0:00:00(upbeat music)
0:00:02- From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 405.
0:00:12Today's show is brought to you by Electric,
0:00:15Text Expander and Trade.
0:00:17My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow.
0:00:19Hi Jason.
0:00:20- Hi Myke.
0:00:20- Oh, hello.
0:00:22- Well, I mean, we're on a first name basis here.
0:00:23It's very friendly.
0:00:24You know, it's a podcast where we can--
0:00:26- You sounded quite trepidatious to me.
0:00:28- I think, well, you just said my first name,
0:00:31so I wanted to counter,
0:00:33and it got all personal in here, is what I'm saying,
0:00:36and what better for a podcast?
0:00:38- Are you saying I need to call you Jason Snell now?
0:00:41Mr. Jason Snell, ask that.
0:00:42- No, I don't.
0:00:43I don't.
0:00:44Just let's get tangential here
0:00:47before we even do the Snell Talk question,
0:00:49which is I just wanna point out
0:00:50that in the ATP show notes last week,
0:00:53they referred to Steven Hackett as Steven.
0:00:55They referred to me as Snell,
0:00:56and they referred to Jon Gruber as Jon Gruber.
0:00:59And I don't understand what's happening over there.
0:01:01- That's interesting.
0:01:02- I prefer to be called Jason and not Snell
0:01:05because it's more personal.
0:01:09It's like, oh, it's our buddy Jason.
0:01:10- We don't need to call you Snell
0:01:11because there's not another Jason
0:01:14in like that immediate group, right?
0:01:16- Well, and I grew up, honestly, and I grew up with,
0:01:19that you always had to specify which Jason it was.
0:01:22So I get it.
0:01:23But if it's clear, I'm just saying,
0:01:26Why is Steven-
0:01:27- 'Cause when I say I understand John Gruber, right?
0:01:29Because there is a John on the show.
0:01:30- There's so many Johns.
0:01:32I get it, right?
0:01:32But like Steven, incredibly common name.
0:01:34And they're like, "No, no, it's Steven.
0:01:36"You know, y'all know."
0:01:37- You'll know Steven.
0:01:38- It's like Sal who y'all know.
0:01:40It's Steven who y'all know.
0:01:41But then Snell with his story that he wrote.
0:01:44So I don't get it, but hi Myke.
0:01:47- Hello Mr. Jason Snell Esquire.
0:01:48- Oh no.
0:01:50- I have a #SnellTalk question for you.
0:01:52It comes from Victor who wants to know,
0:01:55Mr. Jason Snell-Asquire, how do you animate
0:01:57the cycling six colors in the menu bar of your website?
0:02:01- Well, I stand by the server and whenever a beep comes in
0:02:06and it means that somebody is watching the site,
0:02:09there's a crank, people don't know this,
0:02:10but on the side of the Leno box,
0:02:12there's a little yellow crank that you fold out
0:02:14and you crank it and the colors change.
0:02:17And that's how it works.
0:02:18It's JavaScript and CSS and Krista Murgen did it.
0:02:23There's not much more to it than that.
0:02:26That's what it is.
0:02:27- If you would like to send in a #SNELTalk question
0:02:30for us to open an episode of the show with,
0:02:33just send out a tweet with the #SNELTalk.
0:02:35I use question mark SNELTalk
0:02:36in the Relay FM members discord.
0:02:39I have some real time follow up for you, Jason,
0:02:41based on the ATP show notes for episode 480.
0:02:44James Thompson is referred to as James Thompson.
0:02:47John Gruber's name is crossed out.
0:02:49Casey's referred to as Casey.
0:02:52and uh... John Siracusa is referred to as John. Yes but that makes sense though right? John Casey
0:02:58Marco that totally makes sense. Makes that track. Because they're the hosts of the show. Yep. But
0:03:03but I'm Snell, Stephen is Stephen, and James is James Thompson. Yep. I don't know. I have some
0:03:10real follow-up, well you do, the studio display firmware has been updated to quote unquote improve
0:03:17the camera. Mm-hmm. That's what they said. And did they? So I was out running and I got
0:03:26a text from Apple PR saying we're releasing a firmware update. I'm like oh boy. So I get
0:03:31back to the house and I update the firmware on one of the displays but not the other one
0:03:36because I have a review unit that I haven't sent back yet and I have one that I want.
0:03:39Pretty great that you've got two displays right now, isn't it? Right? So I updated the
0:03:42firmware on one and that took a lot longer than you thought you would think because you
0:03:45you have to update to a beta of the OS
0:03:48and then you have to update from the beta the firmware.
0:03:50- When you say the OS, you mean Mac OS,
0:03:52or you have to update to a Mac OS beta,
0:03:54then it updates the monitor. - Yeah, to a developer
0:03:55or public beta, and then it updates the monitor,
0:03:58which is not great 'cause now I'm on a beta again,
0:04:00and it broke stuff, it broke shortcuts,
0:04:03it broke a bunch of stuff, so I'm not happy about that.
0:04:06And the truth is, you could just,
0:04:08all you need to do is update something,
0:04:10some Mac to the beta, update the display,
0:04:13And then it'll work the same on any Mac it connects to
0:04:17'cause it's standalone software running on this thing.
0:04:20Anyway, so is it different?
0:04:22Yeah.
0:04:22Is it better?
0:04:23I guess.
0:04:24Like in our show doc,
0:04:26you've got like image looks a little better,
0:04:28crop is better.
0:04:28And I added question marks at the end of them
0:04:30'cause it's like, what, what?
0:04:32And it's hard to say,
0:04:33but I had them placed as closely together as possible.
0:04:37I did a bunch of video.
0:04:38So I have one on an arm.
0:04:40And so I had that one basically kind of spooning
0:04:44the other one that it was right in front of it.
0:04:47So that the cameras were very, very close.
0:04:51One of them was about a half an inch higher
0:04:53and maybe a half an inch back,
0:04:55but they're as close as they could possibly get
0:04:57to one another and not interfere with the wide angle camera
0:05:00on either one of them, right?
0:05:01Because when I was setting it up, I was like,
0:05:03"Oh, that looks good."
0:05:04And then I realized that I could see the top
0:05:06of the other display.
0:05:07So I had to adjust a little bit.
0:05:08I got them as close as I could.
0:05:09And as far as I can tell in my setup,
0:05:13and of course every environment's different
0:05:14'cause it is dynamically changing its settings
0:05:16based on who knows what, what it sees,
0:05:20it looked like they backed off on the crop a little bit.
0:05:24So that gives them more pixels to work with,
0:05:27which is kind of smart.
0:05:28I think maybe the crop was too aggressive
0:05:31and it seems to be maybe a little less aggressive
0:05:35when it's moving around,
0:05:37that it does that a little bit less.
0:05:40But, oh, and key point, if you turn it off,
0:05:45the crop, when you turn off center stage,
0:05:47is a little bit lower.
0:05:49It's still not as low as it probably should be,
0:05:51but it's a little bit lower than it was before,
0:05:53where you turn it off and it would be like
0:05:54the top half of your head
0:05:56when you were sitting in front of your display,
0:05:57which is just terribly framed.
0:05:59They seem to have moved it a little bit.
0:06:01So is it better?
0:06:03A little.
0:06:04Does this solve all the problems?
0:06:06Well, no.
0:06:07I mean, it doesn't change the fact
0:06:08that this is a wide angle 12 megapixel camera
0:06:13that they also used in the iPad
0:06:14and that it is not ever gonna provide,
0:06:19the hardware wise,
0:06:19it's just never gonna provide the same experience
0:06:22as a camera that is devoting all of its pixels
0:06:25to the perfect frame of you sitting in front of the display.
0:06:28That's just a decision they made
0:06:30that they thought it was more important
0:06:31to forego some image quality
0:06:33in return for getting center stage.
0:06:36And as you pointed out to me privately last week,
0:06:40and then also I think mentioned on Connected,
0:06:42I am a big proponent of center stage on the Mac.
0:06:45So it's my fault that this happened.
0:06:46I apologize to everyone.
0:06:48(laughing)
0:06:49Myke literally wrote, you did this.
0:06:52- It was very funny to me because
0:06:55I don't remember what it was,
0:06:57but I think at a moment you mentioned
0:07:00like maybe center stage was a mistake.
0:07:02I think we were talking about this.
0:07:04and to which I said, "You, you for months, months."
0:07:07And I was like, I think I went back
0:07:09and found your first article,
0:07:10like where you said like this must, you know.
0:07:12- I'm in the bag for center stage.
0:07:14So here's the thing,
0:07:15three quarters of the Macs that are sold are laptops, right?
0:07:18It kind of makes sense on a laptop.
0:07:20You're doing a Zoom call, you put it on the coffee table,
0:07:23you're sitting back, it auto frames you,
0:07:25you know, you're talking to family
0:07:26and a family member comes in,
0:07:28like it makes more sense on a laptop.
0:07:30I still think that there's a use case for it on an iMac
0:07:32or something like that,
0:07:33because it's sitting on a table somewhere
0:07:35and you may be moving around or it's in the kitchen
0:07:37or they've got all these different places
0:07:38where you might use an iMac theoretically.
0:07:40I have yet to see a kitchen iMac in the wild.
0:07:44I'm sure they exist.
0:07:44Anyway, a standalone display to sit at a desk and use
0:07:49is probably the least likely Mac scenario
0:07:55that requires center stage, but they ran with it, right?
0:07:58- I think they made the wrong call.
0:07:58I believe the studio display is collateral damage
0:08:03in an overall product decision that Apple has made,
0:08:07which is that all front facing cameras
0:08:10will get center stage except the iPhone,
0:08:13maybe the iPhone one day, but.
0:08:15- I think you're probably right, and I think that,
0:08:17although I think that our little corner of the world
0:08:19is not necessarily representative of the whole user base,
0:08:24for a standalone display, it's a lot closer, right?
0:08:29Like the people who focus on Apple stuff
0:08:31and listen to podcasts about Apple and stuff like that.
0:08:33Probably not representative of all Apple users,
0:08:37certainly all iPhone users,
0:08:39probably not even of all Mac users.
0:08:41But when you get down to the level
0:08:42of the standalone $1,600 display,
0:08:45that's for people who care about
0:08:47the resolution of that display
0:08:51and the fact that it's 5K at 27.
0:08:53And that is actually kind of us.
0:08:56And so seeing this reaction, it's very clear.
0:08:59And I'll just say it.
0:09:00Like, I'm not as strident about this
0:09:03because I kind of don't care.
0:09:05I like center stage and I can perfectly accept
0:09:08that the quality is lower.
0:09:10'Cause it's like, okay, you know, whatever,
0:09:12but center stage is cool.
0:09:13Like I get it, but it's clear, I think,
0:09:15that most people just want a nice webcam that works
0:09:19and that if Apple had built in a static 4K webcam
0:09:22properly framed in a way that we have come to appreciate it,
0:09:25that would be good enough.
0:09:27And they didn't.
0:09:30And I think that center stage still has its place
0:09:32on the Mac, but one, they might wanna consider
0:09:36upgrading the optics on it, like using a better camera.
0:09:39And two, let's not, just to step back a second,
0:09:42I still think the firmware is bad.
0:09:44I still think that turn off center stage crop
0:09:47is still wrong, it's better than it was,
0:09:50but I think it's still too high.
0:09:52I used it over the weekend for a D&D session
0:09:54and I had to like lower my display and raise my chair
0:09:58in order to try and get it to the right height.
0:10:00I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's,
0:10:03it still doesn't seem right.
0:10:04So there's that.
0:10:05And then I think if you,
0:10:07people looked at like the white balance
0:10:09and looked at a histogram of the image
0:10:10and did some like contrast stuff.
0:10:12And it's like, I also feel like
0:10:14the software is making bad decisions
0:10:15that make it look worse than it needs to,
0:10:18even if the hardware is so limited.
0:10:20So I think that the firmware shipped in an unfinished state
0:10:25or an unacceptable state.
0:10:26and that's unfortunate.
0:10:28And then the big issue,
0:10:32which is the Apple it just works black box kind of thing
0:10:34is out there too, which is,
0:10:36why is there not a settings panel somewhere for this thing?
0:10:39Why can I not choose to reduce the color,
0:10:42you know, saturation or change the contrast
0:10:45or something, anything.
0:10:47And maybe it's because they're using their image pipeline.
0:10:49Maybe do we need photographic styles for our webcam?
0:10:52I don't know.
0:10:54This would also solve your problem, right?
0:10:56Like a webcam settings app for a separate webcam,
0:11:00frequently those have a little box that lets you say,
0:11:03what's the refresh rate of your lights
0:11:05so that it doesn't flicker?
0:11:06And Apple's like, no, no, no, we got this, we got this,
0:11:10you don't need any settings, but they don't got this.
0:11:12- Not on the studio display.
0:11:14So listeners may remember me saying that on my iMac
0:11:18and on my MacBook Pro, the flickering issue
0:11:21that I was having here at the studio
0:11:23because of the overhead light and I have had gone away
0:11:26that Apple seemed to have in Mac OS 12.3 fixed this.
0:11:30The studio display is not fixed.
0:11:32Weirdly, in about one in five attempts of me opening
0:11:36and quitting an app like Zoom, it will fix itself,
0:11:40but it is incredibly inconsistent.
0:11:42So like I can open an app and it's flickering,
0:11:44quit, open, quit, open, quit, open, quit, oh, it's fixed.
0:11:48So I don't understand why I think I'm using
0:11:50the current shipping firmware. I don't know if there's any change in the beta firmware.
0:11:56But at the moment I'm having this annoying situation where I'm at my desk on my studio
0:12:00display and I need to do a video call. So I need to go over to my iMac, turn on my iMac
0:12:05and use that one instead because my iMac's camera is fine. Finally it's very frustrating.
0:12:10I don't know why this is happening. It seems like it's, you know, if you can fix it in
0:12:13one place why haven't you fixed it everywhere? And like Jason said, if they just allowed
0:12:17me to change the rate from 60 to 50 Hertz or whichever way around it is, I could fix
0:12:22this. Like I've been able to, like every Logitech camera lets me fix this.
0:12:25Settings, settings, settings.
0:12:26Yeah, just let me change it.
0:12:27The default prop thing.
0:12:28You can put this in system preferences. Just put it in system preferences. Like it's fine,
0:12:31you know?
0:12:32Like if you want to turn off center stage but you want to have the framing you want,
0:12:34why is there not like a little interface with a little box where I can drag out how big
0:12:38I want the frame to be and where in the frame I want it to be and have it be like I want
0:12:43it to be a little bit lower. But Apple's like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got this."
0:12:46And again, they don't, they don't got it.
0:12:48And I can like setting aside the,
0:12:51should they have put center stage on the desktop
0:12:53and clearly from everybody in our sphere,
0:12:57not everybody, a majority of people,
0:12:58I would say in our sphere, the answer is,
0:13:00no, it's not really necessary.
0:13:02We really just wanted a good webcam that was solid
0:13:04and that did its job.
0:13:05People are pining for the iMac Pro webcam,
0:13:07which is just a 1080 webcam.
0:13:09It's nothing special at all, but it was okay, right?
0:13:13And people are like, oh, remember that?
0:13:14That's a bad sign, right?
0:13:16But there is this whole other level,
0:13:18which is if you're gonna do center stage
0:13:21and you're gonna have it be like this,
0:13:23software should be better.
0:13:25Like the software should be better.
0:13:26There's no doubt.
0:13:27It doesn't look good.
0:13:28And it looks like the software could do a better job.
0:13:30And then separately, how about user settings?
0:13:34How about letting me,
0:13:35I get you want everything to be a default,
0:13:37but like let me adjust a setting.
0:13:39I would like to be able to say,
0:13:41I did this on webcam settings
0:13:44for my Logitech webcam all the time.
0:13:45I was like, wow, it's too saturated.
0:13:48My whole face is glowing red.
0:13:50I would like it to be a little less saturated.
0:13:52Can't do that either.
0:13:53It just is what it is.
0:13:54It's ridiculous.
0:13:55- This Friday, May 6th, at 9.30 a.m. Pacific,
0:13:5912.30 a.m. Eastern US,
0:14:01and half past five British summer time,
0:14:03I'm going to be voiding a warranty live on Twitch
0:14:08at mike.live as I rip open a touch ID magic keyboard
0:14:14with Mr. Jason Snow, Esquire's help.
0:14:17And I'm gonna try and pull out all of the components
0:14:21to get an external touch ID button.
0:14:23So, and I don't think I told you Jason,
0:14:26I've decided to drop it now.
0:14:28My overall goal now is to try and embed this
0:14:32in one of my keyboards.
0:14:34- Oh man, imagine. - I don't know if or how
0:14:36this is gonna be possible, but that's my like later goal.
0:14:40But yeah, first I have to get it out of there.
0:14:44So I've got all the iFixit tools,
0:14:47and we're gonna have a blast this Friday, May 6th.
0:14:50So come and join us, it'll be fun.
0:14:51- Well, yeah, at the very least,
0:14:52I would love for it to lead to a,
0:14:55get a like a 3D printed enclosure or something.
0:14:59- If I can't get it inside of a keyboard,
0:15:01that's the plan, right?
0:15:02Get a little box I can put on.
0:15:04- So I will just be there to cheer you on,
0:15:06I guess, as a guest star.
0:15:08- Yep, and maybe to help me with the iFixit guide.
0:15:10- Oh, sure.
0:15:11Oh, help?
0:15:12Love it, love it.
0:15:13So instead of just sitting there going,
0:15:14"Boo, you screwed it up, boo."
0:15:16I can actually be helpful.
0:15:18Wow, I don't know why I didn't assume
0:15:20that I would be helping, but I did not.
0:15:21So, okay.
0:15:22- I'm gonna be able to shout at you.
0:15:24And also, to contact the emergency services
0:15:26in case of a thermal event.
0:15:28- I dial 999, right?
0:15:29That's what I do in the UK.
0:15:31- Yep. - 999?
0:15:32- If you were in the UK, yes, you would dial that number.
0:15:35- Yeah, so I'll do one,
0:15:37and then plus four four is the country code.
0:15:39- Plus four four, nine nine.
0:15:40- Nine nine nine.
0:15:42And then I say, hello, UK emergency.
0:15:44My friend soldered his hand to a keyboard.
0:15:48- I have one rumor roundup item for you, Jason.
0:15:52- It's a small corral.
0:15:53There's only a couple of heifers in the corral today.
0:15:58- And this is also kind of follow up
0:16:00because last week we saw mock-ups
0:16:02of the back of the iPhone 14 line, right?
0:16:04So we got the kind of the sizes of the iPhones.
0:16:07Now we are reportedly, we have images via MacRumors
0:16:11of the displays.
0:16:13These are again shared on Weibo.
0:16:16What we can see here is the kind of,
0:16:20the regular phones, the standard phones,
0:16:22the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Max,
0:16:24looking pretty much as you would expect with the notch.
0:16:27But the Pro phones now feature two cutouts,
0:16:31one for the camera, like a hole punch,
0:16:33and then a pill-shaped cutout for the Face ID sensors.
0:16:36The bezels are slimmer across all of the phones,
0:16:39but also apparently the Pro phones
0:16:41have a slightly taller, giving them a revised aspect ratio
0:16:46of 20 by nine rather than 19.5 by nine.
0:16:49- So I read Mark Gurman's newsletter this weekend
0:16:55and he's the sheriff of the room around up, of course.
0:16:58He, by the way, I'm enjoying that newsletter a lot,
0:17:01but I also have noticed that, you know,
0:17:04when you have to write a thing every week,
0:17:05instead of just when you've got breaking news,
0:17:07he's ventured into our sphere of speculation
0:17:11what I would like instead of here's what I report.
0:17:13- Honestly, I think that's part of why it exists.
0:17:15So he can do that, right?
0:17:16'Cause you can't talk about,
0:17:17he can't talk like that in a kind of like
0:17:19official capacity, I guess.
0:17:20- Right, here's a big Bloomberg story
0:17:22about Mark Gurman speculating about
0:17:24what he would like to see in the next, right?
0:17:26They don't do that, right?
0:17:27So no, it's fun to see him putting on his punditry hat.
0:17:32What's confusing is where you start reading it
0:17:36and you're like, is this a report?
0:17:39No, it's just a dream.
0:17:41It's just kind of wish casting.
0:17:43And you just gotta keep those separate.
0:17:45There was a Reuters, Reuters pushed out
0:17:49an opinion column last week,
0:17:51without getting into the subject more than this.
0:17:53It pushed out an opinion column by somebody at Reuters,
0:17:56you know, and it's a wire service.
0:17:57So you can see why people sort of take it as like fact.
0:18:00And the opinion column was,
0:18:02I don't think the Elon Musk Twitter deal is gonna work.
0:18:05and I saw that spread everywhere as like report.
0:18:09Elon Musk's deal for Twitter is falling apart.
0:18:12I was like, I read the story, it was an opinion column.
0:18:16- So I don't know if they changed it,
0:18:17but I think originally this went around
0:18:19because the opinion column was called Breaking Views.
0:18:22- Yes.
0:18:23- Like Breaking News, so people just read it
0:18:25as Breaking News. - Haha, fooled ya.
0:18:27- But it's not, it's just--
0:18:29- It's just an opinion column.
0:18:30- It was a decent opinion, but--
0:18:31- I would say, and I'm not criticizing Mark here
0:18:34'cause I actually really like it.
0:18:35But since we're so used to,
0:18:36we're so trained that he's doing reports,
0:18:38that when he starts talking about what he'd like to see,
0:18:40that's not a report, right?
0:18:41That's just what he'd like to see.
0:18:43Unless it's coded, but I don't think it is.
0:18:45I think it's literally just what he'd like to see.
0:18:47While we're talking about the new iPhones,
0:18:49I wanted to mention something that Mark Gurman said
0:18:52this week, which was, I'm interested how you feel about this.
0:18:56He said, yes, the notch will be replaced in this phone
0:18:59with the little pill shape and the little circle.
0:19:02And what he was addressing was like,
0:19:04what are the benefits of that?
0:19:05And his response was, there are no benefits.
0:19:09All it really does is make it look different.
0:19:11And so if you want to have a new phone and say,
0:19:14look, aha, I have the new iPhone,
0:19:16look how different it is.
0:19:17It's got these two little dots instead of a notch,
0:19:20then great.
0:19:21But in terms of functionality, like that's a safe area.
0:19:24You can't put anything up there anyway.
0:19:26I thought it was good analysis.
0:19:28'Cause I think that in the end,
0:19:29while it is the goal is to make the notch disappear entirely
0:19:33and the less stuff that's covered on the display
0:19:35where you can have like background color and stuff,
0:19:37the better, in terms of functionality,
0:19:39it makes no difference because it's still in a space
0:19:42where nothing can happen.
0:19:43- I think it will be visually more appealing,
0:19:46but I think this is just a step, right?
0:19:50Like the step being to eventually hide all of this
0:19:54behind the display, right?
0:19:55Like that's the ultimate goal here.
0:19:58lots of companies are trying and failing to make this work,
0:20:01but like that's how all this technology goes, right?
0:20:04The ideal here is that we don't have to see any of this.
0:20:07The sensors are hidden behind the display,
0:20:09the camera's hidden behind the display.
0:20:11So I can imagine this being more visually appealing,
0:20:14takes up less space.
0:20:16We'll see though, I mean it could be more distracting
0:20:18to have these two little like black dots
0:20:21in the middle of your phone. - I don't know.
0:20:22- I don't know, but-- - Somebody can create a game
0:20:24with a bunch of little black dots and pills
0:20:25all over the screen and some of them move around.
0:20:27- The two of them don't.
0:20:29- But I do agree with Mark Gurman's analysis
0:20:32that this is purely to make the new phone,
0:20:37at least the pro models, visually identifiable.
0:20:43'Cause I think over time, what Apple has learned is,
0:20:46that's when they have the big quarters,
0:20:48when the phone looks different.
0:20:49I mean, everybody knows this by now, right?
0:20:51We've said it a million times,
0:20:52everyone's said it a million times.
0:20:54You can look at the charts.
0:20:55When they change the design of the phone,
0:20:57they see the biggest impact.
0:20:59Of course, when they make physical changes,
0:21:02I actually think that the iPhone 14's gonna do great anyway,
0:21:05because like for this, and also the return of the large phone
0:21:09that's not a pro phone.
0:21:12- Large non-pro phone will sell a bunch of units.
0:21:14- Between the two of these,
0:21:15I think the 14's gonna be very good for them.
0:21:18- And I love my iPhone mini,
0:21:19and I'm probably not gonna replace it at all,
0:21:22but I will say, even I feel the pull
0:21:25when they create a pro level that's differentiated,
0:21:29the more they do that, the more I'm like,
0:21:31"Oh, I could get the pro, it's got all these features."
0:21:33- Especially if this one's gonna have that camera, right?
0:21:34The full game, like a picture camera.
0:21:35- Well, this is the thing.
0:21:36So they already added, they've got ProMotion,
0:21:38they've got the third camera.
0:21:40Now they're gonna do a camera upgrade,
0:21:42there's a processor upgrade,
0:21:43there's the replacing the notch with this stuff.
0:21:46Like you were talking about a bunch,
0:21:48like even more things are differentiated.
0:21:52And that does have a gravitational pull, right?
0:21:55That's gonna pull a lot of people who are like,
0:21:58spec interested away from the cheaper model,
0:22:01'cause they're gonna be like, "Oh."
0:22:02Whereas when they were basically the same,
0:22:04except for maybe like an extra camera, a lot less appealing.
0:22:07But when they're like, "Oh, and the processor's better,
0:22:10and like everything's better in it,"
0:22:11it will be a little more tempting.
0:22:14And so I agree.
0:22:16Do you wanna hear my A16 speculation?
0:22:18- Yeah, 'cause we have, I was thinking about this.
0:22:19I don't think we've touched on this, right?
0:22:22So the report is that from Ming-Chi Kuo,
0:22:26the Marshall of the Roundup, I guess, right?
0:22:30Is that what we decided?
0:22:31- That's what we decided, yep.
0:22:32- Ming-Chi Kuo said that the Pro phone will get the A16,
0:22:36the regular phone will stay on the A15,
0:22:40which is weird, right?
0:22:41'Cause it's like, well, we upgraded the new iPhone,
0:22:43but it doesn't have a new processor.
0:22:44It's just got the A15 that you all know.
0:22:47And maybe that's the case, but I had a moment of clarity
0:22:52Because the challenge here is that,
0:22:53are they committing then to having every year,
0:22:56like next year, it'll be the A16 in the iPhone 15
0:23:01and the A17 in the iPhone 16.
0:23:04It's very complicated, right?
0:23:06What if, just throwing it out there, just spitballing,
0:23:11this is all it is.
0:23:12What if instead of it being the A15 in the iPhone 14
0:23:17and the A16 in the iPhone 14 Pro, right?
0:23:21- Right.
0:23:22What if Apple says, "Hey, the A16 is here."
0:23:26And what the A16 really is,
0:23:31is a very small improvement on the A15.
0:23:36It's using new cores maybe,
0:23:38but it is otherwise essentially the A15.
0:23:42And then there's an A16 Pro chip
0:23:50that's better that goes in the iPhone Pro.
0:23:54And I say that because it allows them to claim
0:23:56that the new chip is in both models,
0:23:59but that there's a better chip in the Pro phone.
0:24:02And I think from a marketing standpoint,
0:24:05I think that's a better move than saying it's 15 in the old
0:24:08and 16 in the new, is to differentiate
0:24:11like they do on the Mac and say there's an A16
0:24:14and an A16 Pro.
0:24:15And then we all do the benchmarking on the new iPhone
0:24:18that's got the A16 and we're like,
0:24:19wow, this is really just basically an A15.
0:24:23Uh-huh, it is.
0:24:24- Maybe they do the binning of the graphics processes
0:24:27like they've done in some of the devices.
0:24:29- Maybe so, maybe it's, yeah, it's purely based on binning
0:24:33and the cores are the same
0:24:35or the cores are a little bit better
0:24:37but you can't really tell or they save some efficiency
0:24:40so it's more efficient but it's slower on the A16
0:24:44but the A16 Pro gets to, I'm just saying,
0:24:47the more I think about this,
0:24:48and this is based on no reports,
0:24:50I am literally just making this up.
0:24:52If I were in that room at Apple,
0:24:56I'd be like, can we make it different enough
0:24:59that we can call it the A16 and the A16 Pro
0:25:02rather than having last year's chip in this year's phone
0:25:05and also this year's chip in this year's Pro phone?
0:25:08Would that be a better look for us?
0:25:10And maybe not, maybe Tim Cook's like, nah, it's fine.
0:25:13It's a cheaper phone.
0:25:14They're gonna be a step behind.
0:25:16We're already more than a lap ahead of the competition,
0:25:19so we can afford to do this.
0:25:21But I just think, I keep thinking calling it the A16
0:25:26when it's not particularly better or different
0:25:29than the A15 just a little bit,
0:25:32and then saying we also have the A16 Pro,
0:25:35keeps everything in lockstep a little bit more.
0:25:37Anyway, I also think it's very confusing
0:25:40that we have these chip numbers and model numbers
0:25:42and they're off by two.
0:25:43That also drives me batty.
0:25:45So to have it be three different numbers
0:25:47that you have to keep track of.
0:25:48iPhone 14 with a 15 and a 16, that also is a lot.
0:25:53So, you know, they got issues.
0:25:56But anyway, that's my completely idle speculation
0:25:58is what if they, instead of having a 15 and a 16,
0:26:01they had a 16 and a 16 Pro,
0:26:04and the 16 was essentially the 15,
0:26:06but you know, dressed up a little bit.
0:26:08- Here's what, I'll just put this out there.
0:26:10I don't think this is gonna happen.
0:26:11I'm gonna put it out there.
0:26:12what if they say that there's the A16 in the iPhone 14
0:26:17and the iPhone 14 Pro has an M2 chip in it?
0:26:20- Could?
0:26:21- Now that's, I mean, okay,
0:26:24so I want to just unpack that a little bit
0:26:27'cause that's quite a thing I've said, right?
0:26:28So what we could say is that the A16,
0:26:32what we think of as the A16 is probably the base
0:26:37of the next M chips anyway, right?
0:26:40It's the expectation that we can make.
0:26:42And you would say, well,
0:26:45it's not gonna have a Thunderbolt port.
0:26:47No, of course it won't.
0:26:47And I think Apple could design it however they wanted to
0:26:50and et cetera, et cetera.
0:26:52And it's all branding at the end of the day.
0:26:54What I'll say, the reason I would say this
0:26:56as a possibility is just that the M line,
0:27:01I think has a very good brand right now.
0:27:04Maybe a better brand than the A line,
0:27:06just like in general technology media
0:27:09and like observation.
0:27:12- I think the challenge is how much has the M
0:27:14diverged from the A, right?
0:27:15How much has it done?
0:27:17I mean, is it really,
0:27:18'cause the impression I've gotten is that
0:27:19it really is appreciably larger and uses more power
0:27:23and is more appropriate for an iPad and a Mac
0:27:25than it is for an iPhone.
0:27:27I see what you're saying.
0:27:29And this is the larger point I really support
0:27:32even though I'm not quite sure that
0:27:34the calling it an M2 works,
0:27:36is Apple, these are Apple's chips,
0:27:38They can brand them however they want.
0:27:41I just don't think that the branding of holding
0:27:43the iPhone 14 back year in school to help the teacher
0:27:48makes as much sense.
0:27:51All of their other chips now are like coming,
0:27:54you know, Pro and Ultra and Max,
0:27:57and their phones are in Pro Max and all of that.
0:27:59So why not just say, "Hey, here's our non-Pro phone.
0:28:02It has the non-Pro chip, and here's our Pro phone,
0:28:04and it has the Pro chip," and be done with it,
0:28:06and call it the same thing.
0:28:07Like that, that makes more sense to me.
0:28:10- I agree with you.
0:28:10'Cause pro is now in the chip lineup.
0:28:13I will just say, you know,
0:28:14in case I can stop people from sending their tweets to me,
0:28:16I don't believe this thing about the M,
0:28:18I just wanted to put it out there as like,
0:28:20hey, it's a thing.
0:28:21- 'Cause like, 'cause they can do what they want.
0:28:22I mean, that's the bottom line.
0:28:23They can call things what they want.
0:28:26And that's fine.
0:28:28Yeah, they can call it whatever they want.
0:28:30- And this is why I mentioned that,
0:28:31because as you said, like,
0:28:32they might just call something the A16
0:28:34that's not actually really an A16 at all,
0:28:36but they've just decided to call it that
0:28:38because they want to keep bumping the numbers up.
0:28:40And so that's why I would say this, right?
0:28:41That like, it can share some architecture
0:28:45and they can just call it the M2.
0:28:46I do like honestly, the idea of A16 Pro
0:28:49because of the fact that they use Pro and Max and not,
0:28:54like they have these names now that are like,
0:28:57their branding can let you kind of forget
0:28:59the confusing part, which is the number.
0:29:01- Right. - And then, you know,
0:29:03honestly, I think maybe it's time to rebrand
0:29:05the A line of chips anyway, just because we're getting up into way too high numbers and there's
0:29:10too many numbers now.
0:29:11And the iPhones are also numbered, right?
0:29:13Yes, exactly.
0:29:14It's too many numbers.
0:29:15Too many numbers.
0:29:16That's all right.
0:29:17That's our big analysis.
0:29:18That's right.
0:29:19Thank you, Apple.
0:29:20Thank you for hiring us as your consultants.
0:29:21Too many numbers.
0:29:22That's what we say.
0:29:23Also, I'll throw out there, you could also just call the A16, the A15 Pro and do it that
0:29:28way if you wanted to.
0:29:30If the A15 is literally no different and you're not putting a new chip in that base model
0:29:35iPhone you could call the new thing A15 Pro instead of A16 because you can call it whatever
0:29:41you want and say yeah this is the A15 Pro and then they're in lockstep again one number
0:29:49ahead of the iPhone number by the way but there it is too many numbers.
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0:31:32and Relay FM.
0:31:33I got my Playdate!
0:31:35Yay!
0:31:36It arrived on Friday, so I've had like 3 or 4 days with this beautiful little yellow device.
0:31:43I got one playdate with the purple pouch.
0:31:46And I wanted to talk through some of my feelings
0:31:48of you, Jason, and then maybe touch on some more games,
0:31:51'cause obviously I've had two sets of games.
0:31:53I think you've had three now.
0:31:54- And I've had, I think I only have had
0:31:57two sets delivered so far.
0:31:59- Oh, okay. - Maybe today,
0:32:00a third set has been delivered. - I think today
0:32:01you're gonna get another two, I think.
0:32:03You should if I've got my internal clock right there.
0:32:07So the packaging is wonderful,
0:32:09this beautiful yellow packaging.
0:32:10- It is. - I did have to chuckle,
0:32:12And it's a mean thing to laugh about, but I did chuckle that the copyright
0:32:16date on the packaging is 2020.
0:32:17Yeah.
0:32:19That was the easy part.
0:32:20Well, I mean, that just is, that's when they thought they were shipping it.
0:32:23Right.
0:32:24Just they printed it with 2020 on it.
0:32:26I've been there, right?
0:32:28I am there still with some products, you know, it's just how it goes.
0:32:31And if people want to see the packaging and all of that, I did unbox it as you
0:32:36chastised me about last week, cause I didn't know how to play the games.
0:32:38I know how to play the games now.
0:32:39Uh, but I hadn't played them yet.
0:32:42Anyway, so there's a YouTube video where I take it apart
0:32:44and I show you the packaging and it's adorable.
0:32:46- Yeah, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
0:32:48Yeah, it's definitely worth going to see
0:32:50just 'cause it's cute, I'll say.
0:32:52Like, they did a good job.
0:32:54They've really, I think the branding
0:32:56has been completely knocked out of the park overall
0:32:58with the Play Date.
0:32:59But yeah, we spoke a little bit about that last week.
0:33:03My unit arrived totally dead.
0:33:04The battery was 100% dead.
0:33:06- This came up on the live stream.
0:33:09I had to plug mine.
0:33:10Mine was not so dead that the screen didn't show a thing
0:33:14saying you need to plug me in.
0:33:16- No, mine was 100%, nothing.
0:33:18- But I heard from other people who had nothing
0:33:21and it came out, I mean, we were thinking
0:33:23'cause mine had to sit for quite a while.
0:33:26And it came out that if you did plug it in
0:33:29and you just waited a long time,
0:33:31it would eventually get to the point
0:33:32where it would be responsive.
0:33:33They just, a lot of them had been sitting for so long
0:33:35that the batteries were completely discharged.
0:33:38Mine was like half an hour and it was ready to go.
0:33:41But that was fine to be honest.
0:33:42Like it wasn't an issue.
0:33:43I'm just happy I saw this on the Playdate Twitter account
0:33:46'cause I would have been pretty worried.
0:33:48- Well, and they did that because it,
0:33:51we were all figuring it out.
0:33:52Like in the, those of us who got them right
0:33:54in those first few days and this happened.
0:33:56And then, and so then they're like, oh yeah,
0:33:57we need to relay this to everybody that you may get it.
0:34:00It's okay.
0:34:01Just plug it in and wait.
0:34:02- The setup process is great.
0:34:05One of the things that I really enjoy is text input
0:34:08with the crank. You don't have to intertext a lot. If you did this would be annoying.
0:34:13But it's like a kind of like a slot machine. You have like these three drums and you can
0:34:18just spin them with the... I like it. It's fun. Like you mentioned last week, it becomes
0:34:25apparent very quickly that this device needs a backlight. It is the only thing that I have
0:34:30negative to say about the Play Date. The screen is amazing. It's incredibly crisp and if you
0:34:37have some light behind you it's fantastic and really visible but the problem is you
0:34:43don't always like sometimes you know I kind of just I just hold the device at the comfortable
0:34:48angle for me and now I've locked out the light you know and so like that is it's an issue
0:34:54I hope somebody honestly I hope panic will I know why they might not but I hope that
0:34:59they will just make a light accessory like we used to have for Game Boys.
0:35:04light yeah. Just do it like it's fine right like embrace it and like you know I understand
0:35:09what they're saying and I like the screen technology they chose with it being so reflective
0:35:15cannot be backlit I get that. My question is why did you make that I'm really intrigued
0:35:22as to why they made that decision anyway but it's where they went. You see it with Kindles
0:35:28and things that they, you know, with a Kindle, they engineered side lighting, where basically
0:35:34you add a little bit of thickness, but you've got lights on the sides that are, there's
0:35:39like a little guide, a little light guide that shines the lights just down onto the
0:35:44screen. And I guess that it's hard and it would make it thicker and like it's a first,
0:35:47I get it, I get it all, but it is unfortunate that that is one of the things where you're
0:35:51playing it and you get, you readjust your posture to be more comfortable and you can't,
0:35:56suddenly you can't see what's going on on the screen. It's not great.
0:35:59But I let it go because when you do have the right lighting the screen is like unfathomably
0:36:05excellent to look at. It is just fantastic. It is similar to if you have played an analog
0:36:12pocket which is the kind of the Gameboy machine right that is similar right the screen is
0:36:18just like I can't believe how good this is. And so yeah as Zach has mentioned in the in
0:36:23in
0:36:44the music in every game that I've played so far is great which is which works really nicely.
0:36:50I'm sure because of there being no lighting in it the battery life is great. I've been
0:36:55really happy with the battery. I was playing the system a bunch over the weekend. I've
0:37:00charged it once and it charges really fast. So overall like before I get into some of
0:37:07the games and touch on those a little bit I just think like what I like about the playdate
0:37:13is it pure fun.
0:37:15Like, in a way that games aren't always,
0:37:20or like playing games isn't always,
0:37:22it's just like, it doesn't take itself too seriously.
0:37:25It has a crank on it, which I've actually really enjoyed
0:37:30the crank mechanic in the games that I've played so far.
0:37:32A podcast that I was listening to recently,
0:37:37one of the hosts, two of the hosts,
0:37:39Blessing Erioya Jr. and Janet Garcia
0:37:42on Kind of Funny Games Daily, they referred to the Playdate as this is a game system for
0:37:48art kids and hipsters. And like, that is not, like I can hear someone hearing that, that
0:37:54sounds disparaging, but I completely understand it. Like, the types of games that are on Playdate
0:38:01are very artistic in their creation. Like, in a way that is not going to sell millions
0:38:09of units but for people that have $180 to put down on a yellow thing which is tiny,
0:38:17the size of a post-it note with a crank on it, those people probably want games for art
0:38:24kids and hipsters because they are one of those two. You are a hipster game person if
0:38:29you buy this and so the games should be focused on that. One of the games I'm going to mention
0:38:34in a minute called Bloom is like that, which is a third-party game. But like it hits nicely.
0:38:40- And, I mean, okay, so hipsters and our kids, right? Those are like stereotype terms and all
0:38:47that. But I think what has struck me about it, and it's not just because we know the people
0:38:51at Panic, although it is that too, is a group of regular people who love games and are techy people,
0:39:02and they have a company, right, which allows them to do this, but they are not a giant
0:39:08entertainment conglomerate. A group of techie people who love games said, "We're gonna make
0:39:15a handheld game device." And they made it happen. And that's my favorite thing about the Playdate,
0:39:22is that it is not part of a—although there is, I'm sure, corporate strategy involved,
0:39:26and they had to spend all those years working with their factory in Malaysia and doing all
0:39:30and all these things, right?
0:39:31Like it is a corporation,
0:39:32Panic's a corporation.
0:39:33And they're trying not to, you know,
0:39:35have this bankrupt them and maybe be successful.
0:39:37- Panic is now a big company getting bigger all the time.
0:39:40- Right, but I will still say,
0:39:42Playdate is a product made out of love.
0:39:44- Yes, and you feel it.
0:39:45- And I defy you to find any piece of gaming hardware
0:39:50or at least any piece of an original game device
0:39:55that is made out of love.
0:39:57I'm sure there are a handful out there.
0:39:59And in fact that your--
0:40:01- The analog pocket.
0:40:02- Analog pocket is probably in that category.
0:40:06But even there it's playing old software,
0:40:08at least as one of the primary ideas here.
0:40:10There's like Panic just wanted to make a fun piece
0:40:13of hardware because they love games.
0:40:15And again, it's more than that,
0:40:17but like I just am trying to say the impetus
0:40:19for so much stuff in the gaming world especially,
0:40:22and really in the world is it comes from the top.
0:40:26It comes from I'm a giant corporation,
0:40:28what is our new product going to be,
0:40:29and how do we compromise it,
0:40:31and how do we tie it into all of these things.
0:40:33And although the people who are working on that love games,
0:40:36undoubtedly, it's not the same as making it out of love,
0:40:41which is what Panic did.
0:40:42- Yeah, and that's like, again,
0:40:44like I wanna bring it back to what I mentioned, right?
0:40:46The art kids and hipsters.
0:40:47Like the art part is, and why I think this works is,
0:40:51the Play Date, it's for people who love
0:40:53the art of video games.
0:40:55It's like that video games are a work of art,
0:40:59and you feel that in this device where it's like,
0:41:02we have a great appreciation for what video gaming can be,
0:41:06and it can be this.
0:41:08It doesn't need to be all black and gray
0:41:12and army suits and guns, right?
0:41:15Like it can be there's a little robot
0:41:18and he's late for a date
0:41:20and he can move forward and backwards in time, right?
0:41:23- Yeah.
0:41:24He gets kicked if he's too late.
0:41:28Yeah, we'll talk about it.
0:41:30Yeah, it is adorable.
0:41:31- One of the games, Casual Birder,
0:41:33which is one of the first games that you get.
0:41:36Casual Birder is a joke about casual gaming.
0:41:40And you are referenced as a,
0:41:42oh, you're just a casual birder.
0:41:44Like, the joke in this RPG about bird watching
0:41:51is the idea of like, you are not a hardcore gamer,
0:41:54which I enjoy a lot. - Oh yeah, I said this
0:41:56last time, the mean kids come out and say,
0:41:58what are you, some sort of casual birder?
0:42:00- It's really good.
0:42:02And so casual birder, I really enjoyed a lot.
0:42:07It is a-- - I thought you would.
0:42:08I thought that was the one where I thought
0:42:09this is in my kind of game.
0:42:10- That I was so in, I've finished the game.
0:42:13I didn't 100% the game.
0:42:15You can, you have to like take photos
0:42:17of a bunch of birds around the environment.
0:42:19and I think it was like 26,
0:42:21and you can complete it earlier than that,
0:42:22which I did if you solve enough puzzles in the right order,
0:42:27because it's very much like an RPG in the sense of,
0:42:31you can tell you need to do something,
0:42:33but you don't have the thing to do it,
0:42:36so you have to go around the environment
0:42:38until you come across the key for that puzzle, as it were.
0:42:43And it's hilariously funny.
0:42:45I was having a great time with it.
0:42:47The music is amazing.
0:42:49is a really funny, weird, cute little game.
0:42:52This is one of the first games along with White Water Wipeout
0:42:55which is the surfing game, which I will say Jason,
0:42:57I enjoy it, but I'm not good at it.
0:43:00- I have gotten way better at it.
0:43:01And I'm really enjoying it now that I figured out
0:43:04how to play it, which you were very angry about,
0:43:07but I've done some 360s, I've done some triple 360s,
0:43:12whatever that is.
0:43:13I've done, I'm still, I wish there was a like a help screen
0:43:19Yeah, I have this with a few of the games.
0:43:22Yeah.
0:43:23And this one is like, there are controls in White Water Wipeout to help you get better
0:43:29at the game and they tell you them through the game.
0:43:31I would just like to be able to see them at any point.
0:43:36I also don't know what they all do.
0:43:38Like, they're like, try holding down left when you do a jump.
0:43:40I'm like, okay.
0:43:41Yeah, and I'm still not.
0:43:42And it does something.
0:43:43I think it moves the board quickly.
0:43:44I don't know what it's-
0:43:45Like, it helps you complete the move, but I'm not sure it does that.
0:43:48- Like as a kid going to arcades,
0:43:50if you stood in front of the arcade
0:43:53and nobody was playing,
0:43:54you stood in front of the arcade console,
0:43:57it had like a little demo screen where it said,
0:43:59"Here's how you play," basically.
0:44:01"Press this to do this, jump over trees to stun them,
0:44:04turn the ghosts blue and then eat them," right?
0:44:06Like it explained how to play the game.
0:44:09And that, if I have a criticism of these games,
0:44:13it's that is I kind of want the little screen
0:44:15that's like the help screen or the intro screen
0:44:17or the, you know, press here to get some tips
0:44:20and it shows you like, here's how to play this game.
0:44:22And I get that maybe the argument is
0:44:24the fun is figuring it out,
0:44:25but I almost abandoned Whitewater Wipeout
0:44:28because I could not understand how to play it.
0:44:30And only--
0:44:31- After you've told me them, let me see them then, right?
0:44:34Like if part of it is like, I played a game,
0:44:37I don't remember which one it was now,
0:44:38one of the many third party games I've tried out,
0:44:40when you pressed the kind of menu button,
0:44:43like the little circle button that you press
0:44:45to go back to the home,
0:44:46like it kind of brings up like a pause screen first.
0:44:49They had the controls listed on that screen,
0:44:53which I just thought was like a smart place to put them.
0:44:55Because there's another game, Boogie Loops,
0:44:58which is in the second week,
0:45:01where I do not understand what this game is
0:45:04or what I'm supposed to do.
0:45:05- I think it's a more like a software toy.
0:45:10- I think, yeah, I think it just helps you make music, right?
0:45:12But I don't know how.
0:45:13- You make music and you get the characters to dance.
0:45:16- I don't know how.
0:45:17I don't get it. - I don't know how,
0:45:19and I don't know what I'm missing.
0:45:22And again, I get that the learning,
0:45:27my son is obsessed with games, right?
0:45:30I get that learning to play a game
0:45:32is part of the game narrative, right?
0:45:34Of like, we frustrate you, but then you learn.
0:45:38But there is also a school of thought that says
0:45:43You are not welcoming people who are not figuring it out
0:45:48and are not gonna figure it out to your game.
0:45:51You are excluding people by not being welcoming enough
0:45:55that somebody who doesn't get your very potentially
0:45:57esoteric gamers will get it,
0:45:59other people won't kind of thing.
0:46:01You don't wanna be that.
0:46:02You wanna be a welcoming game.
0:46:04You wanna be able to say,
0:46:06"Oh, you're having trouble, let me help you."
0:46:08And a game that doesn't do that or doesn't offer it,
0:46:12Again, offering is something you can do
0:46:15where you're like, no, I'll figure it out.
0:46:16That's like every computer nerd
0:46:18where they don't read the manual, right?
0:46:20It's like, I don't need to read the manual,
0:46:21I'll figure it out.
0:46:22And then if you have trouble, you go get the manual, right?
0:46:24That's how you do it.
0:46:25But to not offer and to not have it
0:46:27and just be like, good luck trying to figure it out,
0:46:29I think it is a failure of game design if you do that.
0:46:33And that's how I feel about that game
0:46:34is that it doesn't want me to understand it.
0:46:37And I don't like that.
0:46:40I don't think that's my failure.
0:46:42that I don't understand it and that you don't understand it,
0:46:45I think that is the game failing to communicate properly
0:46:48about how it works.
0:46:49- But, you know, this is, so this comes back to it
0:46:52of like that set, this game, I'm not into it,
0:46:55like it's not for me, but I also got
0:46:57Kranken's Time Travel Adventure today,
0:46:59which is really fun.
0:47:00This is the game they have used in most of the marketing
0:47:04because of who has created this game.
0:47:05This game, the idea of the game is,
0:47:08and the design of the game is by Keita Takahashi,
0:47:11who created Katamari Damacy and like the Katamari games,
0:47:16legendary video game individual.
0:47:18And it's, you know, Sean Inman helped with the pro,
0:47:21like this is a, this game is like, oh, okay,
0:47:26like serious people behind this game.
0:47:27And I know that Cable Sasser is like a big fan
0:47:31of the Katamari Damacy games and that whole franchise.
0:47:36So like this was, I know this is a big game for them.
0:47:39and it is the most crank heavy game.
0:47:44It's like you are moving forward to backwards in time
0:47:47as a way to solve puzzles.
0:47:48- Okay, so it's not really,
0:47:52even though it's called Time Travel Adventure,
0:47:54you're not really moving forward and backward in time.
0:47:57But that's part of the discovery of it.
0:47:59I love this game, I think it's amazing.
0:48:00I now understand why it took me a little while
0:48:03to figure it out, but I figured it out
0:48:04and the mechanic is so simple
0:48:05that you can figure it out fairly quickly.
0:48:08It's a good example actually of your failure
0:48:10teaches you how to play the game.
0:48:11- Yes.
0:48:12- 'Cause I was like, I don't understand,
0:48:13why do I keep failing this level?
0:48:14I was like, ah, patience. - Why do the birds
0:48:16or whatever keep killing me?
0:48:17It's like, oh, I see what's happening.
0:48:20But I'm a little baffled that it's not on the console
0:48:24at launch, that it's week two.
0:48:25I don't get that.
0:48:27Because it's so inviting.
0:48:30And it's brilliant.
0:48:32I love it.
0:48:34I love that it is puzzle solving.
0:48:36And then for those who, I mean, the way I would put it is,
0:48:40it's not really about time travel
0:48:41because your enemies in the game,
0:48:44if the obstacles in the game move in regular time,
0:48:49what it really is, is your little robot guy
0:48:51is on his animation loop.
0:48:55And you use the crank to move him
0:48:58to different places on his animation loop,
0:49:01with the goal being that he gets to the end
0:49:04and gets to his date.
0:49:05but there are obstacles in the way
0:49:07that are moving at real time and they're going to stop him.
0:49:11And so you have to adjust his animation loop
0:49:14to be in the right position at the right moment
0:49:17to avoid the obstacles.
0:49:18It's a really brilliant mechanic.
0:49:20It makes me laugh out loud.
0:49:22There is a moment that I'm not gonna spoil here
0:49:25that I had yesterday where I laughed for minutes.
0:49:30Like I almost was crying at how funny
0:49:35the and I failed it was a failure how funny uh that failure was so yeah I I uh that that
0:49:43that game is genius I love it. So these are all the games that have come uh with the unit right
0:49:50so these are the ones so far now we spoke like last time about like how are people going to take
0:49:56to this like is it the right uh thing like what if you don't like a game right I think that it
0:50:03They are, I would say, not lucky.
0:50:05I think it is very fortunate.
0:50:07There are third-party games,
0:50:09and you can just download them and play them now.
0:50:11Like you can buy them on itch.io,
0:50:14you can download them from places.
0:50:16We included in the show notes last week,
0:50:18the Playdate Wiki that has a large selection
0:50:22of all of the games that are available right now.
0:50:25And like software, like there's some stuff is not games.
0:50:28It's just like software.
0:50:30So I will put a link in the show notes to the Wiki.
0:50:32because that's where I've been finding stuff.
0:50:34And I found a game that I'd actually heard about already
0:50:38called Bloom.
0:50:40And Bloom is a $10 Playdate game.
0:50:45And it is superb.
0:50:48It is so good.
0:50:49It's my favorite game on the Playdate so far.
0:50:52It is exactly what I'm looking for.
0:50:54So it is a really chill game.
0:50:56It's played in real time.
0:50:59You are playing a woman who has quit school
0:51:04and wants to start a flower shop, and you're in Japan.
0:51:08And you have not told your parents that you've done this.
0:51:13And you've opened your flower shop, and you have rent to pay,
0:51:17and you have flowers to grow, so you've got flowers to sell.
0:51:20And you have a little phone, and on your phone,
0:51:22you can exchange text messages with friends and family.
0:51:26And you get to choose your responses.
0:51:28and so there's some visual novel elements
0:51:30as the story's unfolding.
0:51:31But then there's also, you plant your flowers,
0:51:33you water the flowers, and then you come back
0:51:35later on in the day and pick the flowers and sell them.
0:51:38So it's got that kind of mechanic of,
0:51:41you see this kind of mechanic in free-to-play games a lot,
0:51:43plant and wait, but the idea is,
0:51:45because it's in real time, you're supposed to just,
0:51:47throughout your day, just pop in, check in on Bloom,
0:51:51and pick some flowers, and then plant some more flowers.
0:51:55It's just beautiful.
0:51:56The crank is used really nicely to move
0:51:58between the elements of the game.
0:52:00There's games within the game.
0:52:02It is superb.
0:52:04The writing is excellent.
0:52:06The visuals are really great.
0:52:08I adore this game.
0:52:10Like for me, it's like, this is exactly the type
0:52:12of experience that I'm looking for out of this device.
0:52:15The idea of having these little games
0:52:18where I can check in on them throughout the day,
0:52:20as when I told Adina about this, she was like,
0:52:22"Oh, you got a Tamagotchi."
0:52:23and I'm like, oh my God, please let somebody
0:52:25make a Tamagotchi for the Playdate.
0:52:27(laughing)
0:52:27You're saying that already, right?
0:52:29This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for
0:52:31out of this device that's so tiny
0:52:33that I can just check in on these little things,
0:52:35have a little game experience, and leave.
0:52:38And so, yeah, if you have a Playdate,
0:52:41if you're gonna get a Playdate, please try out Bloom.
0:52:44It is a wonderful game.
0:52:45There's a video, there's a bunch of information
0:52:47on the itch page, so you can see
0:52:50if you think it might be for you.
0:52:52but like I am like smitten with this game.
0:52:55I think it's amazing.
0:52:55I love it.
0:52:56- The other games that I'll mention
0:53:00that I think I mentioned last week,
0:53:01but the Bomber Panda, which is a Bomberman game
0:53:04and it's funny and it's pretty well done.
0:53:06I want a lot of like takes on old arcade games on it.
0:53:10Cause I think that that's a fun sort of,
0:53:11they'll a lot of them have very simple mechanics
0:53:14that will apply well.
0:53:15That's why I like Playtris,
0:53:17which is he has a name now for the Tetris rip off.
0:53:20And he's actually updated it a few times
0:53:22and he fixed the, on my live stream I think I die
0:53:24and you can see the frames start animating
0:53:27at like one frame per five seconds
0:53:29'cause he only built it on the simulator
0:53:32and the guy changed the animation and fixed that.
0:53:35And he's added a bunch of stuff to it.
0:53:37So it's like, he woke up, he was like,
0:53:38"Oh geez, people are getting play dates
0:53:40and they're playing my thing
0:53:41and it doesn't work that great, I better get back to it."
0:53:43And he's done some updates to that.
0:53:44So that's great 'cause I like having a Tetris on there.
0:53:48And a joke that's worth 99 cents,
0:53:50I've decided it's worth 99 cents.
0:53:52It's actually a very clever use of the,
0:53:54it's hard and you won't play it for that long,
0:53:56but it's actually, it makes me laugh at how hard it is
0:53:59'cause there's a song that plays
0:54:00and the song continues to play every time you fail.
0:54:02And so as you fail, you're like,
0:54:04it goes, cuts right back to the song
0:54:05and you're like, oh, song.
0:54:07It's very funny and you use the crank mechanic.
0:54:09- I've seen this game referenced a lot
0:54:11and I was like, am I gonna enjoy this?
0:54:13But if you like it, I'm gonna give this one a go too.
0:54:15- Yeah, I mean, the idea is that you're bouncing a thing
0:54:17on the crank.
0:54:18there's a version of the play date on the screen
0:54:20and the crank matches where you position the crank
0:54:23and you're supposed to bounce a little baby actually,
0:54:26but you're supposed to bounce a thing
0:54:28that hits these stars that appear across
0:54:31the different screen and every star advances
0:54:33the joke one line.
0:54:34So, you know, see, basically you try to see
0:54:38how long you can keep the little baby bouncing
0:54:41and how many stars you can hit.
0:54:42And when you fail and the baby falls,
0:54:46the song cuts right back in and it's hilarious.
0:54:48I gotta say.
0:54:49It's not a game that you're gonna play for a lot of hours,
0:54:52but every now and then I get back to it and make,
0:54:55yeah, well, I mean, it's telling the joke,
0:54:56but it's also, is it worth 99 cents?
0:54:59I like the animation is really good
0:55:00and the whole mechanic of using the crank to bounce
0:55:05is brilliant.
0:55:06So yeah, it's totally,
0:55:08and it's literally, it's a 99 cent game on itch,
0:55:10so it's totally worth it.
0:55:12- Okay, this is actually kind of funny too,
0:55:14'cause it's like, it's $1 with a 1% off.
0:55:18So it's 99 cents, but I also can't pay less than 99 cents.
0:55:23(laughs)
0:55:23- You have to pay a dollar on itch.
0:55:25That's part of the thing that makes me laugh about it
0:55:27is you have to pay a dollar.
0:55:30- It's a joke that's worth 99 cents,
0:55:32but you have to pay a dollar for it.
0:55:33Yeah, I appreciate that.
0:55:34I appreciate the commitment to the bit there, you know?
0:55:37So what I will say, right, like,
0:55:40I know they're working on it,
0:55:41but they desperately need to get the catalog together.
0:55:43so I can find these games and install them on my Playdate.
0:55:48- Directly, yeah.
0:55:50- The sideloading works really well.
0:55:53Like I've just been doing the version where I upload it.
0:55:55Like you download the file,
0:55:56you just drop it onto the webpage
0:55:58and then you just download it and it works really well.
0:56:00And I think that whole thing is pretty simple.
0:56:04But I wanna be able to go to one place and read stuff
0:56:08and see like information about the games
0:56:10and that kind of stuff.
0:56:11But I will tell you, man, I have waited a really long time for this, right?
0:56:15Like everybody.
0:56:16And I've been really, really excited about this device.
0:56:19And it has not disappointed at all.
0:56:22I adore this thing and I'm so happy they did it.
0:56:27And I I'm just like, I'm in like, I'm in for the next like 10 weeks.
0:56:32I'm super excited every Monday to get my new games and also to keep an eye on what
0:56:36the community is building and that kind of stuff like this is super cool.
0:56:39I love it.
0:56:40I really love it.
0:56:40This episode is brought to you by our friends at TextExpander. Get your team
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0:58:33Apple's Q2 results were posted last week.
0:58:37Surprise!
0:58:38There was a lot of money made.
0:58:39Yeah, I mean that part is not surprising at all, is it?
0:58:43No.
0:58:44So here's a rundown.
0:58:46$97.3 billion total revenue, up 9% year over year, which is another record quarter for
0:58:54Apple.
0:58:55This is the highest Q2 of all time.
0:58:57$25 billion in profit. $50.6 billion of revenue for the iPhone up 5% year over year. $10.4
0:59:06billion for the Mac up 15%. $7.6 billion for the iPad down 2%. That's two down quarters
0:59:14in a row. I want to get to that in a minute. $8.8 billion for wearables, that's up 12%
0:59:20$19.8 billion in services.
0:59:23That is up 17% year over year.
0:59:25This is the first sub 20% year over year growth
0:59:30since Q4 2020.
0:59:31So all of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022,
0:59:36the year over year growth was over 20%
0:59:38and now it's less than 20%.
0:59:40Did you make anything of that?
0:59:41Like that just really stood out to me
0:59:43when I was looking at your wonderful charts.
0:59:45- I thank you for the compliment about my charts.
0:59:49It is, it didn't.
0:59:51I mean, the truth is the numbers have been going up
0:59:55for so long and there was a spike that was in the twenties.
1:00:00So to have services cool down to 17, like, you know,
1:00:05in 2020 and 2019, there was an extended period
1:00:09where growth was in the teens and it's back in the teens.
1:00:13And so I just, I kind of shrugged it off.
1:00:17I think occasionally they have moments
1:00:18where they have a burst of growth,
1:00:21but to come off of that burst of growth
1:00:24and then just go back to growing in the teens,
1:00:26'cause you know, when you grow a lot,
1:00:28it's harder to grow by that percentage again,
1:00:31because the growth is so,
1:00:33you're starting from a much larger amount
1:00:37that you have to grow from, right?
1:00:38Like it raises the bar.
1:00:39And so for them to go off of that four quarters
1:00:42in the 20s or 30s, back to 17,
1:00:46where they kind of were before,
1:00:48- Yeah, I mean, there are other things
1:00:51you could complain about before you complain about that.
1:00:54- Especially as well, and I know obviously,
1:00:58services doesn't just include Apple TV+,
1:01:01but from a Wall Street perspective,
1:01:04services can mean for Apple whatever they need it to mean
1:01:07at that moment, right?
1:01:08But at a time where we've been speaking about
1:01:10the past couple of weeks, right,
1:01:11like Netflix and CNN+, not great.
1:01:15And then for Apple to say, "Hey, we add growth,"
1:01:17and they can in that growth talk about TV+ doing so well
1:01:20at a time when it is critically doing so well, right?
1:01:23Like it's good for them to have to continue
1:01:26to be having growth is good for them.
1:01:28And it's, you know, I guess probably Q3.
1:01:33So the next quarter they will crack 20 billion
1:01:37in the quarter for services
1:01:38that just under now at 19.8, right?
1:01:40So like that seems fair that maybe Q3 2022
1:01:45will be the first $20 billion a quarter services revenue?
1:01:48- Yeah. - Just keeps on going up.
1:01:52- It's blasting up.
1:01:53That's just, yeah, chart goes up, like they say.
1:01:58- Yeah, so the only down, right?
1:02:00The only down is our friend, the iPad,
1:02:02which has had its second down quarter in a row,
1:02:04as I mentioned.
1:02:06What do you take from this?
1:02:09- I just don't have, I mean, it was only down a little bit.
1:02:12And as Apple has pointed out,
1:02:15it is severely supply constrained, right?
1:02:19Like it's severely supply constrained.
1:02:22- Is that the only product
1:02:23that's seeing these kinds of supply constraints?
1:02:26- No, they're all seeing supply constraints,
1:02:28but I think the idea was that the iPad was growing slowly
1:02:32and got knocked down by it.
1:02:33I just wouldn't worry about it.
1:02:34The iPad is at a pretty good level.
1:02:35It was only down 2%.
1:02:37between supply constraints and Russia being cut off,
1:02:42like, I don't know, I think you could over obsess about it
1:02:47and I'm not particularly concerned about it.
1:02:49It's at a whole new level.
1:02:53It had that really burst of growth in 2020,
1:02:56but I mean, last quarter was down 14 year over year.
1:03:01This quarter it's down two, it's minor.
1:03:03I just am not, I'm just not gonna sweat it
1:03:06given the environment of--
1:03:08- That's fair, minus 2%, like down 2%
1:03:11is basically you have pretty much level, right?
1:03:13Like, you know, it's not, obviously it's a lot of money,
1:03:16but it's not hugely off.
1:03:17We're like down 14%, that's a double digit,
1:03:19like that's more of a concern, right?
1:03:21- And they said very specifically
1:03:23it was severely supply constrained.
1:03:24So that's, you know, that's part of it too.
1:03:26If people want them and can't buy them,
1:03:29yeah, I'm just not gonna,
1:03:31I refuse to do an iPad freak out.
1:03:33- Fair.
1:03:35The iPhone, 52% of the business for this quarter.
1:03:40Services at 20, Mac at 11, wearables nine, iPad eight.
1:03:46- Yep, Apple really has three really nice
1:03:5140 billion-ish a year businesses,
1:03:5430 to 40 billion a year businesses.
1:03:59Wearables, home and accessories, Mac and iPad.
1:04:02And then it's got services,
1:04:03which is shooting through the roof.
1:04:05and it's got the iPhone.
1:04:07And services obviously is not unconnected
1:04:11with all the others.
1:04:12So it's kind of a different kind of beast,
1:04:14but it is funny to think about
1:04:16if you take services out of the equation for a second,
1:04:18Apple's got these three similarly sized businesses,
1:04:21Mac, iPad, and wearables,
1:04:23and then it's got the iPhone
1:04:24which takes up half the revenue.
1:04:25And I think, and we've talked about it here extensively,
1:04:28it is actually an interesting management challenge,
1:04:31which is on one level,
1:04:32you should just manage Apple for the iPhone
1:04:34'cause Apple is the iPhone at this point.
1:04:37On the other hand, how can you do that
1:04:39when you have these three other very successful businesses
1:04:43that you need to manage too?
1:04:44And so we've seen that
1:04:46and I think they're in a better place now, right?
1:04:47But there definitely was a feeling that the Mac especially
1:04:50was kind of not being paid attention to.
1:04:53And I do think that's gonna be a continuing challenge
1:04:56for Apple is the iPad is a great example.
1:04:59Like calling an iPad OS, maybe was a stake in the ground,
1:05:03But like one of the challenges is iPad OS is basically iOS
1:05:07and it's, you have to will it that you will have iPad stuff
1:05:12in your iOS product cycle.
1:05:15'Cause there will always be more iPhone stuff.
1:05:18And the iPhone stuff will always be a higher priority
1:05:21overall because the iPhone is so huge.
1:05:24And somebody has to have the discipline.
1:05:27And it's not just like last year, it's every year,
1:05:31every decision somebody has to have the discipline to say,
1:05:34we're gonna do iPad stuff too,
1:05:37because the iPad is an important product for our company,
1:05:41even though it's only throwing off whatever,
1:05:45only throwing off $30 billion a year,
1:05:49whereas the iPhone is throwing off $50 billion a quarter.
1:05:54I get it, but that's part of their challenge,
1:05:59because otherwise they should just shut it all down
1:06:01and be iPhone incorporated.
1:06:02And they're not gonna do that.
1:06:03But like that's, I'm fascinated by that challenge
1:06:07that they have because that iPhone number
1:06:09is always enormous and they have to acknowledge it
1:06:12and do good things with the iPhone,
1:06:14but they can't keep those other product categories around
1:06:19if they devote themselves to the iPhone.
1:06:23So it's always a back and forth.
1:06:25You imagine the debate about,
1:06:27do we implement this iPad feature or this iPhone feature?
1:06:30and having it be like, how much gas does the iPad get
1:06:34in this?
1:06:35Because the iPhone will always win
1:06:37every single individual argument.
1:06:38So you have to balance it and say, no, no, no,
1:06:41we need to do this much with the iPad,
1:06:43even though that means we're not gonna be able
1:06:45to hit everything for the iPhone.
1:06:46And that's okay because it can't all be about the iPhone.
1:06:49I just think it's fascinating.
1:06:50- And that's because they have that real,
1:06:52I think, you know, maybe somewhat unique to Apple problem
1:06:57of the scale of its percentage and relative-ness, right?
1:07:02Like 10% of your business, no matter what business you have,
1:07:08it's like, that's a big chunk.
1:07:10But this is $40 billion a year, right?
1:07:13So it's like, well, yeah, the Mac or the iPad
1:07:16might only be 10%, but the relative amount of money
1:07:21and resources that can be brought through that money
1:07:25is astronomically large in a way that I'm sure not a lot of other companies have to
1:07:30think about with their products, right? Where like, as you say, it is that of like, the
1:07:35iPhone is 50% and it's hundreds and hundreds, you know, it's like hundreds of billions of
1:07:40dollars a year. But then you also have this other one, it's 40 billion, which is so much
1:07:45money, right? And it's super weird. It must be very strange. Like, yeah, but it's only
1:07:49a small part of our company. Yeah, but look how much revenue it generates, how many customers
1:07:54we have in this like bucket, you know, it's really weird. It is very strange.
1:08:00And you can't set off a division, right? Because Apple structure doesn't work like that. The
1:08:05way another company would do this is it would say, look, the iPad division has its own budget
1:08:12based on how much money it makes. The Mac division has its own budget based on how much
1:08:15money it makes. Wearables. You're the CEO of Wearables Incorporated.
1:08:19what Google does or like what Facebook does, right, where they kind of spin them out.
1:08:24And Apple can't do it. Apple literally can't do it because all its products are intertwined.
1:08:28The silicon is intertwined. The base operating system is intertwined. And then big chunks of
1:08:33it are intertwined with other products. Like Apple Watch cannot be Apple Watch Incorporated because
1:08:38Apple Watch is entirely dependent on the iPhone. And so you end up in a situation where of their
1:08:44own making and it is greatly beneficial to them. But it does mean that they can't wall
1:08:49it all off. Instead, you got to make hard decisions. I guess this is nothing new, but
1:08:53this is my regular rant that I appreciate the fact when they do things for the Mac and
1:09:00they do things for the iPad and the Apple Watch and AirPods and all these things, on
1:09:05one level, I appreciate the fact that they are paying attention to these businesses because
1:09:09I think they are very important businesses. And yet, if you think about it, the iPhone
1:09:14business is more important than them each by about 5X. So, you know, if push just came
1:09:23to shove, the easy thing to do would be to let them all kind of die on the vine. And
1:09:28I think there are points in Apple's history where that has happened. And I think it's
1:09:33going to be and has been a constant challenge
1:09:37to thread that needle of what love do we give to the iPhone
1:09:41because it's the engine that really runs this company,
1:09:43but at the same time,
1:09:44we don't want to screw up these other products
1:09:46that are also by themselves
1:09:49very large successful product categories.
1:09:51It's tricky is what I'm saying.
1:09:53- So in listening to the earnings calls as you do,
1:09:57you were able to pull out some points that were interesting.
1:10:02And there was a couple that I noted down
1:10:04from your Macworld article.
1:10:06One being that the iPhone is kind of interesting
1:10:10that they were able to beat up year over year
1:10:12because they were beating a very tough compare
1:10:15- Tough compare. - in the industry.
1:10:17Because the 2020 iPhone came out late.
1:10:21So the sales were pushed further into Q2 of 2021
1:10:25than they usually would be.
1:10:26So most of the sales from the iPhone,
1:10:29like the big bump, usually you see in Q1,
1:10:31which is the holiday quarter for Apple.
1:10:33But there were the, of the iPhone 12,
1:10:36there were way more sales into Q2
1:10:38than there would be otherwise.
1:10:40So the fact that the iPhone 13 was able to beat 2021's Q2
1:10:45shows the demand for the iPhone 13 is very, very strong.
1:10:48- Yeah, yeah, that's, I will accept this statement by them,
1:10:54'cause they're obviously gonna say whatever is self-serving,
1:10:57but this is true.
1:11:00Like it seems like a long time ago now,
1:11:02but the iPhone 12 launch was late, right?
1:11:05They spread it out, the Pro phones shipped a lot later.
1:11:08And as a result, what they said is the buying cycle
1:11:10was later and they made, you know,
1:11:12they didn't have any in Q3 really.
1:11:14It was really more of a Q4 thing
1:11:16and then rolled into Q1.
1:11:19So a year on the iPhone went back to the standard cycle,
1:11:23which means that they're later in the buying cycle
1:11:26than they were a year ago.
1:11:28And so you'd expect that to be a tough compare.
1:11:31But they still went up.
1:11:33So that, yeah.
1:11:34And there were also some supplies constraints out there,
1:11:37I think too.
1:11:38So again, it's interesting that like,
1:11:41it's easy to write off,
1:11:43obviously they get a huge bump
1:11:44when they change the look of the product,
1:11:46but the iPhone 13 demand has been pretty strong.
1:11:50And they said as much,
1:11:51and you can see it in the numbers
1:11:53that like they're still selling iPhone 13s.
1:11:55It's not like everybody got their iPhone 12s
1:11:57and said, we're good.
1:11:58they're still selling iPhone 13s and doing well with that.
1:12:00- You mentioned supply constraints. There are "substantially larger supply chain constraints
1:12:08on the horizon for Apple." It seems like there is a mood, as you referenced, that potentially Apple
1:12:17are about to get hit by supply constraints in a way that they have been able to mostly shield
1:12:22themselves for. - Yeah, there's two things that are affecting
1:12:27Apple supply chain, right? There are the silicon, they refer to it as the silicon shortages or the,
1:12:33you know, it's the legacy nodes. Tim Cook likes to talk about the legacy nodes. He's reached the
1:12:37point now where he's like, "You all know about the legacy nodes." It's like, "Okay, thanks, Tim."
1:12:40But the idea that, and that you see this throughout industries, there are all the stories
1:12:45about the car industry having to struggle with this where it's like commonly available
1:12:49parts for computers like USB chargers and Bluetooth chips and stuff like that,
1:12:54commonly available, but what happened was COVID happened, factories shut down, then they had to
1:13:00get restarted, and there's a huge backlog of orders for that stuff. And it has meant that the
1:13:07just-in-time supply chain is still not back in shape where you've got to think, it's the story.
1:13:13Yeah, it's not in time. It's out of time. Well, this is the story. My favorite example of this
1:13:18is Tesla shipping cars without USB chargers in them and saying, "We'll fix it later."
1:13:23And I actually love that idea.
1:13:25And I'm sure there are other car makers doing it
1:13:27where it's like, okay, we can either make all these cars
1:13:30that we've sold and then not ship them
1:13:32and not actually get paid for them
1:13:34because of a legacy node somewhere,
1:13:37or we can just ship without and say,
1:13:38we will take the hit and we will,
1:13:40you bring it into service and we'll install it later.
1:13:42But do you want your car now or not?
1:13:44That's where a lot of industry is dealing with now.
1:13:46Now, Apple is not gonna be able to say,
1:13:49"Hey, would you like your Mac studio without Bluetooth?"
1:13:52We'll add it later, right?
1:13:53They can't do that.
1:13:54So it becomes a supply concern.
1:13:56So that's been going on and they've dealt with it.
1:13:59And they initially had a bunch of stock
1:14:02that they were able to do to mitigate it.
1:14:03But obviously there are still issues
1:14:05where they've blown through their stock.
1:14:08They said that last quarter
1:14:09that they were kind of run out of that,
1:14:10their padding that they had.
1:14:12The other issue though is COVID.
1:14:15And specifically a lot of Apple's products
1:14:19are assembled in the greater Shanghai area.
1:14:24And there have been lockdowns
1:14:26and therefore shutdowns of factories in Shanghai.
1:14:29And what Tim Cook said was their assembly plants
1:14:33are coming back online,
1:14:36but another term that I love is, but they have to ramp.
1:14:40There's a ramp there.
1:14:41The ramp, oh, the ramp, you know,
1:14:44'cause you don't, it's not,
1:14:45a factory doesn't just flip a switch on and off.
1:14:48when you gotta get the factory back in motion again,
1:14:50it's actually very complicated
1:14:52and they don't start at full capacity
1:14:53and it takes time for the factory
1:14:55to reach full capacity again,
1:14:57'cause you've got the stuff coming in
1:14:59and then you have the stuff going out
1:15:00and the people on the line and all of those things.
1:15:02And Apple said that is a major factor
1:15:06in their supply chain getting slowed down too,
1:15:09is that they have had shutdowns.
1:15:11And you can see it.
1:15:12I mean, you can see it.
1:15:15go to apple dot com and try to order a Mac studio with the high end
1:15:18configuration and it'll be like you'll get this in July.
1:15:21Um, like across the board, so many products are just not available
1:15:27anytime soon, except in some configurations, mostly the base models
1:15:31that are available, like at your local Apple store, you can get them pretty
1:15:34soon. You're seeing this everywhere. And that's a big part of it is the
1:15:37shutdown in the Shanghai region. Here's the big part though. And this is
1:15:42part that made Wall Street go, "Excuse me, what?" And all the analysts on the call last
1:15:47week were like, "Tim, can we talk about this a little bit?" is they think they will have
1:15:54between $4 and $8 billion in product revenue that they will fail to fulfill in the fiscal
1:16:02third quarter, which is going on right now, because of the inability to fulfill demand.
1:16:10there are four to eight billion dollars that people are standing, you know, like the meme
1:16:14with Fry from Futurama saying, "Shut up and take my money." Say, "Take my money, Apple.
1:16:19I want your product." And Apple's like, "I don't have it for you." And that's what those
1:16:23long lines on the Apple store are and all of that. And four to eight billion dollars,
1:16:30even for Apple, is a lot of money. So I, and they didn't give any other like hints about
1:16:38Like, we expect it to be probably a record or whatever.
1:16:41They didn't say anything else about that third fiscal quarter.
1:16:43So my guess is they're not going to have a great quarter next quarter,
1:16:48not because of a lack of demand, but because of their lack of supply
1:16:51and that they're, if they're sandbagging it,
1:16:54they're doing a really good job of it because they seem pretty sober about it.
1:16:57Like to call it out and say between four and eight billion dollars in product sales
1:17:01that will just be bypassed because we can't give them the product.
1:17:05And when somebody asked one of the analysts like, Tim,
1:17:07about the four to eight billion.
1:17:09What, what?
1:17:11'Cause they were all like asking about it.
1:17:13It was amazing 'cause it's a big number.
1:17:15It's a scary big number.
1:17:16And one of them was,
1:17:18do you have an idea of how much of that
1:17:20will just be deferred to the next quarter
1:17:22versus lost forever?
1:17:24You know, it's one of those kinds of questions.
1:17:25And Tim Cook's response was, who can tell?
1:17:28Probably both.
1:17:29Little bit of A, little bit of B.
1:17:32We don't know how many people want a laptop,
1:17:36won an Apple laptop, can't get one,
1:17:38and immediately have to have a laptop
1:17:40so they go buy someone else's laptop
1:17:42versus I can wait until July for that next studio.
1:17:46It's fine.
1:17:47Like they don't know.
1:17:48So they were looking,
1:17:49the analysts were looking for reassuring words from Tim.
1:17:52Tim did not have reassuring words for them.
1:17:54- And just again, like that's about,
1:17:57could be about 10% of their revenue for the quarter.
1:18:02You know, they probably would lock in
1:18:04in a regular scenario between 80 to 85,
1:18:08looking at previous history, like if all things were good.
1:18:12So that could be, if we get up to that top end of that scale,
1:18:15which probably won't,
1:18:16but if we got to the top end of that scale,
1:18:19that's like 10% of the revenue for the quarter,
1:18:21just a lot right off, like that's no joke.
1:18:24- And traditionally Apple's Q3s
1:18:26have actually been a lot less,
1:18:27they've been in the fifties to sixties.
1:18:29So it could be a scenario here too,
1:18:32where they're looking at 81.4 last quarter
1:18:35and they're thinking,
1:18:36wow, we were actually thinking it'd be down
1:18:38and it'd be more like 70.
1:18:40And now it might be 62 or something like that.
1:18:44And like, again, in the grand scheme of things,
1:18:47is Apple fine?
1:18:48Apple's fine.
1:18:49I got a very, my Mac world column posted with a,
1:18:53sometimes they're inflammatory headlines.
1:18:54I didn't mind this one so much,
1:18:56but I got a very angry email from somebody who was like,
1:19:00how dare you say that Apple is doomed?
1:19:02I'm like, "Well, didn't say that."
1:19:03And he's like, "They're so rich."
1:19:04I'm like, "I did say that part,
1:19:06but Apple must be defended at all costs."
1:19:08We know that.
1:19:09Anyway, my point was just like,
1:19:13they're gonna be fine having $8 billion of extra demand
1:19:17in one way is a good thing, right?
1:19:19People really want to buy your products,
1:19:21but if you can't convert that into sales, that's painful.
1:19:24And I think what they're gonna do is,
1:19:25I think they're gonna have a painful quarter
1:19:26where they're gonna be down
1:19:27and everybody's gonna freak out.
1:19:28And then, you know, what's probably gonna happen
1:19:30is that they're gonna have guidance for the next quarter
1:19:32that say, oh, we're gonna be fine.
1:19:34We're gonna get it all back.
1:19:35That's probably what's gonna happen.
1:19:37But I would say, I would expect that next quarter
1:19:42will not be like the last kind of eight boring quarters
1:19:46where they've just done great.
1:19:48I think it's gonna be one of those,
1:19:50yeah, let me tell you about the impact.
1:19:52Maybe it'll be like great news everybody,
1:19:53only 4 billion, but still 4 billion in lost sales
1:19:58is not great.
1:19:59And it's the supply chain.
1:20:00It's just, this is how it's hitting Apple.
1:20:02And everybody who's trying to buy an Apple product right now
1:20:05and discovering that they can't get it for months,
1:20:08they know, they have felt this very thing.
1:20:11That you are, your money that you wanna put
1:20:15toward an Apple product that you can't buy right now
1:20:17is part of that four to eight billion.
1:20:19Like you're in this story.
1:20:21- Is my, like, if I paint a doom and gloom picture of like,
1:20:27what if this issue carries all the way through to new iPhone?
1:20:32Like that there are people in September
1:20:35that go to the Apple store to like, you know,
1:20:37they log online to go buy their phone
1:20:39and they cannot get one until 2023, right?
1:20:43'Cause that's like similar to what the Mac studio
1:20:45has been like, right?
1:20:46- Two things there.
1:20:47One is, I do wonder if you're talking about the ramp,
1:20:51if you're ramping up manufacturing of iPhones
1:20:54and I don't know when that starts to happen,
1:20:55but it probably will happen pretty soon, right?
1:20:58- I mean, the fact that we've been seeing these screens
1:21:00and as soon, right?
1:21:01It's coming.
1:21:02- So they're gonna start making this fall's iPhones.
1:21:04They start in advance so that they can make lots of them
1:21:06'cause they sell lots of them.
1:21:08I do wonder if one of the things that may be going on here
1:21:11is actually them saying,
1:21:13"We have to prioritize building the iPhone
1:21:16so everything else is going to kind of not ship."
1:21:19- Sacrificing.
1:21:20- And we're gonna take a hit this quarter
1:21:21because we can't not have iPhones in the fall.
1:21:25So that may be going on here.
1:21:26That is a, and when analysts ask, like, do you prioritize?
1:21:31Tim Cook does a very much, I mean,
1:21:33he doesn't say we love all our kids equally.
1:21:35He says more, more something like that's secret.
1:21:38And if I told you I would have to kill you
1:21:39is more of the line of his thing.
1:21:42But it's, I talk about prioritization
1:21:45and the iPhone being worth half of Apple's revenue.
1:21:48Well, I'll tell you, if there's like,
1:21:50does the Mac studio slide?
1:21:51I'm not saying this is actually an issue
1:21:53'cause they're probably assembled totally differently
1:21:55in different places, but it's like,
1:21:56you've got a choice that iPad Air sales
1:22:00are gonna be held for a little while,
1:22:02or we're gonna not have enough iPhones.
1:22:05There's no decision to be made there.
1:22:08Like we gotta have iPhones for launch.
1:22:10We gotta have iPhones to sell.
1:22:12It's our most popular product
1:22:13and they sell all in the holiday quarter
1:22:14and we've gotta make sure we make enough for that.
1:22:17So it wouldn't surprise me
1:22:18if that's going on in the background
1:22:21and quite rightly so.
1:22:23I also, the other thing hovering over this,
1:22:25my second point here is COVID, which is okay.
1:22:29Like in the United States, especially,
1:22:30everybody's like, "Oh, we're over COVID now.
1:22:32All the mask restrictions have been dropped
1:22:34and stuff like that."
1:22:34It's like, "Oh, we're over."
1:22:35Except people still are getting COVID.
1:22:37My favorite baseball team just had like five guys get COVID
1:22:40and not be able to play for a week.
1:22:43And they were all vaccinated and boosted,
1:22:44but it's Omicron and it happens.
1:22:49But like, look at China, and the lockdown's in Shanghai.
1:22:53And it's serious.
1:22:54It's like really serious,
1:22:56'cause they have these zero COVID policy.
1:22:57China being authoritarian state can just say,
1:23:00"No, you stay inside now."
1:23:03Whereas in the US, we're like,
1:23:04"Okay, people are tired of it.
1:23:05I guess it's over."
1:23:06We move on.
1:23:08China's like, "No, uh-uh, no, we don't want COVID cases."
1:23:11And as a result, they've had very few COVID deaths.
1:23:13But the result is that COVID is very much a thing
1:23:17in a place that is super important for Apple.
1:23:20Mark Gurman wrote about this in his newsletter this week.
1:23:25It's like, this is one of Apple's issues.
1:23:27We've talked about it here,
1:23:28is like they are so dependent on China.
1:23:30And in this case, it's not about the government in China
1:23:32doing something that upsets Apple
1:23:34as much as it is this knock-on effect
1:23:36of the government in China saying,
1:23:37"We're gonna be really serious
1:23:39about controlling the spread of COVID in Shanghai."
1:23:41But the net result is that the factory shut down,
1:23:44and they're still dealing with those effects,
1:23:46that's going to affect Apple to the state
1:23:48of four to $8 billion.
1:23:49Well, that's for this quarter,
1:23:50but what it also says is,
1:23:54how do you forecast when you don't know,
1:23:58'cause it's COVID and it's the Chinese government's policy,
1:24:02what if there's another outbreak in July
1:24:06and they close the factories again?
1:24:08That's, I think, the scariest thing from,
1:24:13if you're Tim Cook, is,
1:24:15okay, we'll take this hit now,
1:24:17but what if there's another hit
1:24:18that precludes us from manufacturing
1:24:22and hits our supply chain even harder
1:24:25and we can't get these things out there
1:24:26and we miss the moment for the iPhone again,
1:24:30like they did two years ago.
1:24:31That's pretty scary if I'm Tim Apple,
1:24:34I would be worried about that.
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1:27:15and Relay FM. This is some #AskUpgrade questions to finish out today's show. This one leads in
1:27:21from what we were just talking about and this comes from Crumble Door. I'm a wizard Harry.
1:27:26Apple's CFO said they quote planned, this is Luke, actually they Apple quotes planned to add
1:27:33new services that they're offering.
1:27:36What services do you think they're gonna add?
1:27:38What services do you want them to add?
1:27:40- Oh wow.
1:27:41- So the one I'm not sure.
1:27:44What I think they'll do is that stuff
1:27:45we've mentioned in the past, right?
1:27:47So I think more around finances and personal financing
1:27:50and also financing of iPhones, right?
1:27:54So like that you pay every month and you get an iPhone
1:27:56or you pay every month and you get an iPad every year.
1:27:59You remember we were talking about that?
1:28:00- Yeah, they're gonna bring the iPhone thing
1:28:02that's out there now that's like a separate kind of loan
1:28:04thing and they're gonna bring it and make it a service.
1:28:06They built, they're building their financial system
1:28:08for that.
1:28:09They're building it for a pay in four, pay in three
1:28:11kind of thing where they'll do that themselves
1:28:13instead of using a partner.
1:28:14I do, yeah, I do wonder if they're gonna just do that
1:28:16for all their products eventually, right?
1:28:19Where it's like you just, you're on the iPad Pro plan
1:28:21and you pay and whenever there's a new iPad Pro plan,
1:28:24iPad Pro, you just get it and you send in the old one
1:28:27and they just kind of do that because some people want that
1:28:30and they are happy to have your credit card
1:28:33and charge you monthly.
1:28:33Apple's all about that now.
1:28:35I throw in sports.
1:28:37I think there will be a higher tier for Apple TV Plus
1:28:40if they get NFL Sunday ticket.
1:28:41I think that they may end up creating
1:28:43a kind of like a sports plus thing
1:28:47that will be maybe in a bundle,
1:28:49but it'll be something that you buy extra
1:28:51or even separately, which I think would be interesting.
1:28:54What if you don't want Apple TV Plus,
1:28:56but you want the Apple TV Sports,
1:28:57they could make it a separate thing instead.
1:29:01I don't know, I think there might be-
1:29:02- I think classical music is another one, right?
1:29:04Like I know that that's coming,
1:29:06are they gonna add that on?
1:29:08- Right, is that an add on for some things probably,
1:29:10for other things probably not.
1:29:11Keeping in mind that it's not just what new services,
1:29:13but it's also things that it could add to a bundle,
1:29:17which is interesting 'cause then it doesn't necessarily
1:29:19have to stand on its own.
1:29:20It could be a sweetening of the bundle,
1:29:22even if they offer it on its own.
1:29:24It's also just like it makes the Apple One bundle
1:29:26look nicer.
1:29:27God, what else could they do?
1:29:30- The idea of what would I want them to do
1:29:33is the one that I find the most complicated.
1:29:35'Cause while there are things that I want them,
1:29:37they're just not gonna be able to do.
1:29:39Like I want Apple to offer a service
1:29:41where I pay them every month
1:29:42and can watch a bunch of new movies from iTunes,
1:29:44but like that's not gonna happen.
1:29:46- Right, I'll tell, oh, I got one.
1:29:47I got one that'll make people very angry.
1:29:49Pro apps.
1:29:53- Oh. - Yeah, like Adobe.
1:29:55- Yeah, do it. - And Microsoft.
1:29:57- Yeah. - Where you pay a monthly fee
1:29:59for Final Cut or a monthly fee for Logic
1:30:02or you pay a monthly fee for a bundle.
1:30:04Right now their model is you buy it
1:30:08and you use it for a long time without paying
1:30:11and then they do a new version and you have to buy it,
1:30:13which is very old school and I get why you do that,
1:30:17but even the App Store now works with subscription models.
1:30:21So I wonder if they will do a milestone update
1:30:25of Final Cut and Logic.
1:30:27And in addition to offering them as a, you know,
1:30:29you can do a paid upgrade, maybe,
1:30:33they'll just roll that into a subscription thing.
1:30:34It would be something they could call subscription revenue.
1:30:37And their model now, I'm always surprised
1:30:39'cause as much as I like it,
1:30:40I think it's a really good deal.
1:30:41Like I buy Logic once and I use it for years
1:30:43and never pay Apple for it.
1:30:46And if I were Apple, I'd be looking at that saying,
1:30:48can we get money out of this guy
1:30:50who's using Logic all the time?
1:30:51And the answer is yes, you can, you just have to do it.
1:30:54So people will hate that idea,
1:30:56but I think it's a possibility.
1:30:57- Yeah, I mean, if it would bring,
1:31:00I was gonna say more features,
1:31:01but Logic does a really good job with that anyway, I think.
1:31:05But like maybe we would bring iPad versions
1:31:07and I would be keen.
1:31:09- Sure, sure.
1:31:10I also wonder, another wacky idea,
1:31:13but I still think they should offer
1:31:17an iCloud extension that is Mac backup,
1:31:22which I know Mac backup is complicated
1:31:26because there's a lot of extra data there,
1:31:28but it just means you're selling people extra data.
1:31:31I mean, again, I know there's a lot of competition
1:31:37out there for backup,
1:31:38but to have it be OS integrated time machine
1:31:40that works over the cloud and it says,
1:31:42"Sorry, you need to pay for an extra four terabytes
1:31:46of backup data, whatever it is.
1:31:48- I would love it if Time Machine
1:31:50could just sync to the cloud,
1:31:51like that I didn't have to have a drive anymore.
1:31:54It just was synced to the cloud.
1:31:56Like I would love that personally.
1:31:58I use backblaze, but I would also like to pay for Time,
1:32:02Time Machine to just be synced to the cloud,
1:32:04like just go for it. - Time Machine in the cloud.
1:32:06And again, does that feature already exist in competition?
1:32:11Of course it does,
1:32:12but the advantage of being the first party,
1:32:14the fact that they already do it for their iOS devices,
1:32:17I just, I think there's more money to be made there.
1:32:20I would also say an internet security thing,
1:32:22speaking of them just doing other people's business,
1:32:25if they're not gonna build their own routers
1:32:28or whatever like that,
1:32:28they could totally do a VPN that was built in.
1:32:32And again, this is the case.
1:32:34Look, I'm suggesting a lot of things
1:32:36that will make people very angry here.
1:32:38I'm not saying that I love these ideas,
1:32:40but like if you're Apple- - None of these are like,
1:32:41yeah, I'll wear into it.
1:32:42same as like charging every month for logical vinyl cut. We're not like, "Oh yeah man, great."
1:32:47No. It's just like these are like good ideas for things we think Apple could do. Right,
1:32:51and if I think I'm getting away with something then probably somebody at Apple's like, "We should
1:32:54make that guy pay us." But VPN, consumer VPN, right? Not business VPN, but like there are a
1:33:00lot of consumer VPNs out there and you know we've had them as sponsors and like there are a lot of
1:33:05them out there but they don't have first-party advantage, right? They don't have the, "You trust
1:33:09Apple and we've built it into our operating system and you flip a switch and they can't
1:33:13do it like for everybody, but they could certainly do it. They've already, you know, they've
1:33:17already had added some iCloud features to the OS that you have to be a paying subscriber
1:33:24to get, right? The iCloud privacy stuff. It would be a logical extension for them to say,
1:33:29we're actually going to enhance privacy further and if you pay us this, you can get a full-on
1:33:35VPN that's run by Apple or at least vouched for by Apple. Not saying they will do it, it's just like
1:33:42it's there for them to do. And I wonder, I think the real question is who at Apple is rifling
1:33:49through the couch cushions essentially looking for places where they can find those, the loose
1:33:56change. I don't know why I use the couch cushion metaphor, but there it is. - Dom asked, this is in
1:34:02in relation to us talking about spatial audio.
1:34:05How do you feel about Apple's spatialized stereo feature
1:34:09being used when somebody listens to your show?
1:34:12It dramatically changes the sound
1:34:14that you obviously create deliberately,
1:34:16so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that.
1:34:18So you can turn this on if you have AirPods,
1:34:21if it's not already on.
1:34:22Some apps turn it on by default, I don't know why.
1:34:25But like you're listening to the podcast app right now,
1:34:27you can long press on the volume
1:34:29and there'll be an option called spatialized stereo.
1:34:32and you can turn it on and it sounds like we're all around you.
1:34:35Like it's a terrible feature, I think, honestly.
1:34:38But how do you feel about people listening to upgrade
1:34:40and spatialize stereo?
1:34:42- The idea that we're creating it deliberately,
1:34:44I mean, our podcast is mono.
1:34:46I mean, the theme is stereo.
1:34:48- That's not completely true, but.
1:34:50- Well, but the theme is stereo.
1:34:51You don't pan us though, right?
1:34:53- No.
1:34:54- We're both dead center.
1:34:56- We're both dead center, we're both mono.
1:34:58- So the MP3 file is stereo.
1:35:00- Is stereo for the music.
1:35:01But the only thing you ever hear that's in stereo is the theme song.
1:35:04Uh huh.
1:35:05Correct.
1:35:06Right?
1:35:07Everything else is just mono and it saves the space and it uses the bit rates to do
1:35:08the mono because we're not panned or anything other than that episode where we took a walk
1:35:12in the woods and that was all 3D with sound effects and people were angry about it.
1:35:15And that's Summer of Fun's coming up.
1:35:17I mean, Spatial Audio version of Upgrade, you never know.
1:35:19Who knows?
1:35:20But right now it would be less interesting because it's just me going back over here.
1:35:23Hi!
1:35:24Spatial Audio!
1:35:25Oh, I'm back, Myke.
1:35:27I left space behind there for a moment.
1:35:29So I don't know.
1:35:30- I don't think spatialized stereo sounds very good.
1:35:32I think it just adds reverb,
1:35:34which I find to be kind of odd.
1:35:36But the thing is, I'm not gonna be precious about it
1:35:39because people listen to us at 3X.
1:35:42So like I lost that battle a long time ago, you know?
1:35:45- Right.
1:35:46Hello to those people.
1:35:50- You know, like I've given up on that feeling ages ago.
1:35:55- Yeah, hard to be precious about it.
1:35:57I mean, what we always say is like,
1:35:59this show is made to be at 1X,
1:36:01and then you do what you want.
1:36:03So if people wanna listen to us in a reverb space,
1:36:05that's fine.
1:36:06The truth is though, we're not supplying any information.
1:36:08It would be different.
1:36:09I would feel different about it
1:36:10if we even subtly panned us left and right,
1:36:14because then you would have this like,
1:36:15"Oh wow, now I can see it.
1:36:18"Myke is over there and Jason is over here."
1:36:21But we don't even do that.
1:36:22So anything that it's doing there is gonna be lackluster
1:36:25'cause it can't pull us apart.
1:36:28Like I already get what I want, right?
1:36:29Which is this show is encoded
1:36:33at 128 kilobit per second stereo,
1:36:36which is not what people usually do,
1:36:38but it's what I want to do
1:36:39because I think the show sounds better.
1:36:40Our voices sound better with a higher bit rate.
1:36:44So typically upgrade,
1:36:46or actually pretty much any show that Myke Hurley edits,
1:36:48will be a little bit larger in size
1:36:51than maybe some other people do.
1:36:52But that's my prerogative as the editor of the show
1:36:54and the other shows that I edit,
1:36:56which is I like them when our voices
1:36:58have a higher clarity to them.
1:37:01'Cause I mean, for me, the reason for this is
1:37:03when I edit, I hear our voices
1:37:05and I hear them uncompressed.
1:37:06- So everybody can go back to last summer
1:37:09where we released the different versions of Upgrade
1:37:11at the different bit rates.
1:37:12If you wanna hear our high quality lossless
1:37:15or lower quality bit rate voices.
1:37:18But yeah, that's what we're using the stereo for is
1:37:21we're actually not using stereo.
1:37:23It's stereo 128.
1:37:24It uses the way MP3 works.
1:37:26It is using the stereo differences for the theme song.
1:37:29But once the theme song is,
1:37:30and I don't even know the theme song's not even
1:37:32that stereo-y, but it is a little bit.
1:37:34- It is a little bit, especially the one you use.
1:37:36(laughs)
1:37:37- Oh yes.
1:37:37- It flies around your head like no one's business.
1:37:40- The bonus stereo, but then it gets to us
1:37:42and it's just using all that,
1:37:44it's what, joint stereo or whatever.
1:37:45So it knows that it's mono,
1:37:46so it just uses the whole bit rate for us.
1:37:48- Yeah.
1:37:49- Yeah, well. - What episode was that
1:37:52when we did the various versions?
1:37:54I wanna find it for the show notes
1:37:56in case people don't know what we're talking about.
1:37:57We did an episode where we encoded and uploaded the show
1:38:01in various bit rates.
1:38:03- Yeah, including a lossless version
1:38:05because people were, it's episode 360.
1:38:07- Thank you.
1:38:08- It's called Big Minimizers, great title.
1:38:10And then we made it available in Apple Lossless, 56K, 8K,
1:38:16which sounds like we are at the end of underwater somewhere.
1:38:20- You gotta listen to the 8K version.
1:38:22I did that one just for me
1:38:24- Because it was just so, it's unlistenable.
1:38:26- It is, it's nonsense.
1:38:29- You can't hear us.
1:38:30- But you can hear, and the regular one's 128.
1:38:32So you can, that was our little ironic thing of like,
1:38:36well, if you really want to hear us lossless,
1:38:38you can for this episode and discover
1:38:40that it really doesn't sound any different.
1:38:42- No, and that is because genuinely,
1:38:44like I encode higher than most people would,
1:38:48and it's kind of like at the edge of where
1:38:50I think you stop hearing any difference,
1:38:52which is like 128 for voice.
1:38:54So the lossless version of our show
1:38:57kind of just sounds like the regular one,
1:38:58but maybe at some other shows it would be different.
1:39:01It would sound a bit richer.
1:39:03- Maybe.
1:39:04Anyway, Logic lets you now do spatial audio mastering.
1:39:08So you know for now, I'll put that on our list
1:39:10for the summer of fun.
1:39:11Maybe we'll get there. - You can put it on the list,
1:39:13but I do not want to learn these tools.
1:39:15Yeah, so if the spatial audio version of upgrade
1:39:18is gonna happen, which I would like it to,
1:39:20I don't think it's gonna be me that puts that one together.
1:39:23- I might do that or I might master it for you.
1:39:24You do the edit and then send it to me
1:39:26for spatial mastering, 3D mastering.
1:39:28- Yes, what is it like mastered by Jason?
1:39:31- Yeah, yeah, I'm a regular Bob Ludwig at Master Disc.
1:39:34That's a reference.
1:39:36- All right, finally today, Luke asked,
1:39:38Jason, if I upgrade to the Mac Studio,
1:39:41what can I do with my 2018 Mac Mini?
1:39:43- You could sell it.
1:39:47You could donate it to somebody in need.
1:39:50family member or a local school. You could do what I do and use a Mac Mini as
1:39:54a server. I like having a computer that's separate in my house that is a server
1:40:01that is attached to extra storage. It does my time machine backup, it serves
1:40:05some web pages, it does some scripts in the background, it does a whole bunch of
1:40:09stuff. I've had a server in my house for like 20 years, more than 20 years now, and
1:40:14it's just I always find some use for it of having a little computer that's
1:40:17always on that's in a closet or in the corner or, you know, somewhere else in the house.
1:40:23And I can run stuff on it. I can use screen sharing to control it. I know macOS, so I
1:40:28prefer that to running a, like a, like a, uh, one of those network-attached storage
1:40:34things, right, where it's like Unix with big hard drives on it. Like, I just have a Mac
1:40:41running with a big hard drive attached to it, and then I can use the Mac, and I'm more
1:40:45comfortable with a Mac. So I'm a big fan of using a Mac Mini as a server, but failing
1:40:52that, you know, you really could sell it or hand it down or pass it off to somebody. Or
1:40:56I'd say the other thing is if you're using a Mac Studio now, you're losing Intel support
1:41:02if you ever use Windows or something like that, you could install Windows on it and
1:41:06use it as a little Windows box. Again, if you use Windows Pro, you can actually just
1:41:11keep it in the corner and use screen sharing to control it and then you don't have to worry
1:41:16about it. You're just you've got a little local Windows machine that you control from
1:41:20your Mac because obviously Apple Silicon has issues with Windows right now. So those are
1:41:25my suggestions. Myke, do you have any?
1:41:27- No.
1:41:28- Okay.
1:41:29- Like mine would have been the ones you mentioned at the start like find someone to give it
1:41:32to or whatever. Like this is why I wanted to ask you this question specifically for
1:41:37the server recommendation. I've never done any of this. Plex, you know, is I guess, you
1:41:43can do that. You could do all kinds of stuff with it, but these are not really things that
1:41:46I do or really have an inclination for. If you would like to send in a question for us
1:41:52to answer in a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #askupgrade
1:41:56or use question mark #askupgrade in the Real AFM members Discord, which you can get access
1:42:01to if you go to getupgradeplus.com. You can sign up to support the show and you'll get
1:42:06ad-free longer episodes of Upgrade each and every week.
1:42:11I think today in Upgrade Plus, I'm going to let Jason loose on the New York Times article
1:42:15after Steve, how Apple became a trillion dollar company and lost its soul, which was not something
1:42:20I really wanted to talk about on the show today.
1:42:23And I was intrigued that Jason put it into Upgrade Plus as a potential topic today.
1:42:27So you can sign up and you can hear Jason probably say some stuff about that article
1:42:31in case you're wondering about it.
1:42:34So go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up there.
1:42:37Thank you so much to Electric, TextExpander and Trade for their support of this show,
1:42:42but most importantly as always thank you for listening.
1:42:45We'll be back next time.
1:42:47You can find Jason in the meantime at sixcolors.com and @jasonel on twitter.
1:42:51I am @imike and don't forget to join us on Friday May 6th at 12.30pm eastern time,
1:43:00US time over at Myke.live where we will be working together to disassemble a touch ID
1:43:05keyboard for funsies. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye
1:43:10just now.
1:43:11Bye Myke Hurley.
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