exactly off the top of my head

01:32:34   when Mike's wedding was.

01:32:35   I know it was early July of 2018.

01:32:37   I couldn't tell you the exact date.

01:32:39   - You've already got enough though, right?

01:32:41   - Well, and I probably could, that's true.

01:32:43   - With that exact example, you've got enough.

01:32:45   Yeah, that was a terrible example, but here we are.

01:32:48   But I know I took a picture in London.

01:32:50   Maybe I don't know what visit to London it was,

01:32:53   but I know I took a picture in London.

01:32:54   Well, I can zoom in and Apple Photos on London

01:32:56   and hopefully be able to find that picture.

01:32:59   And that's something I do not infrequently.

01:33:01   And it works reasonably well for the most part.

01:33:04   I haven't done much with albums.

01:33:06   I only have a couple of them.

01:33:07   But in the grand scheme of things,

01:33:08   it's actually going pretty well.

01:33:09   And I can say, from my point of view,

01:33:13   and I have something close to a terabyte of pictures

01:33:16   and videos and whatnot in Apple Photos,

01:33:19   it's worked pretty well and I can give it my recommendation.

01:33:22   I don't know if I'd go so far as full throated recommendation

01:33:24   because it is a little wonky from time to time, but--

01:33:26   - I don't think anybody at this point

01:33:28   is still looking for a recommendation about the photos now.

01:33:31   - No, that's true, that's true.

01:33:32   - Right, like you were the last to get on board.

01:33:34   (laughing)

01:33:36   - It was just me, it was just me.

01:33:38   - Finally, Apple has achieved it.

01:33:40   - Yep, yep, they can all retire.

01:33:42   Tim Cook can retire now.

01:33:42   - You know what, actually, we have a mutual friend

01:33:45   who is also, I'm not gonna name them,

01:33:47   I'm not gonna out them, they can choose to out themselves,

01:33:49   who is also still a holdout on Apple Photos,

01:33:53   and it is mind-boggling to me.

01:33:55   I don't understand how they live their life.

01:33:58   I mean, you'd think that they could have calculated

01:34:03   a different response by now, but who could tell?

01:34:05   - Yeah.

01:34:06   - Victor says, "With your professed adoration

01:34:09   "of the Apple Silicon MacBook Pro,

01:34:11   I am curious to know how the iPad Pro hits into your life now, and if the MacBook Pro

01:34:15   is responsible for any change in your iPad usage habits.

01:34:20   So I did get a new iPad Pro, when it was late last year when they refreshed them.

01:34:26   My previous iPad was the OG Face ID iPad Pro from 2018.

01:34:31   And I got a new one mostly because I just felt like it was time.

01:34:35   Honestly, I don't have a specific reason for it.

01:34:38   There was nothing wrong with my iPad Pro, my previous one.

01:34:40   It didn't feel that old,

01:34:43   like it definitely felt a little slow here and there,

01:34:45   but for the most part it felt fine.

01:34:46   But I got a new one and I do like my iPad Pro.

01:34:51   I want to love my iPad Pro and I just can't get there.

01:34:55   And I know this is gonna sound like me slagging

01:34:57   on like Federico or something.

01:34:58   I'm really honestly not trying to.

01:35:01   I don't understand how--

01:35:02   - Federico's on board at the moment I think.

01:35:04   - Well, that's also true.

01:35:05   Well, Jason even, Jason's also an iPad.

01:35:08   - Yeah, but, yeah.

01:35:10   - You know what I'm saying.

01:35:12   I don't mean to slag on iPad,

01:35:14   I was almost gonna say apologist,

01:35:16   but I don't mean that either.

01:35:17   iPad fans, I'm not trying to slag on iPad fans,

01:35:19   but how do people get serious work done on an iPad?

01:35:22   I feel like for me, I'm getting fought every step of the way

01:35:26   and it occurred to me that I,

01:35:28   and I'm weird, I'll be the first to tell you,

01:35:31   I do a lot of work, or not work work,

01:35:33   but I do a lot of things,

01:35:35   oftentimes for pleasure in the terminal.

01:35:38   I do media management, maybe I'll be adding geotags

01:35:40   to photos, not usually, but it could happen.

01:35:43   I do a lot of stuff in the terminal.

01:35:44   I would do anything for like an honest to goodness

01:35:48   terminal app on the iPad.

01:35:50   I know there's things like ISH which kind of sorta

01:35:53   get you there, but I'm saying like a real honest

01:35:55   to goodness terminal app would be amazing.

01:35:58   And like even SSH connections, like I do that

01:36:01   and I'll SSH into either my Mac mini or my Macs book pro

01:36:04   as I like to call it, but it's just not as,

01:36:06   It's not the same, I don't like it as much.

01:36:08   I haven't really found a terminal equivalent app

01:36:11   on the iPad that I really like.

01:36:13   Maybe I should write one, I don't know.

01:36:15   But I just, I really wish that I could find more reasons

01:36:20   to use my iPad, but all of that being said,

01:36:24   oh my word, having an onboard cellular connection

01:36:27   is so nice, and if we're going somewhere

01:36:29   and Aaron is driving, and we're gonna be in the car

01:36:33   for more than just a few minutes,

01:36:34   just sitting there on my iPad Pro,

01:36:36   even if all I'm doing is goofing off,

01:36:38   having the onboard cellular connection is so choice.

01:36:41   If you have the means, I highly suggest you try it

01:36:44   because it is so, so nice.

01:36:45   Yes, I know you can tether.

01:36:47   Yes, I know that that's even easier now.

01:36:49   - Tethering sucks,

01:36:50   but it drills the battery of two devices, tethering's bad.

01:36:53   - Thank you.

01:36:53   Yep, everyone is always, "Oh, you can tether,

01:36:55   "why don't you just tether like everyone else?"

01:36:57   Because it stinks, it's exactly what Mike said.

01:36:59   It stinks, you're draining the battery

01:37:01   of two different devices.

01:37:02   It's just, it's so much nicer to have it onboard.

01:37:05   And that brings us full circle to the list talk question

01:37:07   from earlier.

01:37:08   I would do anything for a cellular connection

01:37:09   on a MacBook Pro or even just a MacBook Adorable.

01:37:11   It would be amazing.

01:37:12   - Yep.

01:37:13   Last question comes from Dan who wants to know

01:37:16   what are some of your favorite books

01:37:17   that you've read recently?

01:37:19   - So I'm gonna say this right up front.

01:37:21   He is a friend of mine.

01:37:22   I really enjoy him, but genuinely,

01:37:25   hand on heart, The Nova Incident by Dan Morin,

01:37:28   you know, mutual friend of ours.

01:37:30   I really, really liked that book.

01:37:33   I have not disliked any of Dan's books. I've enjoyed them.

01:37:37   I've enjoyed each one more than the last one,

01:37:39   but the NOVA incident was like,

01:37:42   can't put it down level of enjoyment.

01:37:44   I really, really liked it.

01:37:46   And I strongly encourage you check them out.

01:37:49   - I wonder if that was the same Dan asked the question.

01:37:52   Who?

01:37:52   - Yeah, I didn't even think about that. That's true.

01:37:54   - Who? No.

01:37:55   - Oh, if only you knew.

01:37:58   It wasn't the same Dan, 'cause I'd be hilarious.

01:37:59   - Yes, yes it was Dan.

01:38:00   - Oh, I didn't know that.

01:38:02   I really honestly did not know that. That's funny as heck because all it says in the show notes is Dan Coleman.

01:38:07   Now there is the big smiley face at the end, so I guess I should have put it together, but hand on heart,

01:38:11   I really honestly did not realize it was the same Dan.

01:38:13   You knew. I knew you didn't.

01:38:16   Oh, that's so funny. No, but really and truly, each one of them is good.

01:38:20   I would encourage reading all of them, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary

01:38:23   to get, you know, to start. You could start with Nova Instinct, but it is so good.

01:38:27   I'm gonna rapid-fire a few others.

01:38:29   Elder Race, which I believe Jason recommended actually by Adrian Tchaikovsky. That was a little outside of my normal

01:38:36   genre, you know, I'm usually like a

01:38:39   action thriller kind of person and this was more sci-fi and fantasy

01:38:43   Which is weird for me to say both of those in the same thing, but it was both sci-fi and fantasy

01:38:48   I really liked it. Erin read it and she was less enthusiastic about it, but I thought it was really good

01:38:53   Upgrade by Blake Crouch. I've read several Blake Crouch's books. I

01:38:58   Really liked upgrade in fact on my Goodreads. It might be my only five-star book so far

01:39:03   In that and yeah, it is a very good name providing anything about that either a very very good book

01:39:09   I really enjoyed it. No way instant. I

01:39:12   Didn't give a fifth star because I am extremely stingy with my fifth star, but genuinely I

01:39:17   I really thought long and hard about giving no Vincent five stars and no, but now as I'm talking about it

01:39:23   I actually wonder if maybe I should go back. Well, I'll think

01:39:26   Because it really was that good. It was really genuinely that good but upgrade by Blake Crouch was very good

01:39:31   And I also wanted I have a triplet if you will

01:39:33   There are three different books that I've read and then since watched the television show or well actually two of them

01:39:41   I've watched the television show based on the book

01:39:43   The first of which is the terminal list by Jack Carr

01:39:46   I found the book to be way better than the series that was on Amazon that starred

01:39:51   Chris Pratt

01:39:53   The series was okay, the TV series that is.

01:39:57   I loved the book though.

01:39:59   Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty.

01:40:02   That was a series on Hulu.

01:40:04   I liked, that was kind of in the middle.

01:40:06   Like the TV series was good,

01:40:08   but I liked the book more.

01:40:10   And then I just a week or so ago

01:40:12   finished Slow Horses by Mick Herron.

01:40:14   I have not yet watched the Apple TV+ TV series.

01:40:17   I have heard it's phenomenal.

01:40:19   - Good, so good.

01:40:21   - My parents were also raving about it.

01:40:22   - I love it.

01:40:24   - I thought the book was okay.

01:40:26   I know almost nothing about the TV series.

01:40:28   I might love the TV series

01:40:30   because I will eventually watch it.

01:40:31   I thought the book was all right.

01:40:32   It was like half of the book just kind of,

01:40:35   nothing happened really and I just--

01:40:38   - Yeah, I didn't get that feeling from the show.

01:40:39   The show is action-packed beginning to end.

01:40:41   - Good, good, good, okay. - Both seasons, so excellent.

01:40:44   - So yeah, so I only read the first book

01:40:46   and I don't know how many there are in the slow,

01:40:48   or the, what is it, the Slough, or the,

01:40:50   is it Slough House? - Slough House, yeah.

01:40:52   - Yeah, I don't know how many books are in the series,

01:40:54   but I know there's many.

01:40:56   I only read the first one, Slow Horses,

01:40:58   and I didn't dislike it, but it was all right.

01:41:01   And so I do wanna watch the Apple TV+ series,

01:41:04   'cause again, I've heard you rave about it,

01:41:05   my parents were raving about it,

01:41:06   everyone I've talked to about it says it's great,

01:41:08   so I need to give it a shot.

01:41:09   - Yeah, it's excellent.

01:41:10   There's two seasons, they're doing a third

01:41:12   and fourth season as well.

01:41:13   Gary Altman is just unbelievable in that shot.

01:41:15   - Yeah, I mean, that's not surprising,

01:41:16   but yeah, I've heard the same.

01:41:18   Mike, what have you read lately that you've enjoyed?

01:41:20   If you would like to send in a question of your own to answer on a future episode of

01:41:24   the show, remember Jason will be back next week.

01:41:27   You can go to UpgradeFeedback.com and you can send in your Ask Upgrade question.

01:41:34   Thank you for listening to this episode of Upgrade.

01:41:36   If you want to find Casey's work, go to CaseyList.com.

01:41:40   You can listen to his podcast analog here on Relay FM and of course the Accidental Tech

01:41:44   podcast at ATP.fm.

01:41:47   You can listen to my shows here on Relay FM, you can check out my other work at cortexbrand.com.

01:41:52   You can send us your feedback and your questions at upgradefeedback.com.

01:41:57   You can find us both on Mastodon, Casey is on mastodon.social, he is @caseyliss and I

01:42:02   am on mike.social and I am @imike.

01:42:07   Thank you to our members, the supporters of Upgrade Plus.

01:42:10   In today's edition of Upgrade Plus I'm going to be asking Casey a bunch more Ask Casey

01:42:16   questions because there were so many that came in and if I don't ask him now

01:42:19   well when am I gonna get to ask him because Jason takes one vacation every

01:42:23   seven years it would seem. Thank you to our sponsors of this week's episode

01:42:29   ZocDoc, Ooni and the wonderful people of Rocket Money as well. I want to extend a

01:42:35   very special thank you to Casey for filling in for Jason today. Thank you

01:42:39   Casey. Of course the pleasure is all mine I am genuinely honored to have been here

01:42:43   So thank you. And of course, thank you for listening.

01:42:46   I'll be back next week.

01:42:47   Until then, say goodbye, Casey.

01:42:49   Let's I'll see you later, Mike.

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