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548: Hunched Over the Keyboard With My Eyes Closed

 

00:00:00   from relay this is upgrade episode 548 for january 27th 2025 but recorded a little bit before

00:00:17   my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike happy monday

00:00:23   so we'll get to this in a minute but we're recording early uh i have a snell talk question

00:00:28   for you that comes from brian who wants to know in the new summing up segment from last week what was

00:00:35   the mountain image used as the wallpaper that was uh on the phone uh yes thank you brian uh so

00:00:41   basically on last week on monday morning i got up and i saw that we had a new segment and that

00:00:47   and also stephen hackett sent us a uh uh you know another apple intelligence summary to laugh at

00:00:53   and i thought maybe we could make like an apple intelligence summary the artwork for summing up

00:00:58   and so i spent half an hour before recording upgrade uh in photoshop making the summing up

00:01:05   image and that's literally the the lock screen image on my phone because that's literally my phone

00:01:11   uh it is uh milford sound in new zealand south island it's a fjord basically and it's a it's a live

00:01:20   photo so when my phone wakes up not only do you see the beautiful new zealand mountains and all that

00:01:25   you see some water splashing at the bottom like splashing on the boats and stuff that's nice and it

00:01:31   was taken moments before a giant splash completely covered my body with water do you have a live

00:01:37   photo of that happening i have some non-live photos i don't think i have oh actually i think i have a

00:01:43   video of the water hitting the the the camera oh that's good time iphone camera yeah yeah it was

00:01:49   great great trip so anyway that's what that's what that is brian is it's it's literally my phone that

00:01:55   was nice artwork by the way you did a good job thank you you did a really good it doesn't it

00:02:00   doesn't withstand close scrutiny there's some things about it that i had to move around i but it like i

00:02:05   thought for a uh quick chapter art thing it was good enough we're breaking the tradition today by the

00:02:12   way we don't i have something about i about ios 18 today but we're not we're not actually going to

00:02:18   talk about notification summaries at least that's not the plan okay like we don't have at least we

00:02:22   don't have anything on bbc that's happened in the last couple of days that's fine we're all good on

00:02:27   that uh if you would like to send in a snow talk question of your own please go to upgradefeedback.com

00:02:33   and you can do that so as previously mentioned in the opening uh we're recording this one a little

00:02:38   early recording on the 23rd of november um

00:02:42   no that's it's january mike it's not that early where am i where am i thanks happy thanksgiving to

00:02:48   everyone out there take me back it's 23rd it's just it's 23rd of january so it's just a few days

00:02:55   but it's before the weekend we don't know what was in mark german's uh newsletter on sunday

00:03:00   it's just we're out of time here for travel reasons i i have a trip and there was no way to

00:03:06   schedule this recording at a better time so uh apologies for that but we we've got we've got a

00:03:11   lot to talk about we do actually we've got i've been saving up like a month's worth of rumors because

00:03:16   we've had too many other topics we had too much we have too many topics about notification summaries

00:03:20   to talk about so we haven't been able to do any rounding up of rumors so there is like there are

00:03:24   wild horses everywhere and the two of us have got to handle that one right later on in the episode

00:03:28   but usually when we record in advance so i don't really like to make such a big thing out of it

00:03:33   because it's like i don't know it's stuff that the listener doesn't really particularly need to know

00:03:38   yeah we call that inside baseball it's like you know when we record um and how all how we do all

00:03:44   that sort of doesn't matter because you just get the episode um other than to explain like well why

00:03:49   didn't they talk about mark german's newsletter the answer is we recorded early um it feels even more so

00:03:54   right now though yeah so i mean we're gonna talk about tiktok because that's a follow-up from last time

00:04:00   but i just think that like oh man it's rough this week has been tough uh and i feel like a lot of

00:04:08   people in our audience right now feel bad and i understand it and a lot of people feel threatened

00:04:13   by the new u.s administration and its policies whether you live in the u.s or not which i like for me

00:04:20   is like i i hate that i am depressed this week about a country that's not my own and like how it could

00:04:27   affect me you know what i mean like that is its own thing uh and i just want to say for those people

00:04:32   that are feeling it right now we're thinking of you especially those listeners of ours who are part of

00:04:38   the lgbtq community and yeah relay lgbtq community of which i'm proud that we have uh yes like i can i can

00:04:47   see that people are and i can see that people are like spiraling right now and it's tough because i just

00:04:53   wish that like i just something i don't understand and i and i don't know if i'll ever truly understand

00:04:59   it but i just i don't understand why people don't feel the same way as me which is i just wished that

00:05:05   people could just allow everybody else to just live as people like we're all people and we're all

00:05:12   in the world together and i just think it's everybody is happier and things are easier

00:05:19   when we're kind to one another and accepting of each other and like from all walks of life like this is

00:05:25   not an i'm like not trying to like throw bombs at someone and not like just i just wished everyone

00:05:31   could just get along and and it's but it seems like it can't yeah right now there feels like there

00:05:38   are a lot of people who are um they feel their very existence feels under siege and that's it's it's

00:05:44   terrible it's terrible i want to throw in as well uh what we've been seeing this week uh post the

00:05:51   inauguration um so last week i guess we're out of time here a lot of a lot of disappointment tim cook

00:05:57   right now um for attending the inauguration after donating a million dollars for it um and then they of course

00:06:03   moved it so to inside where everybody got to be really close together and in lots of photographs

00:06:09   and you know i i absolutely understand the disappointment tim in tim cook um given that

00:06:16   he's present around the beginning of this new administration i also think that disappointment

00:06:22   represents some larger and more complicated thoughts about tim cook and about apple and about

00:06:30   what it's all about and it is complicated and i do think we should talk about it on that kind of a

00:06:37   very upgraded kind of approach to that soon but not yet this is not this is not the moment i'm not

00:06:45   really ready to talk about it yet but i do think that we need to talk about the roots of the disappointment

00:06:51   and what tim cook is doing and apple's place in the world and all of that and i think we will

00:06:57   we will get there yeah um soon like maybe there's something to say that like for all of us as

00:07:03   upgradians like we need to think about like what do we like about apple and you know and like think about

00:07:09   that and you know because i know this has been a thing that me and you have been feeling for a while

00:07:14   anyway right like with all the lawyer up stuff and just like like what do we like and why and

00:07:21   how do we like focus on that where we can yeah i think it's clear over the 10 plus years of this

00:07:29   podcast that there are lots of things that apple and apple executives do that are at the very least

00:07:38   questionable in terms of the what the company states as it's you know benevolent uh make the world a better

00:07:47   place belief system and uh we've talked about it in the past um we will talk about it again but um i i

00:07:57   definitely see in a lot of people right now this conflict happening where there's the apple they

00:08:04   what the apple corporation actually is and there's a lot of understandable upset and cognitive dissonance

00:08:22   and it all makes sense um and i am you know i i i really feel for everybody who's hurting right now

00:08:29   and uh we will talk about this more but not today so let's actually talk about where we are with

00:08:37   tiktok follow-up wise so donald trump signed an executive order to suspend the tiktok ban for 75 days

00:08:42   in which a path forward is to be determined by a sale of tiktok's u.s operations to

00:08:48   a u.s thing like i'm not really sure what that is yet and all of this is kind of like supposedly like

00:08:58   supposedly there's a ban and supposedly there'll be a sale because it is kind of unclear at this stage

00:09:05   if the president can do any of this like essentially from what i've been able to understand from the

00:09:11   good reading that i've been doing and i'll put links in the show notes trump is essentially asking

00:09:15   the department of justice not to enforce a law and not to punish anyone that breaks it during this time

00:09:21   period but actually can't that isn't the law right like an executive order cannot

00:09:27   and allow for this is the best that i can understand it's kind of just like uh hey we're all friends

00:09:33   here you know it's a it's a very interesting situation and again it's like also not what he

00:09:41   clearly promised tiktok he would do right because tiktok was like all glorious leaders giving us 90

00:09:49   days which it wasn't and he'll save tiktok which he hasn't and we're in this interesting like

00:09:55   not i think everyone is kind of like doesn't know what to do right now so it's just like going along

00:10:02   and it is it is kind of funny and ridiculous and also deadly serious because what we're dealing

00:10:10   with here is somebody who is the president of the united states and has some a lot of very specific

00:10:15   powers but is behaving as if they have all the powers which you know he said again listen to what

00:10:21   the man says he said he would be a dictator on day one yeah um he is he is saying the the law

00:10:27   enforcement agency see of the united states shouldn't enforce the law he's saying that he's

00:10:33   granted uh 75 day whatever that is not in the law that is not what it's meant for there's a 90 day

00:10:39   delay uh that's meant for uh if an ongoing negotiation is happening which there there still isn't and then

00:10:46   he's also throwing out kind of bizarre statements like we'll do a thing we'll do a deal where it's 50 50

00:10:51   the u.s government will own half of it and china can own half of it which is again not against the law

00:10:56   the law says it's got to be what less than 20 chinese ownership but it's got to be a majority

00:11:01   ownership and then and then is it the u.s government at some points he said well the u.s government will

00:11:05   own it and it's basically saying look this is a shakedown uh we're gonna somebody's gonna put in a

00:11:12   few billion dollars to buy tiktok but the u.s government will own half so that when it sells

00:11:16   the government will make money because that's what we do now is we regulate foreign companies in order to

00:11:21   shake them down for money um that's all going on here and then that is not the most disturbing

00:11:25   part the most disturbing part is who's going to stop him the answer is i guess

00:11:30   courts except so many of the courts especially the higher level courts are full of trump appointees

00:11:37   from the last time are they going to stop him or are they going to let him do whatever he wants

00:11:41   is there a rule of law or isn't there unknown completely unknown and then there's congress which

00:11:47   like congress could be the answer here but again maybe i don't know enough about american politics

00:11:51   right but like if you're a congressperson or you're a senate senator there you go a senate person

00:11:59   yeah right something he's undermining your job now they've they all voted for this yeah it was a vast

00:12:07   majority of of the house and senate voted for this so he's undermining them on multiple levels so like

00:12:12   you can be part of the party but if you don't do anything about this or if you change your kind

00:12:20   of tact on it you're essentially saying you are not important right right that's that's definitely an

00:12:27   aspect of it is is you know can you ignore them or do you do they get on side i think maybe they don't

00:12:33   because everything is fractious especially in the house of representatives where the majority is so thin

00:12:37   you have to get everybody to agree to change the law um so that's a problem and then i i didn't even

00:12:43   mention if the u.s government owned a social media company it would be subject to the first amendment

00:12:51   which means that there could literally be no rules on it because the government can't control speech oh

00:12:57   that's great oh man that's incredible i had not thought of that that isn't that is an incredible thing

00:13:03   you know what though jason his i don't think i my re i don't think he means the government but

00:13:10   sometimes it's just so hard to understand what sometimes it's just hard to understand what he's

00:13:16   saying he means yeah he means larry ellison and elon musk or something it's impossible so actually

00:13:22   about that so there is the warship journal had some reporting that apparently china is now signaling

00:13:27   that they'd be willing to look at a deal i think they have they did their best and realized

00:13:32   they don't have a choice anymore right like that they took it as far as they could and it's all

00:13:36   falling together it's a negotiation thing right you say absolutely not and then you get to this

00:13:40   point and they're like well we might as well do something about this uh and uh nothing's been put

00:13:46   together at the time of recording but right now it kind of seems like everyone with money is willing

00:13:51   to buy this from mr beast to larry ellison to of course elon musk nobody would sell something as

00:14:00   powerful as tiktok unless forced to do so right nobody would do that you would never sell this

00:14:05   yeah you're completely right there is no it's like would would meta sell off instagram like would they

00:14:10   just do that no they wouldn't do that that's insane to do for any price they wouldn't do it and and what

00:14:15   are they buying that's the other thing here right what are you buying if you buy the u.s tiktok are you

00:14:19   buying an empty bag that says tiktok on it is that what you're buying yes i think so because i don't i

00:14:24   think part of the original thing is that the algorithm would not be for sale here like you're so this

00:14:30   actually leads me to a couple of questions that i have like in this scenario so let's say i think

00:14:35   it's the most likely outcome at this point is that an american tiktok is created right i think that is

00:14:45   the most likely thing and that everybody who has tiktok in the u.s is migrated to this new tiktok

00:14:54   somehow right if this happens and then what is this tiktok usa only or does tiktok usa get to see

00:15:04   stuff from around the world and vice versa it's just it's just people doing dances to party in the u.s.a

00:15:09   right and then that's it so if so then imagine this right so i'm assuming tiktok usa is its absolute

00:15:17   owned thing because otherwise what's the point right so like it is it is a container of its own

00:15:22   does tiktok usa then become available also in other countries well this is this is the mystery right this

00:15:29   is the big mystery is is is tiktok in the usa uh run by this but does it interlink so that their videos

00:15:35   appear elsewhere and other videos from around the world appear in this but they're they're algorithmically

00:15:41   ranked differently because they're being ranked like this and this becomes and first off that's

00:15:46   a huge engineering challenge right to be like you're of our our tiktok or not the other question

00:15:52   is again what is it what does it really mean they could also say well now the now the u.s owns it and

00:15:58   it's on u.s soil for its servers but otherwise it's completely just part of tiktok around the world

00:16:04   in which case what are we even doing here but again what are we even doing there may be answers to

00:16:09   these questions in that law but that law is too much for me to understand honestly so like i'm kind

00:16:14   of just for me and also there might be an answer but what is it it doesn't we'll just have to wait

00:16:19   but like i this is like the way however this unfolds is like a fascinating scenario so to me this is

00:16:27   going to be my prediction right now i'm just going to throw this out there yes what's going to happen

00:16:30   is um they're going to get a deal yeah the chinese government is going to has has already said you

00:16:36   know we're not going to stop a company from selling things which was not their policy before

00:16:41   so bite dance is like all right in order for us to stay alive in the u.s we're going to have to sell

00:16:46   um the u.s interest to somebody and they will line up a deal in the next month they will line up a deal

00:16:52   with maybe there will be bidders um right because it sounds like they're they're all sorts of different

00:16:59   well i mean i say maybe there will be bidders because it's possible that they'll literally just hand it to

00:17:04   a favored friend yeah okay yeah yeah but but i do think that there are a bunch of american companies

00:17:09   that will offer money for this and that a deal will be put together and that that deal my prediction

00:17:16   is that deal will not satisfy the law and that trump will then challenge congress to change the law

00:17:26   he's got a deal now they need to pass the changes to approve it to save tiktok and he basically puts

00:17:34   it in their hands to be blamed if it fails that's my prediction is that it is that it will end up being

00:17:40   the buck will be passed elsewhere for the saving or killing of tiktok in the u.s i really don't know

00:17:47   why we're going through all of this like i don't know why didn't he just let it go he'd already won the election

00:17:52   why did he need to be the savior of tiktok like just let it go uh yeah especially since he started all of this

00:17:58   i don't know i mean that you're dealing with that guy's psychology it's very hard to say i mean my feeling is

00:18:03   that he he has a intern or somebody who started posting on tiktok and people said nice things about

00:18:11   him on tiktok and so now he's like oh that's a place where people like me maybe i could save it and

00:18:16   he likes being seen as this as the as the saver of things and but what's bizarre here is right he

00:18:23   started this because he said the chinese communist party is controlling the minds of our children that's

00:18:27   basically what he said to begin with and now he's going to come and go no no it's fine it's fine

00:18:31   i don't know it makes him i think really it's just because biden signed it and so he wants to

00:18:36   come in and undo everything that biden did so even if he was continuing like there's a whole thing okay

00:18:42   this is liftoff a podcast that is not retired but only in hiatus on relay fm uh liftoff we covered the

00:18:50   trump administration the first time about their policies for space and what's interesting is a lot

00:18:56   of those policies were continued by the biden administration and what it sounds like is happening now

00:19:00   is that the new trump administration is coming in and saying oh those space policies are terrible

00:19:05   uh they're biden policies we're going to get rid of them and it's like you started them this is just

00:19:10   politics doesn't matter we're having a lot of that here where the conservatives are like saying to

00:19:15   labor look at this terrible thing that happened they're like but this you were in power then but

00:19:20   it's like yeah no that you did this i've been following that story where it's like there's multiple

00:19:24   stories stand up for this thing that's been happening for years and years and years it's like

00:19:27   weren't you guys in power for a decade it's like well don't talk about that so yeah no the government's

00:19:34   the problem and you're the government it's like okay i guess but that's all this stuff is it's just

00:19:39   blame games i'm this tiktok story like is interesting to me because i just i don't know where it's gonna go

00:19:47   and it will affect a lot of people and it's important not just because it's tiktok and silly dances and

00:19:52   stuff like that it's important because it will help define what the new trump administration's

00:19:56   relationship to china is and what the new trump's administration to the relationship with the tech

00:20:03   industry is it will help define those clearly different to the first administration right we

00:20:07   can see that already thus far yeah yeah thus far thus far we'll see where it goes but uh it's starting

00:20:13   off with a bang let's do some follow-up ios 18.3 is in release candidate and in the release candidate

00:20:25   it enables apple intelligence by default so currently when you with 18.1 and 18.2 during the setup process

00:20:34   you're asked if you want to do this and you can choose to do this i think maybe a point one you have

00:20:38   to go do it on your own but point two it's like hey do you want to do this with 18.3 it doesn't ask

00:20:43   you anymore it just starts the process of of onboarding you to apple intelligence you can disable it but you

00:20:49   have to set it up first then go into settings and disable it it is still being labeled as a beta

00:20:57   yeah see i look i don't have a problem with apple turning features on sure i know some people do but

00:21:06   like if you don't turn it on no one will ever turn it on yeah and so if you want people to use your

00:21:11   feature you turn it on and then you let people turn it off this is a curious one to do it on because this

00:21:17   is also the beta where they're turning off some features right well they are they're turning off a

00:21:22   bunch of summary things and all of that here well so so in general i i'm not talking about 18.3 i'm

00:21:29   just in general i think you do need to turn things on because otherwise nobody will find it like you

00:21:34   you do need to say hey there's a new feature and so i understand what they're going for here yes you

00:21:41   could argue that what they need to do is say hey here's a new feature uh you would you like to turn it

00:21:47   on but i can understand them saying no we're going to turn it on and then if you don't like it you can

00:21:50   turn it off because this is a major part of the os experience now i get all that however coming on

00:21:56   the heels of them turning off temporarily supposedly news summaries and all of that um in this in this

00:22:03   beta uh but especially on the heels of apple using as its defense for the terrible summaries and

00:22:14   notifications that but will remind you in a very condescending way the statement says will remind you

00:22:19   this is a beta and the idea there is don't judge us we told you this was a beta you know what beta

00:22:25   means it means anything goes and things could be broken and and and then at the end of that that

00:22:29   condescending statement they say you know we're looking forward to your feedback about it it's very

00:22:34   much like hey dummy it's a beta you can't criticize us just send us file a radar right like it's essentially

00:22:39   the attitude that i got from that statement it's very much um hiding under the beta even though it's in

00:22:45   shipping software which the whole argument about how do you call something a beta feature inside

00:22:50   a shipping version of the os like but certainly if you still call it a beta and you turn it on

00:22:57   like why what does beta mean at that point what does it even mean because you can't i think they

00:23:03   already can't hide behind the word beta because of all the ads and all the ways that they push this

00:23:08   stuff but if they turn it on by default like what are we even doing here the beta beta is meaningless it

00:23:16   means a new feature that doesn't work right but you have to deal with it anyway i just it's ridiculous

00:23:21   uh so on the last episode in ask upgrade we were talking about uh retro max that we would like to be

00:23:30   modernized and we had a couple of people write in about this holly wrote in to say uh last week you

00:23:36   called out wanting the 12 inch macbook and the g4 imac as hardware designs you'd love to see uh return

00:23:41   i had assumed one of you would refer to the colorful clamshell ibook g3 series and was disappointed it

00:23:48   wasn't included it made me wonder if you feel there is room in the apple laptop lineup for the return of

00:23:53   such colors in the macbook air assuming they could handle the variety of uh options necessary to do so

00:23:59   what kind of colors could the colors are choose so good it's a good point because we are so often

00:24:06   talking about color and then we didn't do that i feel i feel very strongly that the macbook air

00:24:13   should have colors and they probably should just be the imac colors the current imac colors yeah

00:24:18   that would be a good start at least you know like yeah i mean we know they can anodize aluminum in

00:24:22   those colors that might be a fun thing to do now holly the reason that we didn't mention the clamshell

00:24:27   ibook g3 is because i don't i because the question was what would you like to use upgraded with modern

00:24:33   parts and i do not want to use the big toilet seat ibook like i don't i don't it was a different time

00:24:41   it was huge it was weird my mom had one and when she they my parents sold the house i grew up in and

00:24:48   they were full-time motorhomers for 11 years and for the first few years of that she that was the

00:24:53   computer she sent email she would carry it with the little handle she'd carry it up to the office at the

00:24:58   various parks because there was no wi-fi in most of these motorhome parks at that point and they had

00:25:02   they would have like a line you could plug into to dial in to the internet in order to get your email

00:25:07   i'm like i have fond fond memories of the clamshell ibook but i would not want one however the colors

00:25:14   yes the colors on it are really nice and uh they had they had lots of them there was tangerine and there

00:25:20   was a blue and then they had like later there was like a green and they're cute i would love something

00:25:25   like that back in the macbook airline um but you know it's it's uh i wouldn't bring it back

00:25:33   is what i'm saying yeah i mean it's it's the colors are fun the overall shape it's kind of like for me

00:25:38   of why did i say the g4 instead of the g3 right i really love the iMac g3 i love the colors i don't

00:25:44   need a crt on my desk that's exactly what would be in it would there be like a terrarium in the back

00:25:48   where you grow things or an aquarium where is the problem where like a g3 ibook i don't think

00:25:55   that's going in my bag like i don't think i can do that it's huge you can't you can't and so that

00:26:02   that's the g4 is an adaptable thing and that's why i mentioned the 12 inch macbook is that is that i

00:26:07   could see that very shape with modern hardware in it but i do appreciate holly pivoting in the middle

00:26:12   of this question to a better question which is colors in macbook air and yeah i just would like

00:26:17   some bright colors i know it's not for everyone i bought a a midnight uh my macbook pro now is a

00:26:23   space black uh this would make you think that i like to pretend that i'm batman or something but the

00:26:28   truth is the truth is if there was a bright blue or a bright orange like those iMac colors i would

00:26:38   have gotten that i i got the midnight because i'm so tired of silver laptops i'm just tired of them

00:26:46   they're great they're a classic it's a classic look but i'm just like it's like every other

00:26:51   apple laptop forever and ever and i like something different but if i was given the option of buying an

00:26:59   orange or a blue laptop bright blue not blue so dark that it looks like black except in certain light

00:27:06   where it looks sort of blue which is what midnight is i would do it but they don't offer those

00:27:11   uh leroy wrote in to say do you think it's possible for someone to make a g4 base with something like a

00:27:17   base amount so it could hold a modern iMac to create mike's dream computer now that would be fun but what

00:27:24   i will say though is i've i've seen a bunch of these things online i don't know over the last six months

00:27:28   or so of people taking the g4 and doing stuff with it i will put a link in the show notes to a video

00:27:34   from a youtube channel called action retro this is one of the ones that i've seen where this youtuber

00:27:40   is essentially has been putting new guts in a g4 for a long time they recently they did an m2 macbook air

00:27:49   and now they've done it with the m4 macbook air so they have created an imac g4 powered by an m4

00:27:57   it's fantastic it's great i love it yeah yeah i i would i don't know about that video i my big issue

00:28:04   with it is the panel because i would want to put a retina panel in so one i was trying to find this but

00:28:09   i had seen on threads a while ago someone who was going through the process and they had done it of

00:28:15   replacing the screen with a new screen like they they had actually it was bigger and it was lcd and

00:28:24   they had done a bunch of stuff to like weight it correctly like it was it was a long process that

00:28:28   they were going through it wasn't even someone i was following because yeah so the algorithm it just

00:28:32   every time this guy had an update i would see it uh and so like people this is a project that people

00:28:38   undergo because of how cool this computer is and so like there are a lot of people that do this

00:28:42   i think it's the best mac design the single best mac design it's beautiful um the reason that it

00:28:47   didn't continue i'm going to say this again because we said it last week is screens got bigger and

00:28:52   they're too heavy and the only way to counter it is to make the base heavy and apple decided that that

00:28:59   was the the amount of weight you'd have to put in a base to put even a modern imac on an arm above

00:29:07   it would be a lot yeah i mean we're talking like it's like it's like how kids that you got the

00:29:14   basketball hoop you can put in the driveway and you got to have sandbags on it or they fill it with

00:29:18   water i mean it's like that you have to have weight at the bottom so that it doesn't tip over and uh

00:29:24   that's clearly apple's designers looked at where um screens were going and said we can't keep this design

00:29:29   as great as it is we can't keep it going um but i love it it's essentially a laptop i mean that's

00:29:35   the beauty of it is it's essentially a laptop but even our laptop screens you know are are creeping up

00:29:41   to be g4 imac size at this point so uh you could do it it would basically be like a macbook uh air or

00:29:48   pro inside a g4 there's plenty of room inside that's the funny thing there's plenty of room inside the

00:29:54   half a volleyball down at the bottom you just got to have the weight down there so that it doesn't tip

00:29:59   over

00:29:59   so so far in this episode today we've had some fun you know we've had we had some laughs we spoke about

00:30:06   colors and computers we've had some big discussions right we've been talking about some big stuff

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00:30:47   something if you've been thinking i've heard him talk about this i don't know if i'd want it

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00:31:47   jason it's time to lawyer up oh clunk quick one today it's a quick one okay i could not do it uh

00:31:55   all right the uk government has announced that the competitions and markets authority the cma

00:32:01   don't get it confused with a dma uh has opened an investigation into mobile ecosystems mobile

00:32:07   ecosystems they would be called yes of course uh to determine if apple and google exert too much

00:32:13   control does this sound familiar i want to read from the government's website two investigations

00:32:18   one into apple and another into google which i do appreciate by the way they are separate investigations

00:32:24   right like i like that because there's a way that you could just do this broad thing separate

00:32:29   investigations that will assess in parallel these firms position in their respective mobile ecosystems

00:32:36   which include the operating systems app stores and browsers that operate on mobile devices

00:32:41   the investigations will explore the impact on people who use mobile devices and the thousands of

00:32:46   businesses developing innovative services or content such as apps for these devices essentially it sounds

00:32:54   like the uk version of the dma is this is what this is beginning uh there is a deadline for this

00:33:01   investigation to conclude uh in october um so we can take a breather in this a bit here's what i'll say

00:33:08   i'm interested about this i am i'm a little bit surprised in one way but not in the other and what i'll say is

00:33:14   one of the big things that the government here is talking about right now is trying to make the uk

00:33:20   a place for investment and growth like we're trying to get businesses so when i initially saw this i was

00:33:25   like hmm that's a surprise like you know to to kind of uh put the hammer down on apple and google but

00:33:31   then when i think about it from the other side of like unless they are using this as an opportunity to

00:33:36   try and encourage more varied business development on these platforms so all these things are just

00:33:45   completely unrelated and this is going to happen anyway no matter what the government says so this is

00:33:50   happening and it's and it's labor so they're more inclined to regulate than the tories were

00:33:57   it's honestly it's hard to tell right now i you know like i'm not trying to be like i'm not trying

00:34:03   to be like all labor bad i read i read i read in dunst's newsletter i know what's going on

00:34:07   and also the other thing is over there yesterday this is the thing that's weird to me is yesterday

00:34:14   the cma chief changed so like it's a weird thing to do this and now the cma the the competition and

00:34:22   markets authority the old person is out and the new person coming in worked at amazon previous course

00:34:32   so i don't know if that's obviously unrelated but it's like well does this chief of the cma have the same

00:34:44   hunger for this i don't know dma cma i love it this is great it uh we spent a lot of money on that

00:34:55   lawyer up art and i'm glad that we get to keep using it forever and ever yep and ever so yeah interesting

00:35:04   times i yeah the reason we knew we have been the whole point of this is we have been saying this is

00:35:10   going to happen right like we have been saying it was a matter of time until these started happening

00:35:15   all over because now the dma has provided a template

00:35:23   but we move from lowering up to rounding up it's time for rumor roundup time

00:35:27   we are indeed that's what they say so this is the i've got stuff for this segment mike i don't know i

00:35:35   don't know we're going back all the way to the end of december with some of these jason i've been i've

00:35:41   been i've been sitting on some rumors to run mega rumor roundup so this was according to reuters at the

00:35:47   end of last year that apple was in talks above byte dance and tencent to bring their ai models to the

00:35:53   iphone like how chat gpt is available elsewhere in the world and this is important because in china

00:35:59   the government has to approve any generative ai models for public use chat gpt did not pass that

00:36:05   and has not passed that so apple will have to work with one of these entities i don't think that

00:36:12   this stuff with byte dance would preclude them from doing this but no it would make it weird i don't

00:36:17   know this is exactly like all the other ios stuff that is like i support all of these uh social media

00:36:23   things that are in the rest of the world and in china i support these other things that are in china

00:36:26   only and the other places aren't available like this is the iphone in china is very localized to chinese

00:36:32   services because the chinese services are available and the rest of world services are not and so that's

00:36:38   what this is this is actually not surprising at all it's more interesting that i wonder if we'll get

00:36:43   chinese uh ai models uh connected to ios faster than we'll get an alternative to chat gpt connected to

00:36:51   ios in the rest of the world i don't know yeah so i mean but this is also another thing of it is still

00:36:57   surprising to me that we haven't seen any other models even hinted at in the us i know i know i think i

00:37:04   predicted somewhere that uh that it may be wwdc at this point where they announce some new partners

00:37:11   that will be coming in the ios 19 cycle do you think there is any possibility that apple gave open ai

00:37:19   like a quiet exclusive like we're gonna open this up to everyone but like not too fast sure yeah i think

00:37:27   that's possible it's not there was a little like a little wink wink nudge nudge kind of thing saying

00:37:32   you know you got it for the first nine months or whatever yeah but it's also not possible to know

00:37:35   that in a sense of like maybe google was just like no we want people to install the gemini app we don't

00:37:40   want to that's also possible although again having access to ios users is really good and you would

00:37:47   want that and and you know the open ai is very motivated to be there because you know the competitor

00:37:54   google has their own mobile operating system so that's kind of rough uh you access there a little

00:38:01   bit maybe harder and uh so that's true then again apple may offer terms that that open ai had to take

00:38:07   and google's like no yeah so we we it's hard to tell from the outside uh ming chi quo's supply chain

00:38:14   sources indicated to him he wrote a memo about this that demand for the iphone 16 line is not indicating that

00:38:21   apple intelligence has been a reason for a surge in device upgrades this was a thing leading up to

00:38:26   these phones coming out of like we're gonna get a super cycle because people are so excited and look

00:38:33   i don't know this and we can't really know this from ming chi quo's reporting but i thought it was

00:38:37   just an interesting detail from him of like it's like gang they're not like making billions of these

00:38:44   you know like it's not really done anything we're coming up to an analyst call and uh and

00:38:49   a quarterly earnings that'll happen later this week yeah um but and we'll talk about it next week yeah but

00:38:55   in the last one i think that i think there's been a sense that this was going that if apple intelligence

00:39:01   was going to drive a super cycle it was going to be over a long time because the features weren't

00:39:06   rolling out they were going to be rolling out slowly and i think generally an understanding that it was

00:39:11   probably going to be a year plus of apple intelligence kind of coming and i think that

00:39:18   i think that these these uh reports bear that out to a certain degree however i think it's interesting

00:39:24   as somebody who watches uh sports and gets inundated with uh cell phone ads that all the carriers are

00:39:33   flogging apple intelligence remember how last year everybody wanted titanium this year everybody wants

00:39:38   apple intelligence but the thing is the truth is it's just a proxy for there's a new iphone and maybe

00:39:43   you want the new iphone that and they got to give you a one-line reason and the one-liner is with apple

00:39:47   intelligence and it's like that's for all we know they're told what they have to say well that's that's

00:39:53   true they're probably given i mean what is what does apple give them these are the marketing points for

00:39:57   the apple uh for the iphone is apple intelligence yeah that's it right designed for apple intelligence is

00:40:02   what they're going for just like it was i i still remember that there was an at&t ad last year it's like you can get a new iphone

00:40:07   mm titanium i thought well you're trying you know he gets all this is all you got is titanium they're

00:40:14   not doing like camera control or whatever they're like oh it's apple intelligence because they think

00:40:18   that's going to drive it and i do think it drives it to a certain degree but the super cycle the thing

00:40:23   is the super cycle is is a i probably wouldn't upgrade my iphone but i'm going to do it right

00:40:28   now because i got to have this new thing yeah as opposed to the usual upgrade cycle which is just

00:40:33   time for a new phone yeah and what we have with apple intelligence at least right now

00:40:38   feels it's very much more more like a hedge against the competition than it is a gotta have

00:40:44   it feature and so we understand it strategically from apple's point of view but in terms of like

00:40:49   consumers i i don't think it's resonating with them um and and maybe as more features come online

00:40:58   it will i think that that's maybe apple's hope is that this is going to spur updates over time

00:41:03   because there will become a moment where you'll go oh i gotta have that feature and that's why you

00:41:08   know that's why are there genmoji ads in part it's because you're like why can't i do that it's like you

00:41:13   got to get the new iphone to do that oh okay and then they get the new iphone i really tried to make

00:41:19   a good bucatini with some peas to send to you and i i sent you the best one i had but i couldn't get

00:41:23   it to look how it looked in the app which i said about yeah i sent you a horse wearing a suit and tie

00:41:28   though you sure did you sure did i think you keep doing that um nine to five mac have found evidence

00:41:34   for something called quote apple invites in the 18.3 beta quote after analyzing the code we believe

00:41:41   the app is designed to help you users organize meetings and in-person events code suggests that

00:41:47   the invites app will integrate with icloud and will even have a web version on icloud.com the new app

00:41:53   also integrates with a new ios 18 demon i love that called group kit which manages database models for

00:41:59   groups of people so this is essentially there's like remnants of some kind of an app which maybe will

00:42:05   come 18 or 19 that is to help people get together and i find this to be a very peculiar task to tackle

00:42:13   in an app outside of the calendar app and it reminds me of these like apps that appear every now and again

00:42:19   like i saw someone talk people talking about clips recently because uh cap cut went away um but also

00:42:26   there was like uh music memos was one and like there's been these apps over time that honestly feel like

00:42:32   somebody was told like you can make something go make something and they made it the funny thing to

00:42:37   me also is apple invites means a very specific thing to listeners of this show which this is not

00:42:43   you know new apple invites are out means it's time for an event but no it would mean there is an update

00:42:49   to this application which i think is very so yeah so so first off

00:42:57   i hmm is this is this an app or is it a feature inside calendar is the first question right like

00:43:05   because i have to i have to ask like why why would it be a separate app other than just just to keep it

00:43:12   separate um i look i do this and i'm not a person at a big business but i have to do this for like

00:43:19   podcasts and other things where i use strawpole.com to do this we used to use doodle doodle got kind of

00:43:25   junky straw pulls nice um and uh fantastical has a feature that does this right um i wonder with group

00:43:34   kit though it makes me also wonder if this is apple realizing the world that it's in and building

00:43:42   features with apis right so like well we're going to roll out this feature but we're also going to roll

00:43:47   out an api so the third-party apps can use it because they know it's going to be required in the eu or

00:43:52   whatever and so they build it they built it with that in uh you know connected so that everybody

00:43:58   can connect to the group kit api and understand how it's going i don't know it's interesting there's

00:44:03   definitely a use case here because fantastical built their whole feature about this and i use a website

00:44:08   that does this mostly because you know again one of the challenges here with all of these and it'll be

00:44:13   true with apples too is that everybody's on their own system and so it's not great like you could use

00:44:21   google calendar or you could use fantastical but like then you got somebody who's not using that

00:44:25   calendar and then what do you do with them and i don't know it's it's complicated yeah i always like

00:44:31   the idea of these types of services more than i actually like to use these things i think that for

00:44:36   me something that i never want to do is just leave like these huge chunks of time just like

00:44:41   booked up on my calendar and i have to wait until someone agrees to do something like i don't know

00:44:45   but weird weird thing to just be like hanging out there and i was 18.3 yeah uh mark german reported

00:44:54   that apple was considering adding a smart doorbell to its product lineup so this would be alongside the

00:45:00   work that they're doing on the home pod of a screen and it also was previously reported a potential

00:45:05   smart home camera so this would kind of slot into that product lineup apple is considering also offering

00:45:12   a smart lock that would work with this doorbell to automatically open your door with a face scan

00:45:18   with a face scan so it would scan your face and basically face id like just open your door okay this

00:45:25   is an early stage product 2026 would be the earliest it could arrive and no matter what they end up

00:45:31   shipping this is basically like mark is saying the smart home is going to see an aggressive push from

00:45:37   apple all right so this is it's interesting because there are there are smart locks out there um so they

00:45:45   would be adding to an existing category a lot of smart lock technology is now moving to use ultra wideband

00:45:53   which allows automatic unlock um without requiring so like i used to have a smart lock that used bluetooth

00:46:00   and it was pretty unreliable and now i use one with nfc and so i can tap my apple watch to unlock my door

00:46:10   but the next phase of this and there were some announcements at ces about this is ultra wideband

00:46:15   where as you walk up to your door it unlocks because it knows it's you and that you're at your front door

00:46:20   and the reason you use ultra wideband for that is that ultra wideband knows where you are in 3d space

00:46:24   which means uh if you walk up to the the if somebody knocks on your door and you walk up to it from the

00:46:31   inside of your house it doesn't unlock the door because that would be bad uh because it knows you're

00:46:37   inside whereas like bluetooth proximity and stuff doesn't know that it only knows how close you are to the

00:46:42   door so it's good this is interesting because what he's saying is first off it's going to use face id

00:46:49   which that's a little bit weird it does mean that devices that aren't compatible with their with the

00:46:56   lock could use face id to authenticate and open the door i guess this feels very much like little pieces

00:47:03   of strategies that have not been coalesced into into products but i think it's interesting that apple seems

00:47:08   to be rifling through its its existing technology and categories in smart home to figure out what it might

00:47:15   do because that's a that's a step up from where they've been before and again it's like look apple

00:47:21   is a business that would like to make more money right that is essentially their function um and one and

00:47:29   they are struggling to make more money from customers wearables home accessories as a category had grew a

00:47:36   lot and now is basically flat imagine if you could sell every iphone customer five hundred dollars more

00:47:42   equipment from yeah cameras no it's smart i mean i think a lot of us have been saying they should have

00:47:47   done this five years ago but it's interesting we wanted them to do it five years ago because the

00:47:51   landscape has been rough you know like like it's right it's rough out there trying to get this stuff

00:47:56   to work together and and i am definitely a person who finds home kit to be good like if i can get products

00:48:03   that work with home kit i do find that to be a good system and trying to as much as i can find products

00:48:11   that tie into home kit i find it to be more reliable than anything else that i use right so and and

00:48:17   again there's also just the you know they get to stock their own stuff at the apple store and it's you

00:48:23   know it's perceived as premium and it works with apple stuff and it's even if there are competitors

00:48:27   out there that's okay apple just needs to be perceived as being well this is easier and i'll spend a little bit

00:48:32   more because this is easier they need to pick their spots right and that's why like the smart doorbell

00:48:38   kind of makes sense because it could integrate with your smart home and integrate with your devices

00:48:43   and could have like intercom support and it would show the camera and like i could see them doing that

00:48:49   smart lock it's like what do they do to differentiate it from every other lock that's out there and that's

00:48:53   that's why the considering word is very interesting because like maybe there's something apple could add

00:48:59   but like i don't know like it it i'm not sure apple has a lot to add to locks that it doesn't already

00:49:08   offer i mean i think it's easy to forget the smart doorbell is the most successful smart home product

00:49:16   the market is owned by ring essentially right like it's a point where a ring doorbell is almost like

00:49:24   a kleenex right like in that like that is what people think of people just want to get ring doorbells

00:49:29   because they they want a doorbell of a camera in it and so they just buy a ring doorbell

00:49:33   and ring offer a comprehensive suite of products so like i use the ring security system in my studio

00:49:43   it's very easy to set up and you can just buy a box that has a couple of cameras an alarm system

00:49:50   the alarm system has a cell connection that i and also a battery in it in case either power or internet

00:49:56   is lost and i have a bunch of motion sensors that you just buy this thing you set it all up

00:50:00   it all knows the pieces all know to talk to each other the setup is very simple

00:50:04   like ring have this market which in the ring are owned by amazon

00:50:08   apple should want this i mean as we say apple should have done this years ago they should have

00:50:14   done years ago years ago and amazon has been on it and bought ring and bought euro and like they've

00:50:19   been on it and they tried to buy a robot which i wouldn't be surprised if they tried to do that again

00:50:23   now by the way like with a different administration um because that that makes so much sense for them

00:50:29   like i was actually i was personally bummed out and that didn't go through that's the other thing

00:50:33   there are there are competitors to i robot now where they could they could uh really argue that it's a

00:50:38   pretty competitive market yes yeah i just i don't believe there's a ring lock right they have partners

00:50:44   that they work with but i don't think there's a ring lock and that's that's why i think mark

00:50:49   german's report here is a little bit curious because it's like does it make sense but but he doesn't

00:50:55   phrase it as they're doing it he phrases it they're considering it and so i what i choose to take away

00:50:58   from this report is that apple is actively looking at its collection of technologies and places they could

00:51:05   be applied in smart home categories and it's trying to figure it out but i think you're right a doorbell

00:51:11   with a camera is a smart place for them as well as a security camera i think these are smart places for

00:51:19   apple to go early on in this process because not only are those good categories that sell pretty well

00:51:26   but imagine attention uh european regulators start listening stop listening i don't know i don't care

00:51:33   you can listen if you want but listen imagine the special sauce the secret sauce that apple would add

00:51:37   right like the the idea that uh apple would make it the best experience possible if you have an iphone

00:51:43   and somebody rings your doorbell like you literally your your iphone rings and you look at it and the

00:51:48   picture and the video is on it right like and i know that some of that's in home kit now but like

00:51:53   even if every doorbell got access to that feature because here's the other thing sometimes that does happen

00:52:00   what you want is not apple let me put it this way apple's more motivated to do the work in their

00:52:08   software on their devices to support an apple product that's coming out that's what motivates a

00:52:14   lot of stuff and prioritizes a lot of stuff so you end up like even if you use a ring doorbell or something

00:52:20   if apple makes a doorbell they're going to do all the stuff that amazon has been wishing that they would

00:52:25   do for the ring system for years and that apple's refused to do but they're finally going to do it

00:52:31   and they're going to do it because now they've got a doorbell and suddenly it matters to them doorbell

00:52:35   support on all apple devices suddenly really matters to them and so that could be good for the whole

00:52:39   the whole market but certainly for apple uh lika sunny dixon has shared some images of what appears to be

00:52:47   the iphone se4 uh the images show a black and white model i assume that these could also be midnight

00:52:56   and starlight and like you know it depends on the color of the anodization around the aluminum but yes

00:53:00   there is a single large camera uh maybe it's the 48 megapixel sensor that was previously rumored

00:53:06   uh this kind of like overall design has been corroborated by evan blast who's another leaker used to own

00:53:13   ev leaks or still does i don't even remember anymore but uh they shared some images that appear to be

00:53:18   more of what we'd expect to see on the apple store so they're kind of like rendery images

00:53:23   from these ones you can also see uh a dynamic island right i think um

00:53:29   what i took away from this and i think some i saw some other people commenting on this on social media is

00:53:38   they could totally call this the iphone 16e if they wanted to yeah right because it looks like

00:53:44   an iphone 16 it does it's a slimmed down decontented iphone 16 with that thing they do on the glass where

00:53:52   they like they they kind of color the the glass in the two-tone way like it's got all of those little

00:53:58   touches it looks like a modern iphone like really looks like a modern iphone and i know i've heard

00:54:02   from people who said but why would they give it a number because they keep this thing around so long

00:54:07   like well they keep a lot of things around so long but also what if they didn't keep it around so long

00:54:11   what if there was an e-phone every year or every other year in the spring why not

00:54:15   i don't know we'll say i mean i i i am still of the i i am in the i don't think calling it a 16e is a

00:54:24   good thing to do unless they do what you're what you're suggesting that they do yeah that's i'm just

00:54:29   saying is that is that there's an assumption wrapped in the they won't do that because and you have to

00:54:34   question that assumption because it's possible that they've decided well i don't this se thing

00:54:40   what if we just made a part of the line and we kept it around for a couple of years but yeah the

00:54:43   other way to do it is just call it se it it floats out of time and is what it is but what's great about

00:54:49   this is that it's been a long time since the iphone 10 yeah and the se has been back and in the pre-time

00:54:56   the before iphone 10 time and it's essentially an iphone 8 and uh and now it won't be anymore and i

00:55:02   think that's great something i meant to mention uh there is a slight discrepancy between these two

00:55:08   images which is where the flash is placed so in what appears to be the photo the flash is on the right

00:55:14   side and the rumor the the render one the flash is underneath and the the render one does look more real

00:55:22   but they're they're coming at it from what appears to be pretty close proximity maybe we have

00:55:27   two different versions of what this phone could have looked like but they look similar enough

00:55:31   to at least give us an idea i do think the the evan blast ones make the most sense to me for what i

00:55:38   would imagine this phone to look like um but nevertheless also i think maybe what you're seeing here is the

00:55:44   limitations of the leaks information right where it's like they don't know where the flash is

00:55:48   so or one of them doesn't know where the flash is sometimes you just get the basic idea as opposed

00:55:55   to you get the shape you get the shape for because it's coming from for a case right i mean i can't

00:56:00   believe we're back there but yes right like for a case because the case people know they know i don't

00:56:06   know how they know but they know the switch rumors were all true you know like that all came from case

00:56:11   stuff and that was all basically 100 correct yeah um they these case companies they must pay so much

00:56:19   money like oh the espionage i genuinely believe these case companies they pay people kind of amounts

00:56:26   of money that these people could afford to get fired like i think that's kind of what's going on here

00:56:30   um yeah and again because the economies the economies are so messed up right like how much money a case

00:56:36   company could pay compared to what somebody's salary is once a year somebody uh wins the lottery which is

00:56:44   they get they get the money from the case company to leak the dimensions and then they're fired yep and

00:56:49   they take their money and they go to singapore yep or macau they go they go to macau and they put it all

00:56:56   down on a roulette on a roulette wheel i'm creating a whole thing where the whole thing they enter a shadowy

00:57:00   world of gamblers and outlaws i think you have just you've just outlined your next novel wow i think

00:57:07   you just did it the adventure of the iphone case leaker yeah i think you've just started out uh i have

00:57:13   more i have more uh that's wait wait wait wait wait wait wait i i just want to go with this for a

00:57:17   second okay i'm imagining a james bond movie where he's at like a high stakes table like a baccarat table or

00:57:22   something like that and and at the table with him is of course a a bond villain um right like a super

00:57:30   villain who's like created like a an array of satellites that are going to be used to control

00:57:35   uh lasers that control robots that can that are like gonna replace the leaders of the world let's say

00:57:45   human-like robots okay that person's at the table because they love a game of baccarat who doesn't who

00:57:51   does a completely impenetrable game that doesn't make any sense but also at the table is some guy

00:57:56   from a factory who uh leaked case specs and has decided to live the high life that guy that guy dies

00:58:05   oh no that's a shame sorry so is this one of those stories where we think we're following someone but

00:58:11   now we're following someone else that's right it's like well this case leaker seems really interesting oh

00:58:17   who's this british agent with a license to kill it turned out to be a james bond novel that you were

00:58:22   right it exactly wow look at that yeah incredible enjoy incredible stuff yeah mac rumors is reporting

00:58:30   that leaks coming from a weibo user by the name of digital chat station which is great say that the

00:58:35   cameras on the iphone 17 pro all three of them will have 48 megapixel sensors so the upgrade here is the

00:58:43   five times telephoto lens will go from 12 megapixels to 48 megapixels safe to say we could probably get

00:58:50   some improved image quality from yeah uh and also the iphone 17 pro will have an upgraded selfie camera

00:58:57   from 12 megapixels to 24 megapixels great well and keep in mind that 48 also means that you can bin at 24

00:59:03   and get higher quality that way which is really nice so there's a lot of different options you can

00:59:07   do here do you think that could be over five times zoom then

00:59:12   hmm could be like they could maybe go i'm not i would call it more but yeah but it's like how

00:59:20   the two times zoom is a bin version of the one x right now right because they do so maybe i don't

00:59:27   know maybe someone could tell maybe they could say it's a seven or eight times telephoto because they

00:59:32   could bin it i don't know if that would do it but maybe that'd be fun uh and chance miller at nine

00:59:38   to five mac has shared some leaked images also from weibo along with some of his own sourcing that gives

00:59:43   us a look at what could be the design of the back of the iphone 17 air these leaks show a supposed

00:59:51   images of the back case that feature a full width bar across the top housing the camera that yes looks just

00:59:59   like the google pixel from like the last few years here's what i don't understand all of the rumors

01:00:07   including this reporting says there's one camera so why would they need to do this

01:00:11   it's a good question like because we just saw what could be the iphone se where there's one camera and

01:00:19   it's just the one camera so so what is going on here that they would need this entire bar

01:00:26   for one camera um is it just is it like they're also shoving some other stuff up there to make the

01:00:34   phone super thin right like to some other components housed in that area like i find it peculiar to be

01:00:41   honest yeah i don't understand what we're seeing here but again we may not know what we're seeing

01:00:48   here right yes like exactly there may be who knows what's going on there that we are meant not to

01:00:54   understand i don't know what i would say though is i mean honestly as well it could just be aesthetic

01:01:00   right and it could be because then if you saw someone using that phone you know they have that new

01:01:07   one right because that one looks dramatically different to the other phones yeah yeah

01:01:11   and it could be establishing a new design language that could be used on folding phones in the future

01:01:18   or something like that which is what we believe this phone could be anyway totally could be and

01:01:22   whilst this isn't in rumor roundup i thought it would at least fit here samsung i i'm so glad that

01:01:27   you put this in here okay because i was about to say meanwhile meanwhile we've after all of our

01:01:33   discussion of a thin iphone coming what might samsung have introduced that well they have

01:01:40   spoken about and shown off the galaxy s25 edge which is expected to be coming to the market maybe this

01:01:49   year they're a bit cagey about it uh they should and they're at the unpacked event where they did have

01:01:56   the s25 line they had this um which is a supposedly based on rumors a 6.4 millimeter thin phone but

01:02:07   nobody was allowed to touch it and they didn't give specs uh so basically what it seems is samsung have

01:02:14   been working on this and they wanted people to see it before apple gets the 17 air out sure sure or i mean

01:02:21   we we don't know it's possible that they've had super thin phones in their lab for a while yes uh

01:02:26   and and nothing happened with them i think the most likely scenarios they're like they're tinkering with

01:02:31   it and then they hear oh apple's gonna do it and they're like well then we're gonna do it too right

01:02:35   like well because we know they can do it because they they know they can do it because they've had to

01:02:39   make phones this thin for the fold line yeah absolutely so but i i do think i'm just gonna put it out there

01:02:46   the reason this phone got put into what will probably be production is because of the rumors

01:02:53   that apple is doing it and samsung is just shameless about that right so they're like yeah

01:02:57   we got a thin phone sure yep got it here it is uh don't touch it here it is so um bless their hearts

01:03:04   like i would expect nothing less from samsung honestly samsung just keep keep being you i guess

01:03:13   oh i just want to say like they they also unveiled a headset right and and i'm seeing everyone online

01:03:19   being like ah copied the vision pro homework no it looks like the meta quest pro it doesn't look like

01:03:26   the vision pro if you if you like the only way it looks like the the vision pro is that the colors are

01:03:32   the same if you actually look at the design of that and the quest pro it looks way more like the quest pro

01:03:39   i know this because i am the fool who bought one right you have a quest pro yeah yeah just if you

01:03:44   if you're interested like you can go look at that um one of the things that i found that i thought was

01:03:50   about this like what how come all of these thin phones are maybe gonna be happening right there's

01:03:57   an mkbhd video that i watched a few weeks ago about a oneplus phone uh and one of the things that

01:04:02   my guys was talking about was this new battery technology that is enabling phones to get thinner

01:04:09   and also have really good battery life so this might be something which is now going to unlock these

01:04:16   thin phones i think it's called like it's like silicon something or something like that it's not super

01:04:21   important the technology but that even though these phones are getting really thin they are still having

01:04:29   excellent battery life because of this new battery technology so that i think 2025 i think it's going

01:04:35   to be the year of thin phones and and this oneplus phone kind of started that that's great and and the

01:04:41   truth is this is something we talk about with computers a lot which is even the m1 macbook air at walmart

01:04:47   is more computer than most people need it just is that's just the truth of it and that changes the dynamic

01:04:53   right it changes the dynamic of of who buys a computer what they buy and how long they hold it

01:04:59   because um you've got the the the technology is outstripped sort of like what people use this stuff

01:05:05   for i think that is also true of phones obviously like some people really care about cameras and some

01:05:11   people really care about the display and all of that but creating something that's an outlier in terms of

01:05:18   its size to make it thin and look different it's gonna be limited right it's gonna be limited

01:05:28   in terms of its functionality because it's the thin phone we know that the display is not going to be

01:05:33   as great in the camera there's only going to be one and all that but we've gotten to the point now where

01:05:38   i feel like you can differentiate like this and it's fine because i don't think anyone's gonna say oh i

01:05:44   really would like a thin phone but i can't do my work on a thin phone right they might say i want

01:05:49   the nicer camera or whatever right like i get it but that phone's going to be great and if that's the

01:05:55   phone you want you will get it and you will be happy with it and that's a nice kind of enabling

01:06:00   technology thing now especially if it its battery life isn't terrible right if its battery life is also

01:06:06   still pretty great and it's that thin that's amazing too so we you know that's the advantage of this

01:06:11   tech getting better is it's not just that the base tech becomes more powerful it means that the

01:06:16   outliers are still perfectly usable and that means your outliers get more interesting silicon carbon

01:06:23   that's the battery technology love it those are those are elements yep those are together and what do you

01:06:30   get long lasting batteries everybody knows that skinny phones sure this episode is brought to you by our

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01:07:45   let's finish out with some ask upgrade questions and today's show patrick says with apple doubling down

01:07:54   on health and fitness particularly with the apple watch and maybe new health devices where do you see apple

01:08:00   fitness plus heading in the next few years could we see deeper integrations with third-party equipment

01:08:05   or more personalized coaching features leveraging a leveraging ai and health data what do you think

01:08:11   oh um i i it's a great place for there to be more i i fitness plus is still pretty limited in that it's

01:08:20   you know classes is what they're doing and and those classes are good i've done them lauren does them i keep

01:08:27   thinking that there are other ways to motivate and gamify fitness that fitness plus could probably do

01:08:38   that it doesn't do and i don't i don't know i mean their gamification is essentially that heart rate bar

01:08:44   you know the effort bar that shows where you are among people who do it i don't even know if it's made up

01:08:50   i don't but i keep thinking like that's one of the one of the secret sauce things about peloton was

01:08:55   you're i mean not only are there live things but also like they've gamified it where you can sort

01:09:00   of see where you are in the group i like the idea of of doing other fitness stuff where you're comparing

01:09:08   it to your friends and challenging your friends they've got some challenges for for um activity but

01:09:14   like it would be interesting to see other things where it's like you're doing the same workout as your

01:09:19   friends and you know you're uh you know you're sharing your progress and comparing it to them

01:09:27   and there's like because people do react to that i don't know more content is always good i don't know

01:09:32   i i think there's opportunities for their them to innovate and we talked about the whole ai uh coach

01:09:37   thing you'd integrate that too i think yeah so one of the things that apple recently did uh was a

01:09:44   partnership with strava so they're offering a fitness plus trial to strava users but they're

01:09:52   also using what's called strava athletes in fitness plus content so these are people that are because

01:09:58   strava is also kind of like a social network like you can follow athletes and see what their workouts

01:10:04   are and so now popular strava strava athletes that's hard to say will be featured in fitness plus content

01:10:12   and this is something i imagine they're doing just peeled on the fitness plus side finding popular fitness

01:10:18   content creators and bringing them in and giving them classes and like this and then they can offer fitness

01:10:24   plus trials to their audience for example or working with other companies like this because this enables

01:10:30   them to kind of it's the peloton thing again as you were mentioning right like not that one of peloton's other things

01:10:37   is that people like certain instructors and like follow them on social media and they want to

01:10:43   do their classes and that is also part of where fitness plus came from like

01:10:48   i remember when fitness plus started

01:10:51   seeing people excited that someone they were following on instagram was an instructor so like apple went out and

01:10:57   found people that were already content creators in fitness and hired them to be instructors and i think

01:11:05   that that is a very smart way of bringing people to the service because you're finding people already

01:11:12   engaging who already have an audience and bringing them in and i can imagine doing a lot more of that too

01:11:17   personalities are huge i didn't understand it i know that people talked about like oh the peloton coaches

01:11:21   and all that but like it's huge um lauren does pilates

01:11:25   on fitness plus and she knows the different instructors and like their styles and what they

01:11:31   do and she was saying to me the other day she said that is the hardest pilates workout i've ever had

01:11:35   and she said well you know the instructor is the guy who always makes it hard and i thought

01:11:40   this is really interesting right you're making a connection to this guy

01:11:42   because of the way he does pilates and i made that connection with when i was using it for for bike workouts

01:11:49   which i'm not anymore i i can go i have a a dog i have to walk every day and like so i'm not i'm not

01:11:54   using the bike uh and fitness plus anymore i'm i'm i'm fortunate to live in a place where i almost never

01:12:00   can't go outside to exercise so but um the the bike people i gravitated towards specific instructors as

01:12:08   well i'm like oh yeah what else does kim have for me or whatever and like it was it is powerful so the

01:12:14   the more personality based stuff the more that you can bring in people who people recognize or

01:12:18   people are going to have an affinity for i think that's a huge part of it too

01:12:21   andrew wrote in and said recent rumors are saying apple will finally put a 120 hertz refresh rate

01:12:28   screen on the non-pro iphone 7 teen but i can't shake this feeling that apple in 2025 won't go that

01:12:35   high and will cap non-pro phones at 90 hertz mark german's recent report that apple is looking to

01:12:41   raise the refresh rates on imax and the ipad air to 90 hertz makes me feel even more certain about this

01:12:46   with apple keeping pro motion exclusive to pro level devices what is your guys take on the future of this

01:12:52   will 120 hertz come to other phones or will 90 hertz be the new 60 so i'll start off by saying i think

01:12:58   andrew is actually conflating mark german's reporting with our reporting oh that was a

01:13:03   thing that we had from an anonymous source that made its way out onto many parts of the internet this is

01:13:09   back in november uh where we had someone who i feel pretty confident in who's given us some stuff in the

01:13:15   past right in to say that apple is working on a higher rate higher refresh rate lcd display with a new

01:13:22   panel that's fixed at 90 hertz and it would be um used in the but in a next generation imac and studio

01:13:30   display and that we also you know we could see that maybe being something used for the phones but some

01:13:37   people were saying that there would be higher refresh rate promotion on other phones my feeling on this

01:13:42   is that 90 hertz will be the standard for non-pro devices and that pro devices will get 120 that's what

01:13:48   i think yeah i think you're probably right keep in mind that when you increase the refresh rate it's

01:13:53   not just the uh display it's also the graphics processor because they have to generate more

01:13:58   frames and i think it takes a battery hit too and absolutely it does because that it's generating a

01:14:04   lot of it's drawing more and it's generating more frames so i think 90 that sounds to me like it's the

01:14:10   display equivalent of apple increasing the ram the base ram of a laptop it's apple saying okay we want

01:14:18   this to be higher than it is we've left this for a while now what do we do because we want to have

01:14:25   our margins on our low-end products but we wanted to it's probably too low and we probably should have

01:14:30   done it years ago but we saved it because of margins and that that's what gets you to 90 is that's the

01:14:35   that's the it's better everybody feels better about it but it's not quite the same as the pro motion

01:14:43   you know they'll give it another name some other weird name smooth motion um and and yeah it sounds

01:14:48   really realistic to me it will probably just be part of the specs of the this current generation

01:14:55   yeah look we increase the refresh rate on the display yeah and and that would just be the end

01:15:01   of it but i do think it's time i mean i mean honestly it was time a long time ago like

01:15:06   60 hertz is wild to still be doing on a on a phone that is the price the way the iphone is

01:15:11   tom wrote in the say do you use dictation in your daily workflows if so how and i actually wanted to

01:15:19   ask a secondary question to this which is have you ever tried dictation as a way to write

01:15:24   oh i have i struggle with it i know people who've done this david poge um book author and former new

01:15:31   new york times got from way back david poge has horrible rsi and everything he wrote was dictated

01:15:37   with um dragon that's what david sparks uses like david sparks he well i don't know if he still uses

01:15:43   it because i know he's been pretty happy with what apple's been doing recently too but i know that sparky

01:15:47   is a big dictation guy too yeah so poge would literally when he was writing features for mac world

01:15:53   for me poge would literally have a pc running dragon because the pc version was the only one available and

01:16:00   for a while it was the only good one and he would literally use it to dictate while he was using his mac

01:16:05   to you know write books about the mac or write feature articles for mac world about the mac he would

01:16:10   dictate it into a pc um i never really understood it i've tried it first off as everybody is tired of

01:16:17   hearing me say i type real fast so that's one of my advantages is my brain kind of goes and my fingers

01:16:23   go and words come out which has been really good for me career wise to have that little

01:16:29   like you know you go from the brain to the fingers to the letters on the screen it's pretty

01:16:33   good pretty good um it's funny that this came up though because i uh on david sparks recommendation

01:16:41   i have been playing around with an app called super whisper and super whisper on its surface is yet

01:16:48   another whisper interface whisper is the text to speech thing right like there's mac whisper and all that

01:16:54   and you're like okay i mean how many of these i i build i build a version of whisper uh from the code

01:17:00   from the source that's a c plus plus version and put it in a shortcut i actually do that and it's really

01:17:05   fast um but super whisper is more than that though because the the developer of super whisper has layered

01:17:11   multiple things on top of whisper so he uses whisper to do the text to speech and you can choose your

01:17:16   different or speech to text he uses different versions of it that will take your narration your

01:17:20   dictation and will turn into something and then he built a context layer on top of it that based on

01:17:26   where you are um it will put your whisper output through an llm to clean it up and you can choose

01:17:33   that llm you can have you know various uh i think it's mostly chat gpt with custom prompts if you

01:17:39   want to plus he's baked in some prompts so you can like have a prompt like sparky was writing about this

01:17:45   like you know you have a prompt that tells it what you want your emails to be like it always activates

01:17:51   when you're in your email program and you use the same hotkey but it knows you're in your email

01:17:56   and so the the post processing llm rewrites your email based on that kind of messy whisper transcription

01:18:05   in the context of an email and if you're in a different app it can it can rewrite it in a

01:18:10   different context i think this is really smart and it makes it it takes it above what a a general

01:18:16   a general kind of like whisper port put a mac interface around it would do because he's trying

01:18:21   to make it a productivity utility it's a really interesting idea and i tried it and i would say

01:18:27   so i tried it on the article i wrote this week about moving to the macbook pro

01:18:32   that i wrote and posted on six colors last week sorry last week last week last week

01:18:38   and you know i ended up sitting at my desk hunched over the keyboard with my eyes closed kind of like

01:18:45   saying things but i wanted to try it it was okay it was okay and the output was pretty good

01:18:52   from super whisper although it every time i stopped it appended a sentence at the very end that i didn't

01:18:58   say and that was hilarious and wrong every time what do you mean like what it well because the llm's um

01:19:05   whisper especially if there's silence whisper sometimes just hallucinates things oh and then

01:19:10   the hallucination gets passed onto the chat gpt that rewrites it into a sentence and it will continue

01:19:15   the thought that was my last thought in a way that's bizarre and that's incredible it's it's

01:19:21   amazing and sparky's talked about how he says like don't don't write a sign off for the email do not

01:19:26   write the sign off for the email i have a signature file don't do it and he says it still does it like

01:19:30   some of the time it still does it because these are llms however however i will say it's kind of like

01:19:36   me actually i think i do that a lot like just me as a human like i just say an extra sentence that

01:19:41   maybe i shouldn't have said i do that yeah yeah okay well you're you the llms are getting better all

01:19:46   the time so um i did that and it was pretty good in that it basically got what i said right and it was

01:19:54   written in a style that was way better than what mac what like whisper generally would do it did a better

01:20:01   job so that's really interesting um the truth is i mean could i if if i couldn't type anymore

01:20:09   i could use it and probably do my job like david poke i could do that yeah but i went back through

01:20:18   the stuff that i dictated and basically edited it which is this is the thing about writing versus talking

01:20:25   for dear upgrade listeners you get to hear us talk and we're just thinking as we go we don't have a script

01:20:31   we've got some notes but we don't have a script we just talk when i write something that you see on six

01:20:37   colors or mac world or wherever it's one layer of processing beyond the talking and i got to witness that

01:20:46   because i i just was like so i get this thing and my daughter's room is heated and my garage isn't

01:20:52   and i kind of like dictated the whole thing and then i went through it and i was like oh no no we're

01:20:56   gonna add like this is gonna be you know i get to my point here faster and i'm gonna make this joke

01:21:00   here and i'm gonna put a footnote here and all that and and that's that extra level where i write a

01:21:07   sentence and then i think and i back up and all that and you don't do that when you're talking so i found

01:21:12   it interesting i might do it again it might be a good as a like a brain change of pace when i've

01:21:19   like this happens a lot where i'm like walking the dog or i'm taking a shower or something and

01:21:24   i start thinking of a story i could write and i i'm thinking what it is and i think there's something

01:21:29   to be said for just getting that thing that i've thought through out and then turning it into something

01:21:34   that i would write but getting that first kind of monologue out and then writing it from there

01:21:40   so yeah i could see using this i'm not going to use it every day because i do type fast and and it

01:21:46   gives me precision over what i write that i don't otherwise have but if if i've got that thing like

01:21:54   literally i will sometimes sit in the shower and i'll be listening to a podcast i'll be listening

01:21:58   connected or atp or something like that now i'll hear something and it will send me off in a direction

01:22:03   of like oh that would be an interesting story to write and i will start writing it in my head and

01:22:07   like well i'm in the shower like where's that going right now and i could see the value not

01:22:11   necessarily even doing it in the shower but when i get out of of retelling that story that i just told

01:22:17   myself so i could get it down as a starting point um and then make the words better but um so so i'm

01:22:26   interested in this i feel like this technology is getting a lot better but what it doesn't do is

01:22:32   provide that extra layer that's seeing your words and then fixing them that's another part of writing

01:22:39   for me that it it can't do it can't do uh something that i use dictation for is not too dissimilar to

01:22:47   what you were just talking about so something i have to do relatively frequently is to try and

01:22:54   come up with marketing copy for something right so like this is especially for my product work

01:22:59   where i'm trying to describe what a product is like to use and the easiest way for me to do that

01:23:09   is to have the product in my hands and talk aloud and just talk about what it is like to use the thing

01:23:16   that i'm using like why is it good what can you do with it and so i will just like open up notion just

01:23:22   turn on uh ios dictation and just start talking and i like that so you just i'm just kind of getting

01:23:28   my thoughts out and i'm not really editing them at that point like it's just getting it all out there

01:23:32   and then i can go in and refine it so i do that um i also i have been finding recently that usually if

01:23:39   i want to search something on chat gpt i just dictate it because chat gpt's build dictation is

01:23:44   incredibly good incredibly good incredibly good obviously right like well i mean it's i imagine

01:23:50   it's whisper that's doing the back-end work there because whisper is an open ai thing yeah yeah it's

01:23:56   it's very very good so like it's the fastest way for me to search things with chat gpt because usually

01:24:01   it's a very colloquial search which is what i'm doing um and so i will more often than not find myself

01:24:07   doing that and this isn't the like where you're having a conversation with it this is just like on

01:24:12   next to the search box you can just press a microphone just speak and then it just dictates

01:24:17   it so i do that too if you would like to dictate some feedback follow-up or questions for us go to

01:24:24   upgrade feedback.com you can just dictate into that text box if you would like but you can also send in

01:24:29   your questions i've got loads of ask upgrade questions and i would still like more so if you have a

01:24:33   question you would like for us to answer in a future episode just go to upgrade feedback.com

01:24:38   and you can do that i want to thank our members who support us every week with upgrade plus please

01:24:44   go to getupgradeplus.com to learn more as i said we're going to talk about jason canceling netflix in

01:24:49   today's upgrade plus segment if you would like to watch the show on youtube you can do so just search

01:24:53   for the upgrade podcast i would like to thank vitally for their support of this episode but most of all

01:24:59   thank you for listening we'll be back next week until then say goodbye jason goodbye mike