Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Reel AFM, this is Upgrade episode 391. Today's show is brought to you by

00:00:15 ◼   ► Squarespace, Capital One and Memberful. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by

00:00:19 ◼   ► Jason Snow. Hi Jason. Hi Myke. I have a #snowtalk question. Comes from

00:00:23 ◼   ► Walk. Fake name. Interesting. Do you use the same

00:00:28 ◼   ► Siri voice on each of your HomePods

00:00:30 ◼   ► or do you give them their own voices

00:00:32 ◼   ► so they have unique personalities?

00:00:34 ◼   ► - Well, first off I only have, well, okay.

00:00:37 ◼   ► I have a HomePod mini.

00:00:38 ◼   ► It doesn't, I don't ever use it with Siri.

00:00:41 ◼   ► I have paired HomePods.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I do use them with Siri sometimes.

00:00:45 ◼   ► They have a voice that is not on my other devices.

00:00:48 ◼   ► We have taken, actually we followed Myke's advice

00:00:51 ◼   ► and we have made him a British gentleman

00:00:53 ◼   ► who is our butler who lives inside toucans,

00:00:57 ◼   ► not the bird toucans, the actual two home pods.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Wouldn't it be something if a butler lived inside a toucan,

00:01:04 ◼   ► there's like a whole children's book there.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, so the butler is the one who will,

00:01:09 ◼   ► while we're watching TV suddenly say,

00:01:11 ◼   ► "I don't think I got that."

00:01:14 ◼   ► And we look at him with scorn,

00:01:16 ◼   ► but it's kind of fun to have a different character

00:01:19 ◼   ► to play Ciri from place to place.

00:01:21 ◼   ► So I recommend it.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I actually think it's a lot of fun to have

00:01:24 ◼   ► different Ciri voices in different places

00:01:27 ◼   ► because you can personify them differently.

00:01:29 ◼   ► - What I also like for that for me personally,

00:01:32 ◼   ► is that my American friends stop referring to Siri

00:01:36 ◼   ► as a specific gender or not.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Like, 'cause for me, Siri has always been a,

00:01:42 ◼   ► like, well, what's called the male voice previously,

00:01:44 ◼   ► it doesn't have that assigned to it anymore,

00:01:48 ◼   ► but people have always referred to Siri as she

00:01:51 ◼   ► in America for that reason.

00:01:53 ◼   ► And that's not accurate to even like my

00:01:57 ◼   ► blinker worldview at all.

00:01:59 ◼   ► So yeah, I prefer it when people, you're gonna mix it up.

00:02:02 ◼   ► And I like now that it's part of the processes you choose.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Like that's like a thing now.

00:02:07 ◼   ► I don't think that was a thing before.

00:02:09 ◼   ► I think if you were setting up a device from nothing,

00:02:11 ◼   ► it's like choose this.

00:02:13 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Thank you to Mork for that question.

00:02:19 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question for us to open

00:02:22 ◼   ► episode of the show just send out a tweet with the hashtag snow talk or you

00:02:26 ◼   ► can use question mark snow talk in the relay FM members discord nanu nanu it was

00:02:33 ◼   ► waiting for some kind of thing what I thought you were going to spot is where's

00:02:39 ◼   ► Mindy that's what I thought you were gonna could have done that too mmm-hmm

00:02:44 ◼   ► but you didn't ask some follow where's Mindy I have some follow this first

00:02:48 ◼   ► comes from Nathan. Nathan has written in with a screenshot that shows that there was once

00:02:54 ◼   ► more animals available for profile images in Mac OS X. There were a bunch of cats, which

00:03:01 ◼   ► is one I was asked. There was also a dog and a dragonfly.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - A dragonfly, butterfly, a goldfish. Be a goldfish. Yeah, we also, I think Stephen Hackett

00:03:10 ◼   ► pointed out that there was, at one point, they were all of these images and they were

00:03:13 ◼   ► in low resolution. And then I kind of wonder if maybe when they went to a higher resolution

00:03:18 ◼   ► image they didn't have those images in high resolution so they dropped them and the ones

00:03:23 ◼   ► that remain are the ones that they did have but yeah this was this was great that there

00:03:27 ◼   ► used to be more animals other than the now traditional four birds and what was the and

00:03:34 ◼   ► a zebra yeah four birds and a zebra isn't that richard curtis movie yep that's a less

00:03:39 ◼   ► successful sequel the um when they left the cat names behind i think they also left the

00:03:44 ◼   ► The cat's behind apparently.

00:03:45 ◼   ► - That doesn't make any sense to me.

00:03:46 ◼   ► - And a dog. - I will say.

00:03:47 ◼   ► - And a goldfish.

00:03:48 ◼   ► - Speaking of Steven Hackett, he let me down.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Did he? - Because after the episode,

00:03:53 ◼   ► I went to Steven's Mac OS screenshot library

00:03:55 ◼   ► to see if I could find it.

00:03:58 ◼   ► And he doesn't have any screenshots

00:04:01 ◼   ► with the profile images in them.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I was hoping he would have that.

00:04:04 ◼   ► - All right, Steven, we're laying the challenge down

00:04:08 ◼   ► right now. - Oh, no.

00:04:09 ◼   ► I didn't lay this challenge down.

00:04:10 ◼   ► - We are laying the challenge down.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Steven, your library, look,

00:04:14 ◼   ► It's not for us, it's for your library's completion.

00:04:18 ◼   ► - You know you'll have to complete things.

00:04:20 ◼   ► - You need to get the options for login icon

00:04:25 ◼   ► in screenshots for every version.

00:04:28 ◼   ► You need to.

00:04:30 ◼   ► We've uncovered, it's like a news alert,

00:04:33 ◼   ► we've uncovered a missing piece

00:04:34 ◼   ► of the 512 pixel screenshot library.

00:04:36 ◼   ► - Jason, there is some very important news.

00:04:39 ◼   ► - Do we have music for this?

00:04:40 ◼   ► Is there like a song for this?

00:04:42 ◼   ► - In theory, there could have been,

00:04:43 ◼   ► but now it's too late.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I've read this aloud to Adina today

00:04:49 ◼   ► because these two sentences might be my favorite

00:04:52 ◼   ► two sentences I've ever written in our show prep document.

00:04:56 ◼   ► So here we go.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Apple will no longer include free ear pods

00:04:59 ◼   ► with new iPhone purchases.

00:05:01 ◼   ► French lawmakers now feel that reducing environmental impact

00:05:05 ◼   ► of e-waste is higher than the risk

00:05:07 ◼   ► of exposing children to radiation.

00:05:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:13 ◼   ► Longtime listeners may be aware that this is a thing that has come up a bunch on this show in the past

00:05:17 ◼   ► from a spec like it came up from a long time ago like when they stopped including the

00:05:23 ◼   ► Earbuds in the box in France. They had to continue doing it because of some law because of

00:05:29 ◼   ► Exposing brains that are still forming to radiation that in French law

00:05:35 ◼   ► Apparently this was a concern that holding a phone to your head was gonna

00:05:39 ◼   ► and we thought it was like a hands free kit thing in the car, like driving, but no it

00:05:43 ◼   ► wasn't that, it was a brain radiation thing. And then Apple continued to do it and we were

00:05:48 ◼   ► wondering, when they stopped putting the charger in the box, will they still do this? And yes,

00:05:52 ◼   ► in France, your iPhone will come in another box that inside of that box had a set of earpods,

00:05:59 ◼   ► not airpods, earpods, the wired ones with it. Well now the law has changed and this

00:06:05 ◼   ► law no longer exists anymore and Apple has confirmed they will no longer be doing this

00:06:09 ◼   ► in France because this is now an environmental concern of the additional paper and resources

00:06:15 ◼   ► required for these hands-free kits that nobody wants I'm sure in France and just throws away

00:06:20 ◼   ► right because who wants this every single time you get a phone that you also get wired

00:06:27 ◼   ► earbuds like who doesn't have their own at this point that they would prefer to use them.

00:06:33 ◼   ► stand for the national anthem of France.

00:06:36 ◼   ► - Of brain radiation.

00:06:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, well, the truth is this is,

00:06:41 ◼   ► and we talked about it a lot,

00:06:42 ◼   ► so we might as well talk about it one last time

00:06:44 ◼   ► as we put it down in the dirt, which is,

00:06:47 ◼   ► people used to be really worried about cell phone radiation,

00:06:49 ◼   ► even though I think there were never really any,

00:06:52 ◼   ► there was any direct proof.

00:06:54 ◼   ► Like, I think there's skepticism about it,

00:06:57 ◼   ► but the thought was, oh, we gotta protect people.

00:06:59 ◼   ► You should use hands-free instead of putting a phone

00:07:03 ◼   ► up to your head. And so back in the day, they made it a rule that if you were selling like

00:07:09 ◼   ► a candy bar phone, basically, that you needed to have a thing that you could click in and

00:07:15 ◼   ► stick on your ear so that you didn't have to hold the phone up. And that stayed on the

00:07:18 ◼   ► books as we went to a world where it's not really an issue anymore for the most part

00:07:26 ◼   ► and that headphones are all readily available and wireless headphones are readily available

00:07:30 ◼   ► and all of these things. And France was like, nope. And as the EU is saying, you need to stop e-waste

00:07:37 ◼   ► with all of these things like chargers. And France was like, no, no, no, no, no, you got to put it in

00:07:41 ◼   ► the box. So which, which as we learned was not truly put in the box. It was put in a box that

00:07:48 ◼   ► was with the box in a larger box. So there was also actual waste, right? Of like all these extra

00:07:55 ◼   ► your boxes. Anyway, bon voyage adieu? Something like that.

00:08:05 ◼   ► I am kind of sad about this because I loved talking about this story every year. And I

00:08:10 ◼   ► will also say I am really surprised that this was a story that I found myself on MacRumors.

00:08:15 ◼   ► Oh, interesting. I had somebody tweeted it at me and I put it in our little notes doc

00:08:20 ◼   ► because I was very excited and I said, oh boy, we got to talk about this one. I hope

00:08:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I'd put it in there as well.

00:08:27 ◼   ► But what I'm saying is I'm surprised nobody tweeted at me

00:08:29 ◼   ► because every year when MacRumors puts their post up

00:08:34 ◼   ► about the included AirPods or someone,

00:08:36 ◼   ► someone sends it to me.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Unfortunately, this post on MacRumors

00:08:40 ◼   ► was wrote by Sammy Fathy.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Usually, it's just Joe Rosignol writes this story

00:08:45 ◼   ► on behalf of Upgrade, I think.

00:08:47 ◼   ► - So listener Nathan tweeted to the Upgrade Twitter account

00:08:52 ◼   ► and that's where I saw it.

00:08:54 ◼   ► I imagine you already saw this important French EarPods follow up. Here's a link. So I hadn't

00:08:59 ◼   ► seen it.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Okay, so it had been sent. But okay, so that so I will apologize. Maybe I didn't check

00:09:05 ◼   ► the upgrade account quickly enough.

00:09:08 ◼   ► But big news, though. Big news.

00:09:11 ◼   ► This is very important news for the show. I would like to congratulate the marketing

00:09:18 ◼   ► department at Apple TV+ for an ad that they have produced called "Everyone but Jon Hamm"

00:09:25 ◼   ► which there will be a link in the show notes. If you have not watched this ad, treat yourself

00:09:30 ◼   ► for a one minute and eight second ad that I have so many questions about and I adore

00:09:37 ◼   ► it. Basically the conceit of the ad, Jon Hamm sitting in an incredible apartment somewhere

00:09:41 ◼   ► in LA and he is just complaining about the fact that Apple TV+ has so much content but

00:09:49 ◼   ► none of it is including him. And he's looking through and he's saying "Ted Lasso? I could

00:09:54 ◼   ► have been in that." And he's complaining about all of the different things, he's leaving

00:09:58 ◼   ► voicemails for Tom Hanks saying "How many movies have you got on there?" It is a really

00:10:04 ◼   ► really good ad and I'm I'm really I have like a bunch of questions about it right like one

00:10:11 ◼   ► why John Hamm people to why did John Hamm do this ad like it's it's excellent it's very

00:10:19 ◼   ► funny John Hamm by the way very funny people only really know him as what people mostly

00:10:25 ◼   ► know him for being Don Draper and madman but he's also a very good comedic actor too. He

00:10:30 ◼   ► He was in 30 Rock. He's been in a bunch of comedy things. He is a very funny comic actor

00:10:34 ◼   ► and people don't give him enough credit because he's Mr. Handsome and he was in Mad Men. But

00:10:39 ◼   ► he is actually really a funny guy. Canadians will know that he is in a commercial ad campaign

00:10:48 ◼   ► that had a very similar tone to this. I actually wonder if that was the inspiration here for

00:10:52 ◼   ► a delivery service called Skip the Dishes. And my Canadian friends send me the YouTube

00:10:56 ◼   ► blinks to those ads and they're very funny. He's really good at those ads. So I think

00:11:00 ◼   ► the reason he did this is because they paid him, but also the reason they wanted him is

00:11:05 ◼   ► because he is somebody people know and he doesn't take himself too seriously and is

00:11:11 ◼   ► happy to poke fun at his own self-image in ads. And then in the back of my head I'm also

00:11:17 ◼   ► thinking do they have to get this ad out now because they're about to announce the Jon

00:11:20 ◼   ► Hamm project that they've bought?

00:11:21 ◼   ► - Surely, right?

00:11:23 ◼   ► Like surely they must have said to him,

00:11:25 ◼   ► "Hey John, if you do this, we will put you in something."

00:11:28 ◼   ► Right, like that feels like it's got to be

00:11:30 ◼   ► the eventual end to this.

00:11:32 ◼   ► Like what I hope, genuine, is this is a campaign

00:11:34 ◼   ► and then it ends with finally the John Hamm show.

00:11:37 ◼   ► - Now we're announcing the John Hamm show.

00:11:40 ◼   ► Yeah, Zach pointed out Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,

00:11:44 ◼   ► he's in that too. - Excellent in that.

00:11:45 ◼   ► - He's the cult leader in that.

00:11:47 ◼   ► No, he is a very funny,

00:11:48 ◼   ► and his Saturday Night Live appearance is not,

00:11:50 ◼   ► He's a very funny actor who a lot of people only know

00:11:53 ◼   ► for being Don Draper, but this is, yeah,

00:11:58 ◼   ► it's a great ad.

00:11:59 ◼   ► It is a legitimately great ad.

00:12:00 ◼   ► I saw a lot of people, you know,

00:12:01 ◼   ► people have opinions about Apple ads.

00:12:03 ◼   ► We haven't talked about those ads that they've done

00:12:06 ◼   ► for the Apple Watch that have been running

00:12:07 ◼   ► during football games, especially here in the US that are--

00:12:09 ◼   ► - Oh, the ones that say you're going to die

00:12:11 ◼   ► unless you have an Apple Watch.

00:12:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, all these people would have died,

00:12:14 ◼   ► but they had their Apple Watch,

00:12:15 ◼   ► which I actually think are incredibly effective ads,

00:12:17 ◼   ► and we can debate whether they should exist,

00:12:18 ◼   ► but I think they're very effective.

00:12:20 ◼   ► - Oh, they exist for the reason that I find them weird,

00:12:23 ◼   ► like is what reason they should also exist?

00:12:25 ◼   ► 'Cause they make me uncomfortable, right?

00:12:27 ◼   ► - So this is just everybody looked at it and said,

00:12:31 ◼   ► this is a hilarious ad.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And I saw somebody I follow on Twitter

00:12:35 ◼   ► who mostly doesn't write about tech.

00:12:39 ◼   ► They write about TV and entertainment who said,

00:12:42 ◼   ► ah, this Apple company,

00:12:43 ◼   ► it's like they're pretty good at marketing their products.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Yeah, actually they are, but it's a good ad, very good ad.

00:12:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I really love it, and I hope that they do something.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Jon Hamm is awesome.

00:12:55 ◼   ► My favorite thing about most of Jon Hamm's

00:12:57 ◼   ► comedic appearances is they are unexpected or surprising.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Because he pops up, right?

00:13:05 ◼   ► Like he just pops up and stuff.

00:13:06 ◼   ► You're like, "Whoa, what's Jon Hamm doing here?"

00:13:08 ◼   ► - Why is Jon Hamm here?

00:13:09 ◼   ► My favorite moment in the ad, by the way,

00:13:12 ◼   ► is that he says, "Hey, Tom Hanks, I saw Finch.

00:13:15 ◼   ► "That was really great."

00:13:17 ◼   ► And you have this other one too, right?

00:13:19 ◼   ► The, like, Greyhound or whatever.

00:13:21 ◼   ► And I thought that was really the way it was phrased

00:13:23 ◼   ► because we know, like,

00:13:25 ◼   ► Greyhound was gonna be in a theater

00:13:27 ◼   ► and then the pandemic happened and Apple bought it

00:13:29 ◼   ► and they put it on Apple TV+.

00:13:30 ◼   ► I think Finch was a much earlier purchase by Apple

00:13:34 ◼   ► and is more of an Apple original than Greyhound was.

00:13:39 ◼   ► But I liked, I thought that was a very funny

00:13:41 ◼   ► little realistic detail where he's like,

00:13:43 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, and you were in that other one too."

00:13:46 ◼   ► And like only people who do upstream would really get that.

00:13:51 ◼   ► But I appreciate it.

00:13:53 ◼   ► I thought that was pretty funny.

00:13:53 ◼   ► - My favorite part is when I don't know much

00:13:56 ◼   ► about Swan Song, which is what is,

00:13:59 ◼   ► that stars Mahershala Ali, right?

00:14:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, apparently two of him.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - That's what I like.

00:14:03 ◼   ► They got two of him, I could have done one of those.

00:14:05 ◼   ► It's just so good.

00:14:07 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:14:09 ◼   ► It's a really excellent ad.

00:14:12 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:14:13 ◼   ► Next week is we're gonna be talking about Apple's Q1 results.

00:14:18 ◼   ► That's coming out on Thursday, 27th.

00:14:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, you thought this episode was packed and it is,

00:14:24 ◼   ► but next week's episode is gonna be packed too.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Yeah, the Apple results are Thursday, the 27th.

00:14:28 ◼   ► So we'll have a conversation about that here on Monday.

00:14:34 ◼   ► We're gonna do the usual six colors coverage

00:14:37 ◼   ► and maybe some extra stuff.

00:14:38 ◼   ► I'm toying with the idea of doing a little live stream,

00:14:41 ◼   ► doing a little live stream, a little video live stream after the call where Dan and I

00:14:46 ◼   ► will break it down and show some charts and do all that stuff.

00:14:48 ◼   ► So people should stay locked to six colors for your great coverage and then we'll break

00:14:52 ◼   ► it down.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Continue being locked to it, yes.

00:14:54 ◼   ► We'll break it down on Monday.

00:14:56 ◼   ► This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Capital One.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Have you ever hit a technical snafu while shopping online?

00:15:03 ◼   ► Has filling out payment fields given you a headache or has a mobile banking app been

00:15:07 ◼   ► down when you most wanted to use it?

00:15:09 ◼   ► Capital One believes everyone deserves better banking. This means easier access to money

00:15:14 ◼   ► and more security. That's why Capital One is investing in machine learning. Machine

00:15:19 ◼   ► learning allows Capital One to do things like fight fraud with random forests, with models

00:15:24 ◼   ► that quickly detect suspicious activity, making it faster to alert federal investigators,

00:15:29 ◼   ► and identify how mobile app outages happen with causal models. Keeping their mobile app

00:15:34 ◼   ► up and running doesn't happen by accident. Anomaly detection and incident response help

00:15:39 ◼   ► determine why app outages are happening so engineers can quickly remedy them.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Capital One speed up online shopping with machine learning at the edge. They make shopping

00:15:48 ◼   ► with virtual card numbers smoother and more secure. This technology is based on logistic

00:15:53 ◼   ► regression models and running inference in the browser. It identifies payment fields

00:15:57 ◼   ► which helps make using virtual card numbers easier and faster.

00:16:03 ◼   ► The potential of machine learning is so big. See how Capital One is using machine learning

00:16:07 ◼   ► to create the future of banking. Search "machine learning" at Capital One. Our thanks to Capital

00:16:12 ◼   ► One for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:16:15 ◼   ► Rumour round up Jason!

00:16:17 ◼   ► Coming in from Mark Gurman. Apple has lost another key member of its self driving car

00:16:23 ◼   ► project. Joe Bass who was the head of software engineering for the project. They left to

00:16:30 ◼   ► join Meta, with Bass's departure, nearly the entire Apple car management team in place

00:16:38 ◼   ► just one year ago is gone. Dave Scott, Jamie Wadeau, Dave Rosenthal and Benjamin Lyon all

00:16:44 ◼   ► left in early 2021. Doug Field, who ran the car team, headed for the exits in September.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Michael Szweszczuk, who was in charge of hardware for Apple's project, soon followed. Then

00:16:58 ◼   ► top engineers bolted. Bass had reported to field before moving under Kevin Lynch, the

00:17:09 ◼   ► new head of Apple's car team. Now, Mark Gilman's, the way he writes for his newsletter is much

00:17:14 ◼   ► more fun for me than, but so this is interesting. You've put a good note in here. Do you want

00:17:20 ◼   ► to ask this question?

00:17:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder if this is a sign

00:17:26 ◼   ► that things are getting real

00:17:30 ◼   ► or a sign that things are not going well.

00:17:32 ◼   ► And I actually can't decide

00:17:34 ◼   ► because I can see both of these scenarios, right?

00:17:37 ◼   ► Where they assign Kevin Lynch to do this.

00:17:41 ◼   ► And we kind of assumed that this is that moment

00:17:43 ◼   ► where I think Tim Cook is saying to Kevin Lynch,

00:17:46 ◼   ► "All right, you gotta find out if there's a product here

00:17:48 ◼   ► and we gotta move it toward it existing.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Otherwise, why are we doing this?

00:17:52 ◼   ► Right, like let's get real with this thing

00:17:55 ◼   ► and either and stop messing around basically.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Let's stop messing around and let's do this.

00:18:00 ◼   ► And I can see a bunch of people

00:18:03 ◼   ► who've been working on this project

00:18:04 ◼   ► that has sort of been, they've been toiling

00:18:06 ◼   ► and it's just sort of been this theoretical thing.

00:18:09 ◼   ► I could see somebody coming in from another part of Apple

00:18:12 ◼   ► who wants to ship a product

00:18:14 ◼   ► being something that they don't like.

00:18:16 ◼   ► And the cynical way for me to view it is

00:18:17 ◼   ► that it's a bunch of people who really kind of like

00:18:20 ◼   ► being paid a lot of money to tinker around with stuff,

00:18:24 ◼   ► but not ship a final product,

00:18:25 ◼   ► might leap to somewhere else

00:18:29 ◼   ► that is also going to allow them to tinker around.

00:18:31 ◼   ► Like that's a pretty good gig, right?

00:18:33 ◼   ► That you never actually have to ship,

00:18:35 ◼   ► you just kind of get paid a lot of money

00:18:36 ◼   ► to do some development work and then go somewhere else.

00:18:41 ◼   ► So I could definitely imagine a scenario,

00:18:43 ◼   ► and I'm not saying this is definitely what happened,

00:18:45 ◼   ► but I can imagine a scenario where Kevin Lynch comes in

00:18:47 ◼   ► and says, "Okay, what are we doing?

00:18:48 ◼   ► we're gonna drop this, we're gonna do this,

00:18:50 ◼   ► we're gonna get this thing out the door.

00:18:52 ◼   ► And the people who were managing it are like,

00:18:54 ◼   ► yeah, I'm out of here,

00:18:55 ◼   ► and I'm gonna take some of my people with us,

00:18:57 ◼   ► and we're gonna go over to Meadow where they're gonna pay us

00:18:59 ◼   ► and they're not gonna maybe require the level of results

00:19:03 ◼   ► that we're suddenly being asked here.

00:19:04 ◼   ► - Or the approach changed.

00:19:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, for sure. - You know, like,

00:19:08 ◼   ► that Kevin Lynch comes in and he's like,

00:19:10 ◼   ► no, I wanna do it this way.

00:19:11 ◼   ► And they're like, no, I don't wanna do it that way,

00:19:12 ◼   ► so I'm going. - I think those go together,

00:19:14 ◼   ► because I think that if Kevin Lynch is coming in,

00:19:16 ◼   ► My guess again, my read would be he's coming in

00:19:20 ◼   ► because Tim wants this project to get real.

00:19:23 ◼   ► And I'm sure people didn't appreciate that.

00:19:25 ◼   ► That is a new approach, right?

00:19:27 ◼   ► Regardless of whether they thought they were real or not,

00:19:32 ◼   ► they were kind of confronted with like,

00:19:33 ◼   ► no, we're gonna do it this way

00:19:34 ◼   ► and they may not like that.

00:19:36 ◼   ► I think it is also potentially a sign

00:19:37 ◼   ► that things aren't going well.

00:19:38 ◼   ► And it's a flip side of that same story,

00:19:40 ◼   ► which is Kevin Lynch comes in and says, we wanna do this.

00:19:43 ◼   ► And everybody's like, are you kidding?

00:19:45 ◼   ► and they're out of there.

00:19:46 ◼   ► So I can't, based on all of this limited information,

00:19:51 ◼   ► I can't decide whether this is that moment

00:19:55 ◼   ► where it's like, ah, yes, this is the inevitable shakeup

00:19:59 ◼   ► because they're getting serious

00:20:01 ◼   ► and they're gonna ship a product

00:20:03 ◼   ► or whether it's the proof

00:20:05 ◼   ► that they are never gonna ship a product.

00:20:08 ◼   ► It could be either one.

00:20:10 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:20:12 ◼   ► - I do think Tim Cook wants it to be real.

00:20:13 ◼   ► - Yes, I mean, I think they do.

00:20:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, and whether this is, I think maybe, you know,

00:20:17 ◼   ► who knows whether Kevin Lynch has gone in there

00:20:19 ◼   ► and said this needs to be real and has discovered

00:20:22 ◼   ► we are going to make it real or has discovered,

00:20:24 ◼   ► oh, it is not real.

00:20:25 ◼   ► But like, I could totally see after all of this time

00:20:28 ◼   ► and all this money and all of these people,

00:20:29 ◼   ► Tim Cook taking Kevin Lynch,

00:20:31 ◼   ► who basically got the Apple Watch across the finish line

00:20:35 ◼   ► and said, "Kevin, you need to get this thing

00:20:37 ◼   ► across the finish line."

00:20:38 ◼   ► I think that's almost certainly what's going on.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Like I really based on the tea leaves here,

00:20:44 ◼   ► I would think that.

00:20:45 ◼   ► I just don't know whether the result is, oh, Tim, mm-mm.

00:20:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:50 ◼   ► Or no, it's not gonna happen.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Or whether it's like, yeah, we'll make it happen.

00:20:54 ◼   ► - I wouldn't be willing to put money on this,

00:20:56 ◼   ► but I don't think this product's ever real.

00:20:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I, if I-

00:21:02 ◼   ► - I think there's too many problems inherent

00:21:04 ◼   ► with creating a self-driving car

00:21:05 ◼   ► that Apple would not be willing to approach

00:21:09 ◼   ► with push, come to shove.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I think you're probably right.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I think that the most likely scenario is going to be

00:21:16 ◼   ► that Apple takes its tech that it builds

00:21:20 ◼   ► as a part of this project

00:21:22 ◼   ► and tries to turn it into something else,

00:21:27 ◼   ► maybe by finding a partner, maybe by selling it off.

00:21:32 ◼   ► But yeah, I wouldn't say that it's more likely than not

00:21:36 ◼   ► that there's an Apple-powered car out there in five years.

00:21:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't even mean just like the issues

00:21:43 ◼   ► of building a car.

00:21:44 ◼   ► I'm not saying you're saying this,

00:21:46 ◼   ► but I mean like even if they partnered with BMW

00:21:49 ◼   ► and said like Apple's the brains behind this software,

00:21:52 ◼   ► I just can't imagine it.

00:21:54 ◼   ► There's so many problems that are tied to this.

00:21:56 ◼   ► - I didn't detail my scenario as much as I would

00:22:01 ◼   ► or could have because what I would then say is,

00:22:04 ◼   ► and then even if they do something like that,

00:22:06 ◼   ► it's entirely possible that it goes nowhere

00:22:09 ◼   ► or isn't very good because it's been boiled down

00:22:12 ◼   ► to just like this last little part.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And it's sort of nothing

00:22:16 ◼   ► or somebody makes a deal with Apple 'cause it's Apple,

00:22:18 ◼   ► but it turns out that it amounts to nothing.

00:22:20 ◼   ► I mean, there are lots of ways that could go.

00:22:22 ◼   ► I'm not saying they couldn't do it.

00:22:24 ◼   ► I'm just saying that it's really hard.

00:22:27 ◼   ► My product line about this has always been,

00:22:32 ◼   ► Apple looks at the future,

00:22:34 ◼   ► sees that the future of automotive

00:22:36 ◼   ► includes things Apple is good at.

00:22:39 ◼   ► and thinks, why not us and puts money into it,

00:22:42 ◼   ► to investigate it.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Even after all of that money, all of that sunk cost,

00:22:47 ◼   ► it's not bad to say, oh, we learned why it's not us.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Right? It's not bad to say that.

00:22:54 ◼   ► But I also understand- - They should investigate

00:22:56 ◼   ► every area. - Sure.

00:22:58 ◼   ► But also they miss their time, right?

00:23:00 ◼   ► I mean, like their time would have been to either buy Tesla

00:23:03 ◼   ► or to do a Tesla-like or Rivian-like product

00:23:06 ◼   ► back at an earlier point,

00:23:09 ◼   ► because now all the major auto manufacturers are on board

00:23:13 ◼   ► and it's actually gonna be a lot harder

00:23:14 ◼   ► to enter this market.

00:23:16 ◼   ► And if they're really thinking that they're gonna just

00:23:19 ◼   ► develop autonomous golf carts for college campuses

00:23:22 ◼   ► or something like that, that's not much of an Apple project.

00:23:24 ◼   ► I don't know why they would even do that.

00:23:26 ◼   ► So I don't know, they may have missed their moment.

00:23:29 ◼   ► I think when all is said and done,

00:23:31 ◼   ► if this amounts to nothing,

00:23:32 ◼   ► I think they absolutely should have done it.

00:23:35 ◼   ► They should have taken their shot

00:23:36 ◼   ► because I think it is true that there are a lot of things

00:23:39 ◼   ► that Apple does very well that might translate

00:23:41 ◼   ► to the future of automotive, but for whatever reason,

00:23:44 ◼   ► it just doesn't seem to have panned out.

00:23:47 ◼   ► I'm not sure it's gonna pan out for Google either,

00:23:49 ◼   ► to be fair. - No.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - I mean, yeah, right?

00:23:51 ◼   ► - Well, maybe.

00:23:52 ◼   ► So, going back to what you were just saying,

00:23:54 ◼   ► I think the thing you've hit on really nicely there is,

00:23:57 ◼   ► it also, I think, couples with Mark Gurman's other reporting

00:24:00 ◼   ► that we were talking about a few weeks ago

00:24:02 ◼   ► of Apple wants to leapfrog everyone

00:24:05 ◼   ► and make this incredible car

00:24:06 ◼   ► that doesn't even need a steering wheel.

00:24:08 ◼   ► which we know is just unrealistic for so many reasons,

00:24:12 ◼   ► if that is the case.

00:24:13 ◼   ► However, I can see that that's what they're going for

00:24:16 ◼   ► because Apple's whole thing is we've made something

00:24:18 ◼   ► that's so much better than everyone else, right?

00:24:20 ◼   ► And the only thing that can be better

00:24:22 ◼   ► than all of these car companies making really great

00:24:25 ◼   ► electric cars which do a bunch of interesting

00:24:28 ◼   ► but not completely full self-driving stuff

00:24:30 ◼   ► is to go to that level.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Now if they would have started this years ago,

00:24:34 ◼   ► they could have produced something that's like,

00:24:37 ◼   ► what people think about Tesla,

00:24:40 ◼   ► and that would have been all they needed to do.

00:24:42 ◼   ► And it would have leapfrogged what everyone else is doing,

00:24:45 ◼   ► but they're too late.

00:24:46 ◼   ► So if they needed to do that now,

00:24:48 ◼   ► the level they have to go to is so far.

00:24:50 ◼   ► And so what I was going to say about Google is,

00:24:52 ◼   ► Google doesn't have the reputation of doing that,

00:24:56 ◼   ► so they could settle in the middle.

00:24:58 ◼   ► I don't think Apple would.

00:25:00 ◼   ► And I think what they would have to do

00:25:03 ◼   ► to be so far ahead of everyone else

00:25:06 ◼   ► is honestly, I think might need

00:25:10 ◼   ► two large scale infrastructure changes

00:25:13 ◼   ► that any modern society could actually handle.

00:25:16 ◼   ► I don't know. - Right.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I think you make a very good point,

00:25:20 ◼   ► which is to differentiate themselves at this point,

00:25:25 ◼   ► they kind of have to do a moonshot.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And that's probably where that whole

00:25:29 ◼   ► we're not gonna have a steering wheel thing comes from

00:25:32 ◼   ► is almost like a pep talk to the people who work on it

00:25:35 ◼   ► that like this is our opportunity is in a, you know,

00:25:39 ◼   ► we can't just come out with a Tesla, right?

00:25:43 ◼   ► Because there already is one.

00:25:44 ◼   ► And now there are all the big automakers are doing it too.

00:25:47 ◼   ► So what can Apple add that will make this product

00:25:50 ◼   ► a product that's better than any other product

00:25:52 ◼   ► that's in existence in this category?

00:25:54 ◼   ► And you start perhaps to come down to,

00:25:57 ◼   ► well, we've got the Silicon and we've got the sensor data

00:26:00 ◼   ► and we can build something that, you know,

00:26:03 ◼   ► way better than those amateurs over at Tesla

00:26:05 ◼   ► who've been trying this for years

00:26:06 ◼   ► and still haven't gotten it right.

00:26:07 ◼   ► It's like, okay, all right, Apple, Apple, all right.

00:26:11 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:26:11 ◼   ► But the problem with that is it may be impossible

00:26:15 ◼   ► or nearly impossible, or it may be something

00:26:17 ◼   ► that Kevin Lynch goes in there and goes,

00:26:19 ◼   ► "Yeah, we could do this in 20 years."

00:26:22 ◼   ► - In one city.

00:26:25 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, sure.

00:26:28 ◼   ► - This is just, I think that this is a really,

00:26:31 ◼   ► really complicated problem that we're a long time away from having a solution to.

00:26:35 ◼   ► Like a long time away. And so I'm, and I honestly, I think the only way to get that solution

00:26:42 ◼   ► is a Tesla-like approach, which is building it as the cars are, you know, like cars are driving

00:26:49 ◼   ► around. And that information is being poured back in. And then we're trying to use that

00:26:54 ◼   ► to map it all out. Like, I don't know if you can just be like, bang, we did it. Here you go.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Like I don't, I just can't foresee how that's a possibility. It seems too complicated.

00:27:03 ◼   ► It is, it is hard to, to imagine it. I will, I'm never gonna say never because the fact is if you

00:27:09 ◼   ► had told me some number of years ago that Apple would have that Jon Hamm ad listing all those

00:27:14 ◼   ► people and that Apple, Apple won an Emmy. I think that's a less hard problem, but sure.

00:27:20 ◼   ► No, but like this is what I'm saying is, not that it's an easier problem to solve,

00:27:24 ◼   ► but that our conception of Apple,

00:27:28 ◼   ► Apple is so huge and has so much money

00:27:29 ◼   ► that I think you make a mistake if you say,

00:27:31 ◼   ► "Oh, Apple will never do that because..."

00:27:33 ◼   ► And I see people write this stuff all the time

00:27:36 ◼   ► where it's like, "Oh, Apple will never do that because..."

00:27:38 ◼   ► And it's always because I have such a limited view

00:27:41 ◼   ► of what Apple is, and I don't think

00:27:43 ◼   ► there'll ever be anything other than that.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And Apple has changed what it is so many times now

00:27:47 ◼   ► that I don't wanna say, "Apple's never gonna sell a car

00:27:50 ◼   ► 'cause who can imagine Apple selling a car

00:27:52 ◼   ► and who would buy an Apple car?"

00:27:54 ◼   ► It's like, okay, but would that be not leaving the technical challenges alone?

00:27:59 ◼   ► Would that be outlandish to imagine a future in 15 years where actually some of the highest end cars that are being sold that are popular in parts of the United States are Apple cars?

00:28:11 ◼   ► Like that seems bizarre.

00:28:13 ◼   ► And yet is that any more bizarre than some of the other moves Apple has made?

00:28:17 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:28:18 ◼   ► I think the challenge is what you said, which is can Apple be so far ahead that they can enter and blow people away?

00:28:27 ◼   ► And what they may need to accomplish to get to that level may not be possible,

00:28:33 ◼   ► given the state of roads and road technology and all of those other things.

00:28:38 ◼   ► So Apple making a car? I can imagine.

00:28:41 ◼   ► Apple making a full self-driving fully autonomous car straight out of the gate?

00:28:47 ◼   ► No, I can't imagine that.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - Let's just say it.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I think Apple could make a Tesla essentially, right?

00:28:54 ◼   ► I think Apple could make a car

00:28:57 ◼   ► like following the Tesla model,

00:28:59 ◼   ► they could make a more expensive, but super high tech car.

00:29:03 ◼   ► It would have their sensor technology

00:29:05 ◼   ► and their Silicon in it.

00:29:06 ◼   ► There's nobody, is there anybody out there

00:29:11 ◼   ► who owns a Tesla who says,

00:29:12 ◼   ► you know what Tesla's really good at is

00:29:14 ◼   ► software and user interface, right?

00:29:16 ◼   ► Like they release new software betas

00:29:20 ◼   ► and people complain about them and their UI is weird.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And when I drove a Tesla Model 3 last year for a week,

00:29:26 ◼   ► you know, it doesn't even have text size controls

00:29:29 ◼   ► for people who are nearsighted.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Like it's so, like they're not,

00:29:35 ◼   ► there are lots of things Tesla's bad at

00:29:37 ◼   ► that Apple is good at.

00:29:37 ◼   ► So like, do I think Apple could in five years

00:29:40 ◼   ► make a car that was basically kind of like a Tesla,

00:29:43 ◼   ► but had Apple's OS and silicon and software

00:29:47 ◼   ► and a few differentiating features?

00:29:49 ◼   ► I think they could.

00:29:50 ◼   ► The question is, is that what they wanna do?

00:29:53 ◼   ► Is that what they want their approach to be?

00:29:56 ◼   ► Is we're really just kind of making something

00:29:58 ◼   ► that's kind of like a Tesla,

00:30:00 ◼   ► but it has the Apple logo on it instead of the Tesla logo.

00:30:02 ◼   ► And if that's what they wanna do, I think they can do it.

00:30:05 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:30:07 ◼   ► I mean, and do you think Tim Cook

00:30:09 ◼   ► and all his operations people are like,

00:30:10 ◼   ► "Oh, we could figure out car factories."

00:30:12 ◼   ► and then they'll find out that they can't.

00:30:14 ◼   ► But right, like I think they could totally do it.

00:30:16 ◼   ► I just, is that what Apple wants to do?

00:30:19 ◼   ► Is that a product that is, that clears the bar for Apple?

00:30:23 ◼   ► And maybe it does, but it seems to me

00:30:26 ◼   ► that they wanna really make their mark

00:30:28 ◼   ► and not make a product that's kind of like me too,

00:30:30 ◼   ► but a little nicer.

00:30:31 ◼   ► But maybe, maybe that'll be their approach.

00:30:33 ◼   ► They've done that in the past.

00:30:34 ◼   ► - The factories, I'm actually pretty confident

00:30:36 ◼   ► they could do it because I don't know how much harder

00:30:39 ◼   ► it is to manufacture however many millions of cars

00:30:42 ◼   ► versus hundreds of millions of iPhones.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Like I feel like, you know.

00:30:45 ◼   ► - But you have to have a partner.

00:30:46 ◼   ► You do have to have a manufacturing partner.

00:30:48 ◼   ► - But they, you know, they have,

00:30:50 ◼   ► I'm sure that Foxconn could help them do it, you know.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - They could absolutely do it.

00:30:55 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:30:56 ◼   ► I think in five years they could do it, for sure.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - One of the first things that I was like,

00:31:01 ◼   ► no way would they do it, this is how would you sell them?

00:31:03 ◼   ► But Tesla don't have showrooms.

00:31:05 ◼   ► You just buy them online, right?

00:31:07 ◼   ► Like, I mean, you can go and like,

00:31:09 ◼   ► and they could set that up, right?

00:31:10 ◼   ► Like, you know, you see that the Tesla place is in the mall.

00:31:12 ◼   ► They could do that.

00:31:13 ◼   ► - Oh sure.

00:31:14 ◼   ► - 'Cause that's not like how I've always thought of it.

00:31:15 ◼   ► - They have a place in the mall.

00:31:16 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - They already have it.

00:31:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then they just rent out

00:31:20 ◼   ► some car parking spaces downstairs

00:31:21 ◼   ► so people could do test drives if they really wanted to.

00:31:23 ◼   ► But when I first heard about that,

00:31:25 ◼   ► I was like, oh no, Apple are not gonna have dealerships.

00:31:28 ◼   ► But they could do what Tesla has done,

00:31:31 ◼   ► which is a surprise the way that they've ended up doing it.

00:31:34 ◼   ► So yeah, it's an interesting way

00:31:37 ◼   ► that Tesla has done it,

00:31:41 ◼   ► that Apple could crib if they wanted to.

00:31:42 ◼   ► but I just think that the reasons now is just,

00:31:44 ◼   ► I'm not sure that they could differentiate the way

00:31:46 ◼   ► that they would probably want to.

00:31:47 ◼   ► - So here's my counter argument,

00:31:48 ◼   ► 'cause I like this way of thinking

00:31:50 ◼   ► that Apple wants to come in and be the best.

00:31:52 ◼   ► And I think that's what's happening with the AR stuff

00:31:55 ◼   ► or NVR stuff, is that Apple's gonna come in with a product

00:31:58 ◼   ► whenever they do it, later this year maybe,

00:32:01 ◼   ► and they're gonna say, "Well, we've got the best

00:32:02 ◼   ► 'cause we've got the best screens

00:32:03 ◼   ► and we've got the best silicon

00:32:04 ◼   ► and it's gonna be the best this metric

00:32:06 ◼   ► that you've never heard of."

00:32:07 ◼   ► And like, there's all this stuff going on

00:32:11 ◼   ► that makes it like we're taking it to the next level.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Like, what do you do in a car?

00:32:17 ◼   ► Can you do that?

00:32:17 ◼   ► Is it full self-driving?

00:32:18 ◼   ► What is it?

00:32:20 ◼   ► But let me just say, Apple has another history here,

00:32:24 ◼   ► which is the history of picking the right moment

00:32:27 ◼   ► and coming into a market where everybody's like,

00:32:31 ◼   ► "Look, we already did that."

00:32:33 ◼   ► And then Apple comes in with something and says,

00:32:34 ◼   ► "Yeah, but we waited until the moment

00:32:36 ◼   ► "where it could be just good enough

00:32:38 ◼   ► that this is the moment when people are really going to start buying it. And if you believe

00:32:44 ◼   ► that electric car sales are even now, they're ticking up, but there's still a small percentage

00:32:50 ◼   ► of the market. But there's some thought that maybe 2018 or 2019 was peak internal combustion

00:32:54 ◼   ► engine sales, and it's all downhill for ICE for now, and it's all uphill for electric

00:33:00 ◼   ► cars, which is great because they're great uphill. If you ever drew one up a hill, it's

00:33:06 ◼   ► It's a good time.

00:33:07 ◼   ► So you could argue that.

00:33:09 ◼   ► You could argue that now is actually the time,

00:33:10 ◼   ► just like when Apple did a music player

00:33:13 ◼   ► and there were already music players,

00:33:14 ◼   ► but the iPod came out and they're like,

00:33:15 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, I know there were already music players,

00:33:18 ◼   ► but this is better."

00:33:19 ◼   ► Or when they did support a Bluetooth,

00:33:21 ◼   ► Bluetooth had been out a while and people were like,

00:33:23 ◼   ► "Why won't Apple support Bluetooth?"

00:33:24 ◼   ► But Apple waited and waited for its moment

00:33:26 ◼   ► and then it put Bluetooth everywhere

00:33:28 ◼   ► and people were like, "Yeah."

00:33:29 ◼   ► None of these are perfectly analogous,

00:33:30 ◼   ► but like Apple, one other aspect of Apple personality,

00:33:34 ◼   ► if a company can have a personality,

00:33:35 ◼   ► is the kind of like picking your spot

00:33:37 ◼   ► and picking the sweet spot.

00:33:38 ◼   ► And while I think Project Titan, this car project,

00:33:41 ◼   ► has probably missed the sweetest spot

00:33:43 ◼   ► because they seem to have been delayed a bunch of times,

00:33:47 ◼   ► I could make the argument that even if

00:33:49 ◼   ► what they can't offer is Tesla claims,

00:33:54 ◼   ► the full self-driving,

00:33:55 ◼   ► which Tesla can't offer either, by the way,

00:33:57 ◼   ► it's interesting stuff, but it's really not quite all there.

00:34:01 ◼   ► If Apple came out and said, "Well, we can do better.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Like our thing does more and better than what Tesla

00:34:07 ◼   ► or anybody else offers in terms of driver assist,

00:34:10 ◼   ► plus all of these other things.

00:34:11 ◼   ► - Full of self-driving.

00:34:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, fullest.

00:34:14 ◼   ► It's the fullest self-driving with a big asterisk there.

00:34:18 ◼   ► Anyway, I think you could make the argument

00:34:20 ◼   ► that that is an Apple-like approach,

00:34:23 ◼   ► where Apple is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Tesla, sure,

00:34:26 ◼   ► but Apple, right?

00:34:29 ◼   ► And whether they are confident that they can have a product,

00:34:33 ◼   ► they won't do is enter with a product that is a me too product that is lesser, right?

00:34:37 ◼   ► They're never going to do that. They need to be able to have something to say, we could

00:34:40 ◼   ► do this better. But they could lower the bar to being like better than Tesla instead of

00:34:46 ◼   ► it being, we don't have a steering wheel. That's a higher bar.

00:34:52 ◼   ► Turns out this wasn't the rumor round up at all. It was a upshift.

00:34:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it's upshift.

00:34:56 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Memberfall. They are very good friends over at Memberfall.

00:35:01 ◼   ► They are the easiest way to sell memberships to your audience used by the biggest creators

00:35:05 ◼   ► on the web to help you generate sustainable recurring income while diversifying your revenue

00:35:09 ◼   ► stream.

00:35:10 ◼   ► You may have heard us talking about the Relay FM membership program, Upgrade Plus being

00:35:14 ◼   ► a part of that.

00:35:15 ◼   ► This is exactly what we use.

00:35:17 ◼   ► We use Memberfall to power this program because they make it so easy for us to generate an

00:35:21 ◼   ► extra revenue stream and deliver bonus content to our members.

00:35:24 ◼   ► So everyone that signs up for Upgrade Plus, they get to log in and they get to subscribe

00:35:28 ◼   ► to the podcast in their app of choice.

00:35:30 ◼   ► There's a bunch of links, there's QR codes so you can subscribe really easily.

00:35:34 ◼   ► They do all of that for us.

00:35:36 ◼   ► And then every single subscriber, they get their own feed.

00:35:39 ◼   ► And if for as long as they're a subscriber, they keep getting episodes, if they cancel,

00:35:43 ◼   ► then they no longer get those episodes.

00:35:44 ◼   ► It's really, really great.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Because it took away so much work that we would have had to have even...

00:35:50 ◼   ► I don't even know how we would have approached it honestly about memberfall.

00:35:53 ◼   ► We've been working with them for so many years and then when we were getting ready to reboot

00:35:57 ◼   ► the membership program. They had this new podcast feature and it just made everything

00:36:00 ◼   ► a million times easier. They are a fantastic partner for us and we love our relationship

00:36:05 ◼   ► with them.

00:36:06 ◼   ► Maybe you're already producing content, relying on advertising or merchandise sales,

00:36:10 ◼   ► stuff like that. Membuh will make it easy to further diversify your income with everything

00:36:15 ◼   ► that you need to run a membership program of your own. You can have custom branding,

00:36:18 ◼   ► gift subscriptions, Apple Pay, free trials, private podcasts and so many more features,

00:36:23 ◼   ► leaving you with full control and ownership of everything that relates to your audience,

00:36:27 ◼   ► brand and membership. You can even now send paid email newsletters directly through Memberful

00:36:32 ◼   ► or add an email newsletter to an existing Memberful account without needing to connect

00:36:38 ◼   ► it to a third party email provider. You can even publish your paid newsletter content

00:36:43 ◼   ► to a Memberful hosted members only website so people get an archive of all the stuff

00:36:47 ◼   ► that they get when they log in. There's no additional fee when signed up for Memberful's

00:36:51 ◼   ► pro or premium plans. Plus you'll save money compared to other popular hosted newsletter

00:36:56 ◼   ► platforms. If you're a content creator, Memberful can help you monetize that passion. Get started

00:37:01 ◼   ► for free at memberful.com/upgrade. There's no credit card required to check it out. That's

00:37:07 ◼   ► memberful.com/upgrade. This could be the start of something exciting. Our thanks to Memberful

00:37:12 ◼   ► for their support of this show and Relay FM. Now we'll do the rumor roundup.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I mean, it's thank you for Mark Gurman for making us deeply consider

00:37:21 ◼   ► Apple Car again. Like, it's just it just emerges. Well, we'll go back to Mark. Apple is preparing

00:37:30 ◼   ► for their widest array of new hardware products in its history this fall. Gurman expects this to

00:37:37 ◼   ► consist of four new iPhones, a low-end MacBook Pro, updated iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, AirPods Pro,

00:37:45 ◼   ► three Apple Watch models, a new base level iPad

00:37:48 ◼   ► and new iPad Pros.

00:37:51 ◼   ► Mark says, "Given the more significant changes

00:37:53 ◼   ► in the pipeline for this year,

00:37:55 ◼   ► I'd expect the new iPad Pro to come later than the spring."

00:37:59 ◼   ► So this is the overall lineup that Mark is expecting.

00:38:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know what to think of this

00:38:06 ◼   ► because it feels like

00:38:09 ◼   ► there should be more

00:38:14 ◼   ► in the spring and less in the fall.

00:38:17 ◼   ► And I don't know whether I'm skeptical,

00:38:20 ◼   ► here's the problem.

00:38:21 ◼   ► I don't know whether I'm skeptical

00:38:22 ◼   ► that there's gonna be so many products held till the fall

00:38:26 ◼   ► or whether I'm skeptical that all the products will,

00:38:29 ◼   ► like you have to accept the idea like,

00:38:30 ◼   ► oh, well, products are gonna be delayed till the fall,

00:38:33 ◼   ► but the products in the fall aren't gonna be delayed

00:38:35 ◼   ► until next year.

00:38:36 ◼   ► And I wonder about that too.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Like, well, if you're pushing all those products

00:38:38 ◼   ► to the fall, are they really gonna ship then?

00:38:40 ◼   ► Or are some of them gonna get pushed even further back

00:38:43 ◼   ► so that late this year becomes next year,

00:38:45 ◼   ► as is so often the way.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:38:48 ◼   ► Also, am I alone or did you feel this too?

00:38:50 ◼   ► You saw this report and saw how much stuff

00:38:52 ◼   ► he thinks is gonna come out in the fall

00:38:53 ◼   ► and just have that twinge of like, oh God.

00:38:56 ◼   ► - It made me feel really upset though.

00:38:58 ◼   ► - My fall, my fall, it's gone now.

00:39:00 ◼   ► - Well, there's two things for me.

00:39:02 ◼   ► One is that that's not one event, right?

00:39:04 ◼   ► This isn't just one event.

00:39:06 ◼   ► - No, it's three. - There's lots of events.

00:39:07 ◼   ► - Are you getting it yet?

00:39:07 ◼   ► We're doing three events this fall.

00:39:09 ◼   ► Are you getting it? - And also,

00:39:10 ◼   ► I prefer it when they spread things out

00:39:12 ◼   ► more throughout the year because that's more stuff to talk about throughout the year right

00:39:16 ◼   ► rather than between September and November there's six product lines to talk about that's

00:39:20 ◼   ► too much stuff. Mark Gilman does still expect a spring event to feature an iPhone SE, iPad

00:39:26 ◼   ► Air and a new Mac either a Mac mini or iMac featuring the M1 Pro. I would just say this

00:39:34 ◼   ► is in my opinion too much stuff for one three month period. It just feels like it's too

00:39:39 ◼   ► much. It's just, just logistically, realistically, like, this feels like too much stuff, maybe

00:39:47 ◼   ► more than they need, but I couldn't tell you what you would kick down the road.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Okay, so, SE Air and a new Mac with an M1 Pro is a modest event, but I could see it.

00:40:02 ◼   ► I feel like, I mean, there is that one report that says, um, that they put a lot of iPads

00:40:08 ◼   ► through regulatory approval somewhere, and it may be a different signal, but Mark sort

00:40:15 ◼   ► of says, "Meh, but it probably is going to be the fall."

00:40:19 ◼   ► Reading this, though, the thing that really jumps out at me is we've kind of been expecting

00:40:23 ◼   ► that there will be new iPad Pros with the M2, along with a MacBook Air with the M2,

00:40:30 ◼   ► that the M2 generation is going to hit, and they'll still be doing M1 high-end models,

00:40:35 ◼   ► but they'll also kind of push out an M2

00:40:37 ◼   ► that's based on the A15.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Okay, but he's got that slated for fall.

00:40:42 ◼   ► And I do wonder if, is that,

00:40:45 ◼   ► and you gotta read between the lines here,

00:40:47 ◼   ► is this Mark having his sources at Apple basically say,

00:40:51 ◼   ► "Yeah, none of that stuff is gonna ship when we want.

00:40:54 ◼   ► It's all gonna be later.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Just clear out the summer."

00:40:57 ◼   ► I mean, they are sort of saying that Apple's gonna,

00:40:59 ◼   ► other than, you know, WWDC, like OS announcements,

00:41:02 ◼   ► Apple's gonna do very little

00:41:05 ◼   ► other than a spring event until September.

00:41:08 ◼   ► And then they're gonna unleash this.

00:41:11 ◼   ► They're gonna open a portal to a dimension full of products

00:41:14 ◼   ► and just, "Bwah, there they are all, oh no!"

00:41:18 ◼   ► Right, like, I guess they could do it this way.

00:41:21 ◼   ► I mean, and he has a whole thing about how they're like,

00:41:24 ◼   ► they're seasonal and a holiday quarter and all that.

00:41:26 ◼   ► And it's like, that's true,

00:41:27 ◼   ► but they don't usually do it quite to this extreme.

00:41:32 ◼   ► And so that's why I keep thinking,

00:41:34 ◼   ► is this really about products that they wanted to come out

00:41:37 ◼   ► in the spring or the summer

00:41:38 ◼   ► that they just can't ship them in time,

00:41:40 ◼   ► or they decided it's not worth it

00:41:41 ◼   ► 'cause they've got to prioritize using those parts

00:41:43 ◼   ► on the stuff that they're already shipping

00:41:45 ◼   ► so that they can fulfill those orders.

00:41:47 ◼   ► And right, because it's not just,

00:41:49 ◼   ► do we wanna release a MacBook Air?

00:41:51 ◼   ► It's do we wanna create demand for a new MacBook Air

00:41:53 ◼   ► when we're having trouble shipping our MacBook Pros

00:41:56 ◼   ► or our iPads?

00:41:57 ◼   ► That's the trick.

00:41:58 ◼   ► - Because looking at this list,

00:41:59 ◼   ► stuff like the MacBook Air, the AirPods Pro,

00:42:02 ◼   ► new iPad and new iPad Pros,

00:42:04 ◼   ► doesn't make any specific sense to release those

00:42:06 ◼   ► in September.

00:42:07 ◼   ► - I've also said, because I want that iMac

00:42:10 ◼   ► and I don't want to wait till fall,

00:42:11 ◼   ► but now I'm really fearing that the big iMac

00:42:13 ◼   ► is going to be in October.

00:42:15 ◼   ► - Well, that could be what Mark's saying is spring though.

00:42:17 ◼   ► He's not sure.

00:42:19 ◼   ► That update in iMac is the 24.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is, okay.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Very specifically, he says a new iMac

00:42:26 ◼   ► featuring the M1 Pro and he suggests the iMac or a new Mac, the Mac Mini or the iMac.

00:42:30 ◼   ► I think this is what we've talked about, which is now that the M1 Pro and the M1

00:42:38 ◼   ► Macs exist, they could go in other products.

00:42:41 ◼   ► So a Mac Mini, you know, space gray, maybe Mac Mini, a new design or not new design,

00:42:50 ◼   ► but basically adding, um, M1 Pro and maybe M1 Macs, but maybe it's just M1 Pro options.

00:42:55 ◼   ► Makes sense, right?

00:42:57 ◼   ► Like now that they've got that chip,

00:42:58 ◼   ► why wouldn't you offer it in the Mac mini?

00:43:00 ◼   ► And I have said on numerous occasions,

00:43:03 ◼   ► now that you've got that chip,

00:43:03 ◼   ► why not offer it in the 24 inch iMac, right?

00:43:05 ◼   ► Like 24 inch iMac is enough size wise for a lot of people.

00:43:09 ◼   ► And I'm pretty sure they would have designed it

00:43:13 ◼   ► with some thermal headroom

00:43:16 ◼   ► because they would have learned their lesson

00:43:18 ◼   ► and they know that this design is gonna stay around

00:43:20 ◼   ► for several years.

00:43:21 ◼   ► Like, wouldn't it be nice if you could offer a high end 24?

00:43:24 ◼   ► That's different than saying,

00:43:25 ◼   ► here's our brand new big iMac.

00:43:28 ◼   ► I hope that they do that in the spring,

00:43:30 ◼   ► but the way I read Mark's report is more like

00:43:32 ◼   ► they're just gonna kinda add those higher end chips

00:43:35 ◼   ► to some existing models.

00:43:37 ◼   ► - Maybe, I don't think they would put anything higher

00:43:41 ◼   ► than the base chip in the iMac,

00:43:45 ◼   ► like the regular iMac,

00:43:47 ◼   ► in the same way that they wouldn't put it

00:43:49 ◼   ► in the MacBook Air.

00:43:50 ◼   ► Like I just think they could, but they wouldn't.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Like I feel like it's just gonna be non-pro, non-max

00:43:55 ◼   ► goes in the standard product line.

00:43:58 ◼   ► - The smaller iMac has always had higher end Intel options,

00:44:03 ◼   ► but not as high end as the bigger iMac.

00:44:06 ◼   ► And so that would be my argument is that

00:44:08 ◼   ► the 24 inch iMac maybe gets the M1

00:44:11 ◼   ► and then optionally an M1 Pro,

00:44:13 ◼   ► whereas the 27 inch iMac,

00:44:15 ◼   ► you can get an M1 Pro or an M1 Max, right?

00:44:17 ◼   ► - I just don't think you need,

00:44:19 ◼   ► I mean like look, as somebody who uses an M1 iMac every,

00:44:22 ◼   ► you don't need the power.

00:44:23 ◼   ► Like the power that this has with just the M1 chip

00:44:26 ◼   ► is more than enough, it's more powerful than my iMac Pro.

00:44:30 ◼   ► - Who's buying Macs with M1 Pros and M1 Maxes in it then?

00:44:34 ◼   ► - What do you mean?

00:44:35 ◼   ► - Like, I mean, you don't need more power.

00:44:37 ◼   ► Some people do need more power,

00:44:38 ◼   ► but they don't need more screen.

00:44:39 ◼   ► - Well, they'll get the iMac Pro and like it,

00:44:41 ◼   ► or they'll get an M1 Pro Max Mac Mini in the monitor.

00:44:45 ◼   ► - Right, but I'm just saying,

00:44:47 ◼   ► I don't see why offering a top end build to order

00:44:52 ◼   ► 24 inch iMac configuration with an M1 Pro

00:44:56 ◼   ► and some more RAM and all of that.

00:44:59 ◼   ► - Okay, do you think that they would add

00:45:00 ◼   ► the M1 Pro to a MacBook Air?

00:45:03 ◼   ► - I don't because I think that they're gonna design

00:45:05 ◼   ► the MacBook Air to differentiate it from the MacBook Pro

00:45:09 ◼   ► and they're going to focus on it being an M2

00:45:13 ◼   ► and not an M2 Pro or M2 Max, but the iMac is a desktop

00:45:16 ◼   ► And I don't think the iMac is,

00:45:18 ◼   ► I don't think the contrast between the smaller

00:45:23 ◼   ► and larger iMac is the same as the contrast

00:45:25 ◼   ► between a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro.

00:45:26 ◼   ► I don't, I think that the, even the small iMac,

00:45:30 ◼   ► they let you build to order and crank it up,

00:45:32 ◼   ► not as far as the big one on Intel,

00:45:35 ◼   ► but you could do it because it's a desktop Mac.

00:45:39 ◼   ► So I think that's the difference there.

00:45:40 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't think the Air,

00:45:41 ◼   ► I suspect the Air is going the other direction

00:45:43 ◼   ► where they're gonna do a new version of it

00:45:45 ◼   ► that really is predicated on the low power

00:45:50 ◼   ► of the M1 and M2 base model simple chip

00:45:55 ◼   ► instead of what they're doing on the Pro line,

00:45:59 ◼   ► 'cause they wanna differentiate those two,

00:46:00 ◼   ► but I'm not sure they wanna differentiate the 24

00:46:02 ◼   ► from the 27 to that extreme, right?

00:46:04 ◼   ► Like if you want a smaller iMac,

00:46:06 ◼   ► but you want a little more power

00:46:07 ◼   ► and you wanna give us more money, okay.

00:46:10 ◼   ► I think they could do that.

00:46:11 ◼   ► You're right, it is less likely

00:46:13 ◼   ► than just throwing it in a Mac.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Mini and saying, "Guess what? Mac Mini Pro is here now. Enjoy." But this is intriguing,

00:46:20 ◼   ► though. It's an intriguing report in an otherwise kind of boring, like, "iPhone SE? It's boring.

00:46:27 ◼   ► iPad Air update? It's nice, but it's not going to be that different, right? So it's going

00:46:31 ◼   ► to be kind of boring." And then a new Mac. Like, I'm still struggling to see what the

00:46:38 ◼   ► excitement is in this event, and maybe there just isn't any. And it's, we got these product

00:46:42 ◼   ► updates we need to do and here it is and it's an hour on video.

00:46:46 ◼   ► - Honestly, Jason, I think it's an iMac Pro. I think that's what that is the big star of

00:46:51 ◼   ► that event. That's what I think the big star in the spring will be. And I'll just say like

00:46:54 ◼   ► I understand where you're coming from. I think now honestly they will just, it is not a sensible

00:47:02 ◼   ► decision. It is just a like a product decision. That is the way I look at it is that the iMac

00:47:08 ◼   ► is the consumer device, so it gets to consumer chip.

00:47:12 ◼   ► And the iMac Pro starts with M1 Pro,

00:47:16 ◼   ► just because Pro, Pro, Pro, Pro.

00:47:18 ◼   ► - Pro. - You know, it's like,

00:47:19 ◼   ► why did they do it on the iPhone?

00:47:21 ◼   ► Why did they do it on anything?

00:47:22 ◼   ► Like, I think that they're just gonna draw a line in it,

00:47:24 ◼   ► whether you can do it or not.

00:47:27 ◼   ► Although I agree with absolutely everything you're saying,

00:47:30 ◼   ► I think it makes more sense to do it that way,

00:47:32 ◼   ► to have options in all of the Macs,

00:47:34 ◼   ► if you can put it in there, put it in there.

00:47:37 ◼   ► I just think my money would be on,

00:47:40 ◼   ► they're gonna make it like a, this is a fit for,

00:47:43 ◼   ► like you can't put, what do you want to put a max,

00:47:46 ◼   ► like a pro chip and a yellow computer?

00:47:48 ◼   ► What are you crazy?

00:47:49 ◼   ► - Well, we'll see, we'll see.

00:47:52 ◼   ► We still don't know whether they're going to

00:47:54 ◼   ► call the high-end iMac iMac Pro,

00:47:56 ◼   ► whether they're gonna call the high-end iMac

00:47:58 ◼   ► all models Pro or whether they're going to have a

00:48:01 ◼   ► non-Pro and a Pro version.

00:48:05 ◼   ► we have our guesses, but we don't know

00:48:07 ◼   ► what they're gonna do.

00:48:08 ◼   ► And Mark Gurman's story suggests that updated iMac

00:48:13 ◼   ► happens in the fall.

00:48:15 ◼   ► I read that to be the 27 inch, but who knows?

00:48:21 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:22 ◼   ► I think there's a lot still out on the table,

00:48:26 ◼   ► but what this is getting me the sense of is that

00:48:28 ◼   ► according to Mark Gurman's sources,

00:48:31 ◼   ► expect a light spring and then a heavy fall

00:48:36 ◼   ► and nothing in between, which is interesting,

00:48:39 ◼   ► but not unexpected given what's going on

00:48:42 ◼   ► with the supply chain.

00:48:43 ◼   ► It's not unexpected.

00:48:44 ◼   ► There are gonna be these like, you know, bubbles

00:48:48 ◼   ► in the pipeline where they're like, we just don't,

00:48:50 ◼   ► you know, everything slid back

00:48:52 ◼   ► and these things have slid back

00:48:53 ◼   ► and then we're gonna get up to speed

00:48:55 ◼   ► and then we're gonna blow it out in the fall.

00:48:57 ◼   ► Although I also would not be surprised if we get to fall

00:49:00 ◼   ► and some of this stuff becomes spring of 23

00:49:04 ◼   ► and that's just how it is.

00:49:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - They're giving themselves as much room

00:49:08 ◼   ► in the calendar as possible.

00:49:09 ◼   ► - Also, what, I mean, here's another way to think of it,

00:49:12 ◼   ► which is what in Apple's product line

00:49:15 ◼   ► has to get replaced, right?

00:49:17 ◼   ► Like, okay, the high end, the large iMac is on Intel,

00:49:22 ◼   ► it needs to be replaced.

00:49:24 ◼   ► I could argue that Mac mini is on Intel,

00:49:26 ◼   ► it needs to be replaced.

00:49:27 ◼   ► So like models that are not yet off of Intel

00:49:31 ◼   ► need to be replaced.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Okay, we can do that.

00:49:35 ◼   ► Maybe that 13-inch MacBook Pro,

00:49:37 ◼   ► could it get an M1 Pro option?

00:49:41 ◼   ► I think that's another one where like maybe,

00:49:44 ◼   ► but like, and the Mac Pro, they want to do that.

00:49:47 ◼   ► It doesn't really have to be replaced,

00:49:49 ◼   ► but they really want to do that.

00:49:51 ◼   ► But like some of these,

00:49:53 ◼   ► a newer version of the 24-inch iMac with the M2,

00:49:56 ◼   ► a newer version of the MacBook Air with the M2.

00:50:01 ◼   ► Like nobody, those are easy in my mind,

00:50:05 ◼   ► as much as I want one of those MacBook Airs,

00:50:07 ◼   ► in my mind, those are the easiest things to push off.

00:50:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, for sure.

00:50:10 ◼   ► - And the Air sells really, really well, I get it.

00:50:13 ◼   ► - The new iPad as well, you can push that out, it's fine.

00:50:16 ◼   ► - The new iPad Pro model doesn't need to even be

00:50:20 ◼   ► on the 18 month cycle, you could afford to wait

00:50:22 ◼   ► with that one too, right?

00:50:23 ◼   ► Like they're fine.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Not that a new one wouldn't drive sales and all that,

00:50:27 ◼   ► but honestly, that iPad Pro and that MacBook Air are fine.

00:50:32 ◼   ► They are good, they are current, they are fast,

00:50:35 ◼   ► they're still great, they're still good values

00:50:38 ◼   ► for Apple products down the 999 MacBook Air.

00:50:42 ◼   ► It's all fine.

00:50:44 ◼   ► So if you're looking for things to delay,

00:50:46 ◼   ► there's a bunch of stuff that you'd be like,

00:50:49 ◼   ► it doesn't matter when this ships.

00:50:51 ◼   ► That M2 MacBook Air, as cool as it sounds,

00:50:53 ◼   ► as much as I want one and as much as I want them to announce it next month, if they announced

00:50:58 ◼   ► it a year from then, it would probably not hurt their business. So that's one way to

00:51:03 ◼   ► make decisions.

00:51:04 ◼   ► Tim Cook According to political website Punchbowl News,

00:51:08 ◼   ► Tim Cook is personally lobbying the Senate Judiciary Committee over a bill that has now

00:51:13 ◼   ► passed the initial vote to, among other things in the U.S., enforce sideloading on devices

00:51:20 ◼   ► and remove a company's ability to favor their own services on those devices. This bill is

00:51:26 ◼   ► going to advance to Senate floor now for voting.

00:51:30 ◼   ► - Yeah. It's interesting 'cause this gets into political details, which is why I put

00:51:35 ◼   ► a link in our notes to a report that's actually on Philip Elmer DeWitt's site, but he's quoting

00:51:40 ◼   ► a report from analyst Emmet Darianani, who is at Evercore and is a regular on those quarterly

00:51:47 ◼   ► analyst calls probably hear his voice later this week. And he is quoting an analyst at

00:51:51 ◼   ► Evercore as saying that this passing as a law is not likely. And so what this analyst

00:52:00 ◼   ► named Tobin Marcus says is the vote 16 to 6 overstates the level of support for the

00:52:06 ◼   ► bill. Some Democrats, including the two senators from California, voted it out of committee

00:52:09 ◼   ► as a courtesy to Senator Amy Klobuchar, despite expressing significant reservations. Several

00:52:14 ◼   ► Other Democrats have concerns and changes.

00:52:16 ◼   ► They want to make some of the Republican support

00:52:18 ◼   ► look soft as well.

00:52:19 ◼   ► And getting Senate floor time for this bill

00:52:21 ◼   ► before Congress shuts down for the midterm elections

00:52:23 ◼   ► will be harder than some commentators appreciate.

00:52:25 ◼   ► So this analyst says it could happen in some form,

00:52:30 ◼   ► but it's also not one of those things where it's like,

00:52:33 ◼   ► oh, it's got bipartisan support and so it'll pass.

00:52:36 ◼   ► It's got kind of soft bipartisan support,

00:52:39 ◼   ► but not maybe in both parties strong support.

00:52:44 ◼   ► So we'll see. But yeah, wouldn't that be,

00:52:45 ◼   ► this is like one of those things that we've talked about,

00:52:47 ◼   ► about do you want to push this too far, Apple?

00:52:49 ◼   ► Because you end up in a scenario where

00:52:51 ◼   ► like the government of the United States says,

00:52:54 ◼   ► you have to offer sideloading in alternate app stores,

00:52:57 ◼   ► and it's the law now, and that's just how it has to be.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Which is like, that's really bad for Apple.

00:53:03 ◼   ► - You accidentally created a bunch of buzzwords.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Like sideloading is just like a buzzword now in politics,

00:53:09 ◼   ► right? For things that tech companies should do.

00:53:11 ◼   ► Break them up, right?

00:53:12 ◼   ► - Well, because politicians want to be seen

00:53:14 ◼   ► as being tough on big tech, right?

00:53:17 ◼   ► That's what they want to be seen.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Fortunately, politicians also want to listen to billionaires

00:53:21 ◼   ► and valuable companies about harming American businesses.

00:53:24 ◼   ► And I'm sure that's what Tim Cook was talking about.

00:53:26 ◼   ► - That's why Tim Cook gets on the phone.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:53:29 ◼   ► But I was also reading on Axios a similar thing of like,

00:53:33 ◼   ► if this anything happens to,

00:53:35 ◼   ► if this bill ends up ever getting through,

00:53:37 ◼   ► it's not going to look like how it looks now.

00:53:38 ◼   ► Like there's a lot of desire to change it.

00:53:41 ◼   ► But the thing is, you don't know which part, right?

00:53:43 ◼   ► So like sideloading might get, I mean, for all we know,

00:53:45 ◼   ► sideloading might not be one of the things

00:53:47 ◼   ► that people have a problem with.

00:53:49 ◼   ► Like maybe the thing that like other people

00:53:51 ◼   ► in politics have a problem with is the ability to,

00:53:53 ◼   ► for a company not to favor their own services,

00:53:55 ◼   ► 'cause what, do you know what I mean?

00:53:56 ◼   ► It's just like, which is why Tim Cook's on the phone,

00:53:58 ◼   ► 'cause he doesn't know either,

00:54:00 ◼   ► and wants to make sure that it's gonna go exactly his way.

00:54:03 ◼   ► But I just thought that,

00:54:04 ◼   ► considering everyone we've been talking about recently,

00:54:05 ◼   ► this is just a pretty funny thing

00:54:07 ◼   ► that kind of came out of nowhere for me,

00:54:09 ◼   ► like this bill is like, "Oh, hello.

00:54:11 ◼   ► What are you up to?

00:54:12 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - Apple has named Kristen Huguet-Quayle

00:54:17 ◼   ► as their new head of public relations.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Huguet-Quayle replaces Stella Lowe,

00:54:23 ◼   ► who's been in the role since May, 2021.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - (laughs)

00:54:26 ◼   ► Less than a year.

00:54:27 ◼   ► - Lowe was an outside hire for Apple.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Once again, suggesting- - She worked at Cisco.

00:54:32 ◼   ► - That outside hires in high up positions at Apple

00:54:35 ◼   ► potentially struggle to match culture fit.

00:54:38 ◼   ► John Brower is the key example of this.

00:54:40 ◼   ► the guy who was brought in to run the Apple store,

00:54:43 ◼   ► like the stores, retail stores,

00:54:45 ◼   ► was gone within a very short period of time.

00:54:47 ◼   ► - And arguably Angela Ahrendts,

00:54:49 ◼   ► although she lasted longer,

00:54:50 ◼   ► but I'm not sure that that was, in the end,

00:54:54 ◼   ► the right fit either.

00:54:55 ◼   ► The counterargument would be something like

00:54:57 ◼   ► all the chip designers and Johnny Shroogee and all of that,

00:55:00 ◼   ► but I get the feeling like

00:55:02 ◼   ► they came in to establish a culture

00:55:05 ◼   ► in a part of Apple that didn't exist before.

00:55:09 ◼   ► And so when you're forging a new portion

00:55:11 ◼   ► of a corporate identity,

00:55:13 ◼   ► that's different than sliding into a role

00:55:15 ◼   ► that's been defined forever.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And I remember at the time we talked about

00:55:21 ◼   ► Stella Lowe being hired out of Cisco and said,

00:55:23 ◼   ► "That's a weird match."

00:55:25 ◼   ► - Didn't seem right.

00:55:26 ◼   ► - It didn't, like very technical

00:55:29 ◼   ► and a lot of corporate sales stuff.

00:55:30 ◼   ► And like, is that the messaging that you really want?

00:55:33 ◼   ► Was she just on a WebEx?

00:55:35 ◼   ► And they're like, "Hey,"

00:55:36 ◼   ► 'cause Cisco makes WebEx and Apple uses WebEx.

00:55:39 ◼   ► - And also, I don't mean this to be strange,

00:55:42 ◼   ► but Stella Lowe's Twitter account was really weird.

00:55:45 ◼   ► The things that she was tweeting was strange.

00:55:51 ◼   ► Like her avatar was just a really low quality image.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Like it didn't feel like a PR person's thing,

00:56:00 ◼   ► especially from Apple. - Was she real?

00:56:02 ◼   ► Did she really exist? - No, but it was just like,

00:56:03 ◼   ► I don't know, it was just like a thing that is,

00:56:06 ◼   ► For one, the head of Apple PR has never had a public face.

00:56:11 ◼   ► And she did.

00:56:13 ◼   ► And this is like--

00:56:15 ◼   ► PR specifically, the head of PR, is probably

00:56:19 ◼   ► the most manicured position inside of the PR machine

00:56:24 ◼   ► that is Apple.

00:56:26 ◼   ► And the idea of bringing someone in from outside

00:56:29 ◼   ► after the position had been vacant for, I think, nearly two

00:56:33 ◼   ► years was very strange.

00:56:35 ◼   ► - Right, which means people who were working at Apple

00:56:37 ◼   ► were doing the job,

00:56:39 ◼   ► but including apparently Chris and Huguet-Quayle,

00:56:43 ◼   ► and yet they didn't get the job because they held it open

00:56:46 ◼   ► and they ended up giving it to an outside person,

00:56:48 ◼   ► which implies a level of dissatisfaction

00:56:51 ◼   ► with your internal people.

00:56:52 ◼   ► I think it's fascinating, especially for Apple,

00:56:54 ◼   ► because Apple has done this time and again,

00:56:57 ◼   ► and it's like, you know what?

00:56:58 ◼   ► At these high level positions,

00:57:00 ◼   ► it is becoming increasingly apparent

00:57:02 ◼   ► that you gotta be on the inside to understand it

00:57:05 ◼   ► and be a culture fit and then grow

00:57:07 ◼   ► and then reach that position later.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And bringing somebody, Apple is a weird company.

00:57:12 ◼   ► I think that's what we've learned is Apple is an outlier,

00:57:14 ◼   ► they're strange, they have their ways

00:57:16 ◼   ► and just hiring somebody from the outside to come in.

00:57:19 ◼   ► I imagine you hire somebody like Stella Lowe

00:57:21 ◼   ► because you wanna bring in her skills from Cisco

00:57:24 ◼   ► and wherever else she worked to put a new spin on Apple PR.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Because otherwise, why would you not,

00:57:30 ◼   ► when Steve Dowling leaves,

00:57:31 ◼   ► why would you not hire or promote his person

00:57:36 ◼   ► who was basically like high up working with Dowling

00:57:39 ◼   ► on the executive stuff,

00:57:41 ◼   ► which was Steve Dowling's previous job

00:57:44 ◼   ► before he was the head of PR when it was Katie Cotton.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Dowling was on the executive side

00:57:48 ◼   ► and there was another person, Natalie Karras,

00:57:51 ◼   ► who was on the product PR side.

00:57:53 ◼   ► And that was the like, which one of them is gonna get the job

00:57:56 ◼   ► and Dowling got the job, which I think cynically I could say,

00:57:59 ◼   ► oh, you mean the person who was really close

00:58:01 ◼   ► to all the executives 'cause he handled executive PR,

00:58:03 ◼   ► got the job when the executives chose him?

00:58:06 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:58:07 ◼   ► But Christian Huguet-Quayle also apparently was on that side

00:58:12 ◼   ► doing all things Tim.

00:58:14 ◼   ► And so the executives picked her eventually,

00:58:19 ◼   ► but not before they went outside.

00:58:21 ◼   ► And I just wonder, are they deluding themselves?

00:58:23 ◼   ► Are they like, "No, no, no, no,

00:58:25 ◼   ► we want something different.

00:58:26 ◼   ► We want a little fresh blood in the PR department.

00:58:28 ◼   ► we want to do things differently.

00:58:29 ◼   ► And then somebody comes in and I've seen this,

00:58:32 ◼   ► you've probably seen this too, at various companies,

00:58:34 ◼   ► various organizations over time,

00:58:36 ◼   ► the people in charge think they want change.

00:58:38 ◼   ► And then somebody gets hired to bring change.

00:58:40 ◼   ► And then all the changes they propose are like,

00:58:43 ◼   ► no, we don't do that here.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Like I've seen that time and again,

00:58:46 ◼   ► where somebody talks about wanting change and a fresh idea,

00:58:49 ◼   ► and then you bring them in.

00:58:50 ◼   ► I'm not saying, I don't know that this happened in this case,

00:58:53 ◼   ► but like I've seen that happen endlessly.

00:58:55 ◼   ► - But it's natural though, right?

00:58:56 ◼   ► Like she would have come in with her experience

00:58:59 ◼   ► working somewhere else.

00:59:00 ◼   ► It's like, I want to do it this way.

00:59:01 ◼   ► - And you bring the person in from outside

00:59:03 ◼   ► because presumably you want them to do that.

00:59:07 ◼   ► But it so often happens that when they get inside,

00:59:10 ◼   ► everybody goes, oh no, not really.

00:59:14 ◼   ► We actually want to do it the way we've always done it.

00:59:17 ◼   ► And I have a hard time looking at this exit

00:59:20 ◼   ► happening in less than a year

00:59:22 ◼   ► without saying that that's it.

00:59:23 ◼   ► And that's not necessarily her fault.

00:59:25 ◼   ► In fact, it's perhaps absolutely not her fault, right?

00:59:29 ◼   ► Because it may be that she was told,

00:59:31 ◼   ► well, no, no, I know that Apple is very particular,

00:59:33 ◼   ► but we want an outside view of this.

00:59:35 ◼   ► The people who've been running this department

00:59:36 ◼   ► have been here for years,

00:59:37 ◼   ► and we want somebody new to come in.

00:59:39 ◼   ► And now here we are a few months later, and she's gone,

00:59:42 ◼   ► and they've hired a long time person

00:59:44 ◼   ► who's been at Apple a long time,

00:59:45 ◼   ► and was one of the right hand people

00:59:47 ◼   ► of the previous occupant of the position.

00:59:50 ◼   ► And it's really like a reversion, like, no, no, no,

00:59:52 ◼   ► We actually want the successor who probably should have been

00:59:56 ◼   ► the successor, but wasn't for some reason, but now is.

01:00:01 ◼   ► And maybe there are personal things, you never really know.

01:00:03 ◼   ► We're on the outside looking at it.

01:00:04 ◼   ► - And it is also worth just noting,

01:00:06 ◼   ► Apple have said and Stella Lowe said

01:00:10 ◼   ► that she's going to be spending more time with her family.

01:00:12 ◼   ► But the thing is that is, whether that's true or not,

01:00:15 ◼   ► that's the line that like the cliche line of,

01:00:18 ◼   ► we're all gonna pretend like this was all good.

01:00:20 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm, yeah.

01:00:21 ◼   ► Which seems like a strange PR move, I don't know, man.

01:00:24 ◼   ► But like, the thing is, I completely am of the mind

01:00:29 ◼   ► that Stella Lowe was brought in,

01:00:31 ◼   ► told that Apple wanted to shake things up.

01:00:34 ◼   ► She went in and shook things up

01:00:35 ◼   ► and then everyone decided they didn't like that.

01:00:37 ◼   ► But you know, which is like, well then what was she,

01:00:40 ◼   ► she was always set up to fail.

01:00:42 ◼   ► It's like, I think this is a similar thing

01:00:43 ◼   ► with what happened with Angela Ahrens as well.

01:00:45 ◼   ► She was brought in to say, and they'd said to her,

01:00:47 ◼   ► "Hey, but can you just change our entire retail proposition

01:00:51 ◼   ► make it luxury. And so she did that.

01:00:53 ◼   ► And then they were like, "No, we need to sell our phones

01:00:56 ◼   ► on finance." And she said, "I'm not gonna do that."

01:00:59 ◼   ► And then that was the end of that, right?

01:01:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that that's the best way

01:01:03 ◼   ► to evaluate that one.

01:01:04 ◼   ► So, this is, I mean, PR is different

01:01:06 ◼   ► because it's not public facing in the same way

01:01:09 ◼   ► as being the head of retail.

01:01:11 ◼   ► But, and Apple PR has done a bunch of things differently

01:01:14 ◼   ► over the last few years.

01:01:15 ◼   ► But the truth is they were doing that

01:01:17 ◼   ► under Steve Dowling too.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - Well, this is the thing, like,

01:01:20 ◼   ► my assumption would be, is you said that

01:01:22 ◼   ► Hugo Quayle was probably the person,

01:01:25 ◼   ► one of the people in charge of this change,

01:01:27 ◼   ► because Dowling's been gone for a long time.

01:01:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:31 ◼   ► - Now it's just kind of funny that it's like,

01:01:32 ◼   ► oh, no, no, I know you were doing this job before,

01:01:36 ◼   ► and then we hired someone else,

01:01:38 ◼   ► but can you just do it now?

01:01:39 ◼   ► It's strange.

01:01:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, right?

01:01:41 ◼   ► Like, there are personal dynamics at work here,

01:01:45 ◼   ► and there's, you know, it's inside a company, who knows,

01:01:47 ◼   ► we're just on the outside looking in,

01:01:48 ◼   ► and these people are all kind of cardboard cutouts to us,

01:01:51 ◼   ► but they're also people with allies and enemies and quirks

01:01:56 ◼   ► and all those things that we just don't know about.

01:01:57 ◼   ► But it does seem really interesting that they went out,

01:02:01 ◼   ► they're like, left it out there for years,

01:02:03 ◼   ► ended up going with an outside hire,

01:02:06 ◼   ► which is almost like they were trying to see

01:02:08 ◼   ► if somebody would step forward from the inside

01:02:09 ◼   ► and felt like that didn't happen.

01:02:12 ◼   ► - And maybe it takes a bad person to come to you,

01:02:14 ◼   ► like, "No, I wanna do it instead now.

01:02:16 ◼   ► "I've seen the other option."

01:02:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, then you do the outside hiring,

01:02:19 ◼   ► you're like, "Oh no, no, we were wrong."

01:02:23 ◼   ► I mean, good for Kristen Hugo-Quayle,

01:02:25 ◼   ► like, "We were wrong, we should have hired you all along,"

01:02:28 ◼   ► it seems to be what happened here.

01:02:30 ◼   ► But I don't know, it's weird.

01:02:33 ◼   ► I will say the big change was Katie Cotton leaving.

01:02:37 ◼   ► Katie Cotton, and I've talked about her before,

01:02:40 ◼   ► she was, I would say, as close to Steve Jobs.

01:02:45 ◼   ► My perception was she was as close to Steve Jobs

01:02:48 ◼   ► as anybody at Apple.

01:02:50 ◼   ► And we don't talk about her a lot

01:02:52 ◼   ► because we don't talk about PR.

01:02:53 ◼   ► We talk about products.

01:02:55 ◼   ► And so we talk about Phil and Johnny Ive and Tim Cook.

01:02:58 ◼   ► But I think Katie was always there next to Steve.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Katie was controlling the message of Apple.

01:03:04 ◼   ► All of the Apple PR, everything they did,

01:03:07 ◼   ► all their messaging, like Katie controlled it.

01:03:10 ◼   ► And I think Katie worked for Phil, I think,

01:03:13 ◼   ► but Katie worked for Steve, right?

01:03:15 ◼   ► And she, don't get on her bad side, she was real scary.

01:03:20 ◼   ► I was terrified of her at various points.

01:03:23 ◼   ► And everybody will have their Katie story.

01:03:26 ◼   ► But, and she can also be very charming and nice.

01:03:29 ◼   ► You mean PR?

01:03:30 ◼   ► Like you gotta be able to do that.

01:03:31 ◼   ► - She's like Steve Jobs, right?

01:03:33 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:03:34 ◼   ► But I would say Katie had her way of doing things

01:03:38 ◼   ► and it was really Steve's way of doing things.

01:03:41 ◼   ► And she was able to like get what Steve wanted out of it.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Obviously when you work for Steve Jobs that closely,

01:03:47 ◼   ► if Steve doesn't like a step that you made

01:03:49 ◼   ► in terms of PR or whatever, you'll know

01:03:52 ◼   ► and you'll know not to ever do it again.

01:03:54 ◼   ► So Steve passed away, Katie retired

01:03:58 ◼   ► with probably all the money.

01:04:00 ◼   ► The one of her two lieutenants gets the top job

01:04:04 ◼   ► and the other one leaves.

01:04:06 ◼   ► So Steve Dowling's now in charge.

01:04:07 ◼   ► That was the moment, that was the Steve Jobs

01:04:09 ◼   ► to Tim Cook kind of moment of like,

01:04:11 ◼   ► somebody new is in charge

01:04:12 ◼   ► who can make some different decisions.

01:04:14 ◼   ► And I think probably part of Dowling's pitch

01:04:18 ◼   ► in trying to get hired was we're gonna do things different.

01:04:21 ◼   ► So Dowling really did lead a lot of the PR changes

01:04:24 ◼   ► that have happened.

01:04:25 ◼   ► And, you know, sorry for the inside baseball everybody,

01:04:27 ◼   ► but like for those of us who cover Apple,

01:04:29 ◼   ► like the way they roll out products

01:04:31 ◼   ► and they got YouTubers involved

01:04:32 ◼   ► and they've got different ways of doing product briefings

01:04:35 ◼   ► and they've got like, they've,

01:04:36 ◼   ► after a period where they really didn't change

01:04:40 ◼   ► for a long time, really.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Like from the early days of Steve,

01:04:46 ◼   ► until sort of Steve Dowling was in charge,

01:04:50 ◼   ► Apple PR was basically always the same playbook.

01:04:54 ◼   ► And I don't know whether that was because the people

01:04:56 ◼   ► in the PR group wanted it to be that way

01:04:57 ◼   ► or because that was the playbook,

01:04:59 ◼   ► 'cause Katie said that's the playbook.

01:05:01 ◼   ► But they did change.

01:05:04 ◼   ► And I think Dowling and his team felt the freedom

01:05:08 ◼   ► with Katie Gaughan to make some of those changes.

01:05:11 ◼   ► And I think that there were a lot of positive changes.

01:05:13 ◼   ► And I think there were a lot of like, you know,

01:05:14 ◼   ► creative things that we could debate

01:05:16 ◼   ► whether they're good or not,

01:05:17 ◼   ► but they were like trying new things.

01:05:19 ◼   ► And I think you've got,

01:05:20 ◼   ► after so much time of it being static,

01:05:22 ◼   ► them trying new things is a great thing.

01:05:23 ◼   ► Like just, you should do that as just,

01:05:25 ◼   ► I'm not talking about self-interest here.

01:05:27 ◼   ► I'm saying as a person in a business,

01:05:29 ◼   ► you should probably try different things

01:05:31 ◼   ► once in a while, right?

01:05:33 ◼   ► Not just follow the same playbook from 1998.

01:05:37 ◼   ► So in this, so they had the gap and then they had the new person come in and in less than a year,

01:05:44 ◼   ► she's out and they brought, they've elevated somebody from the team. Probably should have

01:05:48 ◼   ► done that to begin with, but maybe they had to go through the process, right? Sometimes you got to

01:05:52 ◼   ► go through the process to know what you, you think you want one thing and then you go through and

01:05:56 ◼   ► you realize you don't want that thing. You want the other thing after all. And they're fortunate,

01:06:01 ◼   ► I would say on one level that Christian Hugo-Quayle didn't say "bye" and leave. Like what happened

01:06:12 ◼   ► with Natalie Karras, who when Steve Dowling got the job, she was out of there and she was great.

01:06:19 ◼   ► She had a product PR, so I dealt with her a lot for years. She used to work at FileMaker. I dealt

01:06:24 ◼   ► with her for 20 years. I mean, a lot of time. But the moment that that choice was made,

01:06:31 ◼   ► she was out of there. And Chris and Hugo Quayle didn't get the job. I don't know if she was

01:06:36 ◼   ► up for it or not. It would seem that she would have been. And she was doing the work and

01:06:40 ◼   ► they kept not hiring a replacement, naming a replacement. But she's got the job now.

01:06:45 ◼   ► So I think that Apple may be fortunate that she didn't press the eject button when they

01:06:50 ◼   ► they hired this person from Cisco last year.

01:06:54 ◼   ► Maybe she was just biding her time.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Sometimes that's what you do is you get passed over

01:06:57 ◼   ► for something and you think this is gonna,

01:07:00 ◼   ► well, and you think this is not gonna go well, right?

01:07:02 ◼   ► Like I've seen this, I've absolutely seen this

01:07:06 ◼   ► where you're like, okay, that person doesn't realize

01:07:09 ◼   ► what they're getting themselves into.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And these people don't realize what they've just done.

01:07:15 ◼   ► Everybody's gonna regret this.

01:07:17 ◼   ► And this person isn't gonna be here for very long.

01:07:19 ◼   ► And maybe that was what she did, was like,

01:07:21 ◼   ► "I'll buy my time, this isn't gonna work out."

01:07:24 ◼   ► And well, if she did, then good on her

01:07:26 ◼   ► because she was right.

01:07:28 ◼   ► This did not work out.

01:07:31 ◼   ► It turns out hiring a new head of PR from Cisco, not a fit.

01:07:36 ◼   ► - This episode is brought to you by Squarespace,

01:07:38 ◼   ► the all-in-one platform to build your online presence

01:07:40 ◼   ► and run your business.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Squarespace gives you everything from website functionality

01:07:45 ◼   ► to online store functionality, to marketing tools,

01:07:48 ◼   ► analytics, whatever it is, they've got you covered by

01:07:50 ◼   ► combining cutting edge design and world class engineering to

01:07:54 ◼   ► make it easier than ever to establish your home online and

01:07:57 ◼   ► make your ideas a reality. With Squarespace, you get all the

01:08:01 ◼   ► tools that you need. You get free unlimited hosting, top of

01:08:03 ◼   ► the line security, dependable resources, 24/7 customer

01:08:06 ◼   ► support. There's nothing to install, nothing to patch,

01:08:09 ◼   ► nothing to upgrade. You can get SEO and email marketing tools.

01:08:13 ◼   ► You can grab a domain name, you can customize a beautiful

01:08:17 ◼   ► template that are all professionally designed just takes drag and drop tools to do this

01:08:21 ◼   ► and you can customise the look and feel, settings and products you have on sale with this store

01:08:25 ◼   ► in just a few clicks.

01:08:27 ◼   ► Every single Squarespace website is optimised for mobile. When you're actually building

01:08:30 ◼   ► it there's these buttons that you can press to change the size of the screen so you can

01:08:35 ◼   ► see like this is how it will look on a PC, this is how it will look on a tablet, this

01:08:39 ◼   ► is how it will look on a phone which is really great. Everything adjusts so you can just

01:08:42 ◼   ► take a look, tweak things as ever you would like. Squarespace can let you publish your

01:08:47 ◼   ► next blog post, promote your business, announce an event, sell your physical or digital goods,

01:08:52 ◼   ► showcase your work in a portfolio and so much more.

01:08:55 ◼   ► You can go to squarespace.com/upgrade and you can sign up for a free trial today with

01:08:59 ◼   ► no credit card required.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Then when you're ready to launch use the offer code upgrade and you'll save 10% off your

01:09:04 ◼   ► first purchase of a website or domain.

01:09:07 ◼   ► That is squarespace.com/upgrade and when you sign up use the offer code upgrade and you'll

01:09:11 ◼   ► get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show.

01:09:14 ◼   ► thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of Upgrade and Relay FM.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Let's do some #AskUpgrade questions to finish out today's episode. Gregory asks,

01:09:27 ◼   ► "How do you keep track of your books across multiple services, Jason? I have

01:09:32 ◼   ► Apple Books, Kindle, physical, and a bunch of Audible accounts, and I often find it

01:09:37 ◼   ► difficult to remember where I bought something. Short of just checking

01:09:40 ◼   ► everywhere? Do you have an easier way? I don't. The truth is I buy mostly, I buy

01:09:47 ◼   ► almost entirely ebooks and I used to buy them all on the Kindle store and now I

01:09:51 ◼   ► mostly buy them on the Kobo store and so I don't have that many places to look

01:09:55 ◼   ► and it's not a problem. So I don't really have a good answer here. I don't know if

01:10:02 ◼   ► there are book tracking services, I don't do Audible. I mean I'm sure there are

01:10:07 ◼   ► - I don't buy physical books.

01:10:08 ◼   ► I don't do Apple books.

01:10:10 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:10:11 ◼   ► I think they all are geared toward you buying

01:10:14 ◼   ► just from them, right?

01:10:15 ◼   ► Nobody wants to help you.

01:10:16 ◼   ► So I don't have an answer here.

01:10:18 ◼   ► - Oh, pretty much.

01:10:19 ◼   ► - Nobody wants to help you.

01:10:20 ◼   ► - I mean like, you get these like TV tracking apps

01:10:23 ◼   ► or whatever.

01:10:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, but I don't think they're like,

01:10:25 ◼   ► honestly, I'm not sure Gregory is the most common case here

01:10:28 ◼   ► where it's like I buy Apple books and Kindle books

01:10:31 ◼   ► and physical books and two different audible accounts

01:10:33 ◼   ► in different regions.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And it's like, I'm not sure that that's a real

01:10:37 ◼   ► edge case. So I don't know if there's a way. Can you like tag things on Goodreads based

01:10:44 ◼   ► on where it exists in your house? I don't know. Or in your digital accounts. I don't

01:10:49 ◼   ► know. I don't know the answer to that question, but I can't help. I'm keeping it simple.

01:10:57 ◼   ► We've done this before, but I'm going to do it again. Nougat machine, if you would say

01:11:00 ◼   ► nougat. Do you use contacts metadata to identify family members or do you instead have a contact

01:11:09 ◼   ► named say mum to display the familial relation instead of the proper noun in notifications?

01:11:16 ◼   ► This is so interesting, right? So if you didn't catch that, do you say for example have contacts

01:11:23 ◼   ► that says your mum's full name or do you have your mum's name? Like just say mum.

01:11:29 ◼   ► - Right, or do you add, I think you can add a nickname

01:11:34 ◼   ► as well if you want to.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, you can add nicknames, but also,

01:11:39 ◼   ► Siri will make an actual link too.

01:11:43 ◼   ► So if you say, if I said, my dad is Jason Snell,

01:11:47 ◼   ► then if I say, call dad, it would be Jason.

01:11:53 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:11:54 ◼   ► This is interesting, what do you do?

01:11:58 ◼   ► - Oh, I just have mom and it's my mom.

01:12:00 ◼   ► I don't have like my mom's full name

01:12:02 ◼   ► and then that's my mom.

01:12:03 ◼   ► I don't call her by her full name.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Why do I need that for?

01:12:06 ◼   ► - I have her full name.

01:12:08 ◼   ► I have my mother's full name.

01:12:09 ◼   ► - Is that how you refer to her too?

01:12:12 ◼   ► And this is Snell.

01:12:13 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:14 ◼   ► I just don't, I mean, it's probably a legacy

01:12:18 ◼   ► of when my dad was alive,

01:12:20 ◼   ► it was both of their names in there,

01:12:21 ◼   ► but it didn't say mom and dad, it said Ron and Sue Snell.

01:12:24 ◼   ► So yeah.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I don't do that for anybody.

01:12:30 ◼   ► My wife's full name is in there.

01:12:33 ◼   ► It's not a nickname or wife,

01:12:35 ◼   ► or it's what wife is calling.

01:12:37 ◼   ► My children are their full names.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I'm a bad, boring person, I guess.

01:12:41 ◼   ► Jamie's-

01:12:42 ◼   ► - But you wouldn't, like, if you had like son,

01:12:45 ◼   ► like, you know, that'd be weird.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Like, 'cause you don't call him son, you know?

01:12:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:12:50 ◼   ► Second child is calling.

01:12:53 ◼   ► - Favorite child.

01:12:57 ◼   ► - Jamie has, I know that Jamie has me in her book

01:13:00 ◼   ► as daddy Snell.

01:13:02 ◼   ► I forget what she's got if Lauren is mommy Snell or not,

01:13:06 ◼   ► but like she's done that.

01:13:08 ◼   ► And then Jamie also edited in Lauren's phone,

01:13:11 ◼   ► she actually edited her own contact

01:13:13 ◼   ► and put a bunch of heart emojis around her.

01:13:15 ◼   ► So whenever Jamie calls, it's like heart, heart, heart,

01:13:17 ◼   ► Jamie heart, heart, heart is calling

01:13:20 ◼   ► because Jamie decided to be her own hype man there.

01:13:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:13:25 ◼   ► I have a great one now.

01:13:26 ◼   ► All right, I'm putting my mom on blast here.

01:13:29 ◼   ► So back in the day, I used to have two phones

01:13:34 ◼   ► because I bought a new, I had like my iPhone or something

01:13:38 ◼   ► and I still was on an old contract,

01:13:41 ◼   ► which was a Sony Walkman phone.

01:13:43 ◼   ► And that was the number that I ended up carrying over,

01:13:47 ◼   ► but I had to change network to get the iPhone.

01:13:49 ◼   ► So I ended up having two numbers for a little bit,

01:13:51 ◼   ► but then I was able to swap that over.

01:13:53 ◼   ► So still to this day, we are talking over 15 years.

01:13:58 ◼   ► My contact in my mom's phone is Michael Walkman.

01:14:05 ◼   ► And I say to her, "Mom, should we change this?"

01:14:09 ◼   ► And she says, "No, I like it like that."

01:14:12 ◼   ► So to my mother, I am the Walkman, I guess.

01:14:16 ◼   ► So this is a thing that still exists.

01:14:20 ◼   ► I am the Walkman.

01:14:22 ◼   ► - You are the Walkman.

01:14:23 ◼   ► - That's amazing.

01:14:24 ◼   ► - And I cannot tell you how much restraint I showed

01:14:27 ◼   ► to say I'm gonna put you as daddy's now in my phone too.

01:14:30 ◼   ► But I feel like enough time has passed

01:14:33 ◼   ► from when you said that to now

01:14:34 ◼   ► or I feel like I can constantly say that.

01:14:36 ◼   ► I may put you as daddy now on my phone.

01:14:40 ◼   ► What is the energy we're bringing to the show now?

01:14:43 ◼   ► Sebastian asks--

01:14:44 ◼   ► - There's japes.

01:14:45 ◼   ► There's japes happening all of a sudden.

01:14:47 ◼   ► - A new display from Apple would feature a built-in webcam.

01:14:51 ◼   ► Now, of course, to set the stage for this,

01:14:53 ◼   ► all of Apple's Macs have webcams.

01:14:56 ◼   ► The Pro Display XDR does not have a built-in webcam,

01:14:59 ◼   ► and Apple even went so far as to work with Logitech

01:15:02 ◼   ► to create a specific version of their BRIO webcam

01:15:05 ◼   ► that had a magnet on it to go on the top.

01:15:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it's because they couldn't afford

01:15:10 ◼   ► to put it in and keep the price down on the XDR.

01:15:13 ◼   ► - It's another $1,000 for a webcam.

01:15:16 ◼   ► - I actually think that they're probably,

01:15:19 ◼   ► so I think it should,

01:15:20 ◼   ► and I think that there should be.

01:15:21 ◼   ► However, what gives me pause is the XDR

01:15:23 ◼   ► and the fact that I think they probably heard from customers

01:15:26 ◼   ► who said, "We put these things in places

01:15:29 ◼   ► where we don't want a webcam,

01:15:30 ◼   ► and don't make us put a piece of tape

01:15:33 ◼   ► on your beautiful $5,000 display," right?

01:15:37 ◼   ► That there are places where they don't want a webcam,

01:15:39 ◼   ► but I would hope so.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I would hope that there would be a webcam

01:15:43 ◼   ► and maybe if they're gonna do face ID,

01:15:45 ◼   ► put face ID in there or something.

01:15:47 ◼   ► It should be a great webcam and center stage in there, right?

01:15:50 ◼   ► Like that's what it should be.

01:15:51 ◼   ► And quite frankly, I will be disappointed if it isn't there,

01:15:54 ◼   ► but that doesn't mean they're gonna do it.

01:15:55 ◼   ► They don't just release products to please me,

01:15:58 ◼   ► unfortunately, if only.

01:16:00 ◼   ► - I do think that they will.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I think the Pro Display XDR,

01:16:04 ◼   ► looking at the Pro Display XDR as reasoning

01:16:08 ◼   ► for any future decision, I think is a fool's errand.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Like that is a one-off thing for me

01:16:14 ◼   ► in the way that the Mac Pro was a one-off thing.

01:16:17 ◼   ► It existed for a very specific, like the iMac Pro, sorry,

01:16:21 ◼   ► it existed for a very specific purpose

01:16:23 ◼   ► in a alternate timeline that got broken

01:16:26 ◼   ► and we came back to reality.

01:16:27 ◼   ► Like, why did they not put a camera in that?

01:16:30 ◼   ► Well, because they just didn't,

01:16:31 ◼   ► because this was meant to be a replacement

01:16:33 ◼   ► for a reference display.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Like, you know what I mean?

01:16:35 ◼   ► Like, I just think it's like,

01:16:37 ◼   ► looking at that as any reason for future decisions,

01:16:40 ◼   ► I don't think is, like,

01:16:41 ◼   ► I don't think Apple's ever going to charge separately

01:16:44 ◼   ► for a stand on a monitor ever again.

01:16:46 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right.

01:16:47 ◼   ► - I think you're right.

01:16:48 ◼   ► - It was just this one thing.

01:16:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, the XDR should not be hopefully

01:16:53 ◼   ► a proof of any future plans for monitors, but who knows?

01:16:58 ◼   ► Do I think it'll happen?

01:17:00 ◼   ► I mean, I hope it happens.

01:17:02 ◼   ► I don't know if I have an answer.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Do I think it'll happen?

01:17:04 ◼   ► Because Apple often will vex us with their product choices

01:17:08 ◼   ► for something like this,

01:17:09 ◼   ► but like a modern Apple display external

01:17:12 ◼   ► for people who have got a Mac mini

01:17:13 ◼   ► or whatever that device is that they're hooking up,

01:17:16 ◼   ► Are they gonna want a webcam?

01:17:18 ◼   ► Yes.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Are they gonna want center stage?

01:17:19 ◼   ► Yes, they are.

01:17:20 ◼   ► Why would you not do that and make them put something

01:17:24 ◼   ► on the top of their monitor?

01:17:26 ◼   ► Like, don't do it.

01:17:29 ◼   ► I mean, if they're worried about security concerns,

01:17:32 ◼   ► you know, make it available without

01:17:34 ◼   ► or sell a $15 piece of tape that you put up there

01:17:38 ◼   ► or whatever, I don't care, but I want it

01:17:40 ◼   ► and they should do it and they should feel bad

01:17:42 ◼   ► if they aren't doing it.

01:17:44 ◼   ► - And Splendid asks, "What do you use to synchronize files

01:17:48 ◼   ► "across your laptop and desktop other than

01:17:50 ◼   ► "just drag and drop?

01:17:51 ◼   ► "I found myself starting to learn to use terminals

01:17:54 ◼   ► "so I could work out how to write an rsync shell script

01:17:59 ◼   ► "but I don't trust myself to not delete anything."

01:18:02 ◼   ► Splendid stop.

01:18:03 ◼   ► What are you doing?

01:18:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:06 ◼   ► What are you doing?

01:18:07 ◼   ► Why would you do that?

01:18:09 ◼   ► There's a feature in iCloud to do this exact thing.

01:18:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's my number one piece of advice is

01:18:15 ◼   ► if you gotta pay a little more for iCloud, do it,

01:18:16 ◼   ► but like, use iCloud. - Don't do that.

01:18:19 ◼   ► - Sync your desktop and your documents folders with iCloud

01:18:21 ◼   ► and just do that and see how that works

01:18:23 ◼   ► because that is why that feature is there.

01:18:27 ◼   ► - Please stop.

01:18:27 ◼   ► - Or you could do what I do and have like a bunch of things

01:18:30 ◼   ► that are actually inside of Dropbox

01:18:32 ◼   ► and pay for Dropbox and use that.

01:18:34 ◼   ► And investigate because some of the apps you use

01:18:38 ◼   ► may actually have a feature that lets them sync

01:18:40 ◼   ► their settings across.

01:18:43 ◼   ► Like I use BB Edit and I've talked about it a lot.

01:18:46 ◼   ► I've written about it a lot, mostly in BB Edit.

01:18:50 ◼   ► You can put their application support folder

01:18:52 ◼   ► inside iCloud and it just uses it.

01:18:56 ◼   ► And it's documented, but it's like,

01:18:59 ◼   ► there's not like a preference for it, but it works.

01:19:02 ◼   ► And so, if that's what you're frustrated about

01:19:05 ◼   ► is like app preferences, you should check

01:19:06 ◼   ► and see if your app preferences have a way of syncing

01:19:09 ◼   ► to ask the developer.

01:19:09 ◼   ► And if they don't, you should say, please do this.

01:19:12 ◼   ► But like, I don't recommend writing janky scripts

01:19:16 ◼   ► or maybe your scripts would be pristine,

01:19:17 ◼   ► but still like, don't do it.

01:19:19 ◼   ► Like use the cloud services that have been provided to you.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Please.

01:19:24 ◼   ► - I'm so pleased that you stopped doing this and wrote in.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Because that meant that you had the peace of mind,

01:19:31 ◼   ► like foresight to be like,

01:19:32 ◼   ► - Maybe this is a bad idea.

01:19:33 ◼   ► - This is probably a bad idea.

01:19:34 ◼   ► 'Cause there are lots of people

01:19:35 ◼   ► that do not stop at that point.

01:19:36 ◼   ► And then they end up going to the Apple store and saying,

01:19:39 ◼   ► please can you help me get my data back?

01:19:41 ◼   ► And the app store says, no, I cannot do that.

01:19:43 ◼   ► I use Dropbox basically.

01:19:45 ◼   ► If we're talking about file storage, it's all Dropbox.

01:19:47 ◼   ► I use Dropbox as if it is Finder.

01:19:51 ◼   ► Like that is when I open a new Finder window,

01:19:53 ◼   ► it goes to my Dropbox because that is where I keep

01:19:55 ◼   ► every single file that I care about.

01:19:59 ◼   ► - Although I will say you would be surprised

01:20:02 ◼   ► at what's in iCloud Drive because apps,

01:20:04 ◼   ► more and more apps are supporting iCloud Drive

01:20:07 ◼   ► for their syncing.

01:20:08 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I use iCloud drive syncing

01:20:12 ◼   ► when an app forces that.

01:20:17 ◼   ► So like I have a bunch of numbers, documents or whatever,

01:20:20 ◼   ► and they sync of iCloud.

01:20:21 ◼   ► However, if it's something that I consider to be important,

01:20:24 ◼   ► I will save it out to Dropbox

01:20:25 ◼   ► and I will just open it from Dropbox.

01:20:28 ◼   ► Like I kind of treat the iCloud syncing

01:20:30 ◼   ► as if the app is just basically

01:20:32 ◼   ► what it is actually intended to do.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Like how you would have any app

01:20:35 ◼   ► just having its own data inside of that app, you know?

01:20:38 ◼   ► I could kind of treat it like that.

01:20:39 ◼   ► But if it's an important thing,

01:20:41 ◼   ► it will get saved out as a file.

01:20:43 ◼   ► If you want to hear more about some of the weird

01:20:45 ◼   ► and wonderful things that me and Jason are doing

01:20:47 ◼   ► with Dropbox, we talk about that in today's Upgrade Plus.

01:20:51 ◼   ► It's not related to this question, Splendid.

01:20:53 ◼   ► You're not going to get more out of,

01:20:54 ◼   ► we're not like hiding your answer in Upgrade Plus.

01:20:58 ◼   ► We talk about some other Dropbox related things.

01:21:01 ◼   ► If any of you want to get that,

01:21:02 ◼   ► you can go to getupgradeplus.com

01:21:03 ◼   ► and you can sign up, $5 a month or $50 a year.

01:21:06 ◼   ► You get longer ad-free episodes of Upgrade,

01:21:08 ◼   ► including a bunch of other wonderful perks

01:21:10 ◼   ► of being a Relay FM member,

01:21:11 ◼   ► including access to our wonderful Discord,

01:21:13 ◼   ► which houses our live chat, which you can,

01:21:16 ◼   ► if you listen to the show, we record live, by the way,

01:21:18 ◼   ► if you ever wanna check out the show live,

01:21:20 ◼   ► Mondays at 9 a.m. Pacific time.

01:21:22 ◼   ► Anybody can listen for free at relay.fm/live.

01:21:26 ◼   ► We also have that in the Discord,

01:21:27 ◼   ► but the live chat, which is a wonderful group of people

01:21:30 ◼   ► who provide us lots of great follow-up and feedback

01:21:32 ◼   ► as we record, they are in our Relay FM members Discord,

01:21:35 ◼   ► but you can get access to it, getupgradeplus.com.

01:21:38 ◼   ► Thank you so much to everybody that has signed up.

01:21:41 ◼   ► It really helps support the show

01:21:42 ◼   ► and we greatly, greatly appreciate it.

01:21:44 ◼   ► We also appreciate our sponsors of this episode,

01:21:46 ◼   ► Squarespace, Membr4, and Capital One.

01:21:48 ◼   ► But most of all, we appreciate every single one of you

01:21:52 ◼   ► for listening as you do every single week.

01:21:55 ◼   ► And we'll be back next time.

01:21:57 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason in the meantime,

01:21:58 ◼   ► especially you do with the Apple results coming up,

01:22:01 ◼   ► go to sixcolors.com and Jason is @jasonell, J-S-N-E-L-L.

01:22:05 ◼   ► I am @imike and we'll be back next week.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye Jason Snow.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Merci France, Merci beaucoup.

01:22:13 ◼   ► [MUSIC]