00:00:00 ◼ ► From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 598 for January 12th, 2026. Today's show is brought
00:00:16 ◼ ► to you by Sentry, Delete Me, 1Password, and ExpressVPN. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined
00:00:28 ◼ ► Big show. Surprising. It keeps getting bigger. If we waited any longer to record, we would
00:00:36 ◼ ► One of those days where the document is locked, and then there's news, and I unlock the document,
00:00:57 ◼ ► as an old Macintosh user, I really enjoyed the 20 Macs for 2020 series, and still revisit
00:01:08 ◼ ► It depends. That was a pandemic project, so I don't want another pandemic to do a project. I did at one point over the last five years toy with the idea of doing five additional episodes and calling it the 25 Macs for 2025, but I don't think I'm going to do that.
00:01:33 ◼ ► I wouldn't even say I'm working on it yet. I am exploring an idea that I might do later this year if I like it, and I've had it on my to-do list for about six months, and I did put some more work in last week on it.
00:01:51 ◼ ► If I do, it probably will go in the 20 Macs feed, because it's kind of related, but it's not the same.
00:02:01 ◼ ► Do I ever want to return to the format? What I would say is I'm not sure I ever need to do an NPR, a storytelling style, heavily edited and narrated with music podcast again.
00:02:13 ◼ ► I'm not sure I did that. It was fun. I'm not sure I need to do that again, but we'll see.
00:02:20 ◼ ► If one of these ideas kind of catches fire and inspires me to do something, I will do something.
00:02:27 ◼ ► The feed is still open for Performa Month. We did an episode with Stephen Hackett, so I'm leaving it open, because I think it's entirely possible that other things will go in there eventually.
00:02:39 ◼ ► I'm glad people like it. I hear from people regularly who revisit it, which is amazing, because I didn't. I did it in 2020, and then I was done.
00:02:48 ◼ ► The last episode was December 20, or number one was December 31st of 2020. It was like, get it out, and then it's done.
00:02:57 ◼ ► But I do think about it, and if I can come up with a good idea for something kind of like it, and that gets all the way through the tests in my own brain, and then potentially even if we did a test episode, I want to see what that is.
00:03:15 ◼ ► So maybe, I guess, is my answer is. I don't know if it'll ever be. I don't have any current plans to do the old five more Macs in that format with interviews interspersed and stuff.
00:03:25 ◼ ► I don't think that's my plan, but I might do something, and I am cognizant of the fact that we're coming up to the 50th anniversary of Apple as a company,
00:03:34 ◼ ► and that it's also this year we're coming up to the 30th anniversary of Steve Jobs coming back, because they closed that deal to buy next at the end of 96.
00:03:54 ◼ ► So that's the 30th anniversary of that this year. So I'm aware of those two things. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I'm not – the other part of this is I have not built up my personal brand to be about history and the past.
00:04:14 ◼ ► Well, people do associate that with you partly because of that, right, that you were there.
00:04:20 ◼ ► Yeah, but I have to fight against it, I feel like, because I don't want to end up being the Apple history guy, especially since Stephen Hackett, who was born 16 years after me, or 15, 15 and a half, but who's counting?
00:04:34 ◼ ► He's like the Apple history guy, which is a little weird, right, because he wasn't there and I was. But anyway, so I think about it. Maybe.
00:04:40 ◼ ► If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show to open an episode of Upgrade, please go to UpgradeFeedback.com and send in your Snell Talk question.
00:04:53 ◼ ► I will say, Jason, I tried this. The first time I tried it, my Apple Watch rebooted. So, springboard crashed. Then it worked. And then I did it two more times. And it just Googled it.
00:05:18 ◼ ► I did it multiple times as well. And I got, I don't know what you're talking about. And then I got, here are some web pages you can watch on your phone.
00:05:28 ◼ ► So, I mean, it's great that it worked one time for Randall, but I can't, Lauren didn't get it to work. I couldn't get it to work. Mike got it to work once out of four times.
00:05:36 ◼ ► It was fascinating, too, where it opened up the app and looked like it was jumping through UI. Like, it was like different pages and it was scrolling around. I was like, whoa, Apple Watch, chill out. I don't need it that bad, but there you go.
00:05:48 ◼ ► Not sure what's going on with Randall's watch, but it doesn't work most places, I think.
00:05:51 ◼ ► Sam wrote in and said, I agree with the point that you made in the last episode about unupgradable iMacs being disposable computers that eventually waste their perfectly functional screens.
00:06:02 ◼ ► But isn't that also the case for every MacBook, just with smaller screens? Do you think Apple has a responsibility to make MacBooks less disposable? And if so, how can they do it?
00:06:15 ◼ ► You know, iPads, iPhones, and laptops are much more integrated together, and I think there are a lot of cases where we have to accept that if we want nice things that are small and easy to use and portable, that they're going to be more disposable.
00:06:31 ◼ ► I mean, I like my AirPods, too, and they're disposable and not refreshable right down to the batteries, which is frustrating.
00:06:38 ◼ ► And yet, at the same time, I also think that if you were to ask most people if they would trade off a larger or less pleasant AirPods experience, but you could swap the batteries, I'm not sure people would prefer that.
00:07:03 ◼ ► What I would say is that we have generally accepted the fact that the tight integration of stuff makes it harder to make it modular and that that's okay.
00:07:17 ◼ ► Like, I don't expect an iPhone, because an iPhone screen is perfectly good a lot longer than an iPhone is, too.
00:07:24 ◼ ► But I don't expect an iPhone, not only is it smaller and there's less ways there, but I don't expect them to then engineer an iPhone with a removable back brain that reattaches that's based on some standard that doesn't change for X number of years.
00:07:38 ◼ ► I mean, there's a continuum there, and I don't really want a MacBook with a screen that can somehow kind of, like, pop off and go on a different MacBook some other time.
00:07:48 ◼ ► I think fundamentally in this whole point about iMacs and target display mode is it did exist.
00:07:54 ◼ ► I think the fact that it has existed highlights more the fact that they've stopped supporting that.
00:08:02 ◼ ► I know it's an all-in-one, but it's a modular piece in a way that they did have that technology before.
00:08:12 ◼ ► The fact that their displays are using Apple Silicon and running iOS, and it suggests that the ability to take a computer that Apple makes that's a display and run software on it that makes it a standalone display doesn't seem like a big leap since they're already doing it on other products.
00:08:32 ◼ ► It is larger, but I will say this, like, I don't think it would be a bad thing if in a few years when my M4 MacBook Pro with this beautiful, bright display is no longer my primary computer.
00:08:48 ◼ ► Would it be the worst thing in the world if I could reboot it into a mode where it just became a second monitor?
00:08:59 ◼ ► Would it be the worst thing if there was a nicer mode for me to just kind of repurpose that as a display for my Mac?
00:09:12 ◼ ► But certainly the iMac is a great example because the iMac, what is an iMac without its computer than a monitor?
00:09:19 ◼ ► Like, it's an existing modular product in a class other than the fact that Apple refuses to do the work to make it more like a studio display.
00:09:33 ◼ ► It is a continuum, and I'm not going to fault you if you say, but the whole thing is wasteful and everything we do is wasteful.
00:09:41 ◼ ► But, again, that is the argument of the people who made that, like, phone that was modular and that laptop that was modular and all of that.
00:09:47 ◼ ► I mean, those products exist, but they're a tough sell because to make them modular, there are lots of things that have to happen that makes them bigger and more expensive and heavier and also not practical because you're locking.
00:09:58 ◼ ► So everybody really is, I think, really excited about the fact that the M6 MacBook Pro may be a different thing with a new display and all of this stuff.
00:10:06 ◼ ► Well, like, but imagine if Apple had to decide we're going to break compatibility, like, with a watch band in order to make an M6 MacBook Pro that looks different from the M1234 MacBook Pro 5, presumably coming soon.
00:10:36 ◼ ► It's just that you can't because then you're locking people into a connection type or a ergonomic aspect of it.
00:10:44 ◼ ► Because the last thing you want to do is, like, have a laptop that is the wrong, the screen's the wrong size or shape or something.
00:10:51 ◼ ► So anyway, it's a lot less practical because those are fully integrated products where the two parts are integrated in a way that it's just harder to see that with an iMac.
00:11:03 ◼ ► Not much to talk about with this right now, but just as a note, Apple has announced that Chase Bank is going to become the issuer of Apple Card with a transition occurring over the next two years.
00:11:21 ◼ ► Because it is, honestly, I think, a little bit ridiculous that the Apple Card never left America, considering Apple's, like, overall services thing.
00:11:35 ◼ ► But ADQ wrote a lovely blog post on the newsroom about how successful services have been.
00:11:43 ◼ ► You had some thoughts, more thoughts, I should say, on the 3D model of the iPhone Fold that we discussed last week.
00:11:52 ◼ ► I wrote a thing, but my thing was honestly more just keying off of what we talked about last week.
00:12:02 ◼ ► I think the thing I'm most proud of in it is that I ended up with a headline that said, is this an iPhone that folds or is it an iPad that closes?
00:12:14 ◼ ► There was a quote that I wanted to read, like two quotes I actually just pushed together because I like what you're saying here.
00:12:24 ◼ ► If people read it as looking weird or lesser in some way, that may turn them off, even if they were otherwise willing to buy.
00:12:35 ◼ ► Apple is focusing on it being an iPad you can fold up and stick in your pocket, not as an iPhone that unfolds into two iPhones placed side by side.
00:12:43 ◼ ► And I do think that the main reaction that I have had in seeing even more of these images, especially the ones that Stephen took for you, where he's putting that model next to other devices, is this is going to look, if this is the model, if it's going to look like this, it's going to look like a supremely weird iPhone.
00:13:02 ◼ ► And I do believe that this model could actually be more, this like shape could be more useful as a device than kind of like the tall thing that opens into two tall things.
00:13:16 ◼ ► Especially because Apple does have, if they do it right, the software library where it makes sense, where I feel like on Android, it does make more sense to have two phone shaped things next to each other.
00:13:33 ◼ ► Your piece is kind of framing it as like, oh, well, you know, they're clearly doing this because it's good to be an iPad.
00:13:40 ◼ ► But the question that we don't know, we're not going to know is, yeah, but will I be able to run iPad apps on it?
00:13:50 ◼ ► I have no doubt you're going to be able to run iPad apps on it when it's unfolded because iPad apps, again, are iOS apps.
00:13:55 ◼ ► There are going to be some, what's going to be a challenge is there's some apps still that are like, we have an iPad app separate from our iPhone app in the store.
00:14:02 ◼ ► And they're going to have to deal with that because I think it's going to be bad for them or, or Apple's going to have to create, create some sort of bridge for it.
00:14:11 ◼ ► I don't know what level of multitasking they're going to offer, but like the whole, it just struck me watching that, that the whole, um, premise of this phone, if this is the shape of it really is, it's an iPad when you open it up.
00:14:24 ◼ ► That's a huge advantage Apple has because the iPad has been successful in so many ways that Android tablets have not.
00:14:30 ◼ ► And that the iPad app ecosystem, as grumpy as it makes Federico is so much better than the iPad, than the Android tablet app ecosystem, where, uh, it really is just kind of like big phone apps that are weird and, uh, and they've never really nailed it.
00:15:00 ◼ ► There are some software questions that they're going to have to deal with, with a phone that's squat and wide, but also there's just a consumer desire versus resistance question is the fact that this is a phone that you can open and that it looks sort of different when it's closed.
00:15:18 ◼ ► Um, what I, what I, um, cause it doesn't look like a regular iPhone, but what, what I keep thinking of other than the fact that this is about the iPad, as much as it is about the iPhone, it's about their strength on the iPad.
00:15:30 ◼ ► What I keep coming back to is Apple has so many other iPhones that I think their argument is, look, if you want something that enables all this amazing stuff in your pocket, we got it for you.
00:15:40 ◼ ► But if you would rather have a traditionally shaped and sized phone, we, we also sell those and you can buy one of those instead and it's fine.
00:15:49 ◼ ► And I, I actually like that approach because I think if you, if you decide that having a more four by three interior screen is a better experience than having a, you know, square screen, um, then do it.
00:16:07 ◼ ► Cause the, uh, the alternative is if you're so afraid that your phone when folded, um, doesn't look like an iPhone that you make it look like an iPhone.
00:16:20 ◼ ► So I kind of like the idea that they're like, Nope, we're going to start with apparently again, this is all rumor based on this.
00:16:28 ◼ ► And the resulting iPhone is going to be a little weird, but that's okay because it works for this product.
00:16:35 ◼ ► And I'm not sure it will succeed in the market because it looks odd, but I think it's the right thing to do for the product.
00:16:45 ◼ ► Uh, at CES, Samsung display showcased a new foldable OLED panel that had no visible crease.
00:16:57 ◼ ► This is a part, this is part of the technology that Apple may be using because obviously they are using Samsung display, but a lot of the rumors suggested that Apple would build a new hinge mechanism that really helped with this.
00:17:10 ◼ ► And Samsung's not, I wouldn't expect that they would be a part of that, but they may need to help them develop a screen itself.
00:17:20 ◼ ► I think Apple secret sauce here is a, is a good display that they've worked on with Samsung and that they've gotten, you know, what, what Samsung has come to in this generation pleases them.
00:17:30 ◼ ► And then they're also working on a hinge that they think makes it a better experience too.
00:17:33 ◼ ► And you put those two things together because, you know, Samsung will have this display.
00:17:37 ◼ ► Anybody can buy this display, but the hinge, if that's an Apple thing, then, then whether that makes a difference or not, Apple will talk it up.
00:17:44 ◼ ► I mean, it's worth noting the format of this display is the size, shape and format of what would be the Z fold.
00:17:50 ◼ ► So potentially Samsung and Apple worked on this and they're both going to implement it in their own ways.
00:17:57 ◼ ► But it, it is important that Samsung create the display that can allow for a much more minimized crease, no matter what Apple might do to the body of the phone.
00:18:09 ◼ ► I saw a rumor somewhere that Samsung may actually be coming out with a phone with a similar dimension to what is rumored for the Apple phone this fall, which only makes sense, right?
00:18:20 ◼ ► So why would they not also try to make a phone like that and just piggyback on this, uh, on the work that Apple's doing?
00:18:31 ◼ ► Uh, I've been talking a lot about how concerned I am about this very expensive phone having touch ID.
00:18:40 ◼ ► Uh, I know Jason says, I know Mike's concerned about the folding iPhone using touch ID instead of face ID.
00:18:45 ◼ ► I share that concern, but remember that wearing an Apple watch can also unlock the phone without using face ID.
00:18:51 ◼ ► It doesn't seem to work in certain focus modes such as sleep, but could this be an acceptable compromise?
00:18:56 ◼ ► So I'd forgotten about this feature and I've turned it on on my iPhone now just to see if I notice any times when it does assist me.
00:19:04 ◼ ► But I think all of this, including wherever touch ID works or whatever compromises they might come to, it's going to come down how it feels to use.
00:19:12 ◼ ► Because like, I have gotten very used to the way that I unlock my phone not being with the power button at all, right?
00:19:24 ◼ ► I think needing to touch the power button to unlock my phone, if that's what you need to do.
00:19:34 ◼ ► But something Matthew wrote in with, I found, I like the idea of this, even though I'm not sure it's going to be the case.
00:19:46 ◼ ► I don't have much experience with folding phones, but I get a feeling that a security-focused tech company that Apple is would like a measure in case it was left open on a table.
00:19:56 ◼ ► So there would be face ID on the front, so you could unlock, you know, when you're looking and using it as a phone.
00:20:11 ◼ ► I wanted to mention, you should subscribe to Upgrade Plus because you get longer ad-free episodes each and every week.
00:20:19 ◼ ► And this time, we're going to talk about Pluribus because I have some thoughts that I want to share with Jason about Pluribus because I finished it now.
00:20:42 ◼ ► When I find a new app and I download it and I try it out for the first time, I want that experience to be smooth.
00:20:50 ◼ ► But especially with newer stuff, if I'm hitting bugs, if I'm hitting issues, maybe I'm not going to come back to it.
00:20:56 ◼ ► So what you want as a developer is for your app to feel rock solid, for it to feel smooth, for it to work.
00:21:02 ◼ ► And also, you don't want to spend tons of time trying to deal with the issues that will inevitably come up through development.
00:21:07 ◼ ► Because applications break in all kinds of ways, from crashes to slowdowns, regressions, the stuff that you'll only really see once real users are using your application.
00:21:17 ◼ ► We all know what this is like, that no matter how much testing you do until you have something in production, that's where the issues come up.
00:21:27 ◼ ► You get traces, replays, errors, profiles, and the details around them, like stack traces, commits, releases, and the developers who broke it all in one connected view.
00:21:40 ◼ ► Sentry shows you how the request moved, what ran, what slowed down, and what the user saw.
00:21:49 ◼ ► It uses all of that Sentry context to help tell you the root cause, suggest a fix, and can even open the pull request.
00:21:56 ◼ ► It also reviews your pull requests for you and flags breaking changes with a fix ready.
00:22:06 ◼ ► They have a free dev plan, and listeners of this show can use the code UPGRADE26 to get $100 in Sentry credit.
00:22:50 ◼ ► These are the models that are running on device and in the cloud, which is fascinating, right?
00:23:09 ◼ ► It includes, I mean, what they say is these models will help power future Apple intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.
00:23:16 ◼ ► But it's future Apple intelligence features powered by Google, you know, based on Google's Gemini models, whatever that means.
00:23:39 ◼ ► After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's AI technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users.
00:23:59 ◼ ► You could have used many words, like a capable starting point, a capable, there are many things you could have said.
00:24:19 ◼ ► And then another quote, Apple intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and private cloud compute while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards.
00:24:37 ◼ ► Well, the funny thing is Google is, I think, working on some private cloud compute-like concepts as well.
00:24:51 ◼ ► It's one of these weird places where Apple led the way in AI, which is, let's create an AI server platform that behaves with the privacy of on-device, but is more functional, has better performance.
00:25:15 ◼ ► But it is, there's going to be a question about like, what is going to be developed at Apple?
00:25:33 ◼ ► What I would say is, Apple doesn't need, here's the thing, Apple doesn't need to be the chef who makes, well, it's not even the chef.
00:25:52 ◼ ► It needs to integrate it into whatever they're going to do with, if it's app intense, if, you know, any other kind of orchestration that happens on device or in the private cloud.
00:26:01 ◼ ► These are the things that Apple needs to do well, because at the end of the day, Apple is not a supplier of core AI technology to the world.
00:26:16 ◼ ► So this is, you know, maybe or maybe not Apple relinquishing its goal to do foundational AI research.
00:26:29 ◼ ► But it does mean they get a very good model with the power of Google behind it for them to use to build products on.
00:26:38 ◼ ► The fact that the report we got last year that I thought was the best was the one that said Apple is going to work with Google to white label Gemini
00:26:48 ◼ ► Because that answered a lot of questions, which is like, well, yeah, okay, Gemini, but there are all of the issues that go on with privacy.
00:27:05 ◼ ► I'm not sure that white label is really the right term for this now, because they are talking about a collaboration between the companies, right?
00:27:19 ◼ ► Because, I mean, this is something that we did our predictions on Connected, and I made a prediction about this, but just said a Google model, because I wasn't sure if they would brand it, but they're branding it.
00:27:37 ◼ ► It says, based on Google's Gemini models, you know, again, I think there's a lot of wiggle room here for them to choose how this is presented.
00:27:44 ◼ ► This is also a statement that was first broken by Jim Cramer at CNBC, Mad Money Man himself.
00:28:00 ◼ ► Anyway, I think that's telling, because I think that says that Apple wanted—this is not a technology announcement.
00:28:07 ◼ ► This is a corporate partnership alliance announcement, and I would say it benefits Apple and Google both, right?
00:28:15 ◼ ► Because everybody's talking about OpenAI, and everybody's talking about, you know, Anthropic Claude and all the Claude code and all of that.
00:28:28 ◼ ► So this is an example where Google benefits from having Apple endorse their technology, and Apple benefits from having a technology that is considered very good from a very important source.
00:28:42 ◼ ► So it is kind of a business announcement more than anything else, and that's why it went to Jim Cramer.
00:29:01 ◼ ► It's also possible that they wanted to get out ahead of a report that was coming out that somebody was going to do more.
00:29:21 ◼ ► And I think there's clearly a reason why they put it on their blog that they have got Apple to say.
00:29:38 ◼ ► But this is not good for the other AI companies, like from like a perspective and maybe from an investment perspective.
00:29:50 ◼ ► If you're open AI, the last thing you want is every smartphone on the planet to be powered by Gemini.
00:30:10 ◼ ► I mean, open AI, first off, they have their fantasy that they're going to build their own hardware now.
00:30:19 ◼ ► Because the rumor was that they thought that some people internally at least thought that the anthropic stuff was better.
00:30:37 ◼ ► But I thought it was interesting that Anthropic was the one that was also considered here.
00:30:42 ◼ ► And that makes me suspect that maybe just structurally, OpenAI's plans and the way they are building their product don't fit with Apple's strategy, right?
00:30:52 ◼ ► Like if Apple's like, well, we're going to need you to build a version of ChatGPT that runs on private cloud compute.
00:31:04 ◼ ► Or also, Google's going to have way better on-device models than ChatGPT or than OpenAI, right?
00:31:10 ◼ ► Because Google makes Android and they care about having devices or models that can run on phones in a way that OpenAI, quite frankly, doesn't.
00:31:24 ◼ ► But really, even then, OpenAI's strategy has really blasted the model out into the cloud.
00:31:39 ◼ ► I do feel like as well from, you know, looking at them as a collaboration and there is a sense to me of these two big companies trying to protect their position.
00:31:54 ◼ ► And that they are working together to make sure that they are protecting their duopoly, which is, as I say it out loud now, there's no way, like this is going to happen.
00:32:14 ◼ ► And I'm going to come back to what I said a few minutes ago, which is you're looking at a scenario where every smartphone in the world is run by a single model.
00:32:30 ◼ ► But, like, if Google's model is at the heart of the iPhone and Android, you've pretty much run out of road, right?
00:32:38 ◼ ► Yeah, like putting it in such clear terms, this is more, this feels like an even stronger dominance than Google is as a search engine, right?
00:32:48 ◼ ► Because you can do whatever you want, but, like, if it goes the way the device makers want and the OS makers want,
00:32:55 ◼ ► that, like, AI will be in everything that we do on our devices and Google will power all of it for as long as this deal lasts with Apple.
00:33:04 ◼ ► But I do feel like the further you go down this road, the harder it will be for them to break away from each other, from Apple's perspective.
00:33:15 ◼ ► Because are they really going to be able, I mean, this is the thing we've been going back to for months now.
00:33:36 ◼ ► You know, they're talking in our Discord, the members' Discord, about how even, like, right now,
00:33:43 ◼ ► Anthropic appears to be differentiating themselves and pushing toward, you know, cloud code and things like that.
00:33:48 ◼ ► We may see a scenario where the truth is that what OpenAI wants to do, like I just said, is not what Apple and Google want to do.
00:33:59 ◼ ► And that they will all kind of go to their neutral corners and say, well, we're doing, we're playing a different game.
00:34:13 ◼ ► But also, it would be really easy for the European Commission, for example, to say, actually, we're going to make it that there has to be competition for foundational AI models.
00:34:22 ◼ ► And Anthropic or OpenAI need to be given the opportunity to plug in as the driver of Apple intelligence instead of Google.
00:34:37 ◼ ► The way I read the EU stuff is that maybe they're not as zealous as they used to be about this stuff and that they're backing off.
00:34:49 ◼ ► That if the idea is they're a unified block with this, just like they are with search stuff, then it's going to cause problems.
00:35:05 ◼ ► I mean, I think that this is an emboldened Google after they got away with that, the FTC.
00:35:22 ◼ ► But especially with Google, where the judge is just like, oh, yeah, no, this is definitely a monopoly, but Google's so important, there's kind of nothing we can do about it.
00:35:36 ◼ ► Callie Huang and Trip Mickle of the New York Times published an article last week that served as information about Apple's succession planning and also as a profile of John Ternus.
00:35:50 ◼ ► Apple last year began accelerating its planning for Mr. Cook's succession, according to three people close to the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity about Apple's confidential deliberations.
00:36:01 ◼ ► Mr. Cook has told senior leaders that he is tired and would like to reduce his workload, the people said.
00:36:06 ◼ ► Should he step down, Mr. Cook is likely to become the chairman of Apple's board, according to three people close to the company.
00:36:14 ◼ ► That's what we've all been kind of guessing, although it's nice to get more direct reporting that the chairmanship is part of the plan.
00:36:23 ◼ ► Tim saying he's tired, like there is a narrative going around that something's wrong with Tim.
00:36:31 ◼ ► He probably is a little bit tired, and I would not put it past him that just framing it as, you know what?
00:36:39 ◼ ► I can back off, and it's good corporate governance and also just framing it in a human thing of like, I don't need to do all of this.
00:36:46 ◼ ► I'm going to dial it back, become the chairman, bring in somebody new, get them up to speed.
00:36:51 ◼ ► And, I mean, I wrote about this briefly last week and would say, and I'm sure I mentioned here before, that, you know, the circumstances under which Tim Cook took over as CEO were incredibly difficult, right?
00:37:05 ◼ ► Like, he had to step in as an interim boss because of Steve's horrible health problems.
00:37:11 ◼ ► And then when Steve became chairman, it was clear that the idea was going to be that Steve, even in a diminished state, would be able to be involved as the chairman of the board while Tim was CEO.
00:37:22 ◼ ► And, of course, Steve died a couple months after that, died almost immediately after that happened.
00:37:26 ◼ ► So, every time I think about this, I think Tim doesn't want to do that to his replacement, right?
00:37:36 ◼ ► Tim wants to have a plan because that is a Tim Cook thing, I think, to have a plan and be ordered and have it all set up.
00:37:46 ◼ ► And the fact is, if he looks at the calendar and he looks at his age and he's like, yeah, I don't need to be doing all of this for five or ten more years.
00:37:58 ◼ ► I think it's just a human response of, I don't need to be at 100% after I've been doing this for 15 years and I'm 65 years old.
00:38:11 ◼ ► The Times say that Ternus is front of the pack, but Cook will prepare a list of other internal candidates.
00:38:17 ◼ ► The article references other executives, but it feels like they were editorializing because the list that they put together just doesn't make any sense, if you ask me.
00:38:25 ◼ ► Yeah, this is my insider journalism where the fact that Cook is also preparing, I don't think, I didn't read it as preparing a list.
00:38:38 ◼ ► Like, he's not going to, because he's going to be asked, like, is there anybody at Apple who could do your job?
00:38:42 ◼ ► And he says, well, only John Ternus because I've been working on him for the last two years.
00:38:48 ◼ ► Because what happens if John Ternus leaves or is hit by the turnip truck or whatever, right?
00:38:55 ◼ ► So, the responsible thing, Tim Cook, very responsible man, I think, is to say, no, I've got some other people, too.
00:39:01 ◼ ► You know, everybody knows he's probably thinking Ternus is the guy, but I've got some other people, too.
00:39:13 ◼ ► And then, absolutely, the case is it makes that statement and says he's preparing other people, and it says that two people, because they were quoting four people, and then suddenly it's two people who say that he's preparing other candidates, which I thought was interesting.
00:39:34 ◼ ► The next sentence is, it could include Eddie Q and Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak and Deirdre O'Brien.
00:39:48 ◼ ► And we make fun of the people said, but, like, the lack of it here suggests that it's just spitballing.
00:39:55 ◼ ► That the New York Times, they kind of, in fact, just a journalism insider thing, I bet that this originally read, there are also some other candidates.
00:40:15 ◼ ► But if you read it and you think that those four other people are also being prepared by Tim Cook, because the New York Times was told so by two insiders, you got tricked.
00:40:30 ◼ ► And I have to think that if they had two people on the record saying that Eddie Q is a serious CEO candidate, they would have said so.
00:40:38 ◼ ► There's a reason that this article was focused around one person, not two people or three people or four, right?
00:40:55 ◼ ► We had an Ask Upgrade about preparing stories in advance and how Phil Michaels and I wrote a CEO appreciation story about Steve Jobs in early 20...
00:41:38 ◼ ► This story reads like, we should do a profile about John Ternus because he's going to be the next CEO of Apple.
00:41:51 ◼ ► which is like, yeah, we talked to people and he's the guy and we had talked to other people and they said, yeah, there are other people too, but he's probably the guy.
00:41:59 ◼ ► That's the news peg to hang this story, which is, let's do a profile about the guy who's the next CEO of Apple.
00:42:08 ◼ ► I don't have any experience working with John Ternus, who's been an engineer in Silicon Valley for all of his adult life, has limited exposure to the policy issues and political responsibilities associated with Apple's corner office.
00:42:29 ◼ ► I don't have any experience working with John Ternus, but he's been in this role for so long.
00:42:35 ◼ ► In fact, are they even in this article reference G5 IMAX, which is a funny thing to see.
00:42:54 ◼ ► So, I do think that there's a culture within parts of Apple that is, but who is the creative genius?
00:43:01 ◼ ► And maybe he's not the creative genius, although was his job to be the creative genius?
00:43:22 ◼ ► And Trip Mikkel's entire narrative is Apple's trying to fan the flames of creativity to keep it alive because they lost their soul.
00:43:33 ◼ ► You cannot deny that the narrative of Trip Mikkel's writing about Apple has largely been there was a really creative guy and he died.
00:43:40 ◼ ► And then there was Johnny Ive and his creative designers and they tried to keep the flames of Apple's soul alive.
00:44:17 ◼ ► Another former employee called Turner's a man of the people in reference to him not taking a private office.
00:44:28 ◼ ► Well, no, the story is, yeah, he always stayed in the cube and didn't choose a private office.
00:44:35 ◼ ► Although I will say as somebody who had a private office for a while, when you have to have very difficult discussions about like getting rid of people, people who are not performing, whatever it is, secret stuff.
00:45:12 ◼ ► And then you had to pass through that to get to the inner cubicle where he actually was.
00:45:27 ◼ ► So at least when I went to what was Facebook's campus many years ago, I saw Zuckerberg's office.
00:45:43 ◼ ► And ahead of the shareholder meeting that Apple's having next month, they have filed that they're
00:45:48 ◼ ► waiving the aforementioned age limit guidelines for the chair of the board and asking this
00:46:01 ◼ ► Like, is this person going to step down because of the age and then Cook's just going to take
00:46:08 ◼ ► But I think this is more suggesting that while it's not imminent, it indicates that it is
00:46:38 ◼ ► And my instant read on this was, Apple is not going to reveal its succession planning because
00:46:47 ◼ ► they have to legally make a declaration before the shareholder meeting about what they're
00:46:58 ◼ ► There was a gotcha going around when we were talking about, well, you know, Levinson's going
00:47:06 ◼ ► And the answer is, nope, they don't have to because they can just say, oh, we waived that
00:47:12 ◼ ► And then, oh, big surprise in March when Tim Cook becomes the chairman and Levinson resigns.
00:47:35 ◼ ► This is one of those classic things where people are like, ha, Apple can't do that because the
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00:49:59 ◼ ► So Lopato has written an article asking why Apple and Google have not kicked X and Grok
00:50:08 ◼ ► So for quick context, in the past week, X's AI model, Grok, has allowed for users, any user
00:50:17 ◼ ► on the website and now just paid users, I believe, to undress women and children, essentially creating
00:50:28 ◼ ► This is one of the most heinous things that I have seen a social platform get involved in.
00:50:47 ◼ ► I wanted to say, the way this has tended to work is in part, people post pictures and then
00:50:54 ◼ ► immediately reply to them with asking Grok to make the women in it wearing bikinis or lingerie
00:51:01 ◼ ► And then I believe also you can have it where any kind of innocent picture posted to X, it
00:51:14 ◼ ► And I just, I've got to ask at this point, if you're still using this platform, what are
00:51:33 ◼ ► I mean, I go there after I read my sports list on Blue Sky, and I scroll through the list
00:51:49 ◼ ► I mean, I am, you know, again, I use it, it's very frustrating, because a lot of sources
00:52:08 ◼ ► I think there are people who know, and the people who know care, and then there are some
00:52:31 ◼ ► X built this AI tool because Elon is a great person at looking at his company that does a
00:52:45 ◼ ► So in this case, it's AI and it's Grok and it's like no restraints and no trust and safety
00:53:15 ◼ ► Now, I'm going to pause you there to say, you might be saying, well, wait, yeah, but this
00:53:28 ◼ ► So like surely that the app developer is not responsible for what happens in their social
00:53:42 ◼ ► Basically, they've said to various social social media, if you don't have and cannot demonstrate
00:53:52 ◼ ► actively tracked down and banned and muted and whatever needs to happen, we will kick you
00:54:12 ◼ ► 1.1.4, overtly sexual or pornographic material defined as explicit descriptions or displays
00:54:19 ◼ ► of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional
00:54:24 ◼ ► This includes hookup apps and other apps that may include pornography or be used to facilitate
00:54:32 ◼ ► 1.1.2, apps with user-generated content or services that end up being used primarily for
00:54:38 ◼ ► pornographic content, chat roulette-style experiences, objectification of real people, for example,
00:54:49 ◼ ► If your app includes user-generated content from a web-based service, it may display incidental
00:54:55 ◼ ► mature NSFW content, provided that that content is hidden by default and only displayed when the
00:55:03 ◼ ► And it is also worth noting that X has a 16 plus rating in the app store when it clearly
00:55:22 ◼ ► Now, if you're saying, well, yeah, yeah, those are the rules and all, but like Apple, it's
00:55:27 ◼ ► not like Apple has come out and said that in circumstances like this, apps would be banned
00:55:32 ◼ ► and you'd be wrong because this is the point of Elizabeth Lopato's excellent story in The
00:55:38 ◼ ► Verge, because as she writes, less than five years ago, I sat through the interminable Epic
00:55:47 ◼ ► Real heads will remember that Apple's lawyers heavily implied that a naked banana man called
00:55:55 ◼ ► This came after a week where Apple argued that an indie storefront that users could install
00:55:59 ◼ ► via Epic was a problem because it hosted porny games calling the games on itch.io offensive
00:56:10 ◼ ► Lopato goes on to say, it's genuinely unbelievable to me that I wasted hours of my actual life on
00:56:14 ◼ ► a court case where Apple explained it needed total control of its app store to protect its
00:56:18 ◼ ► Total control of the app store was Apple's main argument against antitrust enforcement.
00:56:22 ◼ ► The company insisted that its monopolistic control of what users could install on their
00:56:25 ◼ ► phones was essential to create a walled garden where it could protect children from unsafe
00:56:37 ◼ ► Which is Apple is a careful gardener, protector of users when it serves its need to have total
00:56:54 ◼ ► Again, I am open to the argument that for social media apps, Apple should, because I think what's
00:57:03 ◼ ► going on with Grok is disgusting, but like that there should be a little more careful approach
00:57:23 ◼ ► You see how Apple uses their ability to do this and police this as an excuse for all of the
00:57:44 ◼ ► And so like, that's too much when they want to try and keep Fortnite out of the app store
00:57:56 ◼ ► Like, are they, is it like they're willing to be complicit in this because they're worried
00:58:09 ◼ ► I mean, that's the question is there are, there are, what's the right way to approach this?
00:58:28 ◼ ► This is a first party implementation of a feature that allows all of these violations of Apple
00:58:34 ◼ ► But it's like, even if you were to argue as a social media platform, I just read the rule.
00:58:45 ◼ ► It's the, that's the, that's the thing that kills me is it's the inconsistency that Apple
00:58:50 ◼ ► is happy to say that it's a protector of its platform when it can be used to prevent other
00:58:58 ◼ ► But it isn't, I mean, this is, this has always been my frustration with the app stories.
00:59:06 ◼ ► We're protecting users from dangerous apps that are going to do bad things to kids, et cetera,
00:59:12 ◼ ► And then after they do that, it's only a matter of weeks before somebody points to a raft of
00:59:24 ◼ ► That's the thing is if Apple wants to make the argument, which I'm, I have issues with it,
00:59:30 ◼ ► but if they want to make the argument that the app store is a highly patrolled, controlled
00:59:41 ◼ ► the line or get out and they patrol it that way, we can at least say, okay, what they said
00:59:55 ◼ ► And in this case, you have X going, you know, for a week now doing this and Apple does nothing.
01:00:01 ◼ ► Now is a, an app of that prominence worth some behind the scenes nudges versus a, an immediate
01:00:18 ◼ ► X has probably been unresponsive or unhelpful or is stringing them along and we're left,
01:00:25 ◼ ► You're left with a bad actor who is stringing you along and making you look terrible because
01:00:32 ◼ ► Even if you think you care because you're afraid to make the big step, which is to say,
01:00:50 ◼ ► When instead, a couple of weeks ago, we get this whole part of the Apple in Japan thing
01:00:55 ◼ ► about the impact to kids' online safety, where they want to create the app store to be a
01:01:01 ◼ ► And that they want to make sure that, oh, bad Europe allowed pornography onto the apps, onto
01:01:08 ◼ ► But then one of the most popular social media apps not only has imagery like this, but it is
01:01:21 ◼ ► I saw a lot of people, a lot of examples of this that were women in Middle Eastern countries
01:02:02 ◼ ► Like this is one of the classic Apple moves is, oh, you can always just use it in a web
01:02:18 ◼ ► The way it would work here is that the regulator would actually have the ISPs block it if they
01:02:24 ◼ ► And it is really interesting to me that all of the major political parties in Britain agree
01:03:01 ◼ ► I think bottom line is when something like this happens on a major platform unveils a new
01:03:24 ◼ ► to make those arguments in court, if one of the bulwarks of your argument that you need
01:03:46 ◼ ► I mean, I don't know why there isn't a directive from Tim and from Phil Schiller, I guess, that
01:03:53 ◼ ► anything like this is an immediate red flag and they have to make a decision instead of what
01:04:12 ◼ ► We're going to hope maybe the government step in and we don't have to get our hands dirty.
01:04:26 ◼ ► It's like, you want me to argue in court and in other legal proceedings that we're protecting
01:04:40 ◼ ► Are you going along to get along or do you want to be seen as the protectors of the users?
01:04:57 ◼ ► It's like, clearly this is something all of the models can do, but Grok is the one that
01:05:18 ◼ ► That's the other thing is you can just find any image and just reply and say this and then
01:05:22 ◼ ► have a good time and laugh at it and it's public and then you can link to that from anywhere.
01:05:26 ◼ ► And like, that's the difference here is that this is an engine that is injecting non-consensual
01:05:44 ◼ ► Like, and it can be, a lot of people use it to get information about a tweet, I think, right?
01:05:57 ◼ ► And so I assume, yeah, you can just reply to any image and just ask it to do whatever you
01:06:03 ◼ ► And this is one of these things where like, to a certain type of person, now this is just
01:06:21 ◼ ► of internet user, this kind of thing is just hilarious now that now that this is a thing
01:06:29 ◼ ► And so like, and it was very, it's like hilarious to me in a way of like the way that when the
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01:08:30 ◼ ► is like, for example, say somebody needs access to a service for a particular amount of time.
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01:09:35 ◼ ► I watched the first quarter of it live via a VPN and then I disconnected and then I couldn't
01:09:43 ◼ ► reconnect because I think they figured out that people were watching it in other regions.
01:09:45 ◼ ► But I got to see the first quarter on Friday night live of the Bucks at the Lakers in Apple
01:10:11 ◼ ► And they kind of show off some of the pregame stuff, the announcer stuff, and some of the
01:10:22 ◼ ► And I feel like basketball is a very good sport, a good fit for this type of thing, right?
01:10:54 ◼ ► It did not look any worse than any of the immersive sports demos that they've done before.
01:11:09 ◼ ► They're literally saying off on the left on your Vision Pro, you can see Doc Rivers, the coach of the Bucks.
01:11:26 ◼ ► But I think for this, the way they set it up, technically, they needed announcers of their own because of the way that this whole thing was working.
01:11:35 ◼ ► Of like, oh, on your Apple Vision Pro, but like, you know, just say, oh, coming from the left, like you can use the context of where they are.
01:11:47 ◼ ► Like the Laker girls came out to do a dance retreat and they're like, all right, now the Laker girls, right?
01:11:53 ◼ ► So it's definitely like they're play-by-play guys who are also kind of your hosts for your guided NBA event that you're doing.
01:12:14 ◼ ► It's a version of the Black Magic immersive camera that does live and it totally worked.
01:12:33 ◼ ► Ben believes that the best immersive experience is a single camera angle that you stay on forever.
01:12:40 ◼ ► He wrote an article on Stratechery today saying that he did not want the camera angle to be switched without his permission.
01:12:52 ◼ ► I don't want to unfairly paint Ben with the brush that is Ben doesn't ever want another camera angle.
01:13:10 ◼ ► Ben's argument is, I would like to choose to just sit at half court in front of the scorer's table for the whole game.
01:13:31 ◼ ► What they did, to say what they did during the broadcast is, for some possessions, they left you at half court in front of the scorer's table.
01:13:39 ◼ ► And so you would look left, and you'd see them going toward that basket, and then the ball would come back right.
01:13:44 ◼ ► LeBron James would streak in front of you, and then you'd be over here, and then they would play that direction.
01:13:51 ◼ ► Some possessions, they had two cameras that were behind the hoop, hanging below, I think, the arm on the basket.
01:14:00 ◼ ► So you could see, the basket itself was slightly obscured, although it's glass backboard, so you can see through it.
01:14:19 ◼ ► And there is a 180 switch that your brain has to understand, that the guy who's coming up this way, when they do the switch, he's going to be over there.
01:14:34 ◼ ► And I'm going to be honest, I think basketball is more interesting when you're under the basket, looking at the players' faces, and not from behind.
01:14:42 ◼ ► In the replay, I much preferred the shots where I was behind the basket, because I could see more of what was happening.
01:14:49 ◼ ► Where in your setter, you can see both sides equally, but you're seeing kind of the back sides of all the players.
01:14:59 ◼ ► I don't necessarily want to replace, I don't just want a direct replacement for having sat courtside.
01:15:21 ◼ ► So, here's the thing is, I really disagree with Ben, and yet I also really agree with Ben.
01:15:31 ◼ ► So, I agree with him that Apple has, Apple's productions tend to do too many cuts, and that every time you do a cut, and we talked about this, every time we do a cut in immersive video, it is completely disconcerting.
01:15:55 ◼ ► I actually would go so far as to agree that I think one of the things that Apple should try is giving users options about what they want to see.
01:16:07 ◼ ► So, that Ben can sit at half court and have the full half court immersive experience, and that I could maybe choose to toggle between the backboards or just have a more switched experience, right?
01:16:19 ◼ ► I think whether it was a what camera would you like to use or, like, here are a couple modes.
01:16:27 ◼ ► Prime Video does NFL games, and they've got a version of it with traditional camera angles, and they've got a version that is from above, where you see all 22 people.
01:16:37 ◼ ► players on the field, and then there are overlays of stats and stuff, and I think that's really cool, but, like, other people don't like it, and you can choose.
01:16:44 ◼ ► So, I think maybe there's something there where you almost want to have the option, since this is software, of choosing your stream.
01:17:02 ◼ ► That said, I don't think that the center court experience with no cuts was superior to the two backboard shots toggling.
01:17:11 ◼ ► And the other thing I would say here is, I get what Ben's saying, but I will say, you can learn how to be a viewer.
01:17:27 ◼ ► And I'll say this for things like, we take for granted the fact that movies and TV shows have different angles of the same action.
01:17:37 ◼ ► And I'm not saying it's the same because it's different and immersive, but what I'm saying is your brain understands.
01:18:01 ◼ ► Just like how the first people who saw a movie of a train arriving reportedly ran from the theater, afraid the train would hit them.
01:18:09 ◼ ► But it was a movie, the fact that the first to take it to sports, the first time they did instant replay in a sporting event.
01:18:40 ◼ ► I, and when the first time they did a reverse angle replay, I remember watching this in football where, where, you know, everything is from one side of the field, but suddenly they put a camera on the other side of the field.
01:19:06 ◼ ► It took me two cuts or maybe four cuts for my brain to process that when the guy is dribbling up away from me on the right side of the court, headed for the other end.
01:19:29 ◼ ► I wouldn't want multiple cuts, a lot of cuts, but literally a cut every time the possession changes to the other end of the court cuts.
01:19:55 ◼ ► And that's the one that made me really laugh because when I first connected to the live stream, it was just a guy mopping up a spill on the floor.
01:20:14 ◼ ► So, so anyway, I, I agree with Ben's point, but, uh, only in the sense that I think there should be some choice here.
01:20:20 ◼ ► I actually, I wouldn't choose what Ben chooses, but again, maybe that's the point is that there needs to be more choice there because I think that, um, I think the right way to do basketball is the two, the two backs.
01:20:36 ◼ ► And also if you, if you make those options available over time, you'll learn if anybody cares about one versus the other.
01:20:55 ◼ ► If not now, I have one other point that I wanted to make here, which is the part that I think that this fell down was audio.
01:21:01 ◼ ► I think as I, as I heard when I was down at Apple at their, uh, immersive video, uh, conference thing that they did, um, a big part of our brains processing of audio is spatial audio.
01:21:17 ◼ ► Like there were some attempts at it, but a lot of times I felt like I was not really listening to a soundscape.
01:21:31 ◼ ► And I feel like that's a place where they need to improve is if I'm at center court, I want spatial audio where Doc Rivers yelling is to my left, where a dunk on the right is to my right.
01:21:46 ◼ ► I'm open to the idea that some, it was sort of like that, or it was like that for some shots it's possible.
01:21:51 ◼ ► It's hard for me to process exactly what went on there, but like that felt to me like the biggest failure here was ironically not the immersive video.
01:22:04 ◼ ► Like they, they, I'm not sure if I need announcers at all, but if I had, and that would, I would love that to be an option to turn off the announcers and just have the arena audio.
01:22:13 ◼ ► But like, I think the audio could have been more spatial and better and it would have improved the immersive experience a little bit.
01:22:19 ◼ ► I feel like maybe, maybe it's like, let's not go too hard before we know we can do this.
01:22:26 ◼ ► You know, it's like that is an additional complex thing, which is also, again, probably still a lot of data all over again.
01:22:39 ◼ ► Like I want, you know, like if you're watching the game and you're looking left and someone falls over on the right, like, you know, you would want to turn and see it.
01:22:53 ◼ ► Um, but I, I think that it was very successful, like very successful, uh, as a way to like, I would, if, you know, if I was a basketball fan,
01:23:12 ◼ ► And, and some, somebody sent us some feedback, uh, to six colors when I wrote this, because I have this, I had this report a mistake feature.
01:23:19 ◼ ► That's turned out that it itself, I may need to report as a mistake because people use it for all sorts of nonsense.
01:23:25 ◼ ► You open up a, you open up a form and people are going to send whatever they want to it.
01:23:40 ◼ ► And what it said was, you didn't mention the fact that to replicate this experience, you would need to spend way more than a vision pro just to buy one ticket to one game.
01:23:52 ◼ ► I mean, that's not really wrong, I guess, but like, it's not also a mistake and whatever.
01:23:58 ◼ ► Anyway, but I will make this point, which is yes, if you were a fan of the Lakers and you could get every game courtside or behind or whatever, like it would sell, it would sell this to a lot of people.
01:24:15 ◼ ► I told Lauren, I was like, I got to go watch some internet basketball for a while, sorry, and left the living room.
01:24:25 ◼ ► It shows technically, I think the most important thing is that it shows technically you can do a stream of immersive and it is good because that is absolutely true.
01:24:33 ◼ ► You may need to have nice, fast internet like I do, but you could do it and they proved it and I hope it will get better and I hope they will continue experimenting.
01:24:44 ◼ ► And again, to address Ben Thompson's point directly, I hope one of the innovations they make is letting us choose what we want to see.
01:25:10 ◼ ► Oh, the other thing I had to say that was very funny is they did some replays, which was also really funny.
01:25:19 ◼ ► And, you know, in modern sports broadcasting, there's like a big like animation that happens in a swoop and then you get your replay.
01:25:27 ◼ ► So we were literally looking one direction behind the basket and then a giant graphic comes up that says NBA Lakers instant replay.
01:25:38 ◼ ► And then it cuts to the same angle and shows you a replay and then it puts up back to live action and then it cuts to basically the same angle again.
01:25:52 ◼ ► I see why you might want to do a little wipe or something there, because when you're cutting from one angle to the same angle, it's a jump cut, which is strange.
01:25:59 ◼ ► But they did do some instant replays, which I thought was interesting, where they would go back during a break and say, here's this alley oop that, you know, to LeBron that he dunked.
01:26:25 ◼ ► I'm not a hockey fan, even less than I am a basketball fan, but maybe something like that.
01:26:36 ◼ ► Like, then again, I go to baseball games and I just sit in the upper deck and I watch the baseball game and it's nice.
01:26:41 ◼ ► And to Ben's point, maybe maybe offering a really good position for you to enjoy the whole baseball game from where you're right behind home plate.
01:26:51 ◼ ► And maybe having an immersive instant replay from a different angle, but keeping it otherwise right there at your seat would work.
01:27:07 ◼ ► The good thing about NFL and college football, about American football, is that it's the plays are discreet.
01:27:16 ◼ ► So you could potentially like move the camera between every play and have the play be looking down the line or something like that or from above.
01:27:41 ◼ ► The sad truth is that data can be crawled through, collected and aggregated by third parties.
01:27:49 ◼ ► One of the easiest ways for data brokers to track you is through your device's unique IP address, which also reveals information about your location.
01:28:01 ◼ ► That makes it much more difficult for data brokers to monitor, track and monetize your private online activity.
01:28:20 ◼ ► ExpressVPN encrypts 100% of your network traffic to keep your data safe from hackers when you're on public Wi-Fi.
01:28:36 ◼ ► I use ExpressVPN especially when I travel because I'm connecting to networks that I have no control over at all in hotels, in airports, that kind of thing.
01:28:48 ◼ ► Like I don't understand what's going on in that network and I don't have to worry about it because ExpressVPN will take care of me.
01:28:53 ◼ ► But what I also love is I can change my location, you know, whether I'm at home or I'm away and I want to be browsing from a different location.
01:28:59 ◼ ► It's really easy to do this with ExpressVPN and I can watch video and everything and it works great.
01:29:13 ◼ ► That's expressvpn.com slash upgrade to find out how you can get up to four extra months.
01:29:34 ◼ ► Sam writes in and says, with the rumors that the folding iPhone will have that smaller, more squat display,
01:29:41 ◼ ► do you think that depending on sales, Apple could release a larger max folding iPhone, perhaps around 2030,
01:29:48 ◼ ► that has the current height of a Pro Max and therefore an even larger screen on the inside?
01:29:56 ◼ ► Although what we said today about the shape of it, I mean, I guess if this one kind of flops and everybody hates it and they're like, all right, we'll just give you what we want or what you want, which is just a, you know, a Pro Max that opens.
01:30:14 ◼ ► And so it's like nine, 10 inches inside and you have this massive phone, but they could if it works.
01:30:19 ◼ ► I mean, I guess it's like with a lot of this stuff, we thought initially like the Galaxy Note was a ridiculous phone.
01:30:39 ◼ ► That we would, I think today that phone would probably be considered a small phone if you released it now.
01:30:50 ◼ ► I mean, if it turns, I, you know, I think I like foldable phones, but I think that it is still a question.
01:30:58 ◼ ► As to whether it makes sense for most users or even a large percentage of users to want a device that does that.
01:31:04 ◼ ► Like I'm not even sure that I want a device like that for my everyday phone, like my actual iPhone, you know, that I'm using all day, every day.
01:31:15 ◼ ► I've enjoyed these types of devices as things to play around with and specific machines for specific tasks.
01:31:51 ◼ ► Oh, it's not any bigger because it's a square screen, which I mean, my argument is always don't buy a folding phone for, because you think it's going to be a better video player.
01:32:11 ◼ ► I, I ideally they'll learn a lot about what the market wants and then they'll go from there.
01:32:15 ◼ ► I'm not sure a folding phone is ever going to be a mainstream product or at least not for a long time because of all the complexity and cost that goes into it.
01:32:26 ◼ ► But who's to say, and if they keep iterating, you know, they may find other, other places that are nice for something like this.
01:32:34 ◼ ► Um, that, you know, more sci-fi kind of things, unroll folds, you know, phones that unroll or something where you, you know, you, you slide it open and it's the same screen and it just gets wider or taller or something.
01:32:47 ◼ ► Like there are lots of other things that they could do, but you got to start somewhere.
01:32:53 ◼ ► I, I just, I keep, I keep thinking that about how, how smart it is to, to lean into the iPad-ness of it.
01:33:09 ◼ ► And Apple has the whole, our wonderful iPad ecosystem of all of our millions of iPad apps, which is just a thing that Android doesn't have.
01:33:36 ◼ ► I think Apple may make some modifications to the always on screen with widgets and stuff to have that be something that is, you know, maybe it's a part of this.
01:33:48 ◼ ► But otherwise, no, I think that I think that it will have a lock screen and I think it will have a home screen and I think it will run apps and I don't think it's going to be a weird widget screen and you have to open it to use it.
01:34:12 ◼ ► Like, you know, maybe you do have some kind of special thing on the always on or even just on the lock screen itself.
01:34:18 ◼ ► But when I unlock that phone, I want an iPhone there, even if it is a weird aspect ratio for an iPhone.
01:34:30 ◼ ► Jim says, I've been wanting to buy a HomePod Mini for a long time, but never have found a real use case for it.
01:34:36 ◼ ► I've got a cheap Bluetooth speaker in my bathroom that I use to listen to podcasts as I'm showering every morning.
01:34:44 ◼ ► I hit upon a great useful one, and that is casting sound from a Samsung TV to a HomePod Mini.
01:34:50 ◼ ► When I looked at the audio options on our new TV, it says it can stream audio only to a specific Samsung speaker.
01:35:10 ◼ ► Unless there's some – because Apple have eARC, but that only works for an Apple TV as well.
01:35:48 ◼ ► I actually – I had a HomePod Mini in the bathroom for a long time, and I finally took it out because
01:35:56 ◼ ► And the big reason – the big difference there is the Bluetooth speaker is waterproof, and
01:36:01 ◼ ► And the HomePod Mini is not waterproof, requires to be plugged in, and it's outside the shower.
01:36:13 ◼ ► the shower and I'm still listening to the podcast, I just leave the door open to the shower.
01:36:24 ◼ ► I do that – well, we're going to end up with more shower feedback, but I'll say I do that
01:36:31 ◼ ► But my little Bluetooth speaker is better because it's much louder, and I don't have to worry
01:36:37 ◼ ► Something that's really funny, if you plug an iPhone into a USB cable after you've been
01:36:45 ◼ ► This is one of the reasons why I would prefer to just take my little travel speaker with me
01:36:54 ◼ ► And you can – it's got a little, you know, a little rope attached to it, so you can kind
01:37:23 ◼ ► I know they're mostly specific to your workflow, but do you ever consider making some of them
01:37:28 ◼ ► I mean, some of them are available for download, but the challenge with that is that once you
01:37:45 ◼ ► And then the other thing that happens, I'm just going to be honest here, is then people
01:37:50 ◼ ► Then when it doesn't work, sometimes when I write articles about stuff, they expect support.
01:37:54 ◼ ► But certainly if I offer something for download or an iCloud link to a shortcut or something,
01:38:16 ◼ ► I did this for a JavaScript thing, for Scriptable, a weather station code thing that I did.
01:38:28 ◼ ► And I started getting people who are like, it doesn't work with this thing, and it doesn't
01:39:03 ◼ ► So – and yes, a lot of them are specific to my workflow, but like the extra work required
01:39:09 ◼ ► to make it broadly applicable and individual, and then you've got to write documentation, and
01:39:23 ◼ ► It's actually an automator plug-in, automator action that is a complex script, and I can't
01:39:34 ◼ ► distribute it publicly because it uses a binary app, basically, that is private that a friend
01:39:46 ◼ ► UI, and I use that every day, and all of our mutual friends who could use that tool have
01:39:53 ◼ ► that tool, and I know a bunch of them use it all the time, and that's great, and I update
01:40:09 ◼ ► of it that I wanted other people to have this benefit, and when I would show them the command
01:40:21 ◼ ► So anyway, yeah, once it's public, it's like a totally different thing, and I would really
01:40:31 ◼ ► Or maybe an iCloud link, but what I don't want to do is then have to provide tech support
01:40:37 ◼ ► and troubleshooting for every single thing because it doesn't work in your personal circumstance
01:40:49 ◼ ► So every phone, so for years, and I'm not going to even go into why, but for years and years
01:41:20 ◼ ► And because I love that the M5 is from that old Star Trek episode where they had the ultimate
01:41:36 ◼ ► And so basically, I've got a naming convention that's almost identical and all the changes
01:42:26 ◼ ► And then you end up with Mike's iPhone and then like five in parentheses or whatever, which
01:42:33 ◼ ► That would be a nice little feature to be intelligent to say like, if it's a generic Mike's iPhone
01:42:42 ◼ ► And then when you update it the next time to an 18 Pro and you see that it's just called
01:42:48 ◼ ► If it recognizes that you're literally just naming it after the model and the model changes,