00:00:00 ◼ ► This is Upgrade episode 599 for January 19th, 2026. Today's show is brought to you by Century,
00:00:18 ◼ ► FitBud, and Squarespace. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason.
00:00:25 ◼ ► That's a lot of nines. It's not all the nines. I hope one day we do get to all the nines. That'll
00:00:29 ◼ ► Yeah, but it's the 19th, and it's $5.99, so it's three nines. It's not bad. It's not as good
00:00:42 ◼ ► That means, dear friends, that means that next week, the draft of the ages will return. Can't
00:00:54 ◼ ► Yep. On episode 500, we made a set of predictions. We will see how right we were, and then set
00:01:11 ◼ ► We have a snow talk question for you. It comes from Dan, who writes in and asks, Jason's love
00:01:17 ◼ ► of Zeppelins is known to many listeners, but has Jason ever gone for a ride in a Zeppelin
00:01:23 ◼ ► Well, okay, so I'm going to give you the background here, which is the Zeppelin thing, which Zeppelins
00:01:28 ◼ ► represent the incomparable. It's like one of our brand things, and it comes out of episode
00:01:32 ◼ ► one where we were talking about a bunch of sci-fi novels involving parallel universes, and
00:01:36 ◼ ► we kind of did a riff about the fact that all of these things, whenever you see a Zeppelin
00:01:51 ◼ ► a time when we thought Zeppelins would be everywhere. Little airships would be going around and mooring
00:01:55 ◼ ► to tall buildings and all that, and then in the, what, 1930s, the Hindenburg went on fire
00:02:00 ◼ ► and people were like, yeah, it's not that great an idea, never mind, and it faded away, and
00:02:05 ◼ ► so it became a really funny, I thought, signifier of like, if you wake up somewhere and think
00:02:10 ◼ ► you might be in a parallel universe, the first thing you should ask yourself, look around
00:02:14 ◼ ► and ask yourself, are there Zeppelins? And if there are, you are in a parallel universe.
00:02:24 ◼ ► you know, kind of been a, it's picked up and people send me Zeppelins. It's a true story.
00:02:28 ◼ ► Somebody sent me a little like model Zeppelin. It's up there. And so the answer is no, no,
00:02:36 ◼ ► I have never been in a Zeppelin. There was a Zeppelin here that was giving the tours of the
00:02:40 ◼ ► Bay Area for like, I don't know, six months or a year before the company went out of business,
00:02:44 ◼ ► and I thought about doing it, and I didn't do it. I have seen a Zeppelin fly, that Zeppelin
00:02:48 ◼ ► flew over my house at one point, and I was like very excited. That was pretty cool. Never been
00:02:52 ◼ ► in a hot air balloon either. Maybe someday, I don't know. I have been, the closest I've ever
00:02:58 ◼ ► been is I've been in a very small airplane, which is a very different thing than being in
00:03:02 ◼ ► a large jet airplane. I've, I've been in, in small prop planes, um, quite a lot. Cause my dad
00:03:08 ◼ ► flew a small prop plane. My mom and dad both had pilot licenses and they flew around and stuff
00:03:13 ◼ ► for a while. Um, and, uh, so we did that as a kid. And then when we were in New Zealand,
00:03:18 ◼ ► we flew back on a small plane from, uh, from Milford Sound. And Lauren was like, Whoa, I've never been in
00:03:24 ◼ ► a plane this small before. And I was sitting there thinking, uh, it takes me back to my childhood. It was just
00:03:29 ◼ ► totally, I was having a completely different experience than she was because everything,
00:03:34 ◼ ► the smells and the feel of, you know, going in the little tiny plane and all of that was
00:03:37 ◼ ► super familiar for me and not for her at all. Yeah. I don't think I would like the small plane
00:03:41 ◼ ► feeling. It is. It's, I mean, it's, you're up against it. You can't, you can't pretend that you're
00:03:47 ◼ ► just in a, in a, in a room, a magic room that sits still for a long time. And then you're in a
00:03:52 ◼ ► different place. You, you're feeling it. You're flying through the air. Um, anyway, so that's my,
00:03:58 ◼ ► my story is a small plans. Yes. Uh, Zeppelin's no. However, I will guarantee that if I find myself
00:04:03 ◼ ► in a parallel universe, I will promise to ride on a Zeppelin. If you would like to send in a question
00:04:08 ◼ ► for us to open a future episode of upgrade, please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your own
00:04:14 ◼ ► snow talk question. I have a couple of items from follow up from today, uh, from last week's episode or
00:04:20 ◼ ► from episodes prior, Matt wrote in and said, following up on your discussion about X, I have always assumed
00:04:25 ◼ ► that for the largest third party apps, Apple's negotiated custom contractual terms supersede the
00:04:31 ◼ ► default app store terms. Do we know if Apple even has the contractual ability to take down X from the
00:04:38 ◼ ► store? I'd be curious if you guys have any inside information on how that sort of thing really works.
00:04:44 ◼ ► I mean, I don't have any inside information. My guess is, is, is they don't. Yeah. Um, it's possible
00:04:52 ◼ ► that there are some understandings, handshake agreements, whatever, but I, I kind of doubt that
00:05:01 ◼ ► Apple has negotiated contractual terms for apps in the app store. Yeah. Well, I mean, they say they
00:05:08 ◼ ► don't, right? Like they say they don't. Also, um, I think, I think by now we would know, I think there's
00:05:15 ◼ ► been enough discovery and enough lawsuit trials. And that's a terrible way of putting that, that we
00:05:21 ◼ ► would know because this is one of the reasons Google lost its, uh, antitrust monopoly case is they were
00:05:26 ◼ ► doing this. Um, and so they were not setting a level playing field if I'm remembering correctly,
00:05:32 ◼ ► like there were kind of like money changing hands between companies and that wasn't good for Google.
00:05:38 ◼ ► Um, I don't believe that Apple do this. I think it's possible that there are some financial terms
00:05:45 ◼ ► that may be different, or there may be some understandings about like, we're not going to
00:05:48 ◼ ► kick you out for this or that. I cannot envision that Apple and X have a contract that says that
00:05:54 ◼ ► whatever X does in terms of objectionable content, Apple won't take them out of the app store.
00:05:59 ◼ ► I just can't imagine it at all. Remember also Apple removed tick tock from the app store because
00:06:05 ◼ ► it was illegal. Yeah. Apple and Google both did that. And then, um, the attorney general was like,
00:06:13 ◼ ► Whew. Anyway, uh, so I, I doubt it. And I especially doubt that there's any carve out for things like the
00:06:31 ◼ ► I mean, and Apple have, um, carve outs, but it make them public, right? Like the, uh, reader apps
00:06:37 ◼ ► and all that kind of stuff. Like that was created as the ability to allow companies like Netflix to
00:06:44 ◼ ► not have to pay so much, right? Like that's, that's why that exists, right? Like these,
00:06:49 ◼ ► these terms like the, then Amazon and Netflix and stuff could take advantage of and only pay 15%.
00:06:55 ◼ ► I think there have been a few cases where people have been like, why does that app do that thing?
00:07:00 ◼ ► That shouldn't, shouldn't that be outlawed? And I think that for that we have intuited that there's
00:07:04 ◼ ► probably some sort of an understanding, but even then, is it a, is it a signed, is it a memorandum
00:07:10 ◼ ► memorandum of understanding? Is it a contract? Is it, you know, is it a very specific deal
00:07:15 ◼ ► with lots of terms? I don't know, but I just, I'm super skeptical that Apple would ever in a million
00:07:23 ◼ ► years agree that X could do whatever it wanted in its app. I mean, first off, I think Apple would
00:07:28 ◼ ► tell X to pound sand. Um, because remember this is a website, you can just load it in Safari.
00:07:33 ◼ ► So I just don't think that Apple in any world would say, um, we're going to let you determine
00:07:41 ◼ ► entirely the content of your social media app and whatever's in there is fine with us. I just,
00:07:47 ◼ ► They are kind of saying that in their inaction, but they didn't contractually agree to it is what
00:07:56 ◼ ► Yeah, that's true. That's true. This is all theoretical. Like if they stopped it, but they
00:08:00 ◼ ► didn't stop it. I don't think it, and what I'm saying is I don't think a contract is what
00:08:04 ◼ ► was an issue here. Are they like, our hands are tied. We agreed to let Elon Musk do whatever
00:08:09 ◼ ► And I'm not saying this on Matt specifically, because I don't really know the context of
00:08:14 ◼ ► the question, but that would be wishful thinking to me, right? Where it's like, you're like,
00:08:18 ◼ ► well, the only reason they didn't remove it is because legally they can't. No, they can.
00:08:21 ◼ ► They absolutely can. I think Apple is smart enough and it's legal teams are smart enough. If
00:08:27 ◼ ► they want their rules to work the way that they want them to, they cannot create any paper trail
00:08:33 ◼ ► of any special agreements. Now, I have said in the past, and I stand by it, Apple absolutely
00:08:39 ◼ ► should have different agreements with different companies and they should be public, but they
00:08:44 ◼ ► should because certain companies should have different terms. I think that's part of what
00:08:51 ◼ ► Yeah. I've said for a while now that like Apple, I don't really buy Apple's argument that,
00:08:56 ◼ ► oh, apps putting credit cards where you pay them directly in their apps is dangerous because
00:09:03 ◼ ► like credit cards are a thing and we, there is some credit card fraud, but we live with
00:09:08 ◼ ► it and we live in a world where you pay for things with credit cards and Apple itself uses
00:09:11 ◼ ► credit cards, but they're like, oh, but that's Apple. You can trust us. And I said for quite
00:09:14 ◼ ► a long time that Apple could say, oh, well, Amazon's not some fly-by-night operation. We'll
00:09:20 ◼ ► let you put in a credit card to buy Kindle books because we, you know, Amazon, we're okay with,
00:09:29 ◼ ► unreasonable. This to your point, I don't think it's unreasonable at all for Apple to say certain
00:09:32 ◼ ► companies have our trust because they're huge and we have, we understand their businesses are very
00:09:38 ◼ ► specific and they're very popular and all of that. I just don't think that even if they had some sort
00:09:44 ◼ ► of pre-dating Elon with Twitter that it would go to this kind of content, right? I just, I can't imagine
00:09:55 ◼ ► that Apple would abdicate all responsibility for the content flowing through an app in the app store
00:10:02 ◼ ► without any ability to respond. And keep in mind, Apple has used this multiple times. The Tumblr example,
00:10:08 ◼ ► I think came up last week where Apple was going to pull or did, I don't even remember what happened,
00:10:13 ◼ ► the Tumblr app. And it was because of the content and it was because of content policies. And generally,
00:10:19 ◼ ► Apple has had a sort of like, we will remove your app if you don't adjust your moderation policies and stuff like that.
00:10:25 ◼ ► And although they've been, I think that was an issue with Truth Social too. I think that their policies there are soft,
00:10:32 ◼ ► but they aren't nothing. And I think that this is a great example of something that's way beyond.
00:10:38 ◼ ► And so I just, I can't imagine that they're constrained by anything other than their desire
00:10:49 ◼ ► They're hoping that governments will do what a lot of governments seeming to be trying to do,
00:10:54 ◼ ► which is to create laws that they can just abide by, but they seem to not be wanting to do it.
00:11:00 ◼ ► Yeah. Or to stall out enough and, and by, you know, just waste enough time, run down the clock a little
00:11:05 ◼ ► bit so that either X finally is like, yeah, right. We got enough about that. We're going to turn it off
00:11:11 ◼ ► and we're going to put in guardrails or politically the winds blow in such a way where it sort of lines
00:11:17 ◼ ► up and Apple feels like they can do it without a lot of political blowback because that's, I suspect,
00:11:29 ◼ ► I got one for Christmas after using an iPad as my primary Kindle reader for years. I know Jason
00:11:35 ◼ ► complains about the lack of buttons, but I have a problem with the one button the Kindle Paperwhite
00:11:39 ◼ ► does have. Why in the world is the power button on the bottom? I'm constantly turning it off or
00:11:50 ◼ ► So I do have a Kindle Paperwhite and I do use it occasionally. The Paperwhite Signature Edition
00:11:54 ◼ ► actually has an accelerometer in it so you can kind of double tap on the back to turn the page,
00:12:03 ◼ ► Yeah. The power button on the Kindle is weird and I accidentally press it all the time as well.
00:12:10 ◼ ► The power button on the Kobo's is generally on the back and it's recessed. So you have to find it
00:12:17 ◼ ► and then press it in, but it's like otherwise flush with the back, which is a really nice approach.
00:12:22 ◼ ► You know, why did Amazon do it this way? I don't know. Maybe it was cheap, cheaper to do it this way.
00:12:33 ◼ ► Like if you were reading and you just lent the Kindle against your body, you could just turn it off or
00:12:41 ◼ ► whatever. Holding the Kindle with your hand will accidentally press the button if you hold it wrong.
00:12:49 ◼ ► Why do Kindles even have power buttons, like sleep buttons? Why do they have those? Why do you need that?
00:12:54 ◼ ► Well, I mean, it's a good question. It auto-offs after a while. You do have to turn it back on when it's sleeping.
00:13:03 ◼ ► It's not feeling the touch screen. So you do, I guess you really do need to have one. Plus you need a physical button to do a reset or something. Like having no physical button at all would be a problem, but it's, yeah, it's way too prominent. It's bad design. I don't understand what they're doing down there. I just, yeah, I don't get it. I think that their whole button strategy is a mistake. Also, if you have that button, you know, maybe it, maybe it should have a different function too. Maybe it could be multi-purpose. Maybe you have to press and hold it to turn it off and on.
00:13:30 ◼ ► And if you tap it more rapidly, it's your page forward button. That would be nice, but I don't know what they're doing. But yes, David, it's stupid. That's all I can say.
00:13:42 ◼ ► This episode is brought to you by Century. I love good experiences in the apps that I use on a daily basis for the apps that I'm used to and the new apps that I add into my life.
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00:15:21 ◼ ► So, I think it was just before last week's episode, the news broke that Apple and Google were partnering
00:15:35 ◼ ► The information has since published a report that has some more detail on the partnership.
00:15:42 ◼ ► I thought we should give it like a shipping name, so I would like to call this Geminary.
00:16:01 ◼ ► Apple, so according to the information, Apple will be able to ask Google to, quote, tweak
00:16:07 ◼ ► aspects of how the Gemini model will work on their platforms and also fine tune it to respond
00:16:20 ◼ ► Federico, on the aforementioned episode of Connected, he did a good job of kind of explaining what some of this means.
00:16:27 ◼ ► And I guess the way that I would take it is there are some big changes to the model that they may want Google to make
00:16:33 ◼ ► into how it works, but then also from what they have from Google, Apple can kind of layer on top of it and add in their own kind of prompts to get it to respond to users the way that they would like.
00:16:55 ◼ ► And then the model is sort of being made to order by Google where they can make changes to it at that level.
00:17:02 ◼ ► But then above that in the stack, like an example that's in our notes here is, you know, starting a timer, right?
00:17:10 ◼ ► Like there's a layer that deals with stuff that is like basic things, start a timer, start a workout that is higher up where you do not need to go down into a model.
00:17:30 ◼ ► And I think there's actually a model that lets you, that determines whether it goes to the on-device model or the cloud model, right?
00:17:39 ◼ ► There's some routing that can happen on the device too because for simple techniques, simple things, you don't need to require an internet connection.
00:17:55 ◼ ► Currently in the internal builds where the Gemini model exists inside of iOS and I assume other platforms like Apple, there is no Google branding on any of the answers given by the systems.
00:18:14 ◼ ► And there is currently no expectation based on the information sources that this partnership will ever be spoken about or acknowledged publicly.
00:18:22 ◼ ► This is the white label aspect of it, which is if you're not following the news, you will not know that it's Google that's powering this.
00:18:28 ◼ ► And that also gives Apple the latitude to change the model later and it is Apple approaching this from a standpoint that this is a plug-in technology and that it's kind of a commodity and that they can use somebody else's model or their own model in the future and it shouldn't matter.
00:18:44 ◼ ► Like, because you're an Apple user, you're using Apple intelligence, you shouldn't care.
00:18:49 ◼ ► And so, you know, the way that I thought about it is it will be called Apple intelligence and they are not going to focus on what made it intelligent.
00:19:05 ◼ ► And there is, you know, people talk about, you know, like Apple's aversion to partnerships, right, which they definitely have.
00:19:13 ◼ ► But there are so many things that are fundamental to how a smartphone works that they do not do.
00:19:25 ◼ ► They don't have one and they don't seem having a desire to have one, but they know it's an important part of the system.
00:19:36 ◼ ► You know, so there are little bits and bobs which are like important to the way that phones work, but Apple don't provide them.
00:19:42 ◼ ► And I kind of see more like Google Gemini is to Apple intelligence that Google search is to Safari.
00:19:55 ◼ ► And it does like, you know, when you're typing things in, it'll auto suggest and all of that.
00:20:09 ◼ ► Because I think from Apple's perspective, anything provided by Apple or filtered through Apple is just, it's like air.
00:20:20 ◼ ► And in fact, I think that's good because the last thing I need is everything I do to be branded.
00:20:24 ◼ ► I was reminded of this when we're in, as we recorded this, we're right at the end of college football season.
00:20:35 ◼ ► And it's like, you know, it is the, you know, whatever citrus bowl and the whatever orange bowl or the rose bowl presented by whatever.
00:21:15 ◼ ► So the Capital One orange bowl and Lauren would sit on the couch and be like, oh, the Capital One orange bowl.
00:21:22 ◼ ► Because like you don't want to confuse it with the, with some other brand's orange bowl.
00:21:31 ◼ ► And imagine if that was the case with your Apple technology, that everything was like branded and tagged by something or other.
00:21:44 ◼ ► Also, I'll say Gemini, I mean, Gemini is a technology and the app and Google has been naming the Gemini models, Gemini 3 and all of that, which is fine, right?
00:22:02 ◼ ► And it feels like we're calling it, Apple has a deal with Google to use the Gemini models on, on Apple's devices.
00:22:10 ◼ ► Another way to look at it is Apple has a deal with Google to license Google's foundational AI models to use in Apple intelligence.
00:22:20 ◼ ► Those are the same models that, that Google uses or similar to models Google uses to power Gemini, right?
00:22:27 ◼ ► Think of it that way, that Gemini is really a Google brand and, and Apple's not, it's like stickers on a laptop kind of, right?
00:22:46 ◼ ► Apple doesn't have an, if Apple felt a need, they're like, oh man, we really need to get that.
00:23:17 ◼ ► So it would be able to provide information to you without doing a Google search, right?
00:23:23 ◼ ► So it's not like, um, it would be kind of more, I guess, akin to what OpenAI is providing.
00:23:52 ◼ ► Although the challenge there is that if the knowledge changes, um, or there's new knowledge
00:23:56 ◼ ► in the world, uh, and the model was trained with the old knowledge, it doesn't have the new
00:24:01 ◼ ► knowledge, modern LLMs, reasoning LLMs do a good job instead of just searching their model
00:24:10 ◼ ► The model comes up with a search term and does a web search and summarizes the results of the
00:24:16 ◼ ► I am assuming this system will be capable of that, but like, it should, it should be, or
00:24:24 ◼ ► If you ask it about a place, a location, that kind of stuff, it doesn't need to do a Google
00:24:36 ◼ ► Like it can just give you these answers as they're just like basic pieces of information.
00:24:45 ◼ ► Like it should provide, you know, it should, it should understand and do what is needed.
00:24:50 ◼ ► And, you know, realistically, you mentioned it already and I mentioned it now again, like
00:25:00 ◼ ► And, you know, if you're saying turn a light on, turn a light off, set a timer, Apple's
00:25:06 ◼ ► current Siri understands that and routes it to where it needs to be and will send things
00:25:17 ◼ ► Like I have never asked for a light to be turned off and then it says chat GPT can't help
00:25:27 ◼ ► So over the weekend, I did the MIT mystery hunt, a lot of fun, solved a bunch of puzzles,
00:25:34 ◼ ► And this year I used Claude to do some research for this, which was interesting because we
00:25:39 ◼ ► were trying, these puzzles make you really try to like figure out what they're even trying
00:25:51 ◼ ► It was actually, uh, it was a, the whole puzzle was on the, on the page where they give you
00:26:18 ◼ ► Uh, and, and the premise of it was basically, it's got all of this interrelated information
00:26:23 ◼ ► based on a common key, but it became very clear that what was missing were the teams, that it
00:26:29 ◼ ► was like 12 items that were referring to, to a team, but you didn't, the items were only
00:26:45 ◼ ► Um, and we got it and it was, it was fun, but here's an example of a query I gave to Claude.
00:26:52 ◼ ► What sport held its championship in Hamburg in 2025 and features teams with five players?
00:27:02 ◼ ► And what Claude did is searched the web for Hamburg 2025 championship, five players, team sport.
00:27:36 ◼ ► Uh, and it was Hamburg in quotes, 2025 in quotes, championship final five players team.
00:27:42 ◼ ► And it says, aha, the international 2025, the annual Dota two world championship organized
00:28:02 ◼ ► And this is all without me doing anything that the Dota two, um, championship was in Hamburg.
00:28:20 ◼ ► I said, can you tell me a Dota two team that has won championships twice started in 2012 and
00:28:36 ◼ ► And, uh, but what I'm saying is like, I knew nothing about it and, and it did a series.
00:28:44 ◼ ► But like I asked it one question, it did a series of reformulations and analyze the answers and
00:29:01 ◼ ► And that ideally, I think even Gemini under the surface there would be, would be like, I'm
00:29:50 ◼ ► Because not only is that what Google is focused on, but that's Apple search partner by default.
00:30:02 ◼ ► Another common set of questions Siri has historically struggled with involved emotional support, such
00:30:12 ◼ ► In the Gemini based version, Siri will give more thorough conversational responses the way
00:30:26 ◼ ► I mean, one of the things that we found with these LLMs is that you can give them, they
00:30:31 ◼ ► either have personality types attached, or you can tell it like, here's how I want you to
00:30:55 ◼ ► Now, what we've seen with Apple is that Siri has a personality profile and it is, it is
00:31:03 ◼ ► It is, you could write the whole like classic, oh, did you ask Siri this and see what it says?
00:31:34 ◼ ► I feel like my gut, my gut feeling, if I were in the room when they were having these conversations,
00:32:08 ◼ ► Like there's probably a way to get somewhere that, that if you feel disheartened is supportive
00:32:24 ◼ ► Like the last thing you need is for stories about people who think that Siri is their partner,
00:32:57 ◼ ► But I echo you of like, just, and, and, and so what, what Adi is saying in a live discord
00:33:24 ◼ ► And I, and I know like that the personality stuff in these models is like very much user
00:33:29 ◼ ► taste, but I actually, personally, I, I like the supportive tone that, um, chat CPT has for
00:33:37 ◼ ► Like, I, I like it, like it, you know, I don't want too much of it, but I don't just want like
00:34:15 ◼ ► And one of the things of some podcasts, one of the things that they, in the future too,
00:34:21 ◼ ► One of the things that they did was they gave me three months free of Claude, uh, premium
00:34:37 ◼ ► But what I have in Claude, in chat GPT, I just have a setting now because Gruber wrote about
00:34:42 ◼ ► In Claude, I actually have, use a neutral factual tone, avoid flattery, emotional language,
00:35:08 ◼ ► And, and, and, and that kind of a prompt gets baked in by Apple to what they're going to
00:35:14 ◼ ► So they need to choose, but you know, and what Apple does, like I said, is not what I want.
00:35:21 ◼ ► Um, but being able to read the room and being this, you know, non-committal kind of like
00:35:35 ◼ ► They've got to, they've got to figure out how to draw the line and tune it so that, that you
00:35:38 ◼ ► don't end up with a, you know, Siri having, you know, any of the unfortunate things that
00:35:46 ◼ ► Uh, so we've already mentioned, you know, Apple's models will route people to the systems that
00:35:53 ◼ ► So, you know, if you ask to set a timer, turn your lights off, it's just going to do that
00:35:58 ◼ ► However, when they get to the personal context system and they get that up and running, I'm
00:36:06 ◼ ► If someone asks Siri to send a text message to their mother or sister, but the customer doesn't
00:36:11 ◼ ► store their names that way in their contacts, the Gemini based Siri could search through
00:36:38 ◼ ► I read stuff like this and I just, my kind of internal barometer on this is, well, that
00:37:02 ◼ ► I don't know how my, how Apple intelligence will be able to crawl through my entire iPhone
00:37:18 ◼ ► And they're going to be doing some targeted searches is my guess in the index, trying to
00:38:08 ◼ ► The, the, the signals may be there, but I'm, I'm going to be skeptical about this because
00:38:20 ◼ ► to search through an index with all your, you know, think about spotlight on your phone.
00:38:24 ◼ ► Like, can you do a targeted Google search essentially in spotlight to find information like this in
00:38:39 ◼ ► And we will apparently start seeing some feature shipping in the spring, but most will be unveiled
00:38:53 ◼ ► I'll tell you what, I think what ships before WWDC is using Google, is installing Google models
00:39:07 ◼ ► And, and private cloud compute is better because now it's using Apple's, using Gemini instead
00:39:17 ◼ ► That like some Apple intelligence features that we didn't get from the 2024 WWDC would ship
00:39:39 ◼ ► It's possible that some of those things will happen, but I, it seems like such a large problem
00:39:54 ◼ ► And I think that's what they will do with most things, but there are going to be some things
00:39:59 ◼ ► that they've got laying there that they can, that they, either it's already implemented with
00:40:06 ◼ ► Apple's models and they can switch it to Google's models, or it's a feature they built and they
00:40:20 ◼ ► Man, the pressure on WWDC this year already feels pretty intense because whatever they show,
00:40:30 ◼ ► like, I know we said this last year, but it turns out they didn't have anything, the Apple
00:40:50 ◼ ► I, um, oh, the other thing that there, there's some ML features, some AI features in, uh,
00:41:04 ◼ ► And it looks based on screenshots and stuff, it sure looks like those are actually being fed by
00:41:12 ◼ ► And it makes me wonder if that's one of those things where I don't know if they've got a
00:41:18 ◼ ► But like, that's the kind of thing where you could, if you, if you get a access to Google's
00:41:23 ◼ ► models for everything that you swap that out and, and then you, you know, you take the label
00:41:46 ◼ ► This is, this is actually a surprisingly logical, rational approach to the situation, right?
00:41:53 ◼ ► It's the kind of thing you would expect by, for a company that had a failure, cleared out
00:41:59 ◼ ► the people who failed, brought in new people to solve the problem and had them make a pragmatic
00:42:17 ◼ ► We obviously can't do this within the timeframe that we are going to set for ourselves.
00:42:30 ◼ ► Um, last thing on this, the Financial Times is reporting that this deal would quote, be
00:42:37 ◼ ► structured in the form between Apple and Google would be structured in the form of a cloud
00:42:41 ◼ ► computing contract, which could lead to Apple paying several billion dollars to Google over
00:43:03 ◼ ► Also it's cheap in the sense that, you know, Apple's not, I mean, these devices are running
00:43:15 ◼ ► So like from Google's perspective, even if it's structured as a cloud computing contract,
00:43:19 ◼ ► it's going to be structured as app, as Google providing cloud computing services on Apple's
00:43:31 ◼ ► It's, it's a software licensing agreement essentially because Apple is separately paying to build the
00:43:41 ◼ ► So it's actually kind of a, a cheap deal unless you view it like overall it's expensive, but a lot of
00:43:49 ◼ ► that expenses is stuff that Apple was already paying because they're building up private cloud
00:44:11 ◼ ► And if you think about it in terms of like our lives, it's mind boggling, but in terms of these
00:44:18 ◼ ► And I think Google, yeah, I think Google gets money out of it or a discount on, on what they're
00:44:34 ◼ ► I mean, at a time when AI is struggling with the idea of like, okay, now we've got AI, how
00:44:46 ◼ ► Like that is, you know, boom, there's a billion or several billion dollars in Gemini revenue
00:44:57 ◼ ► And last thing, reportedly, uh, according to the Financial Times, OpenAI declined to be
00:45:04 ◼ ► the partner because they are focused on competing with Apple, not working with Apple ultimately.
00:45:09 ◼ ► I think they are focused on competing with Apple, but I think also, I believe, I said this
00:45:15 ◼ ► last week, I believe that fundamentally OpenAI doesn't care about the things that Google cares
00:45:39 ◼ ► I bet you one of the reasons they declined is that they looked at it and said, why would
00:45:43 ◼ ► we take any of our people and any of our model engineering off of what we're doing and put
00:46:00 ◼ ► Like, I just don't think that that's where they, where their head is right now, strategically.
00:46:08 ◼ ► I think, I think that Google is, that's one of the reasons why Google is such a good fit
00:46:18 ◼ ► Like Google cares about the same stuff that Apple cares about in a way that OpenAI does not.
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00:48:00 ◼ ► It also integrates with your Apple Watch, Wear OS, SmartWatch, and apps like Strava, Fitbit,
00:48:36 ◼ ► This is a subscription that combines Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion Compressor,
00:48:53 ◼ ► This includes the Mac apps and the iPad apps where they exist and brings some new features
00:49:04 ◼ ► They get, if you are in the Creator Studio, the free apps get Apple Intelligence features
00:49:10 ◼ ► that are exclusive to those, exclusive templates, and access to Apple's, quote, content hub,
00:49:15 ◼ ► which includes a selection of high-quality images, illustrations, and graphics from Apple.
00:49:27 ◼ ► if they were Apple Intelligence-made, but also you can use all the Apple Intelligence models.
00:49:52 ◼ ► Before we continue, Peter asks, do you think this is the beginning of the end for the standalone
00:50:04 ◼ ► I think there will come a time where they decide to do a major update and give it a number,
00:50:08 ◼ ► and then will they offer that as a new version in the App Store or not for purchase for the Mac?
00:50:24 ◼ ► At some point, though, if they start charging for the standalone, it will, my guess is it
00:50:30 ◼ ► will become apparent that if you're planning on using it forever, that it would be cheaper
00:50:36 ◼ ► Like if they come out with the next version of Final Cut Pro and you can be on the subscription
00:50:48 ◼ ► That like a new version of one of these apps will come out and they'll make it a paid upgrade
00:50:55 ◼ ► Well, I don't see how you can, I don't see how you can become a subscriber, how you can offer
00:51:00 ◼ ► a subscription and then on the Mac have these standalone apps that have a price and that,
00:51:09 ◼ ► Um, and in the past, you know, when they went to Final Cut Pro 10, like there was a price
00:51:22 ◼ ► But my point is that I can't imagine they'll offer it at a price where people who are just
00:51:28 ◼ ► using Final Cut even look at it and go, oh yeah, I'd rather pay $300 than pay $119 a year.
00:51:36 ◼ ► Especially if Apple says we're going to, you know, we're going to keep releasing new paid
00:51:47 ◼ ► I think, um, it's possible they will keep selling those things, but I, my guess is it won't
00:52:03 ◼ ► Even if they aren't like removed or something, I think they will effectively fade away over
00:52:24 ◼ ► And then, you know, it's like, you can use your old version standalone that you bought, but
00:52:29 ◼ ► like if you want the new stuff, or again, if you want the new stuff, you can get it, but
00:52:43 ◼ ► And, uh, subscription makes more sense, uh, for almost everybody, but there are some people
00:52:53 ◼ ► I mean, the thing is that nothing is forever because there's new OSs and new devices and
00:52:58 ◼ ► So you may be paying a different kind of subscription fee, but you know, in the long run, if you're
00:53:03 ◼ ► going to use product X and it's a standalone product, you're still going to have to pay over
00:53:10 ◼ ► You're going to have to pay them because otherwise the people making the updates are not going
00:53:21 ◼ ► I paid for, um, I still pay for Photoshop annually and, um, the full Adobe suite, like you and
00:53:31 ◼ ► Um, I don't know if I pay for the full suite, but I pay for a pretty significant chunk.
00:54:06 ◼ ► And they actually won't let me, I'm like, I don't want everything, but they, they won't
00:54:11 ◼ ► I know they basically, their system is you can buy one or you need to buy everything or subscribe
00:54:17 ◼ ► Um, and because I'm, I'm using Photoshop and there's like a special plan that I'm still
00:54:30 ◼ ► I mean, do I prefer buying them in, in the distant past and then just using them and never
00:54:49 ◼ ► Fundamentally, it's important to have a P and L for stuff, a profit and loss center, a, a
00:55:01 ◼ ► Even Apple is not, Apple is not run as like, there's a money machine at the center from the
00:55:17 ◼ ► So let's talk about how it really works, which is there are people who work on these apps,
00:55:38 ◼ ► Now I'm saying that the creative community is a much smaller percentage of their business,
00:55:49 ◼ ► They've got that whole thing where they've got pros who are there to like advise on what
00:56:00 ◼ ► So like we know everybody who's working on final cut and logic and motion and compressor
00:56:07 ◼ ► are in main stage, we know what that costs and we know how much money that brings in directly
00:56:19 ◼ ► And so that helps having this model helps clarify what this is worth to Apple and what they can
00:56:30 ◼ ► And I think maybe in a good way, I think that maybe Apple has done a disservice to final cut
00:56:43 ◼ ► And then there's no more money coming in and making it a more, making a subscription-based
00:56:56 ◼ ► If these are apps that have been funded under the largesse of Apple, just not paying attention
00:57:07 ◼ ► But I think it also could be really good because my, my gut intuition here is that they do get
00:57:13 ◼ ► used a lot and having a figure of who's subscribing to them could be really good for them in terms
00:57:21 ◼ ► of now that there's a budget where you're like, look how much money logic and final cut bring
00:57:26 ◼ ► in and what are we, you know, now I want to hire a new developer and, and whoever is in
00:57:42 ◼ ► I won't refuse to hire or slow walk this hire that you're trying to make to replace somebody
00:57:53 ◼ ► And then they just don't for a long time, every day that goes by where there's nobody in that
00:58:04 ◼ ► And I think that it is more understandable and structured in a way that makes sense, which
00:58:10 ◼ ► is even inside Apple, I think it's good to have money coming in subscriptions coming in and
00:58:20 ◼ ► Instead of it just being kind of this amorphous, like, isn't it nice that we have our own editing
00:58:26 ◼ ► software that's not DaVinci Resolve or Premiere, which strategically sure it is, but like, it's
00:58:38 ◼ ► Well, I mean, as I agree with what you're saying completely, I think it makes a lot of sense,
00:58:43 ◼ ► But does a blanket $12.99 fee for everything actually help prescribe which apps are most
00:59:01 ◼ ► Mainstage and Compressor are utilities that are attached to Logic and Final Cut, essentially.
00:59:08 ◼ ► So they'll probably analyze use, but they're also sort of thinking, like, those are adjuncts.
00:59:32 ◼ ► thing, which is we have video, we have audio, and we have photo imagery design thingy in Pixelmator.
00:59:42 ◼ ► I feel like those are the three kind of, those are good three legs of a stool for them.
00:59:53 ◼ ► Like, it helps a lot to say we have audio, video, and we have, you know, non-dynamic imagery
01:00:06 ◼ ► There's a, and I mean, the advantage of the bundle, this is what we were just talking about
01:00:11 ◼ ► Like, the advantage of the bundle is you sort of say, look, it's a pretty good deal if you
01:00:19 ◼ ► But even then, I could argue that the price of the subscription is what I pay for Photoshop
01:00:34 ◼ ► And if you don't use Logic a lot, subscribe monthly when you use it, and then cancel when
01:00:39 ◼ ► you don't, and you'll save a lot of money that way, assuming you use it less than 10 months
01:01:05 ◼ ► I mean, I came into this expecting to be not impressed about Apple's attempt at doing a
01:01:23 ◼ ► But I get Final Cut and Logic for $129 a year, plus Pixelmator, which I could theoretically
01:01:44 ◼ ► So like, I'm being sent files from people that I work with and designers that I work with.
01:02:03 ◼ ► Same as, for that reason, I also need to pay for Illustrator because I'm sent some stuff
01:02:11 ◼ ► You know, that's why I ended up getting Affinity Designer, which the Affinity app is now, I
01:02:21 ◼ ► And look, if the argument is, but I can use a bunch of stuff for free, I think that that
01:02:31 ◼ ► you want to use the Affinity apps to do design stuff, the Affinity app, I guess, which is,
01:02:52 ◼ ► I chose Affinity Designer because I need to do like t-shirt designs and podcast art designs
01:02:58 ◼ ► And I used to haul out an ancient version of Illustrator, but like, I didn't want to pay
01:03:08 ◼ ► So for me, I found a different tool that had a different price structure that worked, that
01:03:13 ◼ ► If Adobe let me, and I, they don't, but if Adobe let me turn on Illustrator for a month
01:03:26 ◼ ► But, um, which is why I think, I mean, I always thought, I thought this was a good deal when
01:03:35 ◼ ► Both of the times we did that, I just turned on the Final Cut for iPad subscription, which
01:04:37 ◼ ► And certainly, if I'm specifically doing something targeted like using Final Cut on the iPad to do Final Cut camera, um, I would do it then.
01:04:55 ◼ ► You seem quite frustrated about the inclusion of the iWork apps in the Creator Studio suite.
01:05:01 ◼ ► So, what's, what's going on here that, that you find to be kind of, I would say, perturbed about?
01:05:07 ◼ ► Well, so I, I, everything I've, we've said about this up to now has been positive, right?
01:05:14 ◼ ► I think bringing Pixelmator out and having it be Pixelmator on Mac and, and iPad and part of an Apple suite.
01:05:47 ◼ ► So, what's going on here is they've created, I think for App Store technical reasons, they've created like new versions of them that, with different icons that live in the App Store under this bundle.
01:06:02 ◼ ► It doesn't mean that Apple is putting these four apps that you could think of as the iWork apps behind a paywall.
01:06:33 ◼ ► And the content hub, which is this Adobe-like, in a way, like a stock image library and of stuff, which is great.
01:06:42 ◼ ► That's the kind of thing that you, paying a subscription for access to is, is not unreasonable.
01:06:47 ◼ ► And, and, and that stuff getting thrown into a bundle often makes the bundle worth getting.
01:07:04 ◼ ► So, what they've thrown in is that stuff, which if you're a subscriber, you get access to the libraries.
01:07:11 ◼ ► And, and if they want to make fancy keynote templates and stuff and, and have them be behind this.
01:07:16 ◼ ► And, and they're, especially if they're more like for content creators, you, who use keynote.
01:07:23 ◼ ► But what really bugs me is they're also adding features that are only going to be available in these free apps.
01:07:40 ◼ ► And like I said, there's at least one screenshot out there that is like powered by chat GPT.
01:07:44 ◼ ► So it's like, okay, I understand why you would need to charge for that because you're using somebody's AI resources.
01:07:50 ◼ ► And those are not, you know, when you ship normal software, it just, it, you can ship an infinite number of copies for no extra money.
01:08:23 ◼ ► There are, I don't know how many there are, and maybe Apple knows, but they're not going to talk about it.
01:08:29 ◼ ► How many people rely on numbers or pages or Keynote who are never, ever, ever going to use Logic or Final Cut or even Pixelmator?
01:08:45 ◼ ► And what troubles me is not just that Apple has turned this free product into a freemium product, but that the only way to get it is to pay for this creator bundle.
01:08:57 ◼ ► And there's no other bundle that is targeting iWork users who I would argue are a different group.
01:09:17 ◼ ► Now, you don't have a simple product that's like, hey, you buy a Mac, you get a spreadsheet and a word processor and a slideshow creator.
01:09:24 ◼ ► So you don't even need to get Microsoft Office because Apple has provided that for you.
01:09:43 ◼ ► For the free version lag, are new features, talking about P&Ls, are new features now pushed into the bundle because it is a way to upsell people on the bundle to get that.
01:10:05 ◼ ► And I think the AI thing is what led to it because they're like, oh, we've got AI features, but we don't want to put.
01:11:12 ◼ ► The more Apple takes things that are part of the product experience and makes them an upsell – I get why that drives services revenue.
01:11:38 ◼ ► I understand that stuff – that putting things in P&Ls and charging and that Apple doesn't have free money that's raining down on everybody.
01:11:45 ◼ ► But like – however, if you go too far down that path, you turn your premium product into an empty vessel that is designed to just upsell people to more product.
01:11:58 ◼ ► How long after January 28th will I get an ad on iOS or macOS or iPadOS to sign up for this?
01:12:21 ◼ ► But like this is where that goes, which is why do we not take all of our free stuff and stop updating it and giving people things for free and make everything part of a subscription package of some sort or other?
01:12:36 ◼ ► But once you start going down that path, the danger is – and this is my slippery slope part – the danger is you go down that path and eventually you are withholding everything unless somebody is tithing some amount of money to you.
01:12:53 ◼ ► And if you're going to walk down it, having it only be available, again, for apps that are not creative apps in a creative bundle is – it feels desperate.
01:13:10 ◼ ► It feels like Apple is incapable of generating another bundle because basically their product – their consumer-facing product line is distorted because of their failings on their back-end technical side.
01:13:26 ◼ ► And anybody who's an app developer will tell you or a podcaster, frankly, that Apple's back-end tools that are not consumer-facing, not customer-facing are garbage.
01:13:55 ◼ ► But here you've got a case where I think maybe Apple's technical limitations are oozing through into a weird and ugly customer experience.
01:14:13 ◼ ► But I really don't like the idea that these productivity apps now have subscription features.
01:14:21 ◼ ► And I'm not – and again, I'm not saying that if they're tied to expenses on AI models and you don't want to give that away for free, that you don't find some way to limit that.
01:14:33 ◼ ► You throw it into the Apple One bundle or you offer an iWork bundle with extra features.
01:14:38 ◼ ► I don't love turning iWork into – so I've got a two-level argument here, which is one, I don't think making iWork freemium is good.
01:14:48 ◼ ► But if you're going to do it, you've got to offer it to people for a price that makes sense that is not you get Final Cut Pro on top of your numbers.
01:15:02 ◼ ► Like, I use numbers all the time, and never am I in numbers thinking, ah, yes, I am here as a person who uses Final Cut Pro and Logic.
01:15:25 ◼ ► But, like, what they're doing now is broken, and it's bad for those apps, and it's bad for the experience of users, because now I'm never going to be able to say Apple gives you numbers, pages, and keynote for free.
01:15:38 ◼ ► I'm going to have to say Apple gives you numbers, pages, and keynote for free, although some of the features require a subscription.
01:15:54 ◼ ► In those six days, there have been, I would say, an overwhelming amount of takes on the icons that Apple have created for the Creative Studio apps.
01:16:04 ◼ ► I just want to give you the opportunity here, if you have anything that you want to say on them, I don't think I can bring myself to do it again.
01:16:13 ◼ ► I just, I think it's, I think people are getting, from my tastes, way too overexcited about this.
01:16:30 ◼ ► As a laugh, but it's also very easy, because you just look at an image, and you go, oh, I don't like it, or I like it.
01:16:36 ◼ ► I think, I think it shows, you know, you want to unify apps in a suite, and so they are fundamentally samey.
01:16:47 ◼ ► I mean, I don't think anybody would praise the Microsoft apps or the Adobe apps for their icons either, because they're super samey.
01:16:55 ◼ ► Adobe just made the decision that every app was going to be an element in the periodic table, I guess.
01:17:07 ◼ ► I find it very funny that the last refuge of skeuomorphism at Apple, apparently, is app icons, which have metaphors that are often so far beyond the actual thing that it's completely unintelligible.
01:17:23 ◼ ► I think we overstate the importance of icons in a way, because icons are more about recognition of the thing that's familiar, and not about initially recognizing it.
01:17:37 ◼ ► Like, it's like a gold, it's like a turntable or a record, a gold record on a wall, or silver record, or whatever.
01:17:42 ◼ ► The one that it is aping from is, like, if you were to get a gold record, silver record, platinum record from a music label.
01:18:02 ◼ ► When you're looking to launch it on your iPhone or your iPad or in your dock on your Mac or whatever, you just need to recognize it.
01:19:35 ◼ ► And so, like, I get, I think this is the truth of it is you put things in a suite and you hammer all the individuality out of it because you want them to all seem of a kind.
01:19:46 ◼ ► And I kind of wish they were a little more whimsical, but at the end of the day, probably what's motivating Apple here is what I said earlier, which is what you really want with icons is recognizability so that you can know which app to launch.
01:20:03 ◼ ► And so, you color code it and you make it a shape with an interesting kind of, like, aspect to it.
01:20:10 ◼ ► And then you don't need to know that the Pages icon is a diagonal pencil with a line that's a shadow or is it a page or a notepad or whatever it is.
01:20:43 ◼ ► Like, in the end, don't overthink it because although it's fun to overthink it and talk about it, the truth is that the utility in them is their recognizability, which is based on shape and color.
01:20:55 ◼ ► And I think they all are recognizable from one another, which is really all that they're trying for here.
01:21:11 ◼ ► And I think that the feelings that the many pages spilled in the last week, I think, is a bit of proof to the fact that maybe we care too much.
01:21:27 ◼ ► But I think also we're so focused on, like, all the design travails that Apple has been going through.
01:21:43 ◼ ► I suspect, I do believe that at some level it is maybe representative of the fact that Apple has gone down an extreme design direction and philosophy that they need to start kind of getting away from.
01:21:55 ◼ ► But on the other hand, I think you can wish for a different design approach while also appreciating that the brief here was recognizable color and shape so that people can pick them out of a dock or on their home screen.
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01:24:03 ◼ ► With Apple turning to Google Gemini to power its new models, do you think there will be token limits for how many questions the cloud model could be asked for every day?
01:24:36 ◼ ► But I feel like these are Apple servers, and this is part of the cost of selling Apple devices.
01:24:42 ◼ ► And again, we just had a whole conversation about Apple finding new places to get more revenue.
01:24:48 ◼ ► But I think if you're making requests on device or in private cloud compute from the stuff controlled by Apple, Apple is going to foot the bill.
01:25:07 ◼ ► And apps, right now, you can do shortcuts to private cloud compute, but apps don't have access to private cloud compute.
01:25:13 ◼ ► And I would be shocked if this summer, app developers weren't given, and I know I've said this before, weren't given access to private cloud compute APIs like apps were given weather kit access.
01:25:49 ◼ ► And then it's the developer's job to figure out how to pass that cost on to its, you know, that developer's user.
01:25:55 ◼ ► So my guess is that will happen, is that if developers want to use AI models on private cloud compute, they can, but they just got to pay for it.
01:26:14 ◼ ► Like, as well, like, you know, Apple will, you know, essentially they'll give it to you for free because they control it.
01:26:21 ◼ ► And so they can keep the costs lower because it's all theirs, but then they make some money back, you know, on the idea of, like, they amortize it across the sale of the products.
01:26:29 ◼ ► But then also developers that are also paying for access to this is another source in to kind of take the sting away from offering this private cloud compute technology away for free.
01:26:42 ◼ ► Although, I mean, the apps bundle shows us that they may be more open in their apps, especially apps that are not part of the system, that apps that are in the app store to have some cloud stuff maybe bundled where, whether it's this existing bundle or a new bundle, or it's just thrown into iCloud Plus or whatever.
01:27:03 ◼ ► Or the idea that there's some features that get added that use private cloud and you just have to, you know, that is a premium feature or something like that.
01:27:13 ◼ ► I don't think Apple is going to be charging per, you know, per query or setting a query cap on just a random iPhone user.
01:27:20 ◼ ► But there are some scenarios where they might get some stuff that's add-on stuff, but I don't think anything that just kind of comes with.
01:27:27 ◼ ► Yeah, I would expect that the device model, the on-device model that's like the foundation model should be better as well, though.
01:27:43 ◼ ► But then I do expect, it's kind of like the first taste is free kind of idea, that if you have a really good model that can do some interesting stuff, you're like, well, what if I had something even more powerful?
01:28:01 ◼ ► I don't know if we know for certain what's going to happen in terms of like Google model on-device versus Google model in private cloud compute.
01:28:09 ◼ ► I don't know if we know that 100%, but yeah, that would be the hope is that both of those models are a lot better.
01:28:14 ◼ ► But, you know, the cloud model is always going to be better because it's going to be bigger.
01:28:18 ◼ ► Yeah, maybe it was just me reading it, but then referring to it as the foundation models, like, would suggest to me it's in both places.
01:28:30 ◼ ► I agree, but I don't know if I've seen a specific indicator that it's going to be in both places.
01:28:45 ◼ ► So I think the moment that there's a there's a Google model that runs on iPhone hardware that is better than Apple's model, Apple will use it.
01:29:00 ◼ ► And I will add on to this one just real quick and say that, like, this has been like a thing that I feel like I've observed over time that sometimes there are things that catch hold in such a way that build over time.
01:29:24 ◼ ► That result in Apple doing a thing and this could be something, say, like a video iPod or it could be something like, hey, the Mac should get more attention.
01:29:37 ◼ ► And I do feel like if something can really grabs hold in a certain way that they do kind of have a they do feel compelled to explore it if they weren't already.
01:30:14 ◼ ► Very rarely is there something that's completely made up or, you know, spread by a whisper network.
01:30:24 ◼ ► Most of the stuff that we talk about here, for example, is coming from Mark Gurman or Ming-Chi Kuo or somebody else in the in the supply chain.
01:30:31 ◼ ► Yeah, I guess it's maybe better to say there is discussion and sentiment that can lead to Apple doing a thing as opposed to a quote unquote rumor.
01:30:53 ◼ ► It's usually like, no, there's somebody who says that people at Apple say that they're doing this thing and that's much more supported or the supply chain is working on this thing.
01:31:06 ◼ ► I think there are very few examples where Apple would change direction because there was a rumor.
01:31:21 ◼ ► So, yeah, I think we're just we're peering into the Apple product process and I doubt it has a whole lot of effect.
01:31:30 ◼ ► Which is not to say that Apple isn't paying attention to everything that's said about it and that people are well aware and that and that it can influence discussion that happens internally.
01:31:41 ◼ ► Whether it's a bunch of writers and podcasters and stuff or other people in the tech media or it goes more mainstream, like they're tuned in.
01:31:55 ◼ ► I think all those reports about the success of the Meta Ray-Bans definitely gave internal people the argument, more ammunition for their argument that they should do a product like that.
01:32:07 ◼ ► But generally, that's how it happens is these conversations are all happening on the inside and then something happens on the outside and a person who's been arguing for it on the inside brings it to the table and says, see, look, we should do this.
01:32:21 ◼ ► I don't think Apple has gone and said, oh, like, we're not going to do any, you know, X because somebody reported because Mark Gurman got it like that.
01:32:32 ◼ ► And Bob writes in and says, with the rumored upcoming low-cost MacBook using an A-series chip from an iPhone, what are the chances that Apple will offer a cellular option, making this the first Mac to have that feature?
01:32:45 ◼ ► The base iPad uses an A-series chip and has a cellular option, so do you think Apple could offer it for a low-cost MacBook as well?
01:32:52 ◼ ► No, because cellular is expensive and cellular parts are expensive and the last thing they want to do is make this thing expensive.
01:32:59 ◼ ► My bet is that the OLED MacBook Pro will be the first place we see it and they do it for impact.
01:33:22 ◼ ► I appreciate the desire to put a low-cost MacBook, put a cellular thing in a low-cost MacBook, but it's exactly the wrong product.
01:33:36 ◼ ► I mean, the first thing you do is you put it in the MacBook Air and get it to upsell people from this thing because that's the goal of that product.
01:33:46 ◼ ► I think that is a great way to view it and then it'll come to a MacBook Air after that and those will be the ways that you get it.
01:33:55 ◼ ► And also, if it's the OLED MacBook Pro, that means that they could roll a bunch of cellular support features into macOS 27 and then they'd be ready for that.
01:34:07 ◼ ► Yeah, it's like I understand where Bob is coming from in that, like, the cheapest iPad has this option, but that's just because that's been that way forever.
01:34:26 ◼ ► And if they're going to introduce it, they want it to make a bang on a big bang product, not like a bang on a small bang product, which is what this computer will be.
01:34:35 ◼ ► We'll care about it and find it interesting, but it's not going to, you know, it's not going to set the world on fire.
01:34:42 ◼ ► It'll probably sell very well, but it's not really the banner product that you would maybe want to add, like, a brand new feature like this to.
01:34:50 ◼ ► If you would like to send in a question of your own for us to answer on a future episode of the show, go to upgradefeedback.com and send us your Ask Upgrade question, but you can also send in your feedback, follow-up, or a Snell Talk question there, too.
01:35:11 ◼ ► I want to ask Jason what he thinks about Dave Filoni taking the creative reins of Star Wars and Upgrade Plus today.