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Upgrade

501: The Perfect Noodling Computer

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   - From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 501.

00:00:13   Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace

00:00:16   and Ooni Pizza Ovens.

00:00:17   It is February 26th, 2024.

00:00:21   My name is Mike Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snow.

00:00:23   Hello, Jason.

00:00:25   - Happy February 26th, Mike.

00:00:27   - To all who celebrate.

00:00:29   To all who celebrate, yes.

00:00:30   Whoever they are, wherever they are.

00:00:32   - I have a snow talk question for you.

00:00:34   It comes from Seb.

00:00:35   Seb would like to know,

00:00:36   how much has the video version of Upgrade

00:00:38   complicated the recording process

00:00:40   when you are away from home?

00:00:42   - Hmm, hmm.

00:00:44   Well, for me, so I was away from home last week.

00:00:47   It only complicated it 'cause I use,

00:00:51   actually, I use for both travel

00:00:53   and for when I'm here at home,

00:00:55   I use camo with my iPhone as my camera.

00:01:00   I don't use continuity camera

00:01:03   because I found that continuity camera

00:01:05   is a little flakier than camo

00:01:07   in the direct wired connection.

00:01:08   I have more control over it.

00:01:10   So I'm using camo instead of just continuity camera.

00:01:13   So the real complication is just that

00:01:17   I have to bring something to put the camera on

00:01:21   to get the proper angle.

00:01:22   And I actually have got now a little setup

00:01:25   where I've got a, I bought a little tripod,

00:01:28   a little cheap tripod on Amazon

00:01:30   that has a like flip out phone holder attachment,

00:01:32   like a glyph, except it's built into it.

00:01:35   And it's got a little tilt head and stuff.

00:01:37   And then it, but I didn't like the legs,

00:01:41   but it's actually standard tripod connector.

00:01:45   And my Insta360 little selfie stick tripod thing

00:01:49   with the, the cheap one on Amazon

00:01:53   didn't have an adjustable,

00:01:54   like you can't lift it up and push it down.

00:01:56   It's only one height,

00:01:57   even though it's got the tilt head and stuff.

00:01:59   The Insta360 combination selfie stick tripod thing,

00:02:03   that's its whole thing is it's super adjustable.

00:02:05   So I actually am using the base from the,

00:02:07   I'm using the Insta360 thing

00:02:09   with the head of the other cheap tripod thing.

00:02:12   And it folds up real nice.

00:02:14   It works with my phone.

00:02:15   It fits on the desk at my mom's house

00:02:18   where I was doing the show last week.

00:02:20   It's great.

00:02:21   So that is my only, I'd say my only real complication

00:02:25   because I got, I got USB cords and I got my phone with me.

00:02:28   So there's a little bit of like lighting issues there.

00:02:31   I'm more concerned about them for when I do Mac break weekly

00:02:33   because that is a video show primarily,

00:02:36   or at least produced that way.

00:02:38   And so I'm a little more concerned about that.

00:02:41   But you know, even then I have a,

00:02:43   I have actually I have a green screen at my mom's house

00:02:46   and the lighting is very good

00:02:47   'cause there's a wall out the window

00:02:49   that in the morning bounces the light off

00:02:52   of the stucco wall and into my face.

00:02:54   It's actually shamed me about how bad my lighting is

00:02:57   at my studio because the lighting is better

00:03:00   at my mom's house.

00:03:01   It's true.

00:03:02   It is better there.

00:03:03   So other than a little bit of brain power

00:03:06   to like think about it and having invested in that tripod,

00:03:10   which I also use like when I'm in the Studio B

00:03:13   back of my house, I use the same setup.

00:03:15   So, you know, not a lot, but a little bit.

00:03:17   I mean, more than not worrying about it at all.

00:03:20   How about you?

00:03:22   - I like the idea of the green screen at your mom's

00:03:24   'cause you could just green screen your own office.

00:03:27   - Look at everybody look at last week's Mac break weekly

00:03:30   and it looks like I'm in my office.

00:03:31   - Oh, really?

00:03:33   - Oh yeah.

00:03:33   - Oh, I need to go check that out.

00:03:34   I'm gonna go look at that right now.

00:03:36   - Yeah, I need to build a video loop.

00:03:39   That's my next to do is to build a video loop of my office.

00:03:44   - Why would you need that though?

00:03:45   - Because I've got, so I've got the,

00:03:48   for Mac break, I turn on the lava lamp in my background

00:03:51   and it has little bubbles moving

00:03:52   and there's just a bubble that suspended forever.

00:03:54   And that's the tell.

00:03:56   And I actually kind of love the idea that it's-

00:03:57   - Oh, this is really good, Jason.

00:03:59   - Right?

00:04:00   - This looks really good 'cause you blurred it too, right?

00:04:01   So like-

00:04:02   - Oh yeah, yeah, it's got, I put the bouquet in there

00:04:04   just to make it a little less obvious that it was,

00:04:07   yeah, exactly.

00:04:08   - 'Cause the funny thing is Alex Lindsay,

00:04:11   I assume is sitting in his actual office

00:04:14   and has a really good camera or whatever.

00:04:15   And so he has a bit of a blur, so keep doing it too.

00:04:19   (laughing)

00:04:21   That's very funny to me.

00:04:23   You're just like, well, you can play it that game.

00:04:25   - Yeah, I see, yes, that's right.

00:04:26   I can do that too.

00:04:27   Anyway, I did get a message last week from somebody who said,

00:04:30   "Wow, do you have a new setup?

00:04:31   "You looked great on Mac break weekly."

00:04:32   And I thought, oh boy, I like, it's a worse,

00:04:35   it sounded great.

00:04:36   I'm like, it's a worse microphone.

00:04:38   It's not any different camera.

00:04:39   It's the lighting.

00:04:40   - I will just say like, we didn't mention it

00:04:43   on last week's episode,

00:04:44   but like you were using a different mic.

00:04:45   I hate that mic for you.

00:04:47   Like, and I've said to you before,

00:04:48   it's just because I am used to a very specific sound of Jason

00:04:53   and I don't like it.

00:04:54   I don't even like the USB-C version

00:04:58   of that microphone that you have for you.

00:05:00   - Yeah, no, that's what that is.

00:05:02   So I use, I use the podcasting nerdery,

00:05:06   but like there's a commonly promoted by us,

00:05:11   like best cheap starter podcast mic,

00:05:14   which is the Audio-Technica mic.

00:05:16   And I traveled with that because I made two stops.

00:05:20   I went to LA and I went to my mom's house.

00:05:23   I was gone for six days

00:05:25   and I felt I needed a little more space in my suitcase.

00:05:28   I think in hindsight, I should have just taken the MV7,

00:05:31   which is the, what I have in the back of the house,

00:05:34   which is very similar to the SM7B I have out here.

00:05:38   And I chose not to.

00:05:41   And then I had the moment where I thought, you know,

00:05:43   I could just leave the Audio-Technica mic

00:05:45   at my mom's house with the green screen

00:05:47   and the mic stand and all of these other things

00:05:49   and just kind of leave it there

00:05:50   so I don't need to travel with it.

00:05:51   And I had that thought of like, hmm, no,

00:05:55   I don't want this to be the mic that I use when I'm here.

00:05:58   So in future, I'm gonna travel with the Shure mic,

00:06:02   which is a better sound.

00:06:03   It's more like this one.

00:06:04   - But yeah, to actually answer,

00:06:07   'cause I got sidetracked by your incredible

00:06:09   audio video. - Background.

00:06:12   Don't tell anybody it's secret.

00:06:13   You'll never know now, never know.

00:06:15   - It has been well-documented, especially in Upgrade Plus.

00:06:18   I have been putting a lot less effort into the video

00:06:23   than Jason has mainly because really,

00:06:26   you are doing a podcast that I think in Mic Break Weekly,

00:06:31   I don't know if incongruously is the word I'm looking for,

00:06:35   but like, Twitch shows go video, the video first,

00:06:38   even though-- - They're TV shows

00:06:39   that have an audio podcast version, but they're TV shows.

00:06:42   They're built as TV shows.

00:06:43   Leo's History, yeah, it's TV.

00:06:45   - So you kind of have to put the effort in there

00:06:48   where we're very much just playing around with stuff.

00:06:51   And the clips really, I think, it's fine.

00:06:56   By the way, I will implore people to check out

00:06:58   either our Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.

00:07:00   I put links in the show notes.

00:07:01   If you have any of these platforms,

00:07:04   if you not follow us on those, you should.

00:07:05   The short clips, especially, they're just really good fun.

00:07:09   Like, you may think to yourself,

00:07:10   but I've already heard them say that.

00:07:13   It's really fun to watch back our reactions

00:07:16   to the things that we say sometimes,

00:07:17   and our editor, Chip, puts in some fun little details.

00:07:20   Sometimes there's also stuff

00:07:21   that we never actually spoke about in the show,

00:07:23   but we did record it, but it's more interesting as a clip

00:07:27   than it is as being in the show, so they're there for you.

00:07:30   But I have a whole plan that I delayed

00:07:33   because of Vision Pro expenses

00:07:35   to make my setup better for video.

00:07:37   So I can have a whole plan.

00:07:38   I'm very excited about it, actually.

00:07:40   It's gonna look better.

00:07:40   And once I've actually done that,

00:07:42   my video when I travel will be able to be better.

00:07:44   'Cause previously, I've just been using,

00:07:48   when I was traveling,

00:07:49   I just used my laptop camera, which is terrible.

00:07:52   I hate it.

00:07:53   But I'm actually planning on buying a refurbished iPhone

00:07:56   for my camera in the studio,

00:07:59   and then I'll just take that with me

00:08:01   and have that as my camera for if we record

00:08:04   when I'm traveling.

00:08:05   So it is, just in general, though,

00:08:08   the video has complicated things,

00:08:10   but not to a level that we haven't got used to.

00:08:14   And also, there is kind of like, we're still audio first.

00:08:17   If something goes wrong with a video,

00:08:18   it is kind of just like, oh, well, that's what happened.

00:08:22   - I'd say there's almost an effort cutoff.

00:08:24   Like when I went to my daughter's graduation from college,

00:08:31   I recorded an episode of "Upgrade" in an Airbnb.

00:08:34   And you know what?

00:08:35   It was on the MacBook Air webcam in bad lighting.

00:08:38   It looked terrible, but it crossed the line

00:08:41   of I just, I couldn't do it.

00:08:44   Now I've got a better setup.

00:08:45   Like we're building, I think what I would say

00:08:47   is we're building our setups to get us across the line

00:08:51   of this is appropriate, but it has required me

00:08:54   to buy different tripods and try different setups up.

00:08:58   We'll get there about it.

00:08:59   So not nothing, Seb, not nothing, but it's fine.

00:09:04   Like we're also not overdoing it

00:09:05   because we are a podcast first

00:09:06   and the video is entirely secondary.

00:09:09   That said, I hope that for our podcast listeners

00:09:12   or people who don't listen a lot to podcasts

00:09:14   because they're sort of YouTube first people,

00:09:16   I mean, that's one of the reasons we're doing this

00:09:18   is the short version is we don't intend

00:09:20   to become a YouTube show or anything,

00:09:21   but I do think that there are people out there

00:09:23   who don't get podcasts.

00:09:24   They don't understand it or it doesn't work in their life

00:09:27   and they love YouTube and they have YouTube stuff

00:09:30   on all the time.

00:09:30   And I would like us to make our show available there

00:09:33   and if we can make it available with our faces

00:09:35   instead of just like a logo on a screen,

00:09:38   I think that would be better.

00:09:39   So-

00:09:40   - You know what we should do,

00:09:41   which I don't think we have done, but we should do

00:09:44   is actually tell YouTube that our channel is a podcast.

00:09:48   - Oh, maybe we could do that.

00:09:50   Can we do that?

00:09:51   - I don't know how you do it.

00:09:53   - How do we break that to them?

00:09:54   - It's doable.

00:09:55   Like there is a thing that you can do.

00:09:57   I mean, this is like a weird thing that Cortex is it,

00:09:59   but we didn't do it.

00:10:00   YouTube did it for us.

00:10:01   - Yeah, oh, interesting.

00:10:02   - But I know that there is a way now to kind of be like,

00:10:05   "Hey, this is a podcast."

00:10:06   And what that allows is people can watch the video,

00:10:09   but then they can also tap a button

00:10:10   and it turns off the video

00:10:11   if they just want to listen to us as a podcast.

00:10:13   - So another funny little data point,

00:10:15   a podcast that I mentioned during the upgrade

00:10:17   is "The Rest is History," a podcast I really like

00:10:19   with the two British historians.

00:10:21   I found their YouTube channel while I was traveling

00:10:24   and I watched one of their episodes as a video on YouTube,

00:10:27   because it turns out they have recently started doing

00:10:29   exactly what we're doing,

00:10:31   right down to the fact that one of them is facing left

00:10:33   and one of them is facing right

00:10:34   and they're recording it separately from there.

00:10:36   It's hilarious.

00:10:38   It's like exactly what we're doing.

00:10:41   And I kind of nodded along and I was like,

00:10:43   "Okay, this is great."

00:10:44   Like if I want to watch them in a YouTube context, I can,

00:10:47   but if I just want to listen to their audio episodes,

00:10:49   which is true most of the time, I can do that too.

00:10:52   And then they also do little clips,

00:10:53   which I enjoy.

00:10:55   And the Flop House does that.

00:10:56   They don't post the full episodes, but they post the clips.

00:10:58   And I like watching clips of things I've already heard

00:11:01   because I get to see their faces

00:11:02   and it's the funniest of the jokes from that episode.

00:11:05   And so that's,

00:11:06   I don't mind listening to the funny jokes again.

00:11:08   So yeah, it's, anyway, this is a lot.

00:11:10   I wonder if, is this listener Seb,

00:11:11   who I actually met last weekend in LA?

00:11:14   Maybe it is anyway.

00:11:16   Hi, listener Seb.

00:11:17   - Let's do some Vision Pro follow-up.

00:11:21   So we had an anonymous person write in

00:11:23   and they said, "I work in Apple retail.

00:11:26   From mid-January, we started receiving training

00:11:29   for the Vision Pro on delivering the perfect script

00:11:32   for the demo of the Apple Vision Pro.

00:11:35   There was no training on what light seal numbers mean.

00:11:38   Vision Pros are meant to be picked up in store,

00:11:40   so everyone in theory gets the right light seal

00:11:43   and band size before they come into us.

00:11:45   But we have no guidance on what their sizes

00:11:47   and numbers actually mean.

00:11:49   We just follow a questionnaire to get a new size

00:11:52   if requested, which can change every time

00:11:54   on how subjectively the person answers Seb questions."

00:11:57   - Uh-huh, yeah, you can literally game it.

00:11:59   - Yep.

00:12:01   - 'Cause you can do that online too

00:12:02   when you're doing a return.

00:12:04   'Cause I got the 14 or whatever and I'm sending it back

00:12:06   because it's just not, or I have sent it back now

00:12:09   because it didn't fit at all.

00:12:10   It really put all the pressure on my cheekbones

00:12:13   and I'm not convinced I have the right size.

00:12:15   I think the 21 is maybe the right size for me,

00:12:18   but I've sort of tried this and failed

00:12:20   and I don't know what I'm gonna do.

00:12:21   But this follows up what we were saying before,

00:12:23   which is lots of focus on the demo

00:12:25   and getting every word right.

00:12:26   And then kind of being at sea

00:12:29   when it comes to the sizing stuff,

00:12:32   which I think they should do a much better job of.

00:12:34   - Yep.

00:12:36   Vision Pro units are cracking.

00:12:38   - (gasps)

00:12:39   Crack gate.

00:12:40   - Crack gate.

00:12:41   - How is a Vision Pro like a G4 Cube?

00:12:44   - Crack gate.

00:12:45   - Cracks.

00:12:46   - Crack gate.

00:12:47   - So there's been a bunch of articles written about this.

00:12:49   It's, I believe, started with a selection of users

00:12:53   on the Vision Pro subreddit,

00:12:55   posting that they have cracks along the center

00:12:57   of the front screens at their Vision Pro.

00:12:59   So right in, basically right in the middle.

00:13:02   No one obviously knows at this point why this is happening.

00:13:06   It appears to be, you would assume

00:13:07   some kind of manufacturing issue.

00:13:10   One of the things to me

00:13:11   that really kind of lent credence to this,

00:13:14   because you never really know what's going on

00:13:16   with this kind of stuff,

00:13:18   is it actually happened to Engadget's review unit as well.

00:13:21   The same crack.

00:13:22   So it's essentially on the middle of the front glass

00:13:25   is where it's happening.

00:13:26   There's a bunch of images in the Verge article

00:13:29   and the Engadget article that I put in the show notes.

00:13:32   But yeah, it's definitely making me,

00:13:34   every time I pick up my Vision Pro in the morning,

00:13:36   just taking a look.

00:13:37   Just like, oh, it got the crack.

00:13:38   No, that's great.

00:13:40   There you go, it's happening. - Just give it a look

00:13:41   and check it out.

00:13:42   Yeah, no, I mean, it's 1.0 hardware.

00:13:44   It's incredibly complicated.

00:13:45   I'm actually not surprised.

00:13:47   And I would imagine, I mean, either Apple will say,

00:13:50   look, it doesn't affect your,

00:13:52   we know that it might happen and it doesn't affect it,

00:13:55   or they'll say, we will replace it.

00:13:57   You know, send it to us and we'll replace it or whatever.

00:14:01   - But it does seem like so far,

00:14:02   like with the people that have had it happen,

00:14:04   like it isn't affecting anything, but it's there.

00:14:07   It seems to be, at the moment, mostly a cosmetic issue,

00:14:11   which I think is also good.

00:14:12   Because if something like that happens

00:14:15   and it disrupts the cameras or whatever.

00:14:17   - Nobody wants to see you in this thing anyway.

00:14:19   - Not great.

00:14:20   - No matter what it looks like.

00:14:22   - What's new with your Vision Pro experience?

00:14:26   - Oh, what's new with the Vision Pro?

00:14:28   - Yeah.

00:14:29   - So I mentioned I traveled last week.

00:14:30   I mentioned I used it on the plane.

00:14:32   Had the weird errors.

00:14:34   Used it a little bit and Phoenix have used it here too.

00:14:37   Big story for me, I think,

00:14:38   is that I went on the developer beta.

00:14:40   - Oh God, Jason, why?

00:14:42   Why'd you do it?

00:14:43   - You know, because it's my job.

00:14:45   I figured like, okay, let's try it and I can report.

00:14:47   I think the personas are better.

00:14:49   I did a very quick persona capture in Phoenix

00:14:53   when I was not at my best.

00:14:55   And I still think it is a much better representation of me

00:14:58   than the one I was using before.

00:15:01   So I think the personas are better.

00:15:03   However, I'm just gonna say, don't put the beta on people.

00:15:08   The eye tracking and other input stuff

00:15:10   isn't just a total mess.

00:15:11   I can't, I was writing a lot.

00:15:13   I think one of the things that I found

00:15:15   in the vision pro that I like

00:15:16   is that it is another place for me to write.

00:15:18   I can sit on the couch or whatever,

00:15:21   and I can kind of isolate

00:15:23   and just get a screen in front of me

00:15:24   with like runestone on it.

00:15:25   And I can write articles and have things to the side.

00:15:28   But like mostly I'm focused on the thing.

00:15:30   I like that.

00:15:32   It's like writing on the iPad.

00:15:34   I've got a little Bluetooth keyboard.

00:15:35   It's great.

00:15:36   But I kind of can't do it on the developer beta

00:15:39   because eye tracking is all over the place.

00:15:42   Input is all over the place.

00:15:44   I get lots of inaccurate clicks.

00:15:49   Clicks when I'm not moving my fingers together.

00:15:52   My eye tracking is not looking at the right place.

00:15:54   Even if I rerun eye tracking, it just doesn't seem right.

00:15:58   It is kind of broken.

00:16:00   So I'm here to warn you not to do it

00:16:05   because no improved persona is worth this.

00:16:09   - And I am assuming there's kind of no way to go back, right?

00:16:13   - Well, I could put it in reset mode.

00:16:15   Since I have a developer strap, I could actually do that,

00:16:19   but I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna grin and bear it.

00:16:22   And that's, it's fine.

00:16:24   It's fine.

00:16:25   - Oh, I actually, similarly,

00:16:28   I've had some flakiness of eye tracking

00:16:31   and I'm on the shipping version.

00:16:33   Like today I had to redo my eye tracking again

00:16:36   to get it to work.

00:16:37   It just, I would look at something

00:16:40   and it was selected for a second and flick away.

00:16:42   It's like, I couldn't move any windows.

00:16:44   I have also noticed sometimes the system knows

00:16:49   where you're looking, even though it's not highlighting that,

00:16:53   if that makes sense.

00:16:54   So sometimes I've found that I can look at something

00:16:57   and it's not highlighting, but if I pinch,

00:16:59   it will do what I want.

00:17:00   And so I think there was a combo of both things happening.

00:17:04   But once I redid my eye tracking,

00:17:06   it was perfect, like it worked perfectly again.

00:17:10   But I don't know why that's happening, right?

00:17:13   Like, which is just interesting.

00:17:14   It's like, what's changed?

00:17:15   But this is the bleeding edge-ness of this computer.

00:17:19   It's like something, it is perceiving something differently.

00:17:22   I have no idea what it is.

00:17:24   - Yeah, it could be something on your face.

00:17:25   It could be that your hair has grown or been cut

00:17:30   and the fit is a little different.

00:17:32   And so the angle is a little different, right?

00:17:34   Like there's so many things it could be.

00:17:36   - Yep, so I kind of, I'm giving the machine grace, right,

00:17:40   in doing these things and not being like,

00:17:43   oh, this is so annoying,

00:17:44   but it is just a thing that I'm spotting.

00:17:47   I have kind of set on something for me

00:17:50   for where I think this device really works best.

00:17:52   So I leave my Vision Pro at my studio.

00:17:57   I don't take it home because it's just too much weight

00:18:01   to just keep moving backwards and forwards.

00:18:04   So I leave it there.

00:18:05   And so I'm mostly using it when I'm here,

00:18:07   which actually works best for me anyway,

00:18:09   of like a way that I would want to use it.

00:18:11   Like when I'm at home,

00:18:12   I'm either gonna be wanting to spend time with my wife

00:18:15   or be playing video games.

00:18:17   And the Vision Pro is not the right device for me

00:18:19   for either of those things.

00:18:20   And so it would be mostly wasted at home.

00:18:23   And so what I've been doing mostly

00:18:25   is like I'm trying to do my intense work in the mornings

00:18:29   with the Vision Pro on,

00:18:31   and then also just using it sporadically through the day.

00:18:34   And where I've found the device to be the most enjoyable

00:18:37   and the way that I kind of think of it

00:18:39   is the Vision Pro is like the perfect noodling computer,

00:18:42   which from what I mean by that is,

00:18:46   so like there is a point in the day where I say today,

00:18:49   I've done my work in the morning of preparing upgrade,

00:18:52   which is like the biggest job I do on a Monday.

00:18:55   And then I have one meeting,

00:18:57   then I have the stretch of like 90 minutes

00:18:59   before I have another meeting.

00:19:02   And so during that time, typically,

00:19:03   I'm just kind of noodling around.

00:19:05   I'm doing this little task here,

00:19:07   reading these messages here in Slack,

00:19:12   looking at this email here or whatever.

00:19:15   And I kind of consider this as like noodling around.

00:19:17   And iPads are really good for this, I find.

00:19:20   You're just like poking around,

00:19:21   you're going from this to this.

00:19:22   Hey, what's going on over here?

00:19:24   The Vision Pro is perfect for this

00:19:25   because you can do all of the noodling

00:19:28   with all of the apps open, right?

00:19:29   And that's what I like about it.

00:19:30   Like I can just set a bunch of apps

00:19:32   and I'm like, what's going on over here?

00:19:34   Oh, can we go check on these tabs?

00:19:36   Oh, like in today,

00:19:37   I was like looking at some home furnishing stuff

00:19:39   and I was like, oh, just like clicking around this website,

00:19:42   which is really nice with the eye tracking,

00:19:44   like, oh, I like that cushion.

00:19:45   This looks nice, that looks nice.

00:19:47   Let me add that to a note, send it to my wife.

00:19:48   Like that kind of work,

00:19:51   the Vision Pro is the best computer I own at it.

00:19:55   Like it's better than an iPad

00:19:56   because it's many iPads, right?

00:19:59   It's like six iPads at once.

00:20:01   - It's many iPads.

00:20:02   So I find for like the intense work stuff,

00:20:05   it's definitely getting the job done,

00:20:07   but still I'm mostly just using the Mac inside of it.

00:20:10   And at that point, it's not that much better.

00:20:14   It's better in some ways worse than others.

00:20:16   I think that this could be improved

00:20:18   by there being a native Google Docs application.

00:20:21   Like I think that will help if and when that ever happens

00:20:24   because using Google Docs in Safari,

00:20:26   while it works is not ideal.

00:20:27   Maybe it will be better,

00:20:28   but I'll probably still prefer my Mac for it.

00:20:32   So I find it to be good at the intense stuff,

00:20:35   but excellent at the kind of noodling around stuff.

00:20:39   - Yeah, I agree with you.

00:20:40   I have the same sort of feelings

00:20:41   that you end up kind of like flipping around

00:20:43   to a bunch of different stuff.

00:20:44   And part of that is what it's good at right now

00:20:47   and what apps are available.

00:20:50   I did watch a movie in it for the incomparable.

00:20:54   I watched most of a movie just that was my homework in it

00:20:58   because it was a bigger screen.

00:21:00   So I was literally sitting in my living room,

00:21:03   not four feet from my 4K TV.

00:21:06   And I was watching it on the Vision Pro instead

00:21:08   'cause Lauren was gone and I was, why not?

00:21:13   So I did.

00:21:14   And it was nice 'cause it was a huge screen and it was fun.

00:21:18   - There's also an app that I wanted to point people to,

00:21:21   which is television from Sandwich.

00:21:24   This is just- - Yes.

00:21:27   - This is the exact kind of thing that I want to exist

00:21:30   on the Vision Pro because it's just like fun and joyful.

00:21:35   It is an app that currently you can watch media

00:21:39   you've downloaded or media from your iCloud,

00:21:41   but they seem to be working on the ability

00:21:43   to watch streaming services within this app as well,

00:21:47   where you essentially can select a television from history,

00:21:52   from the beginnings of televisions to now.

00:21:55   One of my favorite ones is a wall of televisions

00:21:57   that you can watch media on.

00:21:59   And you essentially watch it like a screen.

00:22:02   - It's a 3D model of televisions from history.

00:22:07   And they exist in space.

00:22:10   They're not like, when I opened this app, I thought,

00:22:13   oh, okay, this is the kind of Vision Pro app

00:22:16   there aren't very many of right now.

00:22:18   And that I thought would be the ones

00:22:20   that would truly take it.

00:22:21   And I understand why they aren't

00:22:23   because it is not something you can do

00:22:25   by converting an iPad app, right?

00:22:27   Or easily, it's much harder.

00:22:30   And so it's a 3D object in 3D space

00:22:34   that then plays a video right now.

00:22:36   - On the screen.

00:22:38   - On the screen, mapped onto the screen of the TV or TVs.

00:22:41   So like I was able to get an old TV with rabbit ears

00:22:44   and place it on my coffee table

00:22:46   and play an old Star Trek episode on it.

00:22:48   I played an old Star Trek episode.

00:22:50   Then I played the Star Wars holiday special.

00:22:53   Then I played an old Dr. Who episode

00:22:55   because I wanted that vibe of old four by three TV set

00:22:59   with rabbit ears.

00:23:00   And it was just kind of delightful.

00:23:02   But I also liked the idea.

00:23:03   I was talking to Dan Sturm who worked on this product,

00:23:06   a friend of the show who works at Sandwich.

00:23:09   And Dan, what I said to Dan was,

00:23:14   this is the kind of app I was hoping for.

00:23:18   And he said, it's just so easy to leave it somewhere,

00:23:22   like off to the side.

00:23:23   And the way it works is like

00:23:24   the audio comes out of it spatially.

00:23:25   It's literally like you're sending a TV set

00:23:28   somewhere in your space.

00:23:29   And then the TV sets there and you can play it.

00:23:32   And what they've said is like the use case here is

00:23:36   you kind of wanna, if you want like some background stuff,

00:23:39   which for some people is super distracting

00:23:41   and for other people it's comfortable.

00:23:43   So this is the idea is like,

00:23:44   you want something playing in the background

00:23:46   off to the side that you can look at

00:23:47   and look back and it's in this little TV.

00:23:49   And like, is it novel?

00:23:50   Yes, it is a novelty app for sure.

00:23:52   But at the same time I look at it and I think,

00:23:54   yeah, that's kind of what I want for something like

00:23:57   broadcasts or other audio apps,

00:24:00   where I kind of wanna put essentially like a radio

00:24:02   or an object that is just kind of emitting

00:24:04   and put it in the corner, put it on a wall

00:24:07   and have it be not,

00:24:09   it doesn't need to be like a vision pro OS window

00:24:13   that's like an iPad app for that part of it.

00:24:15   I just kind of want it to be,

00:24:16   especially if you think about the future of vision OS

00:24:18   and potentially having objects that

00:24:20   permanently live in a space that we all kind of

00:24:24   expect that they will do,

00:24:25   where if I hang this thing in my house, right in this place,

00:24:28   it'll, I can say, keep it here geographically.

00:24:31   This is where I want this thing.

00:24:34   That it opens up a lot of possibilities.

00:24:35   So it's just a fun app.

00:24:39   I really loved having,

00:24:40   I watched most of a Star Trek episode on it, it was great.

00:24:43   - Yeah, I really look forward to when it can,

00:24:45   they've put YouTube in there, which they're working on.

00:24:47   'Cause you could, you know,

00:24:48   I could have imagined having one of those

00:24:50   like lo-fi beat to chill two things

00:24:52   and just putting it in the corner,

00:24:54   looking over and seeing the image,

00:24:55   but there's music in the space.

00:24:57   This is the kind of stuff that also I hoped would exist.

00:25:01   Just these fun little toys, but they're useful, right?

00:25:04   But they're joyful in a way.

00:25:06   And I think there will be more.

00:25:08   I think that it requires two things for a lot of developers,

00:25:12   which is like time and effort,

00:25:13   well, three things, time, effort,

00:25:15   and a genuine love for the platform,

00:25:18   because the audience is small right now.

00:25:20   And this requires a lot of work, right?

00:25:23   - Also makes me wonder if Vision OS should have something,

00:25:26   and I know they've got a lot on their plate for Vision OS,

00:25:29   but if they should have something

00:25:30   that's sort of like what picture in picture is

00:25:32   on iOS and iPad OS and Mac OS,

00:25:34   which is the ability for apps to say,

00:25:38   you know, knock out, place this video out,

00:25:41   and then the ability for other apps to say,

00:25:43   I'm a player for that, right?

00:25:46   'Cause imagine if you could do that,

00:25:48   then Sandwich, you know,

00:25:49   Sandwich's television could be a player

00:25:53   for the picture in picture,

00:25:54   and then there wouldn't need to be

00:25:56   compatibility things built into the app.

00:25:59   You could build a player that is like television,

00:26:03   and then all the video apps would just,

00:26:05   you know, you could just send it out to that other app.

00:26:09   I wonder if you could do that,

00:26:10   because it seems very similar

00:26:12   to the picture in picture API.

00:26:13   I would love it, something like that.

00:26:15   But failing that, yeah,

00:26:17   I hope Sandwich builds in some stuff for this.

00:26:19   I'd love, again, it's like,

00:26:22   whether it's them working with various services,

00:26:25   or whether it's third-party apps, maybe,

00:26:27   working with Sandwich, which would also be cool.

00:26:30   Like if you're the developer of Plex,

00:26:32   and you want to come to the Vision Pro,

00:26:34   do you talk to Sandwich and say,

00:26:36   can we license television for our Plex player,

00:26:39   or work with you, or something, right?

00:26:42   Yeah, I love the name, by the way.

00:26:44   It's so silly, right?

00:26:45   Like it's, 'cause a lot of the,

00:26:48   'cause they're so good, their marketing is just,

00:26:50   obviously they're so good, they're just so good.

00:26:52   And you know, the idea of like, we invented television.

00:26:55   Like, 'cause the, you know, I like it,

00:26:57   and they're very, like, I love it so much.

00:26:59   Imagine object in your space that's playing video on it.

00:27:04   We call it television.

00:27:05   I think if I remember rightly in the video,

00:27:08   there's a television in the room

00:27:10   that they're doing the promo stuff in,

00:27:13   and they're just moving it around,

00:27:14   but it's like an actual TV, it's just, it's fantastic.

00:27:16   We call it television. It's television, so good.

00:27:18   It's just, yes, it's delightful, but also, again,

00:27:21   it is a spatial piece of software.

00:27:27   Now, our friend James, friend of the show, James Thompson,

00:27:30   he's got a first, like, experimental beta of Dice by Peacock

00:27:34   that does this too, right?

00:27:35   Where the dice tray is in your space.

00:27:37   And like, again, it's one of those apps that I go,

00:27:39   ah, yes, here we go, right?

00:27:41   It's software, but it's existing in a space.

00:27:43   This is, not every piece of software

00:27:46   needs to be like that, right?

00:27:47   Like, I don't need Slack to appear in a,

00:27:51   like, in a frame like you could hang it on a wall, right?

00:27:56   I don't need that. I don't need that.

00:27:58   But for some stuff, I think it's a really fun use

00:28:02   of what this product is.

00:28:04   - Yes, I agree.

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00:30:19   Jason, what is that sound?

00:30:23   Can you hear it in the background?

00:30:24   - It's the neighing of horses that have not been fed.

00:30:26   - It sounds like horses because saddle up partner.

00:30:29   It's time to return to the Rumor Roundup

00:30:32   or how I have missed you.

00:30:35   I spent so much time today just going through

00:30:39   my Apple note that I save of links

00:30:42   to just try and pick like, what are we going to talk about?

00:30:45   'Cause there's basically a month's worth of rumors,

00:30:48   but I've decided to pick out three different areas

00:30:51   that we're going to talk about a little bit today

00:30:53   in Rumor Roundup.

00:30:54   First, Mark Gurman is reporting that iOS 18

00:30:58   could be quote, the biggest update in the company's history

00:31:02   as they ready their release of AI features.

00:31:06   Previous reporting has indicated that some of these features

00:31:09   could include a revamped Siri powered by Apple's own LLM,

00:31:13   as well as AI infusion into the system apps,

00:31:17   stuff like messages and music and the iWork Suite

00:31:20   to try and make them better,

00:31:21   as well as advancements to Xcode to make development easier.

00:31:24   So you're looking at kind of like those co-pilot

00:31:26   kind of features to help with code completion,

00:31:29   as well as app testing as well by using AI.

00:31:32   Apple is also working on making Spotlight better as well,

00:31:36   as Siri, we have a quote here.

00:31:38   "Early designs of the Spotlight overhaul

00:31:41   include using LLMs to answer more complex questions

00:31:44   and the ability to tap deeper into apps

00:31:47   to launch specific functions.

00:31:49   The current version of Spotlight is mostly limited

00:31:51   to launching apps, making basic web searches

00:31:53   and pulling up information."

00:31:55   So I want to get into iOS 18 AI in a bit more detail.

00:32:00   But the first thing I wanted to say is,

00:32:02   is Spotlight a better brand than Siri?

00:32:04   - I mean, maybe, it depends on how badly we think.

00:32:10   'Cause Siri, so here's the thing,

00:32:12   I know that especially all of us

00:32:14   think about all the issues with Siri,

00:32:16   but wow, more people know Siri.

00:32:18   - They know the name though, right?

00:32:19   And that might be the reason. - Siri, they know the name.

00:32:22   And I think the argument there is that I know people are like,

00:32:24   "Oh, but it's negative, it doesn't work."

00:32:25   It's like, "Yeah, I think you can turn that around."

00:32:27   I think that it's,

00:32:28   I think that the negativity of the Siri brand

00:32:30   is kind of overemphasized and overstated

00:32:33   in our little community.

00:32:35   And that the most important asset is that it's known

00:32:40   in a way that Spotlight is just, is not known.

00:32:42   Now, I mean, I could make the argument

00:32:47   that throwing the Siri name away

00:32:49   and having it be all about Spotlight would be better,

00:32:52   but I don't know, I don't know.

00:32:54   I feel like, I mean, Spotlight brand could get elevated,

00:32:56   but Siri is the brand people know.

00:32:58   - So I agree with you,

00:33:00   and I'm not really advocating for just thinking about it.

00:33:02   'Cause like Zach has said,

00:33:04   I don't think anybody knows Spotlight as a name,

00:33:06   and that's kind of my point.

00:33:08   So the Siri name is well-known, people are aware of it.

00:33:13   Apple has done a good job of publicizing it.

00:33:16   It's been around for an incredibly long time,

00:33:18   I think like a decade now, right?

00:33:19   Started with like the iPhone 4S or something.

00:33:22   But it hasn't got like a super positive association to it.

00:33:26   Like people are just kind of aware of it.

00:33:27   Like, but I think by and large,

00:33:30   people are ambivalent to it.

00:33:32   Spotlight is also a cool brand name,

00:33:35   and it's another thing that Apple has.

00:33:37   And like, I think it's kind of cool.

00:33:40   The reason I bring this up is just because like Apple's,

00:33:43   the majority of competitors Apple has,

00:33:46   has actually changed their names

00:33:47   with their existing thing, right?

00:33:49   So like Bing is now just co-pilot,

00:33:53   which is just, I think, a great name for the AI stuff.

00:33:58   And Google hilariously introduced the name

00:34:02   and then rebranded it, right?

00:34:03   So Bard became Gemini.

00:34:05   And I just wonder if like, with a big change like this,

00:34:09   is it worth kind of cutting your losses a little bit

00:34:13   because you're about to introduce something

00:34:16   that in theory is so dramatically better

00:34:18   than what it replaces that maybe it's best

00:34:21   to just cut any negativity away and start over?

00:34:25   - I'll just say no.

00:34:26   I don't think so.

00:34:27   I think you're better off saying it's the all new Siri.

00:34:31   And it's so awesome.

00:34:33   And we revolutionized voice assistants 10 years ago

00:34:36   when we introduced Siri,

00:34:38   and now we're revolutionizing it again.

00:34:39   And I know everybody else will be like, blah, blah, blah.

00:34:41   It's like, okay, but it's Apple marketing.

00:34:42   They say stuff like that.

00:34:43   But that idea of, well, this is the new Siri

00:34:47   and it's awesome.

00:34:47   And then, so who are your competitors at that point?

00:34:50   Gemini, which nobody's heard of.

00:34:52   ChatGPT people have heard of.

00:34:53   Bard is gone.

00:34:55   Co-pilot is a good name, but again,

00:34:57   it's kind of a new concept.

00:34:59   If Apple is integrating with their operating systems

00:35:02   on their phones, especially like Siri, it's already there.

00:35:05   Like the new Siri with AI, Siri AI,

00:35:08   you could even call it if you wanted to.

00:35:10   But like, I think you keep the name

00:35:11   because even if there's some negative connotations with it,

00:35:14   and I think there are some,

00:35:15   but I don't think they've destroyed the brand or anything.

00:35:19   I think it's ready to be revived by new features.

00:35:21   And people get what it means, right?

00:35:23   Which is an assistant who helped me do things

00:35:25   when I talked to it.

00:35:26   - I do agree with you, by the way.

00:35:28   I was just, it was in reading the thing about Spotlight.

00:35:31   - Oh, I know.

00:35:32   - It was just like, it was like,

00:35:33   oh, they do actually continue to have both of these names

00:35:36   and maybe it doesn't make sense to.

00:35:39   - I think my argumentative response,

00:35:41   I was really arguing with some of our listeners, I think.

00:35:45   So it's the straw man kind of thing,

00:35:46   but just bear with me here.

00:35:48   I think those of us who are so focused on Apple stuff,

00:35:50   know how bad Siri has been

00:35:52   and know how bad it's been for so long.

00:35:54   And it's a constant irritation to us.

00:35:56   Whereas I think the general public uses it.

00:36:00   And if they give a bad result, maybe they stop using it.

00:36:04   But that's about it, right?

00:36:05   Like, I don't think that there was that same like,

00:36:07   I hate it so much, for years I've hated Siri.

00:36:10   Like, I don't think that is a thing.

00:36:12   I think it's, and in marketing,

00:36:14   the most important thing is explaining what you are.

00:36:16   To be known.

00:36:17   It's that lesson that I was taught many years ago

00:36:20   by one of my old bosses, who was a sales guy.

00:36:22   But he was like, the first thing is to be known.

00:36:25   You must be known

00:36:26   before anybody will consider buying your thing.

00:36:28   Well, Siri is known, it's a huge asset.

00:36:31   You don't get rid of it just because,

00:36:34   it hasn't been so great.

00:36:36   Because in general, the most important thing is that,

00:36:38   when you say Siri,

00:36:39   people know what that feature is supposed to do.

00:36:42   And you say Siri AI, and they're like,

00:36:43   oh, they made Siri better with AI, great.

00:36:45   And then you're done, right?

00:36:46   Like, all the nerds will be like,

00:36:47   but Siri has been so bad for,

00:36:49   it's like, it doesn't matter anymore.

00:36:50   It's over, right?

00:36:51   I think that's it. - And maybe at this point,

00:36:52   the public perception of AI is so much

00:36:56   that if you know that Siri was made better with AI,

00:36:59   you might be more willing to trust it

00:37:00   or give it another go.

00:37:02   - Right?

00:37:03   - Yeah. - Right?

00:37:04   - So what do you think about Apple's prospects

00:37:06   of AI in iOS 18 and this idea that,

00:37:10   it is being referred to internally

00:37:13   as maybe their biggest update ever?

00:37:15   - Yeah.

00:37:15   Well, I mean, I love, here's what I love about it.

00:37:19   I love that it's, Apple has been riding so high for so long.

00:37:24   And even in the early days where they were,

00:37:28   in the early days of the iPhone,

00:37:29   they were being pressed by Android, right?

00:37:31   Android was pushing a lot of buttons in terms of,

00:37:34   oh, but we do this thing.

00:37:36   They were intentionally implementing things

00:37:38   Apple didn't implement in order to give Android a leg up

00:37:42   in certain areas that Apple wouldn't

00:37:44   or couldn't implement or just hadn't.

00:37:47   Boy, it's been a long time, right?

00:37:49   It's been a long time since that was the case.

00:37:50   So now, Apple is riding high.

00:37:53   They make a lot of money.

00:37:54   The iPhone's doing great.

00:37:56   And you know, the smartphone velocity has slowed down.

00:38:00   And this chatbot AI thing has really,

00:38:03   I think, kicked Apple in its complacency.

00:38:07   And so I'm excited to see what they do

00:38:10   because it does feel like they are like, oh crap,

00:38:14   let's get this in more places.

00:38:16   And that they made a concerted effort.

00:38:17   Now, do I think that will work out?

00:38:19   I think the answer is some of it will work great.

00:38:22   And it will be things like,

00:38:23   things we've been saying all along,

00:38:25   like why can't the iPhone do this?

00:38:28   And the answer has really been like,

00:38:30   Apple has chosen not to do that.

00:38:32   And now some of that stuff is gonna get eroded.

00:38:34   It's gonna be like, ah, but Tim Cook says AI.

00:38:37   So the people who are against it are now outvoted.

00:38:40   And they're gonna insert stuff in.

00:38:41   And that's why I think Siri will be better

00:38:44   because Siri has been so bad for so long,

00:38:46   as we just discussed.

00:38:47   I think in part because people involved with Siri are like,

00:38:50   no, no, no, we've just got, it's complicated.

00:38:52   It's that story about it takes months

00:38:53   to update like little decision chains and the Siri thing.

00:38:57   And it's like, then Tim Cook says AI and they're like,

00:38:59   all right, I guess we're throwing this away

00:39:01   and we're doing something with AI.

00:39:02   I assume that that will happen.

00:39:03   And similarly, other OS features that could be simplified

00:39:09   by using AI systems that again, might've been like,

00:39:12   well, deprioritize or we're waiting for it to be better.

00:39:15   And then all of a sudden Tim Cook says, no, now do this.

00:39:19   And they're like, okay, I guess we'll do this now.

00:39:21   Do I think some of them are gonna ship

00:39:23   and we're gonna be like, what?

00:39:25   This doesn't make any sense?

00:39:26   Yes, I do.

00:39:28   And that'll be fun to notice when those things happen.

00:39:30   But I'm excited by the possibility

00:39:32   because this is one of those areas Apple has been very,

00:39:35   if I had to sum it up,

00:39:36   I would say Apple has been very conservative

00:39:37   with their implementation of machine learning stuff.

00:39:39   They use it, but they're really conservative about it.

00:39:42   And I think what we're gonna see,

00:39:45   this is a little bit like that column

00:39:46   I wrote about Apple getting weird.

00:39:48   I think Apple has been caught so off guard

00:39:51   by the advances in AI,

00:39:53   that it has been this kick to their complacency

00:39:56   and that they are going to do some stuff

00:39:58   that is a little outside their comfort zone with iOS.

00:40:01   And I think it's been a long time

00:40:03   since Apple has done something outside its comfort zone

00:40:06   because they have felt so comfortable with their position.

00:40:10   And they're like, no, no, no.

00:40:11   And their conservatism about releasing new features

00:40:15   tends to override those like,

00:40:18   let's take a chance on this wild idea.

00:40:19   Sometimes there are weird ideas,

00:40:21   but a lot of it is like really basic

00:40:25   because they don't wanna go overboard.

00:40:27   You see it with their camera stuff where they're like,

00:40:30   like the magic eraser thing that Google does.

00:40:32   What bugs me about the magic eraser ads for Google

00:40:34   is that I've been able to do magic eraser on my iPad

00:40:39   for ages now using photo mater

00:40:43   is what it's called now, right?

00:40:44   It's pixel mater photo, now it's just photo mater.

00:40:46   Where you literally color in the thing you wanna remove

00:40:49   and it uses machine learning and it erases the thing

00:40:51   and replaces it with something that should fit there.

00:40:53   Like I've used that for years now,

00:40:56   but Apple has refused to put something like that in photos.

00:41:00   They just won't do it.

00:41:02   They just won't do it.

00:41:03   And this is the kind of thing where there's a kick of like,

00:41:06   no, you need to do this.

00:41:09   And I can't wait to see it.

00:41:11   Some of it's gonna be bad.

00:41:13   Some of it's gonna be great.

00:41:14   That's the thing when you are caught off guard

00:41:18   and have to rush to catch up.

00:41:20   So I'm really looking forward to it.

00:41:23   I think it's gonna be a bizarre release potentially.

00:41:27   And I'm here for it, right?

00:41:30   I'm here for Apple trying all sorts of weird stuff,

00:41:33   especially I'm here for people in different areas

00:41:36   within Apple's OS group and apps groups,

00:41:39   looking at the AI mandate and coming up with,

00:41:43   and they know their software really well

00:41:45   and coming up with unexpectedly weird but good things

00:41:49   and bad things, sure, bad things,

00:41:50   but like also weird but good things.

00:41:52   I think that could be great.

00:41:53   And just, I like Apple trying weird stuff and being hungry

00:41:57   and like, 'cause the Vision Pro is super weird, right?

00:42:00   And it's got issues, but like, there's also stuff in it

00:42:02   where you're like, wow, that is really smart.

00:42:04   That is really clever.

00:42:05   And it's been a little while since I've felt that way

00:42:08   about like an iOS feature.

00:42:10   It's like, oh, that's good, that's nice.

00:42:11   They added this thing that we've been clamoring for

00:42:13   for five years and they finally added it.

00:42:17   But this is gonna be, I think more of an OS release

00:42:20   where we look at it and we're like, what?

00:42:23   And that's exciting, right?

00:42:24   Like, what did they do?

00:42:25   What did they did, it's gonna do what now?

00:42:28   That's, for me, that's really great.

00:42:30   I assume that you feel similarly about it.

00:42:32   - I have so many questions about it.

00:42:35   Like, and I just don't, I have,

00:42:38   I'm not sure how they're gonna do it, right?

00:42:40   Like, how much is this stuff gonna be on device?

00:42:44   How much is gonna be in the cloud?

00:42:45   Like, what ramifications are there from that?

00:42:47   Like, I'm intrigued about these things,

00:42:49   but I'm intrigued about exactly what features

00:42:52   they're going to have, what they're going to enable,

00:42:55   like, will Siri have a personality now?

00:42:58   Like, will it be one person?

00:42:59   Like, all of these little things,

00:43:01   like, how far are they gonna go?

00:43:03   Like, what are they willing to do?

00:43:04   And then all of the drama that will naturally,

00:43:08   like, ensue from it.

00:43:10   I'm really intrigued and excited about it.

00:43:11   - Well, we did the draft of the Aegis, right?

00:43:13   Where I predicted that there'll be a scandal

00:43:15   about some terrible thing that one of their AI things does

00:43:18   that they have to apologize for.

00:43:19   - I mean, like, Google's going through it

00:43:20   all right now, right?

00:43:21   Like, it's going to be really intriguing

00:43:25   to see how Apple and its corporate culture battle AI.

00:43:30   Like, I'm really intrigued by it.

00:43:35   - The on-device, off-device thing,

00:43:36   I think, is really interesting,

00:43:37   because what I think it means

00:43:42   is that they're gonna try to do things on device,

00:43:47   but they're gonna have some things

00:43:48   that have to be in the cloud.

00:43:49   They're gonna make statements about how the cloud stuff

00:43:51   is all anonymized and not logged and is personal to you,

00:43:54   which I think is good, right?

00:43:56   Like, that they're gonna want to say,

00:43:58   we're not, you know, it's our model and our data,

00:44:01   and we're not gonna do anything with your queries.

00:44:06   I do wonder, like, how those,

00:44:07   there might be some hybrid models

00:44:09   where it's like there's an LLM that runs on the iPhone

00:44:11   that then does web queries.

00:44:13   It knows to do the queries,

00:44:14   but then the queries happen remotely,

00:44:16   and then information gets filtered back.

00:44:19   I don't know, you're right.

00:44:20   How do they have to change either their philosophy

00:44:23   or how they describe their philosophy in order to use this?

00:44:26   And then, yeah, what are the pitfalls?

00:44:27   Because again, I think that one of the reasons

00:44:29   they've been so conservative with this stuff

00:44:31   is that they want a level of control

00:44:33   that is not necessarily possible with this stuff right now.

00:44:36   And so there are two choices there,

00:44:38   which is one, you make something

00:44:39   that's actually not as good as the competitors,

00:44:42   because you've been so conservative

00:44:43   with your decision-making, or you let it rip,

00:44:47   and maybe some bad things happen,

00:44:50   and how do you label it a beta?

00:44:53   Do you have a footnote that says, you know,

00:44:55   it's experimental and it might give you bad results?

00:44:58   I don't know what those things look.

00:45:01   I'm very interested in the Xcode part of it too.

00:45:04   Like, how do you train, if you're Apple,

00:45:06   what is your code base of Swift and Swift UI especially

00:45:10   that you've trained on?

00:45:12   Is it just like stuff on GitHub?

00:45:14   Is there a lot of, basically what I'm thinking is there,

00:45:16   is there a lot of Swift code out there

00:45:18   that you can train this on

00:45:20   if you're not gonna train it using Apple's internal code?

00:45:24   And a lot of apps that use Swift are not open source

00:45:28   and the source isn't available.

00:45:29   Like, can they train that to be a good co-pilot feature

00:45:34   inside Xcode?

00:45:35   I don't know, it's interesting question.

00:45:37   - As well as AI features,

00:45:40   Mark Gurman is reporting that iOS 18

00:45:42   will feature some design refresh.

00:45:44   Gurman says the company is working to update

00:45:47   the design of iOS,

00:45:48   but I don't believe it will be a total overhaul

00:45:51   that mirrors Vision OS.

00:45:53   Makes sense.

00:45:54   I feel like there's always room for refreshing,

00:45:57   but I think history has shown

00:46:00   don't do the whole thing at once.

00:46:01   It can tend to be a problem.

00:46:03   - It feels like there's some design language changes

00:46:05   that they're gonna make.

00:46:06   And we will talk about this in our next segment, I believe,

00:46:10   because I think that we've gotten some clues

00:46:12   about the direction they're going, but not an overhaul.

00:46:17   They're not trying to build.

00:46:19   It would be, I would think it would be foolish

00:46:21   to launch a brand new 1.0 product

00:46:24   and then try to overhaul the lineup to be like it.

00:46:27   Like, I don't think that that's the plan here.

00:46:29   I do think Vision OS things will seep in.

00:46:31   The ones that work will seep into the other products

00:46:33   'cause that's how it works at Apple.

00:46:35   But that seems premature right now.

00:46:37   - Yeah, I mean like there could have been things

00:46:40   that were designed visually for Vision OS

00:46:43   because they were gonna be everywhere, right?

00:46:45   Like rather than it being,

00:46:46   oh, we made it for Vision OS and it looks real good.

00:46:49   So now like it's what we do, you know what I mean?

00:46:53   But as you say, it would be strange

00:46:57   if that was just the way that they went immediately.

00:46:59   It was like, oh yeah, this is what we're gonna do

00:47:01   with our stuff.

00:47:02   It's all gonna look like this.

00:47:03   - I could see stage manager, especially on the iPad,

00:47:06   looking more like Vision OS.

00:47:07   That's an area where I feel like I could just sort of like

00:47:09   push those things closer together.

00:47:11   - That'd be nice.

00:47:12   So moving on from iOS 18,

00:47:16   Digitimes is reporting that the upcoming OLED iPad Pros

00:47:20   may not see the huge price jumps

00:47:22   that were rumored after all.

00:47:24   So last year, there were a lot of headlines generated

00:47:27   when the ELAC had reported

00:47:29   that pricing for the OLED iPad Pro models

00:47:31   could start at $1,500 for the 11 inch

00:47:35   and $1,800 for the 12.9 inch

00:47:38   due to these new OLED panels.

00:47:39   And I remember we were talking about the time

00:47:41   like that seemed too much, but if it is gonna be that,

00:47:45   well, what are you giving me for it, right?

00:47:47   However, Digitimes is now saying that they predict

00:47:51   an increase of $160 as a maximum on each current model.

00:47:57   This would see starting prices of $950

00:48:01   and $1,200 respectively.

00:48:03   - I mean, it's still a lot of money for an iPad,

00:48:05   but it's not as much money as we feared.

00:48:07   - Nope.

00:48:08   - Right, because our statement about it was very much like,

00:48:13   how do you convince people that $1,500

00:48:16   for an 11 inch iPad makes sense, right?

00:48:18   And if it's 950 to start, again, it's not cheap, right?

00:48:23   You're in MacBook Air territory there,

00:48:27   but it's an OLED screen, yeah, interesting, interesting here.

00:48:32   Keep in mind also there's probably gonna be

00:48:34   a new Magic Keyboard and that's probably gonna cost

00:48:37   you know, $350, something like that.

00:48:38   - Yeah, you could get to $1,500 and $1,800.

00:48:41   - Easily, easily.

00:48:42   - But it's not what the iPad's gonna start at itself.

00:48:45   These iPad Pros are also, so 9to5Mac reported this,

00:48:50   they are set to get a little bit larger, but also thinner

00:48:53   because of the OLED panels inside,

00:48:55   with the key part being, I think, that the new iPad Pros

00:48:58   are expected to be just five millimeters thick,

00:49:01   which is wild and it's still expected

00:49:04   that we will see them released by the end of March.

00:49:07   - They're currently six and six and a half, essentially.

00:49:11   And they're gonna go down to five, which is pretty wild.

00:49:16   Whereas the Air will be six, so Air doesn't mean

00:49:22   what you think it means, but it is, yeah.

00:49:24   I mean, I love my iPad.

00:49:26   I have to admit that I've been thinking like,

00:49:29   am I overly committed to the large iPad lifestyle?

00:49:33   And I do love that big screen, but it is bigger.

00:49:37   But then I see a story like this

00:49:38   and I think, hmm, maybe it's okay, right?

00:49:43   - 'Cause maybe, I don't know,

00:49:44   I wonder what the weight change will be, if at all.

00:49:46   - I wonder.

00:49:48   - But that thinness is pretty, pretty awesome.

00:49:51   Going back to Mark Gurman reporting now

00:49:54   and his power on newsletter, Mark has said

00:49:56   that Apple started work, early work,

00:49:59   on a home part of a screen.

00:50:01   - Yeah, this is almost like a wet blanket kind of thing.

00:50:03   'Cause we've talked about this before

00:50:05   and he said that they were working on it.

00:50:07   And this report seems to be very much like,

00:50:09   nobody get their hopes up.

00:50:10   This is not a 2024 thing, right?

00:50:13   This is like, it's out there.

00:50:15   This is a thing that they're trying out,

00:50:19   but it's not something that's shipping imminently.

00:50:21   'Cause I think that maybe some reports

00:50:22   made people too excited.

00:50:24   Like they were, oh, they're testing it

00:50:26   and they're getting ready to ship it.

00:50:27   And he's like, no, no, no, no, no.

00:50:28   That is not what's happening.

00:50:30   It's gonna be a lot further out.

00:50:32   So don't get your hopes up.

00:50:33   - Yeah, part of this reporting

00:50:34   was that 9to5Mac found references

00:50:37   to such a device existing in a tvOS 17.4 beta.

00:50:42   It was referencing like a screen and a home pod in tvOS,

00:50:47   which doesn't make any sense

00:50:49   unless they're testing something like this

00:50:51   'cause no such product exists.

00:50:53   And it is still expected that this device

00:50:55   would be some combination of an Apple TV,

00:50:58   a home pod and an iPad of a FaceTime camera.

00:51:02   - Oh, sounds good.

00:51:03   - I think really the key is like good audio, right?

00:51:05   So home pod, FaceTime camera so you can call people.

00:51:09   The iPad part is just, it has a touch screen,

00:51:12   but the operating system looking and feeling like tvOS,

00:51:15   like that makes a lot of sense,

00:51:17   that whole kind of stack of things to do.

00:51:19   - Simplified operating system, there are apps for it.

00:51:22   You could do FaceTime and Zoom on it, right?

00:51:24   Like they've got all that stuff in there

00:51:25   'cause the tvOS stuff with continuity camera,

00:51:27   it's like, well, that's interesting,

00:51:28   but you gotta have continuity camera.

00:51:30   But if there is a product behind it

00:51:32   that has an integrated camera and runs tvOS,

00:51:35   it makes a lot more sense.

00:51:36   And the software is already there for it at that point.

00:51:39   So there's a lot to be said for this.

00:51:41   - Let me tell you what I want this device to do,

00:51:43   but we're very, very far away from that

00:51:45   if it ever happening.

00:51:46   I want this to be an eye tracking focused device.

00:51:49   - Oh, interesting.

00:51:51   - If I'm in the kitchen, I'm usually busy.

00:51:55   My hands are dirty, I'm cooking, whatever.

00:51:58   To use a device like this, yes, I could use my voice,

00:52:01   but I would also like to be able to look at it

00:52:02   and tap with my fingers.

00:52:04   I also felt like I wanna do this with my watch too, right?

00:52:09   'Cause the Apple Watch,

00:52:12   we always wanted to be a one-handed device.

00:52:15   It's how we thought about it before.

00:52:16   Oh, it's a one-handed device, right?

00:52:18   It's simple, but it's not, it's two hands.

00:52:21   It is more two-handed than anything else that you use.

00:52:25   But wouldn't it be nice if you could look at your watch

00:52:29   and just use the single tap motion

00:52:32   that it should potentially be able to detect

00:52:34   to do things in the watch?

00:52:36   We're far away from technology like that,

00:52:39   but I also, I mean, a few years ago,

00:52:42   wouldn't have imagined that they could have eye tracking

00:52:45   so good on the vision.

00:52:47   - Now keep in mind that the eye tracking is right by your eye

00:52:50   and this thing is across the kitchen from you,

00:52:52   but I think that there are things that they could learn.

00:52:54   So my Google Nest Home, whatever it is,

00:52:58   has very limited gestural support.

00:53:01   It basically means that I don't have to tell it

00:53:03   to stop the alarm or tap on the screen.

00:53:05   I can actually wave my hand at it

00:53:07   and it turns the alarm off.

00:53:08   And I think maybe there's something like

00:53:13   a combination of hand gestures

00:53:15   and maybe even like attention sense.

00:53:21   So if you think about the idea that if you're looking at it,

00:53:25   can it determine, does it have an ML model of like,

00:53:28   oh, now it's looking at me.

00:53:30   And then you do a command with a gesture and it does it.

00:53:34   That's not eye tracking per se.

00:53:36   - What if like you could, I don't know,

00:53:39   tvOS is very big, like the point.

00:53:42   What if it had some kind of thing,

00:53:45   like some kind of radar thing in it, like that Pixel had,

00:53:49   where you could just move your hand, right?

00:53:50   And it's just selecting what you're looking at.

00:53:54   There are things to do.

00:53:55   - Yeah, maybe, or maybe it's the motion, right?

00:53:58   'Cause tvOS is very much like a left, right, up, down,

00:54:01   select for most stuff.

00:54:02   So if you can imagine that maybe it only triggers

00:54:05   when you're looking at it,

00:54:07   and then you've got hand gestures for,

00:54:09   which would be very easy, I would think,

00:54:11   for left, right, up, down, and enter.

00:54:13   So you could basically go like right, right,

00:54:16   move your finger, right, right,

00:54:18   and then go with your palm of your hand or something,

00:54:20   go boop, and it selects a thing.

00:54:24   There might be a simple set of those kind of gestures

00:54:26   for when you wanna be hands-free

00:54:28   and not putting your oily, chickeny,

00:54:31   whatever they are, hands on the screen,

00:54:33   which is super gross in the kitchen.

00:54:35   So I think there's potential there.

00:54:36   And they have this tech.

00:54:37   - Keep salmonella out of the kitchen, you know?

00:54:40   Let's just keep that out of the kitchen.

00:54:41   No raw chicken hands.

00:54:43   - Well, I mean, salmonella might be in the kitchen,

00:54:45   keep it off your screen for sure.

00:54:47   - Yeah, but I mean, you're more likely to get it

00:54:49   if you're just putting your like gross chicken hands

00:54:51   on the screen. - Exactly.

00:54:52   You should keep it contained.

00:54:53   Keep your contaminants contained.

00:54:56   You don't want them on the screen of your device.

00:54:57   - It's right there, you know, contaminant, contain, right?

00:55:00   It's the clue's in the name.

00:55:02   Finally, iPhone schematics and leaked production molds

00:55:07   suggesting that the iPhone 16

00:55:09   will feature a vertical arrangement

00:55:11   of the two camera lenses.

00:55:12   Clearly this is for spatial video.

00:55:15   - Clearly, very clearly. - Right, because they have been

00:55:17   horizontally aligned from each other for years now.

00:55:21   And now they would be vertically aligned.

00:55:25   Diagonally, sorry, not horizontally,

00:55:26   diagonally aligned from each other, right?

00:55:28   And in the little square on the iPhone 16 for a long time.

00:55:31   - But if you have one right on top of the other,

00:55:33   then you have the ability to flip the phone on its side

00:55:36   and capture spatial video.

00:55:38   - There are also rumors that suggest the iPhone 16

00:55:42   will gain both an action button

00:55:44   and the rumored capacitive capture button,

00:55:46   which is interesting to me,

00:55:48   that they would put the action button straight on that phone

00:55:51   and then immediately as well,

00:55:52   if they're gonna add this capture button this year,

00:55:54   that there's a possibility of it coming to both phones

00:55:56   at the same time.

00:55:57   - I think Apple is much more aggressive

00:56:00   taking things off the pro

00:56:01   and putting them on the main models

00:56:02   than we give them credit for.

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00:57:53   - Oh, convenience, interesting.

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00:58:13   Actually, the same as also our outdoor heater thing.

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01:00:06   - Apple has launched a sports scores app

01:00:10   and Jason had the chance to talk to Eddy Cue about it.

01:00:13   What a great time for everyone.

01:00:15   - I did, I talked to Eddy one-on-one.

01:00:17   I mean, there was other Apple PR people about it.

01:00:19   It was just me and Eddy talking.

01:00:21   Yeah, just hanging out with Eddy Cue.

01:00:22   First time for me I've ever talked to Eddy Cue, honestly.

01:00:25   - Was it a good time?

01:00:26   It seemed like a good time. - Yeah.

01:00:28   I think Eddy Cue is exactly who you expect him to be,

01:00:30   who you see him as.

01:00:31   He seems really smart, but also like a real person.

01:00:36   He cares about sports, obviously.

01:00:38   That was in my story.

01:00:39   I basically said, "Look, you know one thing about Eddy,

01:00:41   he cares about sports.

01:00:42   He's a court side at the Warriors games."

01:00:44   When I talked to him,

01:00:45   he had just come back from the Super Bowl.

01:00:47   Like, literally that morning he had come back

01:00:51   from the Super Bowl was the day after the Super Bowl.

01:00:53   And so to do this app and have like a sports score app,

01:01:00   like clearly it's driven by his personal passion

01:01:05   for this subject and frustration.

01:01:07   One of the things that he and I talked about,

01:01:09   he was like, "Well, where do you get your scores?"

01:01:10   And I said, "Honestly, I've given up on score apps.

01:01:13   I just use Google."

01:01:14   And he says, "Yes."

01:01:17   He basically is like, "Yes, this is the problem,

01:01:20   is that the apps," and I think he's right.

01:01:24   The apps that you make for sports scores

01:01:26   are generally, the focus is on something else.

01:01:30   They're trying to get you to do something else,

01:01:33   subscribe to their thing or use their betting app,

01:01:37   or there's so many other things that they,

01:01:39   or just load you in with ads.

01:01:41   And he was like, "We just wanted to make something

01:01:43   that gets you to the scores fast."

01:01:44   And that was our whole charter for this thing.

01:01:46   It was obviously coming out of his group

01:01:47   and probably a very small group of people.

01:01:49   And they're like, it's a passion project for them.

01:01:52   But I think that there's also behind it,

01:01:54   there's a lot of strategy going on.

01:01:55   So it's really interesting.

01:01:57   Even if you're not interested in sports or sports scores,

01:01:59   I think it's interesting in how it's built

01:02:01   and how it interlinks with other stuff Apple's doing

01:02:04   and how Apple maybe can do something that starts simple,

01:02:08   but also has a lot of potential for interlinking

01:02:10   with other things Apple's doing.

01:02:12   - So as Eddie says, and I quote,

01:02:15   "I just want the damn score of the game."

01:02:18   - Yep, that's what he said to me.

01:02:19   - It's one of the greatest quotes

01:02:21   from Apple executive of all time.

01:02:24   - And they said, when you talk to Eddie,

01:02:26   the top part of it before we get into the demo

01:02:28   is on the record.

01:02:29   And I'm like, when he said that, I was like,

01:02:30   "Well, that's not something they'd put in a press release."

01:02:32   And I love it because that's it, right?

01:02:33   I just want the damn score.

01:02:35   That's what I want.

01:02:36   And I mean, he said,

01:02:38   he said he was literally standing courtside

01:02:39   at the Warriors games where he has tickets

01:02:42   and looking at the scoreboard

01:02:44   and looking at the app when it was in beta

01:02:47   and sending notes back about how long the app was delayed

01:02:51   from what the real time was.

01:02:52   'Cause part of the goal of this

01:02:54   was not only to get you the scores fast,

01:02:56   but get them to be not super laggy.

01:02:59   He wants the data source to be as current as possible.

01:03:03   - Yeah.

01:03:03   What's going on with that data source?

01:03:05   Because that was a thing, right?

01:03:06   That you were mentioning in the article

01:03:08   and I've heard other people mention.

01:03:10   Apple seems to have some kind of very, very fast data source,

01:03:14   like something's going on here.

01:03:15   Do you know what's going on there?

01:03:16   Like, do you know anything about it?

01:03:18   - I don't know what their data sources are.

01:03:20   I think they've got different partners.

01:03:21   I think that one of the reasons why

01:03:23   there are certain sports that are in there

01:03:25   and certain sports that aren't,

01:03:26   some of that has to do with like what's,

01:03:28   like there's everybody's like,

01:03:29   oh, I can't add my favorite NFL team.

01:03:31   It's like, guys, there's no NFL scores until August.

01:03:34   So hold on.

01:03:35   But I get it on one level,

01:03:37   but on another level I get why they're like,

01:03:39   no, we're not gonna do that now.

01:03:41   But I think some of the lower leagues in like,

01:03:45   it released in the US, Canada, and the UK.

01:03:48   And in the UK, one of the things that people pointed out

01:03:50   is it's just the premier league.

01:03:52   And it probably should have

01:03:54   some of the lower leagues in there too.

01:03:56   I think that has to do with the data source.

01:03:57   That's my suspicion is that they're not happy.

01:04:00   And they may even have some standards

01:04:01   for like how quickly the data source updates.

01:04:04   And if the data source isn't very good,

01:04:06   my guess is that they're pushing their data source providers

01:04:08   because they want that data,

01:04:10   but they're launching with the data

01:04:11   that they're comfortable with

01:04:12   because they wanna show off

01:04:14   that they've got a good data source.

01:04:15   The other funny thing about the data sources,

01:04:17   this is not a new data source.

01:04:19   If you have had favorite teams in Apple News or Apple TV

01:04:22   before, you've been getting live activities

01:04:24   and can continue to get them for those teams

01:04:28   on your lock screen of your iPhone.

01:04:30   That's the same data source.

01:04:31   Like I got up a couple of days before I went down

01:04:35   and talked to Eddie and Arsenal was playing.

01:04:37   It was actually the day before, 'cause it was Sunday.

01:04:39   They played the morning of Super Bowl Sunday.

01:04:41   And I'm walking out to get my tea in the morning

01:04:44   and on my iPhone in standby,

01:04:47   instead of it being like the clock and the weather,

01:04:49   it's the Arsenal score and a play-by-play

01:04:52   of the Arsenal game.

01:04:54   And I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, right, live activities."

01:04:57   And in fact, now that spring training has started,

01:05:00   I'm getting those live activities for the Giants as well.

01:05:04   And what's funny is that those scores

01:05:05   aren't in the Scores app.

01:05:06   And I think that, again, this is one of those cases

01:05:08   where their live activities data feed

01:05:12   has some spring training data in it,

01:05:14   but the Sports app isn't yet,

01:05:17   I think that they've got stuff they wanna do

01:05:19   to properly present baseball

01:05:21   and they're waiting for the regular season

01:05:23   to properly present it.

01:05:25   'Cause they've got a, it's not just the score,

01:05:27   it's also like the pages that have like the box score

01:05:31   and stats and stuff.

01:05:32   And I think that they, I don't think that's ready.

01:05:35   They also have a March Madness thing that they're gonna do

01:05:37   for the NCAA basketball tournaments

01:05:40   that he said that that will be specific to that

01:05:45   and they'll push that out for the tournaments.

01:05:47   So there was clear intent here

01:05:49   that this thing is gonna get updated a lot.

01:05:52   And that is not just presentation,

01:05:54   but it's also the data sources.

01:05:55   So I think that there's more here,

01:05:58   but when I say this, I mean,

01:06:00   it also talks about the fact that this is kind of a,

01:06:04   it's kind of funny, right?

01:06:06   Because the data source is already there,

01:06:08   it's in the TV app.

01:06:09   And then I heard a lot of people say,

01:06:10   well, why aren't they doing things like with the Stocks app

01:06:12   where you're basically like reading news

01:06:14   about your stocks that you're following in the Stocks app.

01:06:17   But like you read news about the teams you're following

01:06:20   in the News app and that all syncs.

01:06:23   And like, so on one level that makes sense.

01:06:26   On another level, I wonder if the long-term play,

01:06:29   like this app is not called Apple Scores, right?

01:06:32   It's called Apple Sports.

01:06:34   So I wonder if the long-term plan is to integrate

01:06:37   more of that stuff into one app.

01:06:39   But right now it's sort of three apps.

01:06:42   - It's a brand.

01:06:43   This is the brand.

01:06:44   It's not, you should say, it's not sports scores.

01:06:46   It's Apple Sport, like Apple TV, like Apple weather,

01:06:49   like all of these things.

01:06:50   - Exactly.

01:06:51   - And we'll talk in a minute about like,

01:06:53   I wanna talk to you in a minute about like

01:06:54   bolder ambitions and stuff.

01:06:56   I mean, this is interesting.

01:06:57   Like, yeah, my main sport is Formula One.

01:06:59   That's not in here.

01:07:00   And I think I feel like I understand why.

01:07:02   I don't even think this is a data thing.

01:07:04   I think that is just a completely different way

01:07:07   of showing scores of something.

01:07:09   'Cause it isn't really scores, it's not really scoring.

01:07:11   - Yeah, I'm sure they will get there, right?

01:07:14   Because I'm sure they would like to harness F1 fans

01:07:17   and get them in, but it is, yeah.

01:07:19   It's a different paradigm that they have to build

01:07:21   and I can see why they would leave it out

01:07:23   at the first version.

01:07:24   It's a little less, when they have soccer scores in there,

01:07:26   it's a little less to be like,

01:07:27   well, why isn't the championship in there?

01:07:28   And why isn't the Champions League in there?

01:07:31   - And I assume that is a, you know,

01:07:32   you're saying about the data, but I reckon it's like

01:07:34   how much money is in the system, right?

01:07:36   And like Premier League has more money.

01:07:38   They can maybe have better data, better real-time data

01:07:42   because the data exists.

01:07:43   But if Apple's very, like very fixed on this,

01:07:47   like it's got to be immediately fast or whatever,

01:07:52   then that's gonna cause them a problem.

01:07:56   - Doesn't it sound like for them to have a higher standard

01:07:58   and it means that things get omitted from their app

01:08:00   and people complain about it, but they're like, no,

01:08:04   we have a higher standard.

01:08:05   And then there's a question of like,

01:08:06   will they get people to raise the bar for the data sources?

01:08:10   Will they lower their bar a little bit

01:08:11   for some of the other scores?

01:08:13   Who knows?

01:08:14   But they're going out with the data sources

01:08:16   that they think are, first off, are the biggest ones

01:08:19   and that probably the best ones.

01:08:21   So it is the NBA.

01:08:23   And MLS, of course, it launched on MLS opening day.

01:08:26   That's why it launched when it did, clearly was that.

01:08:29   But they've got MLS, NBA, NHL, Premier League,

01:08:33   a bunch of other European soccer,

01:08:35   even though it didn't launch in other European countries.

01:08:38   I think it was strongly implied to me that Luca Maestri,

01:08:42   the CFO at Apple, really wanted Serie A to be in there.

01:08:46   - Fair.

01:08:47   - So, there's a lot of people who follow European leagues

01:08:50   who are not the top level leagues,

01:08:52   but again, the lower level leagues aren't there.

01:08:53   - Come on in, Phil.

01:08:54   I know Phil Schiller is a big Formula One fan, so.

01:08:57   - I know, right?

01:08:58   - Why doesn't Phil get this treatment?

01:09:01   - I think it's harder.

01:09:01   I think that's the answer, right?

01:09:03   It's like, it's a completely different way

01:09:05   to visualize data for races than it is for a soccer match.

01:09:10   - There is an app out there called BoxBox

01:09:12   that Apple should just buy that team

01:09:13   'cause they've done it, like, they've built a live activity

01:09:17   for Formula One races, which is like, it's so good.

01:09:20   Like, it updates live with times and lap numbers

01:09:23   and stuff like, it's a different way of showing things.

01:09:26   One of the things that I find super interesting

01:09:29   and I find it quite complicated and very strange

01:09:31   at the same time is that it has betting, betting lines,

01:09:35   betting information, right?

01:09:37   The odds on games are in this app.

01:09:41   - In the app.

01:09:42   - I don't know why they've done that.

01:09:43   - Well, I can tell you why, which is in the U.S. right now,

01:09:49   an enormous amount of attention and money

01:09:54   is happening with legal sports gambling.

01:09:56   Legal sports gambling is new in most of the U.S.

01:09:59   And there's a huge amount of money in there.

01:10:02   And I think that what happened is there is a perception

01:10:05   that betting is a part of the sports market

01:10:11   and the sports audience.

01:10:12   And so they didn't want to ignore it.

01:10:14   I think five years ago, this wouldn't have happened.

01:10:16   - You can't bet in the app.

01:10:17   - No, you can't bet in it.

01:10:18   No, it just shows you the odds.

01:10:20   - So why is that useful to you?

01:10:23   - I don't know.

01:10:24   I mean, I'm not a bettor, so I can't tell you.

01:10:26   I think maybe there's like, who's favored.

01:10:28   - Yeah, some people like to know that, right?

01:10:30   But there's, it's weird to me because it's Apple, right?

01:10:35   - Yep.

01:10:36   Then again, I'll just point out again,

01:10:38   when they launched the major league baseball stuff,

01:10:41   their pregame show was sponsored by a betting company.

01:10:46   So like Apple has been involved with sports betting.

01:10:49   And I know people feel differently about it.

01:10:51   There is, as far as I can tell from the reaction

01:10:54   that I saw on Mastodon, I think in mainland Europe,

01:10:58   there is a very strong anti-betting opinion.

01:11:03   But I will just say that in the U.S. and the UK actually,

01:11:07   where these things have launched,

01:11:08   and I don't know about how candid it feels,

01:11:10   there it is a part of the culture

01:11:14   and it's not a part that I am a part of,

01:11:16   but it is very normal.

01:11:18   I'm really just surprised that it either doesn't ask

01:11:20   or that it doesn't put the setting in the app itself.

01:11:22   You have to go to settings and then drill down

01:11:25   all the way into the sports app and then turn it off.

01:11:27   But you can turn it off.

01:11:29   And I didn't even have to ask.

01:11:30   It was on my list of questions to ask about.

01:11:32   And before I could in the demo, they're like,

01:11:34   you can turn it off.

01:11:35   It's there if you want it and you can turn it off.

01:11:37   - It's weird to me that they've done it.

01:11:38   It's weird.

01:11:39   You say they've partnered with DraftKings for this?

01:11:42   - Apparently it is the data source.

01:11:44   It says that it's the data source, yeah.

01:11:46   - But it's also strange to me

01:11:48   that you can't do anything with it.

01:11:50   Yeah, okay, it says it in settings.

01:11:52   Sports settings, betting odds provided by DraftKings.

01:11:55   So it says that in the settings app.

01:11:57   It doesn't say it in the thing.

01:11:58   And it can't do anything with that.

01:12:00   It's just that's where they have the data.

01:12:02   So I guess for DraftKings, this is just a way to make money.

01:12:05   But so let's talk about some of the future of this.

01:12:07   Like, and I will start with that question is,

01:12:09   can you imagine a world where Apple's into sports betting?

01:12:13   - Not really.

01:12:15   But I think that it's possible

01:12:20   that there might be a partnership or links out.

01:12:25   I have a hard time imagining

01:12:27   that they would do it more than that.

01:12:29   I think that they'll keep it at arm's length.

01:12:32   It's possible that they will allow...

01:12:35   'Cause then they would be linking to third party apps.

01:12:37   I don't think it'll be in the app at all.

01:12:39   So I think this is probably the most it'll be.

01:12:40   In fact, I wouldn't be surprised

01:12:41   if they scale it back a little bit

01:12:43   based on reaction from people.

01:12:45   Like, yeah, I don't know.

01:12:49   We'll see, we'll see.

01:12:50   Like I said, I don't really understand the psychology

01:12:54   of people who are focused on betting for sports.

01:12:57   But I know that it's a huge part of the audience

01:13:00   and they wanna capture that audience.

01:13:02   I'm not sure that audience needs to see the odds in the app.

01:13:05   Because they're probably seeing the odds

01:13:07   in their betting app anyway.

01:13:09   So I don't know if I entirely understand this part of it.

01:13:13   I doubt it will be a direction for them.

01:13:15   - Who knows, maybe like if you're that person,

01:13:18   like if you're using the sports app because you like it

01:13:20   and then you notice the odds change maybe during the game

01:13:23   that maybe you'll wanna...

01:13:24   But I don't even know if that's the thing that happens.

01:13:26   It's weird.

01:13:27   I think it's the weirdest part of this.

01:13:29   And to me, it's interesting

01:13:31   because it's like this is a nice app.

01:13:33   Like, and then a lot of the conversation has been focused

01:13:35   around Apple and sports betting,

01:13:37   which is just like, you know, it's something.

01:13:39   - By the way, one of the things

01:13:40   that our dear video producer Chip pointed out

01:13:43   to us just now, which I alluded to,

01:13:45   but I didn't mention in detail.

01:13:48   Sports betting is only legal in certain states in the US.

01:13:51   - Right.

01:13:52   - So if they were to want to interlink in the US,

01:13:56   they would have to do like geography

01:13:58   down to the state level and stuff.

01:14:00   And I think that honestly, direct betting links in the app

01:14:04   alone was aligned too far,

01:14:06   but certainly it adds enormous complexity

01:14:08   if you go beyond that.

01:14:09   But I think that, I don't think that they wanna do it.

01:14:11   - No.

01:14:12   But you mentioned linking out.

01:14:15   One of the things that this app does

01:14:17   is if there is a service, a streaming service that has-

01:14:22   - Connected to Apple TV.

01:14:25   - It's connected to Apple TV

01:14:27   that is showing the game that you're looking at live,

01:14:30   you can tap a button to take you to the app.

01:14:35   - To take you to the TV app.

01:14:37   - To TV app, to watch it.

01:14:38   - Take you to the TV app from which you can go

01:14:42   to the provider or start a live activity

01:14:47   from the TV app for that event.

01:14:52   So basically the link in the sports app

01:14:53   is open an Apple TV app, and then in the TV app,

01:14:58   you can watch it if you have an interlinked thing

01:15:00   where you can follow the live activity

01:15:01   if they offer a live activity for it.

01:15:03   Which is weird, right?

01:15:04   Because it's a bunch of extra taps in a different app,

01:15:08   but that's how they built it right now

01:15:10   because those features already exist, right?

01:15:11   They're already in the TV app.

01:15:13   So they're just sort of like,

01:15:15   I don't know whether this is a philosophy

01:15:16   that Apple wants to follow broadly,

01:15:19   which is a whole bunch of small focused apps

01:15:22   that interconnect, or if it's more just a function

01:15:25   of this app being built late.

01:15:27   After that, those features are elsewhere.

01:15:29   And so for now, they're just interlinking,

01:15:32   but that the goal in the longterm

01:15:33   would be to integrate it all in the app itself.

01:15:36   Six and one half dozen of another right now.

01:15:40   I can see the advantage of both.

01:15:42   - On upgradey award-winning

01:15:44   and my favorite podcast, "The Town,"

01:15:47   Matt Bellini of Puck, his prediction that he made

01:15:50   at the end of the episode is that this is the beginning

01:15:53   of Apple wanting to become the mega content provider.

01:15:57   And this is their beginning of that,

01:15:59   of everybody come to us and we'll program all of this

01:16:03   for you in our applications and people,

01:16:05   like in Apple sports, right?

01:16:07   They would become the program guide for this.

01:16:11   And I was listening to it and I was like,

01:16:13   that's a great idea,

01:16:14   but I don't believe people are gonna let them.

01:16:16   I don't think that, I think if that was the case,

01:16:20   then the TV app would be more successful than it is,

01:16:22   but maybe for sports, it is more successful

01:16:25   than it is for other types of content.

01:16:27   - I would actually argue that this is a great leg up

01:16:30   for the TV app because people are gonna be more interested

01:16:33   in sports who might not even know that the TV app

01:16:36   knows what their favorite teams are

01:16:37   and can immediately take them to the app

01:16:39   that's got that team's game live.

01:16:42   And if you're thinking like people are,

01:16:43   the future of sports is people watching on their iPhones,

01:16:45   let's say, then having a scores app that will immediately

01:16:50   or through a second app,

01:16:52   which is why I think that ideally you can't,

01:16:54   you've got to integrate it into this app directly,

01:16:56   but like using that data to say, oh, well, you've got max.

01:17:01   So you can see this game on, it's the NBA on TNT.

01:17:04   That's how I did it when I was testing this out

01:17:06   on the first or second day I was out.

01:17:08   It's like there was an NBA game on and I have max,

01:17:11   which means for now at least I have the bleacher report add

01:17:14   on 'cause they're giving it away for a limited time.

01:17:18   And it just put me into the NBA game

01:17:20   that I was looking at that was live.

01:17:22   That is potentially pretty powerful, right?

01:17:25   Because if you're those sources,

01:17:29   whether it's something like YouTube TV or Fubo or Hulu Plus,

01:17:34   or whether it's Paramount Plus with the CBS stuff

01:17:39   or the spooloo thing that might happen,

01:17:41   which is the joint venture that might be coming this fall.

01:17:44   If Apple can be the premier sort of like,

01:17:50   we know what sports you care about

01:17:51   and we can get you to the video or the score or whatever

01:17:55   as quickly as possible, there's value in that.

01:17:58   And it makes more sense for that to come out

01:18:00   of the sports app than it does to come out

01:18:01   of the sports area of the TV app,

01:18:05   because it's not even a tab, right?

01:18:06   It's a scroll down on the iPhone.

01:18:09   On the Apple TV, it is a tab,

01:18:11   but on the iPhone, it's a sort of scroll down

01:18:13   until you get to the sports and then tap sports.

01:18:15   And then it takes you to the sports page,

01:18:17   which is not quite as exciting.

01:18:19   - No.

01:18:20   Do you think that this is also just a continuing signal

01:18:24   that they would like to have more content of their own?

01:18:28   Like more than just MLS, like Apple sports,

01:18:31   it's like they want more leagues, they want more?

01:18:33   - I think they do, but I think they also want

01:18:35   to be an aggregator of other people's content, right?

01:18:39   I think that they do want to have some sports content

01:18:43   of their own and they find value in that.

01:18:45   But when you think about how many iPhones are out there

01:18:50   and also potentially doing this on Apple TV,

01:18:52   although there's some questions about the success of that,

01:18:54   but how many iPhones are out there?

01:18:56   And maybe we throw in iPads, but especially the iPhone.

01:19:00   Having all of your sports, like knowing your favorite teams

01:19:05   and having Apple be the mediator to say,

01:19:08   oh, this favorite team is now on,

01:19:09   especially with the sports world fractured like it is,

01:19:12   where like, oh, where is my favorite team's game?

01:19:14   It's on ESPN tonight, but then Friday night it's on Apple.

01:19:18   And in the meantime, it's on local cable

01:19:20   that I get through YouTube TV or whatever, right?

01:19:22   Like it gets really fractured.

01:19:25   So if you're Apple and you can say,

01:19:27   hey, we know where it is, just tap on,

01:19:30   just come to the scores app, we know your favorite team

01:19:33   and we know that they're live right now and you tap

01:19:35   and we'll play that game no matter what app it's in,

01:19:38   'cause they're at the higher level kind of above the apps.

01:19:42   I think there might be something there.

01:19:44   - We read a quote from John Gruber,

01:19:46   the design language of Apple sports is new.

01:19:49   I wouldn't say sports looks much like journal,

01:19:51   but they're similar in so far as they're both using a new,

01:19:54   very simple, very focused UI design language.

01:19:58   Sports is closest aesthetically perhaps to Apple weather.

01:20:02   It does have a very different look to it.

01:20:04   - It does, it does.

01:20:06   - An app that Apple makes as did journal,

01:20:08   like both of these applications,

01:20:11   they feel like they are much more designed

01:20:14   for the purpose of the application

01:20:15   than trying to follow any specific set of rules.

01:20:19   - I agree, I do wonder if there are gonna be things

01:20:23   in this app that we look at in the next version of iOS

01:20:26   and go, oh yeah, this looks kind of like the sports app now.

01:20:31   - Or maybe what it says is that Apple is willing

01:20:36   to let all of their apps look the way they do

01:20:39   that best fits them and that they don't need

01:20:41   to be as unified as they were before.

01:20:43   Certainly their goal is to have it

01:20:45   be a rich graphic treatment, right?

01:20:48   Which is something that it's got in common

01:20:50   with like the weather app.

01:20:51   I think they want them to feel really nice

01:20:54   and have lots of graphics and a lot of color.

01:20:56   Like one of the things that they kept emphasizing

01:20:58   to me was the fact that they're picking up

01:21:00   the colors of the teams and using them as highlights.

01:21:03   So like even out on the top level,

01:21:05   if you're watching the Celtics, they'll be green.

01:21:10   And if you're watching the Warriors,

01:21:12   they're gonna be blue or blue and yellow.

01:21:14   Like that they're going to pick up,

01:21:17   since color is one of the big identifiers in a lot of teams,

01:21:21   they're gonna pick up those colors and use them.

01:21:24   Yeah, it's just interesting to see,

01:21:28   is this a design playground for them where they're like,

01:21:31   don't worry about it, just make a beautiful sports app

01:21:33   or are they thinking sort of like,

01:21:35   this is where all of Apple's apps are going?

01:21:38   I don't know.

01:21:39   - It's a nice moving gradients,

01:21:42   like little flags and stuff in the application

01:21:44   when you open it up, it looks very materially.

01:21:47   There's movement, there's life in it,

01:21:49   but it's also simplicity to it.

01:21:50   Yeah, it's interesting.

01:21:53   I'll be keen to see if and how this kind of thing

01:21:56   proliferates, but what I do like, and I do like the idea

01:21:59   of just making these applications look the best they can

01:22:03   for the thing they are, rather than like,

01:22:06   follow these very specific set of guidelines.

01:22:10   - For tab, everything's gonna have tabs on the bottom,

01:22:12   they gotta look the same.

01:22:14   This doesn't have tabs on the bottom.

01:22:15   - But it is a shame that this is another app

01:22:17   that's iPhone only, same as Journal.

01:22:20   - It is, it is iPhone only.

01:22:21   I think that is interesting too, right?

01:22:23   In terms of Apple's priorities,

01:22:25   that, although for this app, I think my argument would be,

01:22:30   it's meant for you to check on sports scores

01:22:33   while you're on the go, and the iPhone is the primary place

01:22:36   where you do that, but I also--

01:22:37   - But your iPad is nice for if you're at home

01:22:39   and it's game day and there's like 12 games on

01:22:42   and you wanna keep track of them all, you know?

01:22:44   You could have loads of them all at once, right?

01:22:47   So you could watch the play-by-play

01:22:48   of multiple things on your iPad.

01:22:49   Quad box spot on steroids, but like data quad box.

01:22:54   - No, steroids aren't allowed in sports, sorry.

01:22:57   They're illegal.

01:22:57   - On the sidelines maybe, you know?

01:23:00   Who can stop you? - No.

01:23:01   - One last thing on sports.

01:23:03   This comes from a press release about MLS,

01:23:06   the season opener for MLS.

01:23:08   "Coming soon, all Apple Vision Pro users

01:23:11   "can experience the best of the 2023 MLS Cup playoffs

01:23:15   "with the first ever sports film captured

01:23:17   "in an Apple immersive video.

01:23:19   "Viewers will feel every heart pounding moment in 8K 3D

01:23:23   "of a 180 degree field of view and spatial audio

01:23:26   "that transports them into each match."

01:23:30   - Right, so this is something that honestly,

01:23:34   it is very clear that this is harder

01:23:37   than they thought it would be

01:23:39   because the new MLS season has started

01:23:43   and this isn't out yet.

01:23:45   And this is the kind of thing you release

01:23:47   to build the hype for the new MLS season

01:23:49   'cause it's the highlights from the playoffs of last season.

01:23:54   And it's not out yet.

01:23:55   Instead, it's like a--

01:23:56   - Oh yeah, I didn't realize the 23 thing.

01:23:58   Yeah, this is ages ago.

01:24:00   - Yeah, this is last year's, last fall's playoffs.

01:24:05   - October to December, 2023.

01:24:07   - They have a documentary about it,

01:24:10   which I'm really looking forward to seeing,

01:24:12   but the best time to release this

01:24:15   was shortly after the Vision Pro releases,

01:24:17   you release this and it gets people hyped

01:24:20   about soccer and Vision Pro and the MLS package

01:24:24   that's on Apple TV Plus.

01:24:26   And instead, it's a footnote in their press release saying,

01:24:30   "Oh, coming later, while this season is going on,

01:24:34   "you can relive the end of last season."

01:24:36   - At least it seems like this is gonna be a free thing.

01:24:39   This isn't gonna be for MLS subscribers

01:24:42   'cause they say all--

01:24:42   - All Apple Vision Pro users, right?

01:24:45   Yeah, well, I mean, it's such a small user base now

01:24:47   and they wanna show off as much immersive content

01:24:49   as they can.

01:24:50   John Gruber likened this to the NFL Films stuff

01:24:55   where you get like superior,

01:24:56   NFL Films started in the '70s making,

01:25:00   recording on film, football games.

01:25:03   They would bring their own cameras.

01:25:05   And then, so it was all of a much higher quality

01:25:08   than the primitive sort of TV shoots of the day.

01:25:12   And they had slow-mo that was beautiful,

01:25:15   like cranked up slow motion on film.

01:25:18   And so those were not ready later that day, right?

01:25:22   But whether it was Monday Night Football,

01:25:25   halftime highlights,

01:25:26   or it was like there was a show during the week,

01:25:28   there was all highlights

01:25:30   that was based on the NFL Films highlights.

01:25:32   And then in the long run,

01:25:33   it would be their documentaries

01:25:34   about the history of football.

01:25:35   And they had this huge film archive.

01:25:37   It makes the history of the NFL seem so much more majestic

01:25:42   'cause they aren't just using stuff from a TV broadcast.

01:25:47   This feels a little like that,

01:25:49   where if they can get this right,

01:25:51   it's probably not gonna be a live broadcast, right?

01:25:54   To start, it's probably way too complicated to do that.

01:25:57   But the idea of immersive highlights is a great one,

01:26:01   but the turnaround, like the turnaround,

01:26:03   'cause the MLS cup playoff stuff,

01:26:06   it's the end of February now and they still don't have it.

01:26:09   So they're obviously struggling

01:26:11   with how the production process

01:26:13   of doing an immersive documentary about MLS.

01:26:17   They haven't been able to do it.

01:26:19   So, 'cause I'm trying to look,

01:26:21   the December 9th was the final, right?

01:26:24   So they've had all of their footage,

01:26:26   presumably since December 9th.

01:26:28   It's been more than two months and it's not here.

01:26:31   My guess is that they wanted it here last week

01:26:33   and they couldn't do it.

01:26:34   So we'll watch that 'cause like I'm fascinated

01:26:36   about how immersive content rolls out.

01:26:39   And yeah, it's gonna look great.

01:26:40   Even though I don't really care about MLS,

01:26:42   I'm very excited about seeing more

01:26:46   than those two short clips in the demo reel

01:26:49   of immersive sport, because that is exciting.

01:26:52   - If you enjoy Upgrade and would like more Upgrade,

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01:27:00   Just go to getupgradeplus.com and subscribe to Upgrade Plus.

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01:27:06   We have bonus content for every single episode.

01:27:08   In fact, you can go back through the entire back catalog

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01:27:21   And we've done some good ones recently.

01:27:23   I think it was last week or the week before,

01:27:24   we ranked the environments in Vision Pro.

01:27:28   That was a lot of fun.

01:27:29   And reading the descriptions that Jason found online,

01:27:32   that was a lot of fun.

01:27:33   So you can go back and listen to those.

01:27:35   On this week's episode, I wanna understand

01:27:38   how and where Jason is storing his Vision Pro

01:27:41   from a day-to-day perspective.

01:27:42   We're gonna talk about what it's like to manage that.

01:27:44   - Oh, no. - Yep.

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01:28:31   I have some Ask Upgrade questions

01:28:35   to finish out today's episode.

01:28:37   We're going to start with two questions

01:28:40   about VisionOS window management,

01:28:42   which is, I think, going to be very complicated

01:28:43   to explain some of this stuff.

01:28:44   Hot topic, hot topic.

01:28:46   Doug writes in to say, "Every three months

01:28:48   when I do my business activity statements

01:28:50   here in Australia," I don't know what that means,

01:28:52   but maybe to Australians, that's an important thing,

01:28:54   "I open up the Numbers app

01:28:56   and rotate my studio display vertically.

01:28:59   Can I rotate my Mac vertically

01:29:01   in the VisionOS environment?"

01:29:04   Think so?

01:29:06   I don't think you can. I don't know.

01:29:06   I don't think you can.

01:29:08   Maybe if you change the,

01:29:10   go into the settings and change the aspect ratio thing,

01:29:12   but like, if you can, it's not easy to do that.

01:29:15   But what I would say is you can make the Numbers app

01:29:18   all tall and skinny if you like.

01:29:20   Like, if that's the thing that you want to do the most

01:29:21   and you could have that alongside.

01:29:24   Yeah, or blow up the, you know, make it tall and skinny,

01:29:26   but also blow up the screen.

01:29:28   But I don't know if you can actually rotate it.

01:29:30   That's an interesting idea.

01:29:31   My guess is not, but I haven't tried that.

01:29:33   Yeah, I don't think you can do that,

01:29:34   but you could have the, like, the VisionOS Numbers app.

01:29:36   You could have up right next to your Mac.

01:29:39   The beauty of, or Excel, if you use that,

01:29:43   that's a VisionOS app, a native app.

01:29:46   Because I think Numbers, is Numbers a native app

01:29:49   or is it an iPad app?

01:29:51   I think it's an iPad app, but it's there.

01:29:53   Keynote is the only native one

01:29:55   and pages and numbers are compatible.

01:29:59   Or if you use Excel, then you could use that too.

01:30:01   I'd say, yeah, VisionOS actually excels at having

01:30:04   vertical windows.

01:30:06   I love making really tall windows

01:30:09   'cause it's not a thing that you do so much

01:30:11   on a horizontal screen.

01:30:12   So that's kind of fun.

01:30:16   But yeah, if you need to use the Mac,

01:30:18   I would say make your window tall

01:30:20   and we don't have an answer

01:30:23   for his actual question about this.

01:30:24   That would be a fun thing to do.

01:30:25   It would be nice if you had the ability

01:30:27   to make a Mac screen vertical 'cause the Mac can do it.

01:30:30   So why wouldn't you be able to do it?

01:30:33   Sims writes in to say, can you angle windows in VisionOS,

01:30:37   say like a drafting table or an airport departure board?

01:30:41   You don't have the ability to change the,

01:30:47   I don't even know how to describe it, right?

01:30:53   You can go like, how do you describe movement in a 3D space?

01:30:57   Like you can move them kind of a little bit like

01:31:02   left, right, but not up, down.

01:31:04   So what I would say is the windows are around you, right?

01:31:09   It actually, you have like a bubble.

01:31:14   You're sitting in like a ball

01:31:15   and the windows are painted on the ball.

01:31:18   Yeah, so when you put one off to the left,

01:31:23   it doesn't put it off to the left at the same flat angle

01:31:26   that the one in front of you.

01:31:26   It turns it so that if you put a bunch of them,

01:31:29   they're kind of like all angles around you.

01:31:32   So the idea of like tilting a window up,

01:31:34   so it's like at a perspective

01:31:36   is not a thing that generally is done on this.

01:31:39   However, I will say there's one interesting thing

01:31:41   that VisionOS does, which is if for stuff

01:31:45   that's on your sides, if you've got the window moving,

01:31:49   if you're holding the window and you tilt your head,

01:31:52   it will actually rotate that window a little bit.

01:31:54   - Which I've been, I do that with the Mac a lot

01:31:56   because I want the Mac to be like dead straight in front

01:31:59   of me and sometimes it's like a little left or right,

01:32:01   so you just like grab the thing and move your body,

01:32:05   which is moving your head,

01:32:06   and it will shift it a little bit.

01:32:09   - Right, I do it where I've got something off to the side

01:32:11   and it's not at the same angle as like the door of my house

01:32:15   or whatever, and so I'll tilt so that it's sort of like

01:32:17   in the right angle for that.

01:32:19   But it's not, because it's a bubble around you,

01:32:23   so the drafting table example,

01:32:25   I actually think it sort of does that

01:32:26   where if I take a Mac display and I bring it down

01:32:29   to right where my keyboard is on my laptop,

01:32:34   it feels like it's tilted coming out of my laptop.

01:32:37   It's not, 'cause it's trying to be straight

01:32:41   in front of my vision, so if it's down below,

01:32:43   it's gonna be sort of like tilted back

01:32:45   so that it's straight in front of your vision,

01:32:48   if you can imagine that.

01:32:49   And then if you place it right in front of you,

01:32:50   it's gonna seem flat, and then if you place it above you,

01:32:53   it's gonna seem like it's sort of tilted down toward you

01:32:55   'cause in the end, you are in that bubble, in that ball,

01:32:58   where all the windows are trying to be flat

01:33:01   facing your eyes, if that makes sense.

01:33:04   - Yeah, it's like, what the system is trying to do

01:33:09   is make it that like, if you're in a stationary position,

01:33:12   wherever you turn your head,

01:33:14   the window is basically flat to you.

01:33:17   So if you look up, you should be able to see it

01:33:20   kind of like face on, so it will tilt towards you

01:33:23   when you move the app up.

01:33:25   It's complicated, but yeah,

01:33:26   if you imagine yourself sitting inside of a ball

01:33:28   and the windows are rendered on the inside of the ball,

01:33:31   that's what does it.

01:33:32   We'll find out if that makes sense to you or not.

01:33:37   And James asks, "You often say that Apple News

01:33:40   doesn't provide you with the content that you want,

01:33:42   but I'm curious what you use for day-to-day news reading.

01:33:46   I use Apple News, but only because I haven't found

01:33:48   a better alternative.

01:33:49   It took quite a lot of training to get it right,

01:33:51   but less effort than following the right people

01:33:54   on social media or RSS."

01:33:56   - So James, I don't believe two things.

01:34:03   One, I don't believe it took less effort than what I do.

01:34:08   And two, I don't have a lot of faith

01:34:11   that I would get it right if I used Apple News.

01:34:13   Apple News to me seems like a product built for people

01:34:17   who use news in a very different way than I do

01:34:19   and are interested in things I'm not interested in.

01:34:21   And when I use it, I try to tell it,

01:34:24   "Don't use these stupid sources and don't do this."

01:34:27   And the fact is, I look at that and think,

01:34:30   "How long am I gonna have to use a terrible product

01:34:33   that doesn't tell me what I wanna see

01:34:36   before it gets better?"

01:34:38   And I have no faith in it doing that.

01:34:40   The launch experience, the stuff it shows me, I hate it.

01:34:43   I just hate that stuff.

01:34:44   It's the stuff I don't wanna see from news.

01:34:46   It's like, "Oh, you're a news consumer.

01:34:48   Here's this garbage that I wanna throw at you."

01:34:50   And I'm out of there.

01:34:52   So I'm not willing to put in the work, I guess,

01:34:54   nor do I have faith that putting in the work

01:34:56   would make a difference.

01:34:58   So what do I do?

01:34:59   I subscribe to some newsletters.

01:35:00   I subscribe to some news sources.

01:35:02   I have their apps.

01:35:04   I have some of their feeds in an RSS reader.

01:35:06   I'm currently using ReadKit,

01:35:08   but I've used NetNewswire in the past.

01:35:09   I've used Reader in the past.

01:35:12   I've used InoReader in the past.

01:35:13   It's all via Feedbin.

01:35:15   My newsletters go into Feedbin via their email gateway,

01:35:18   so they show up in there too.

01:35:20   So I pick some news sources that I want,

01:35:23   and I pick some newsletters that I want,

01:35:26   and I follow people on social media

01:35:28   that give me links that I want,

01:35:30   and that's how I do it.

01:35:31   So I have spent time cultivating those sources,

01:35:37   but the idea that I would spend that time instead

01:35:40   hoping to train the capricious algorithms of Apple News

01:35:44   to give me what I want when they open up for the first time,

01:35:47   it is so honestly kind of repulsive to me

01:35:50   the kind of garbage that they've got in there.

01:35:52   I'm sorry, I only use Apple News for a couple of things.

01:35:57   One is when I need to write about Apple News,

01:36:00   so I force myself to use it so that I know how it works,

01:36:03   and two, when I want to read a Wall Street Journal story.

01:36:07   That's about it.

01:36:08   - I also don't think that it's a ton of work

01:36:14   to just follow the blogs I'm interested in,

01:36:17   and that's what I do.

01:36:18   Outside of that, the majority of news that I want in my life

01:36:23   is just stuff about the things that I care about.

01:36:25   The only world news source that I use,

01:36:29   I like The Economist, I like their app.

01:36:32   They have this kind of morning roundup,

01:36:36   and they write five long sentences

01:36:38   about the five world news stories you need to know about,

01:36:41   and that's as much as I tend to want

01:36:44   when it comes to world news.

01:36:46   For newsletters, I subscribe to a daily baseball newsletter

01:36:50   that has a lot of links to stories in it

01:36:53   plus a lot of fun commentary.

01:36:55   I subscribe to a daily newsletter about California news.

01:36:59   It's called The California Sun,

01:37:01   and it's full of links to news sources in California

01:37:04   about news that's relevant to people in California,

01:37:06   and I read not only that newsletter,

01:37:08   but the links that it sends.

01:37:10   So I've got a few others, like Platformer,

01:37:13   and there are other things that I subscribe to, like that.

01:37:16   The Athletic has a baseball newsletter that I subscribe to,

01:37:18   'cause I like baseball, and I read that,

01:37:20   and I click through the links there,

01:37:21   and then I've got a bunch of stuff in RSS,

01:37:23   and then I've got the couple of newspapers

01:37:26   and a couple other news sources that I subscribe to,

01:37:28   and that's it.

01:37:29   There are other newsletters too,

01:37:33   but I've just pulled it together like that.

01:37:35   Then I go on Apple News,

01:37:39   and I see a bunch of news sources that I don't care about

01:37:42   or that I know it's just all clickbait garbage,

01:37:44   rewriting other people's stories,

01:37:46   and that's when I tell it what I'm interested in.

01:37:49   - Or just with opinions that I fundamentally disagree with.

01:37:52   There's a lot of that in Apple News for me too.

01:37:54   - Yeah, well, there's like, "Oh yeah, here's some fun."

01:37:56   Well, your choices are you get the general news

01:38:00   that's sort of curated,

01:38:01   but it's about stuff that I don't care about

01:38:04   and curated from a lot of places

01:38:06   that I don't wanna see content from,

01:38:09   and if I pick like, "Oh, but you can follow topics,"

01:38:13   the topics you follow, it's all garbage.

01:38:16   The topics I follow at least, they're not curated anymore,

01:38:20   and it's all just kind of clickbait garbage

01:38:22   where it's like all my entertainment stuff

01:38:24   is coming from slash film and screen rant and CBR,

01:38:28   and it's all just SEO rewritten links

01:38:32   to "The Hollywood Reporter" and variety stories

01:38:35   where they take one sentence

01:38:36   and weave a whole story of garbage out of it.

01:38:41   Garbage is not the word I wanna use,

01:38:43   but I'm gonna just stick with garbage.

01:38:45   So yeah, I just, I can't even with Apple News.

01:38:49   And is it possible that James is right?

01:38:50   And that the amount of time

01:38:51   I've spent cultivating my news diet,

01:38:53   I could have spent trying to train Apple News

01:38:55   to give me better stuff?

01:38:57   It is possible, but I just don't believe it.

01:38:59   I think that it's so fundamentally at odds

01:39:01   with what I am trying to get.

01:39:04   I honestly, I wish that Apple would start again.

01:39:07   I feel like if Apple made Apple News

01:39:10   a place that included you could directly curate

01:39:15   a little more of what your sources were,

01:39:18   and there's some of that with some news sources,

01:39:21   but not others, and put your newsletters in there

01:39:23   and put RSS in there and make it much more personalized,

01:39:26   but they don't seem that interested in it.

01:39:28   They've got their curated top level,

01:39:30   and then they've got their non-curated stuff

01:39:32   that's full of garbage,

01:39:33   and that seems to be what it, it just doesn't,

01:39:35   I have no faith in the,

01:39:37   leaving aside the app itself,

01:39:39   which I know they have made some strides

01:39:42   and it's a better app than it was,

01:39:43   but like the news sources, it's still just,

01:39:45   it doesn't speak to me.

01:39:46   And maybe I'm not the target audience for it,

01:39:49   but I find the content literally repulsive.

01:39:54   I open it up and I'm like, this is gross.

01:39:56   Please just show me that Wall Street Journal story

01:39:58   that I'm searching on via its headline

01:40:00   so I can read it and get out of here.

01:40:02   And that's just, it's not great,

01:40:03   not a great thing to be in.

01:40:05   - As a little bit of follow up from James Thompson,

01:40:09   who checked, you can't rotate the virtual Mac display

01:40:14   as far as he could see in Vision Pro.

01:40:16   You can, you have a bunch of resolutions,

01:40:18   but you can't make it like a tall display.

01:40:21   - Can the 90 degree rotate?

01:40:22   - You can't do that.

01:40:23   It's all horizontal in the protocol.

01:40:26   If you would like to send in feedback,

01:40:27   follow up questions for the show,

01:40:29   go to upgradefeedback.com

01:40:31   and fill in our wonderful form.

01:40:32   Thank you to everybody that does.

01:40:34   The articles we were referencing earlier

01:40:36   that Jason wrote about the sports app

01:40:38   are over at sixcolors.com

01:40:39   where you can read Jason's work all the time.

01:40:42   You can also hear him on shows here on Relay FM.

01:40:45   You may actually enjoy it downstream.

01:40:47   If you liked our conversation about sports

01:40:49   and streaming earlier on, you can go and hear him there.

01:40:52   And the incomparable.com as well.

01:40:54   You can hear me on Relay FM

01:40:56   and check out my work at cortexbrand.com.

01:40:59   We are on social media.

01:41:00   You can find Jason's @jasonel, J-S-N-E-L-L.

01:41:03   I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:41:06   We mentioned it earlier,

01:41:07   but go and find the video clips of the show

01:41:09   on your favorite platform, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube.

01:41:12   We are @upgraderelay.

01:41:14   Thank you to our members and supporters of Upgrade Plus.

01:41:16   Go to getupgradeplus.com to find out more.

01:41:19   Thank you to our sponsors this week,

01:41:21   Ooni and Squarespace.

01:41:23   And we'll be back next time.

01:41:24   Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell.

01:41:27   - Goodbye everybody.

01:41:29   (upbeat music)

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01:41:34   (upbeat music)