00:00:08 ◼ ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 380. Today's show is brought to you by Amazon Music,
00:00:15 ◼ ► Capital One, and Hunter Douglas. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi,
00:00:20 ◼ ► Jason Snell. What's in your wallet, Myke? We'll find out later on in the episode. You just wanted
00:00:26 ◼ ► to say it, but I get to say it later on. I did want to say it, and Upgrade Plus people won't hear
00:00:30 ◼ ► your delight in being able to say it, so I thought I'd bring it up to Capital One's. You get to be
00:00:36 ◼ ► Samuel L. Jackson for a minute. It's very exciting. I have a #SnellTalk question for you. It comes
00:00:40 ◼ ► from Zach and Zach wants to know, this is follow-up from last week. So last week's Snell Talk question,
00:00:45 ◼ ► right, was how long do you give it before you get rid of a book? You know, if you're not enjoying it,
00:00:50 ◼ ► Zach wants to know how long do you give a TV show before you'll bail on it? It really depends. This
00:00:55 ◼ ► is a great question, but I don't have a hard and fast answer here. I am guided in part by,
00:01:00 ◼ ► like, reviews, whether it's from TV critics or from friends. Sometimes, like, I'm not a fan of
00:01:09 ◼ ► the idea that you have to wait until episode five until it really gets good, because you're like,
00:01:13 ◼ ► I don't want to sit through four episodes where it's not good just to get to where the good part
00:01:17 ◼ ► is. Like, I don't want to do that. And yet, if I get that impression from people, like, this is
00:01:23 ◼ ► really good. You need to, you just need to kind of, like, give it, be patient a little bit. I'm
00:01:27 ◼ ► willing to give something a little more slack. I would say, traditionally, it's all about the
00:01:34 ◼ ► second episode. I used to talk about this on TV Talk Machine podcast all the time, that, like,
00:01:39 ◼ ► I always think that episode two of a show is the most important episode of a show, because the
00:01:43 ◼ ► first episode is, you may decide it's not for you right away. But it's, it's usually, I mean,
00:01:50 ◼ ► this is less true now than it used to be, but it used to be the pilot episode. So it was sort of
00:01:54 ◼ ► like setting the premise of what the show was going to be, which meant that the first episode
00:01:57 ◼ ► wasn't really representative of what the show was going to be because they needed to set up.
00:02:09 ◼ ► Well, they only shoot the one and then they wait, traditionally, they only shoot the one episode and
00:02:13 ◼ ► then they wait like six months to get approval to go shoot more and then they have to shoot,
00:02:17 ◼ ► you know, the rest of the season. And so episode one isn't always representative. So if I really
00:02:24 ◼ ► get turned off by a first episode, and modern shows are less like this, like I said, but if
00:02:29 ◼ ► I'm really turned off by the first episode, I will bail. But I feel like the second episode is often
00:02:35 ◼ ► the crucible for a TV show, because if the second episode where they've gotten a chance to get the
00:02:41 ◼ ► band back together, if it's a traditional pilot, then you'll know whether it's for you or not in a
00:02:48 ◼ ► lot of cases. When, back in the day when I had a DVR, I thought the most telling thing was I would
00:02:57 ◼ ► always set the shows to record the whole show when I set, when a new show was coming on that I was
00:03:01 ◼ ► interested in. Because the last thing you want to do is not get around to episode one to decide if
00:03:05 ◼ ► you like it or not. And then episode two airs. And so now if you watch episode one, you can't watch
00:03:10 ◼ ► episode two because it already aired back in the day. But the telling thing is when you abandon the
00:03:17 ◼ ► show and the episodes start to pile up. And that doesn't mean you actually decided to dump that
00:03:21 ◼ ► show, but you haven't gone further. And I guess the equivalent today would be you end up in a
00:03:26 ◼ ► situation where you are an episode or two into a show. And it may even be in the like upcoming in
00:03:33 ◼ ► the TV app. And it just gets further to the right and further to the right because you're not
00:03:38 ◼ ► motivated to go back to it. And that, so a lot of TV shows self-cancel, Zach is what I'm saying,
00:03:46 ◼ ► is a lot of stuff it really just comes down to there's so much out there. And if I don't ever
00:03:51 ◼ ► think I'm in the mood for that show, then there goes that show. It's gone. But there's usually a
00:03:57 ◼ ► moment where you either buy in or get out. And that's definitely happened to me on some shows
00:04:03 ◼ ► where sometimes it's just a lack of enthusiasm, but other times it is literally like, oh no,
00:04:07 ◼ ► I just did that with what was it called Home Before Dark, Back Before Dark, that show about
00:04:14 ◼ ► the little girl who solves crimes on Apple TV Plus. And I didn't like the first episode,
00:04:18 ◼ ► but I watched the second episode and the second episode made me angry. And I was like, oh,
00:04:21 ◼ ► I can't watch this show anymore. I need to stop watching this show. So you got to listen to the
00:04:26 ◼ ► universe when it tells you nobody's giving you points for watching something you don't like.
00:04:31 ◼ ► You got to get out of there. If you'd like to send in a hashtag Snow Talk question, you can do so by
00:04:36 ◼ ► sending out a tweet with the hashtag Snow Talk or using question marks Snow Talk in the Real AFM
00:04:40 ◼ ► members Discord. I should just note before we continue, because people will always ask,
00:04:44 ◼ ► Jason is not recording at home today. I'm not. I'm in the desert location. So yes, using a MacBook
00:04:53 ◼ ► Pro, which we'll talk about in a minute, but I am not at home today. So yes, thank you for your
00:04:57 ◼ ► concern. You wrote a really great post and put together some wonderful charts and six colors in
00:05:02 ◼ ► the last week kind of in review of Apple completing their fiscal year. We spoke about Apple
00:05:11 ◼ ► Earnest last week, but kind of looking at the last how many years did you look at over this period?
00:05:22 ◼ ► And then in terms of Apple's product lines since the, you know, the Mac since the 90s and the
00:05:32 ◼ ► So there's some really like kind of fascinating stuff in here. I recommend people go look at the
00:05:36 ◼ ► entire, look at all the charts and read the whole article. But there are a couple of things that
00:05:40 ◼ ► were just wild to me. So one of them is, you know, like we look at quarter to quarter and we
00:05:45 ◼ ► compare quarter to quarter, right? But when you look at the entire year encapsulated, 2021 was
00:05:52 ◼ ► unbelievable for Apple in terms of revenue. It was like, you know, up, down, up, down a little bit
00:05:58 ◼ ► here and there, kind of like in the 200 range since 2014, like 200 to 300, a billion, right?
00:06:05 ◼ ► Billion. Yes. Uh, in the year. And then this year it was just shot up to 366. I think looking at
00:06:10 ◼ ► this chart, it's the largest year over year revenue jump. Uh, like from a full year to full year
00:06:17 ◼ ► that Apple's ever had. It looks like in terms of, in terms of dollars. Yes. In terms of percent,
00:06:32 ◼ ► Yeah. 2009 Apple made $43 billion in 2012 it made $157 billion. So like in a very short amount of
00:06:40 ◼ ► time, it shot up really fast. Um, and, uh, there was another big bump in 2015, but, uh, in terms
00:06:49 ◼ ► of pure numbers and like you look at the chart and it's sort of like, Apple's just very slowly going
00:06:52 ◼ ► up and then it goes up real fast. Uh, and then it goes this last year, it goes up way faster and
00:06:59 ◼ ► uh, that's probably not, uh, that rate of growth is not going to sustain, but if, if it's like
00:07:07 ◼ ► previous stuff with Apple, it's not as likely to come back to earth as it is to then sort of plateau
00:07:15 ◼ ► at that new high level, right? Where it's, it's gone from being 200 something. So the last six
00:07:22 ◼ ► years was 200 something billion dollars in revenue. And now we had a $366 billion year. Well, I think
00:07:29 ◼ ► it's, it would not be surprising at all if the next five years were all sort of 300 something
00:07:35 ◼ ► billion in revenue. Yeah. But the expectation looking at the data that you have is that it
00:07:39 ◼ ► will probably be smaller in 2022, you know, maybe down to 320, 330. We don't know. I mean, 300
00:07:47 ◼ ► something, right? It's not necessarily all the way up, but, uh, but yeah, there's some feeling that
00:07:51 ◼ ► probably some future sales got pulled into fiscal 21. Um, but then again, there was feeling that
00:07:57 ◼ ► future sales got pulled into fiscal 22 and yet 21 is that much better. So, uh, but yeah, it's
00:08:02 ◼ ► possible that if you put COVID and Apple Silicon together, you've got a, and throw in a, uh, redesign
00:08:09 ◼ ► physical redesign of, of hardware for the iPhone, uh, that you may have a pretty remarkable year.
00:08:16 ◼ ► And that the next few years are going to be lower because so many products that might have been
00:08:23 ◼ ► deferred and purchased in 22 or 23 or 24, all got pulled back into 21 for one reason or another.
00:08:31 ◼ ► But your iPhone chart shows, you know, the iPhone chart shows the iPhone six, the iPhone 10 and the
00:08:36 ◼ ► iPhone 12, all big redesigns. You see it, you see, you can see, we talk about seasonality and we talk
00:08:42 ◼ ► about like the holiday quarter, but here on an annual scale, you can see this sort of iPhone
00:08:47 ◼ ► seasonality, which is the redesign year. And you see the spikes, there's 2015 spikes, 2018 spikes
00:08:54 ◼ ► and 2021 spikes. And that's all hardware redesigns of the iPhone driving a new wave of iPhone sales.
00:09:01 ◼ ► And, and, and then the level stays high, but you can see that spike that is the year that they
00:09:08 ◼ ► changed the look of the iPhone. Yep. And then there's a Mac chart and I want you to, I want
00:09:13 ◼ ► to see if I can get your help on this because from 97 to 2006, it's kind of in the three to
00:09:18 ◼ ► five billion dollars a year range. Then from 2007 up to 2011, it just steadily increases to the 20
00:09:26 ◼ ► something range. Is this the iPhone that did this for the Mac? I think it's a couple of different
00:09:35 ◼ ► things, right? So it's, um, it's the iPod halo effect, which starts in the early two thousands
00:09:44 ◼ ► and then continues to accelerate. So you've got the, uh, people who've never bought an Apple
00:09:49 ◼ ► product before, but they buy an iPod and they really like it. And Apple retail is out there too.
00:09:54 ◼ ► And so people are able to see Apple products for the first time, maybe in their lives, because they
00:09:59 ◼ ► just haven't been around Macs before. Um, because the Macs are so, uh, such a niche computer product
00:10:05 ◼ ► at this point. And they have an affinity for the Apple brand now, cause they like their iPod and
00:10:09 ◼ ► the Apple store is right there. And they've heard that, you know, Oh, Apple also makes a computer
00:10:13 ◼ ► and maybe they knew it. Um, also it's the web is more, um, more relevant at this point. So
00:10:19 ◼ ► fewer people say I can't buy a Mac because of PC heart PC software that I need. Um, the Intel
00:10:27 ◼ ► transition then happens in 2005, 2006, which means there is a whole group of people who are Mac
00:10:33 ◼ ► hesitant because what if I need this windows app that I occasionally use? And so a whole bunch of
00:10:39 ◼ ► people buy Macs in that era, along with a copy of VMware or parallels and a windows XP virtual
00:10:48 ◼ ► machine, which was a very popular thing to do in that era. My uncle did that. My uncle had always
00:10:53 ◼ ► used a PC and he bought a Mac and we set them up with, um, with parallels and windows for the one
00:10:59 ◼ ► app that he used on. And you know what? He never used it and, uh, it became irrelevant, but it got
00:11:05 ◼ ► him to buy the Mac and then they've had a Mac ever since. So I feel like, uh, iPod halo effect,
00:11:11 ◼ ► Intel transition, and then the iPhone comes in and the iPhone is just doing what the, uh, what the,
00:11:16 ◼ ► um, iPod halo effect did again, which is get more products from Apple in the hands of people who
00:11:24 ◼ ► had never used an Apple computer before, or maybe hadn't in a long time. And once you're in the
00:11:30 ◼ ► family and you're going to the Apple store and of course across this time, the need to use windows
00:11:35 ◼ ► software is not only can you virtualize it, but it's decreasing because more and more stuff is on
00:11:40 ◼ ► the web or there's a Mac version of it, but a lot of it is just about the web. You put all that
00:11:45 ◼ ► together and the barriers come down. And I think that that's why there's that moment in like 2000.
00:11:57 ◼ ► 5 billion that year. Right. And it never came back down. It was also five in 2000, you know,
00:12:03 ◼ ► like it kind of jumps around a little bit, but then it's five, five, seven, 10, 14, 17, 22.
00:12:09 ◼ ► Right. Like, well, okay. Uh, the Mac business, uh, what, quadruples in six years. Yeah. It's yeah.
00:12:16 ◼ ► And now it's gone from there. Yeah. We're like 22 to 26. And then it goes like, you know,
00:12:22 ◼ ► that's kind of, it's like from, this is from the year 2011 to 20, 2019 is from like 22 to 26
00:12:29 ◼ ► billion. It goes up and down. Um, and then 20, 20, 20 was 29 billion, 20, 21, 35. So the last
00:12:37 ◼ ► time I did these charts was new year's 2020. And I thought it would be a good time to look back on
00:12:43 ◼ ► Apple's last decade, but I chose the fiscal year and not the, not the calendar year for that,
00:12:49 ◼ ► even though I did the story in the beginning of January or end of December. Um, so the last two
00:12:55 ◼ ► years weren't in those charts. So I revisited those charts because I thought, okay, well,
00:12:59 ◼ ► the fiscal year is over. Let's look at the year by year charts. And it's really funny because I wrote
00:13:05 ◼ ► at the time in January, 2020, I said the max bin kind of sort of sedate in the, in the decade of
00:13:15 ◼ ► the 2020s, it had that huge growth spurt in the, in the 2000s or in the decade of the 2010s. Right.
00:13:28 ◼ ► And then it goes up to 22 billion in 2011. But then in the 2010s, it just kind of goes around,
00:13:36 ◼ ► kicks around in the twenties. It, it, it, it exits the decade at 26, but it's like 22, 23,
00:13:42 ◼ ► 21, 24, 25. Right. It's just, it had this huge growth to go from 3 billion a year up to the
00:13:49 ◼ ► twenties. But that was all sort of in the previous decade and in the 2010s, it grew, but it was,
00:13:55 ◼ ► it was pretty kind of sedate. And that was my take in January of 2020. Um, but in, in 2020 fiscal,
00:14:04 ◼ ► it went to 29 billion and then it went to 35 in 21. So this, the, who knows where it's going to go
00:14:12 ◼ ► from here, but the sedate hanging around in the twenties of the last decade, I think pushed by
00:14:19 ◼ ► the Apple Silicon move and COVID again. But it has, uh, it has sent the Mac to what Apple said,
00:14:27 ◼ ► we talked about a couple of weeks ago, which is it's the four best quarters of max sales ever were
00:14:31 ◼ ► the last four. The iPad chart gave me a statistic that I didn't know until I saw this chart. Do you
00:14:38 ◼ ► like roller coasters? Myke, up, up, up, down, back up. Obviously we knew that the iPad was just
00:14:45 ◼ ► having a great year, right? The quarter of a quarter is always great, but this year 2021 is
00:14:49 ◼ ► the biggest year of iPad revenue of all time. And I didn't expect that that was the case. I'd still
00:14:56 ◼ ► assumed that those monster years between 2012 and 2014, they still hadn't beat those. We, we went
00:15:03 ◼ ► eight years, right? Where we were talking about how the, we living in a world where the iPad was
00:15:08 ◼ ► down from its previous high because it was 2013 when it hit 31 billion. So we, and we had that
00:15:14 ◼ ► period of what one, two, three, four, five straight years where it was down every year. And so we,
00:15:21 ◼ ► we really got in this mindset of like, well, the iPad's doing better. Remember when we were waiting
00:15:25 ◼ ► around for a sign that the iPad was doing better on this very podcast for quite a while. Anything
00:15:30 ◼ ► we would take. And then, but, but it turned it around. 2018 really kind of was the low and then
00:15:35 ◼ ► it's come up the last three years. And that's good, but it was always still kind of the narrative
00:15:40 ◼ ► was the iPad was fast out of the gate and then it kind of cooled off and now it's trying to find its
00:15:46 ◼ ► way to a new place. But 2021 fiscal was the iPad's best year ever. It was 32 billion. So it was more
00:15:54 ◼ ► than the 31 billion in 2013. It was at the iPad is, you know, we're back, never say what the future
00:16:01 ◼ ► holds, but right now 2021 is peak iPad, which, you know, again, for eight years, that was not the
00:16:07 ◼ ► story with the iPad. So the iPad has kind of gotten back to where it was in that really hot first
00:16:15 ◼ ► couple of years of its existence. And then the last thing that I kind of know it was just the
00:16:21 ◼ ► rocket ship of services. It's like, it's on this trajectory where I don't know, like, I feel like
00:16:30 ◼ ► maybe I don't know what's going to happen next, but you know, we spoke about this last time, like,
00:16:34 ◼ ► could, could services touch iPhone revenue and there's no way to know for sure, but it, you know,
00:16:40 ◼ ► you look at the charts, you've got like an annual revenue by product line. It's the only one that
00:16:45 ◼ ► seems like it could if it was going to happen. Yeah, it's quite a thing to look at it and see
00:16:52 ◼ ► how services continues to grow and how impressive the growth has been in the wearables category,
00:16:57 ◼ ► but how still services just keeps climbing. And my last chart is the one that I have fun doing
00:17:04 ◼ ► because I put them, I chart them all together and it's this ridiculously tall graph because
00:17:08 ◼ ► otherwise you can't see the others because of the iPhone. But the services, if you look at the graph,
00:17:13 ◼ ► you're like services is, you know, it's, it's the services has lifted up above the other three
00:17:19 ◼ ► categories. Let's put it that way. And now it is in the great void between all of Apple's other
00:17:24 ◼ ► product product categories and the iPhone. And it's, it's kind of charting its own course in
00:17:29 ◼ ► there. And that's pretty impressive actually given, given everything. Because all of these
00:17:34 ◼ ► other products, um, you know, like Mac and iPad, like we'll find out if, and maybe even iPhone,
00:17:40 ◼ ► they're going to dip a little bit, right? But like sales can dip, but the way that services works,
00:17:45 ◼ ► it's unlikely, it's incredibly unlikely that next year will be less than 68, right? Like it's,
00:17:51 ◼ ► you would require like millions of people, millions of people to cancel their subscriptions,
00:17:58 ◼ ► which is unlikely to occur. No, that's, that's, there's churn, but it's unlikely that everybody's
00:18:04 ◼ ► going to abandon Apple services en masse. And so it will keep jumping away. Also, there's nothing
00:18:10 ◼ ► like putting everything in perspective, all of the praise we just gave to the Mac and the iPad.
00:18:14 ◼ ► And then you see it on this chart and you see that, you know, the iPad at 32 all time high
00:18:27 ◼ ► So they're already, the wearables category is already bigger than the Mac and the iPad. And
00:18:31 ◼ ► then there's services at 68. And then there's the iPhone way up there where you can't even see it.
00:18:36 ◼ ► So it does, and this is why we talk about the Mac business and the iPad business separately,
00:18:41 ◼ ► because they are big businesses that should not be discounted. But let's keep in mind also that,
00:18:48 ◼ ► put together there about what services is. And I'm, I'm, you know, like I really wish they
00:18:58 ◼ ► I'm very confident that the vast majority of that wearables category is AirPods, right?
00:19:04 ◼ ► And when you think about like the Mac and the iPod, iPads, like, oh, these, you know, we love
00:19:08 ◼ ► these. We talk about it all the time, but they, they could, they could be getting beat out by
00:19:13 ◼ ► AirPods. I don't think so. I think, I think who knows my just off the top of my head, my guess
00:19:19 ◼ ► is that it's probably, um, you know, 20 billion in AirPods and 15 billion in Apple watch, or maybe
00:19:27 ◼ ► it's the, maybe it's reversed. Um, I think it's smart of them to put them together. Cause they,
00:19:32 ◼ ► I mean, obviously it's worked for them. They've created a category that's roughly the size,
00:19:36 ◼ ► at least for now of the Mac and the iPod or iPad. And it's got other stuff in there. Um, guaranteed,
00:19:42 ◼ ► by the way, if you ever mentioned the iPod on a podcast, you will say iPod for iPad later or iPad
00:19:47 ◼ ► for iPod. It just, once you break the seal on the iPod, it ruins everything. Anyway, thanks. iPod
00:19:55 ◼ ► halo effect. Your halo continues in podcasters saying the wrong words. So yeah, it's bundling
00:20:01 ◼ ► the wearables altogether is smart for them because it's creating a box. That's about the size of the
00:20:05 ◼ ► Mac box and the iPad box. But you're right. I do wonder. And the analysts will tell you like
00:20:10 ◼ ► their estimates about how AirPods are doing and how Apple watch is doing. Um, but, uh, we don't
00:20:16 ◼ ► get to see that in the numbers. They, they, they have cleverly, they would, those businesses would
00:20:21 ◼ ► need to get a lot bigger for them to have to break them out. They, and obviously they would
00:20:24 ◼ ► prefer not to. I feel like unit sales wise for the company, it probably goes iPhone and then AirPods
00:20:30 ◼ ► and maybe depending on the quarter, like flip around would be my feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I think
00:20:36 ◼ ► you're probably right. And then, and then I've had because I've had to have a level lower revenue per
00:20:41 ◼ ► unit than the Mac does. I mean, look like a AirPods are like between a hundred and $200. Right.
00:20:47 ◼ ► So it's like exactly the cheapest product and to get to 38 billion. I mean, because look, there is
00:20:53 ◼ ► a, there is a cap. I feel like there is a much stronger cap right now on what the Apple watch
00:20:58 ◼ ► can do, even though they still, I bet the Apple watch continues to grow and grow and grow, you
00:21:02 ◼ ► know, but I feel like AirPods is not as much. And its revenue per unit is a lot higher than AirPods.
00:21:07 ◼ ► So it's gonna, it's gonna do that way. And that's the same with the Mac, right? Like they don't sell
00:21:10 ◼ ► as many Macs as they do iPads, but, but they cost more. So that's pretty good. This is a really
00:21:17 ◼ ► great thing. You should do this every year. Thank you. Yeah, I will. I mean, I should have done it
00:21:21 ◼ ► last year and was anything happening to distract us last year? So, uh, but I was, uh, that was a
00:21:27 ◼ ► fun thing to do and I will try to do the yearly wrap up from now on. This episode is brought to
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00:23:36 ◼ ► Relay FM. So let's do some upstream headlines. We've got a few things going on with Apple TV+
00:23:42 ◼ ► that I wanted to touch on. So John Skipper and Dan Lebatard. - Lebatard. Dan Lebatard. So these are,
00:23:49 ◼ ► let me explain who these guys are. So Dan Lebatard was a radio host and he did a very popular radio
00:23:56 ◼ ► show that was simulcast on ESPN and they had a podcast and all this stuff that Dan Lebatard did.
00:24:01 ◼ ► And he was, I'll do the short version, but he was basically interfered with by ESPN and felt like
00:24:10 ◼ ► ESPN didn't appreciate the work that he was doing. And at one point they wanted him, like ESPN laid
00:24:17 ◼ ► off his assistant and he personally rehired the assistant and paid the assistant himself.
00:24:24 ◼ ► - Oh boy. - Because he felt, he was like, no, you're not going to take my person away from me.
00:24:28 ◼ ► - That's not a good working relationship. - No. And so what happened shortly thereafter is that
00:24:34 ◼ ► he left ESPN. John Skipper used to run ESPN. So they got the band back together. John Skipper,
00:24:42 ◼ ► basically he's an executive and generally thought of as a very smart executive. And Skipper and
00:24:48 ◼ ► Lebatard basically got together and said, hey, digital media, let's do this. Let's make a company.
00:24:55 ◼ ► And they created Metalark Media, which is where his show is. And they're doing a bunch of different
00:25:01 ◼ ► podcasts there. One of my favorite podcasts, the podcast with Joe Posnanski and Myke Schur
00:25:06 ◼ ► is now a Metalark podcast. And they're building a digital content company that they control.
00:25:13 ◼ ► So it's a guy who was one of the people who ran ESPN for a long time and they are a kind of sports,
00:25:18 ◼ ► but also other culture kind of stuff, a company. And they're going out on their own because they
00:25:24 ◼ ► are tired of, they were tired of the interference at ESPN and thought we can do this ourselves.
00:25:29 ◼ ► It sounds real familiar, but this is somebody who was coming from a pretty big place in
00:25:35 ◼ ► traditional media and they didn't like how they were being treated. So they went and they did a
00:25:40 ◼ ► new thing and that's what this is. And now you can tell people what the Apple part of the story.
00:25:45 ◼ ► - They have now got a first look deal with Apple for documentary and unscripted series.
00:25:52 ◼ ► So you would assume sports related. That is what I said, but you would naturally assume it would
00:25:56 ◼ ► be sports related content. So sports documentary is an unscripted series for Apple. - Yeah. And I
00:26:03 ◼ ► wonder, this is really interesting because this first look, which means that if Apple says no,
00:26:08 ◼ ► they can take it elsewhere, but they get the first look on it. And I think that this company
00:26:15 ◼ ► may do some interesting things. We know Apple is sort of interested in sports that Apple wants to
00:26:19 ◼ ► span a whole bunch of different demographics with their stuff. That's why they got kids programming,
00:26:22 ◼ ► they got adult programming. They got all sorts of stuff that they're doing. They're looking at
00:26:25 ◼ ► sports in various ways. This gives them another kind of connection to people who are savvy about
00:26:30 ◼ ► sports. I wonder if one of the reasons that they were interested in making this deal is to
00:26:34 ◼ ► be able to talk to John Skipper about strategy a little bit. It's not a bad deal to sign. And
00:26:43 ◼ ► I like these guys. - Well, it's like their partnership with the HBO guy. What's his name?
00:26:49 ◼ ► - Oh, Richard Plepler. - Plepler, right? You've got to assume this is a similar thing, right?
00:26:53 ◼ ► It's like, we will do a first look deal with you. Anything you want to bring in, like the
00:26:59 ◼ ► John Stewart thing was a part of it. But you've got to assume for Apple, it's like, we want to
00:27:04 ◼ ► have these people in our Rolodex. - Yeah, exactly. I was trying to avoid the Rolodex metaphor earlier,
00:27:10 ◼ ► but that's exactly what-- - In my contacts app, which doesn't sing properly with iCloud.
00:27:15 ◼ ► - But that's exactly what I mean is, it is old school in a way of sort of relationship building,
00:27:22 ◼ ► but in a way where it's like, basically, they're like, we want Metalark on our team. And we may not
00:27:27 ◼ ► say yes to every project, but we want them to develop projects with us in mind, basically,
00:27:34 ◼ ► as their partner and make deals with good people. And I would say that these guys seem,
00:27:39 ◼ ► at least from what I've seen, to be in the good people in sports media category. And let me tell
00:27:45 ◼ ► you, there are not a lot of those people. There's a lot of unpleasant people in sports media. And
00:27:52 ◼ ► there's also a lot of gambling money stuff in sports media these days. And so I think this is
00:28:02 ◼ ► presumably Apple, it's a different business model. So who knows what will come out of this, but
00:28:11 ◼ ► I think it's a really interesting partnership for them. And I love the story of how Metalark
00:28:17 ◼ ► got founded because it has resonance with the kind of stuff that people we know, including us,
00:28:22 ◼ ► have gone through with this added level of drama of being kind of treated poorly by your big media
00:28:29 ◼ ► employer and just deciding, I'm out of here and I'm taking my audience with me, which is a fun one.
00:28:34 ◼ ► So it's not just sports. Apple seems to be on a bit of a kick with documentary and unscripted
00:28:40 ◼ ► stuff. Another thing that they've done along with the many things they're doing, they just signed a
00:28:44 ◼ ► deal with Eugene Levy to host a travel documentary series. It's called The Reluctant Traveler.
00:29:06 ◼ ► Sounds kind of like that, where Levy is basically not a very good traveler and he's going to travel
00:29:11 ◼ ► around the world to interesting places because the idea is he wants to broaden his horizons.
00:29:16 ◼ ► It's kind of like the pitch of the show. I mean, honestly, I'm just super into this. This sounds
00:29:21 ◼ ► great. I love Eugene Levy. I bet it'd be hilarious. I really love the idea of this show and I'm
00:29:25 ◼ ► looking forward to it. It's a great idea. The way they describe it is brilliant in the article that
00:29:29 ◼ ► I read about it, which is he travels to various hotels around the world and then explores the area
00:29:36 ◼ ► around the hotels. And I thought, well, that is the way to describe a show about a reluctant
00:29:46 ◼ ► You won't have to go too far. Right. You can always go back to the hotel and get food you
00:29:56 ◼ ► that's fun. And again, all of Apple TV is like, this is just, it's making relationships with
00:30:02 ◼ ► people you want to be in business with. It's a very interesting thing to see them build this
00:30:10 ◼ ► And so trying to get into that is good. Right. And I feel like at the moment, Dan Levy has
00:30:15 ◼ ► something like this too, kind of like where it's people will take whatever they want. Right.
00:30:20 ◼ ► Whatever Eugene and Dan Levy want to do right now, like people will take it because somebody
00:30:27 ◼ ► wants the next Schitt's Creek. You know, somebody should really just get everybody, uh, who's
00:30:33 ◼ ► involved with SCTV, uh, back in the day to do projects. Right. Like let's just roll this out.
00:30:39 ◼ ► It's not just Eugene Levy, but let's get Catherine O'Hara and Rick Moranis and Andrea Martin and
00:30:45 ◼ ► it's Joe Flaherty available for something. I just watched the whole season of freaks and geeks again
00:30:50 ◼ ► for an incomparable episode that we posted this weekend. And, uh, I mean, he's 80 now, but,
00:30:55 ◼ ► you know, they're, they're not, none of them are spring chickens. Uh, Eugene Levy is not a spring
00:31:01 ◼ ► chicken, but like get them all out there. They're all so great. And now it's apparently now is their
00:31:06 ◼ ► time late in life to be stars again. So get, get Joe Flaherty out there too with Eugene. They can
00:31:12 ◼ ► go on, they can go on trips together. Let's do that. Let's do that. Last week, Apple debuted its
00:31:17 ◼ ► first kind of standalone original podcast series. It's called Hooked. It is a nine part true crime
00:31:24 ◼ ► series. Of course, uh, it's available in the Apple podcast app, but also via an RSS feed provided by
00:31:31 ◼ ► art 19s. They're like a hosting platform. It seems to be where Apple hosts all this stuff,
00:31:36 ◼ ► but they have an RSS feed. It's just available. Um, currently this show, this podcast is a
00:31:41 ◼ ► standalone thing, but it is kind of shown to be published via quote Apple TV plus. Um, so this
00:31:49 ◼ ► could mean that maybe they adapt it, but I reckon organizationally the podcast content team sits
00:31:56 ◼ ► with the TV plus team. That would be my expectation. It wouldn't surprise me. And art 19 hosts all of
00:32:04 ◼ ► Apple's podcasts. So this isn't like a new strategic system. Um, but it is like all those
00:32:11 ◼ ► other ones where it's sort of an Apple podcasts original, but you can get an RSS feed of it and
00:32:16 ◼ ► put it in overcast if you want to. And that's fine. And yes. And as Zach points out in the,
00:32:20 ◼ ► in the discord, which you mentioned before, which is funny, that art 19 is now owned by Amazon.
00:32:25 ◼ ► Amazon. Yes, it is. So our high Lex, this is we're going too many layers deep at this point.
00:32:33 ◼ ► Uh, but yeah, this is, this is notable because the stuff that Apple's done in the past around,
00:32:38 ◼ ► but that's not, um, they do their news show, but like stuff like this is all, has all been related
00:32:44 ◼ ► to TV. Like they had that, that something lion, something that I don't remember, which was like
00:32:50 ◼ ► simultaneously a podcast and an Apple TV plus show. But this just kind of, I mean, from, from
00:32:56 ◼ ► my perspective came out of nowhere, which is like all of a sudden, like here's this thing that we
00:33:00 ◼ ► have. Um, but they're continuing to move into this business too. Uh, let's talk about Apple silicon.
00:33:06 ◼ ► So the information published an article about, uh, talking about some of Apple's next generation chip
00:33:12 ◼ ► plans, kind of talking about, uh, what their next kind of processes are going to be. Do you want to
00:33:17 ◼ ► run through some of this for me? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's some of it's confirmation of things
00:33:20 ◼ ► that we've already heard from Mark Gurman. Um, and some of it is new and some of it is,
00:33:25 ◼ ► I think that this report lays it out logically, even though it's not anything that's going to be
00:33:31 ◼ ► a huge revelation. I think most of it is not. So it mentions that there are going to be second
00:33:36 ◼ ► generation chips, which means M2, I'm guessing due in 2022, they're going to use an upgraded five
00:33:44 ◼ ► nanometer process. This is sounds like it's basically, they're going to use the process
00:33:47 ◼ ► they already used to make the A15. So this is essentially, yeah, there will be an M2 and yeah,
00:33:52 ◼ ► it will be based on the A15. And so it will use the upgraded five nanometer process, um, that the
00:33:57 ◼ ► A15 uses over the A14. So, okay, great. We, it tracks, it's sort of what we expected anyway,
00:34:03 ◼ ► but they are reporting it as well. Um, they did report that Apple plans for at least some of these
00:34:08 ◼ ► chips to feature two dies, which is interesting because it, it means that you might have a
00:34:12 ◼ ► situation where what they suggest is you might have some desktop Macs down, maybe at the lower end
00:34:19 ◼ ► that would have two M2 processors in it. And I don't know whether this is like, would that go in
00:34:26 ◼ ► as an option in a 24 inch iMac or in a Mac mini, but that's an interesting idea, right?
00:34:30 ◼ ► So I read that and I think this might be one of those things where somebody heard a thing.
00:34:36 ◼ ► It's a game of telephone a little bit. Because technically, you know, if you look at all of the
00:34:41 ◼ ► diagrams that John Sirkis was made and asked technical and stuff, right? Like the way that
00:34:45 ◼ ► some of the M1 Pro and M1 Macs chips, it's like, it's just like two of the, two of the chip on the
00:34:51 ◼ ► same die, right? Is that the way that you describe it? And so I think it might just be that.
00:34:56 ◼ ► Yeah. And the report, it's unclear, right? The report gives this some credence that it may not
00:35:03 ◼ ► deserve, but I I'm intrigued by the idea that one way Apple might offer, um, speed improvements on
00:35:11 ◼ ► lower end systems probably as an upgrade is to, if they could have the ability to basically put two
00:35:20 ◼ ► M2 processors down, if you can think of it that way, just double the core count and double up the
00:35:26 ◼ ► GPU count. Like from like a, from the way that you would talk about it, you know, like they would say
00:35:32 ◼ ► it's, there's an eight core and you can upgrade to the 16 core with, you know, with a 20 GPU cores or
00:35:38 ◼ ► something like that. But it's still a relatively low power thing. I don't know. I don't know.
00:35:49 ◼ ► Then you have what? Eight efficiency cores and it's weird, right? It's a little bit weird.
00:35:53 ◼ ► Really makes sense to me fully. I think it is that whole, and David in the chat has helped correct
00:35:58 ◼ ► me, the two dies on the same package thing. I think it's another version of that, but with M2
00:36:03 ◼ ► chips, that that's how that reads to me. I just, I can't get my head around. We've put two processes
00:36:10 ◼ ► in this. Wait, why? What do they do? You know, that seems very strange to me. I can't get my,
00:36:16 ◼ ► I can't. I mean, it gives you more cores, it gives you more cores that's and, and more,
00:36:19 ◼ ► and more memory possibilities and it might allow them to scale that product while it's still a
00:36:25 ◼ ► fairly lower cost product. I'm open to the idea, but yeah, it is a little bit baffling. Of course,
00:36:31 ◼ ► you know, yeah, Mark Gurman already reported that there's going to be a Mac Pro replacement with
00:36:34 ◼ ► two or four chips and 20 or 40 cores. And that's a sooner than 2023 was the suggestion there. So
00:36:40 ◼ ► we'll see. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway. They also talked about what the third generation chips. So
00:36:47 ◼ ► if you, if I think this is our first official M3 conversation that we've gotten to have.
00:36:51 ◼ ► So that's exciting. Oh no, this is too soon. This report says as soon as 2023. I love as soon as,
00:37:00 ◼ ► as a construction, right? Because basically it's no earlier than 2023, but might be later.
00:37:07 ◼ ► What it means is, yeah, it's 2023 and beyond. I prefer that than as soon as like, I don't,
00:37:13 ◼ ► I really don't like that phrasing. Um, I don't know if that comes from Bloomberg or if Bloomberg
00:37:18 ◼ ► uses it like, cause this is the information, right? But like, I don't like what I don't like
00:37:22 ◼ ► the as soon as like everybody it's, it's, it's almost marketing. Like where you, what you really,
00:37:28 ◼ ► you know, want to say is no earlier than 2023 or targeting 2023, but it might, it might slip.
00:37:36 ◼ ► Anyway, the point here, and I think this is also kind of putting together just what Taiwan
00:37:42 ◼ ► semiconductor is doing. Um, because what they're saying here, the point of this is there is going
00:37:48 ◼ ► to be a new three nanometer process that, that Taiwan semiconductor is going to do. And obviously
00:37:53 ◼ ► Apple is going to do it and they will use the third generation chips with, uh, with the new process.
00:37:59 ◼ ► And there might be as many as four dyes, which connects to the Mark Gurman report about how they
00:38:03 ◼ ► want to do this thing where they, they have multiple, uh, chips in the, uh, in the Mac pro
00:38:09 ◼ ► and the high end chip. So up to 40 cores per chip. Um, and then they say this process will all, but
00:38:14 ◼ ► also be used on iPhone chips, which is like, of course it will, right? This is the, whatever it
00:38:21 ◼ ► might be a 17, maybe I don't know, or maybe it's the a 16, but it won't reach the Mac until a year
00:38:28 ◼ ► later. It's all kind of speculative, but it really, what they're saying is obviously TSMC is working
00:38:35 ◼ ► on this other process and it's coming and the Mac will use those chips too, because of course they
00:38:40 ◼ ► will. And from our conversation with Tim and Tom last week, obviously, you know, these plans exist
00:38:48 ◼ ► because they're thinking many years out. So, uh, this information article is sort of saying,
00:38:52 ◼ ► here's kind of what the roadmap is for now. Um, what I wonder is, um, does this give us a
00:39:00 ◼ ► sense of what Apple would like its Mac chip pace to be? Because I think it's kind of interesting
00:39:05 ◼ ► to see, like, is there really going to be a one-to-one generational thing with the M one
00:39:10 ◼ ► M two M three and the a 14, 15, 16, where, you know, obviously the 15 is out now and we just
00:39:16 ◼ ► had the M one X comes out. But if we think of like the, the, the chip year really kind of starts with
00:39:20 ◼ ► the a 15 and then it's in an iPhone and maybe it's in an iPad and then next year, there'll be an M
00:39:28 ◼ ► two, which is kind of based on the a 15. And does it work like that? Where then there's an a 16 next
00:39:33 ◼ ► fall. And then the following, you know, either later that fall or the next spring, there's an
00:39:38 ◼ ► M three, is it going to be a one-to-one kind of thing? Kind of makes sense that it would.
00:39:44 ◼ ► There are moments where I think, are they really going to do Mac chips in an annual cycle? Like
00:39:49 ◼ ► they do the iPhone. Yeah. So I think what it will mean is they will have the opportunity to,
00:39:57 ◼ ► right. But I, I can't imagine every year, right. They're going to make new chips for every Mac.
00:40:06 ◼ ► I, I, I mean, it is hard to imagine it. And yet I think to myself at some point, if you're Apple
00:40:13 ◼ ► and you're making, you're making your own chips or you're having your own chips made for you,
00:40:24 ◼ ► the a 15 is up and running, I do wonder if there's a point where you say, why should I keep making the
00:40:29 ◼ ► M one? Why shouldn't I just switch over to the M two? Why don't, why shouldn't I do essentially
00:40:33 ◼ ► the a 15 version of my Mac book air chip? Why don't I switch switch to that now? Because if,
00:40:39 ◼ ► if the work's already done and also if you would like to release a new model but even if, which,
00:40:49 ◼ ► but even if it's just an annual speed update, if you know, Intel's not your supplier anymore,
00:40:55 ◼ ► I can see the argument. That's like, well, once we're on a 15, we should flip everything over to
00:41:02 ◼ ► M two, because why would I keep making M one Mac book airs when I can make an M two Mac book air
00:41:08 ◼ ► and sell it as an upgrade and it'll be more power efficient and it'll be a little more powerful and,
00:41:19 ◼ ► it's the old speed bump thing, right? Where it's just like, well, the new Mac book air is just
00:41:23 ◼ ► using the M three and it's a little bit faster than the M two, but I could totally see them doing
00:41:28 ◼ ► that, but it would be a change in Mac strategy for them because they have not been as focused.
00:41:34 ◼ ► And the iPad doesn't do that either. Right. Generally is the annual cadence is really only
00:41:38 ◼ ► for the iPhone, but you got to wonder a little bit now that the chips are, are from the iPhone,
00:41:45 ◼ ► essentially. Yeah. I feel like the iPad is a really good, uh, analogy to how I think it's
00:41:52 ◼ ► going to work where every year there's new iPads. So every year, some Macs will be updated, but it
00:42:02 ◼ ► won't be every Mac every year. It will be every Mac within an 18 to 24 month cycle. So here's my
00:42:10 ◼ ► question though. I think, I think that's probably true, right? Cause you know, poor old Mac mini and
00:42:15 ◼ ► all that, but let's talk about the Mac book air for a second. So M one Mac book air came out
00:42:19 ◼ ► November of 2020 rumor is M two Mac book air redesigned, but also using a new chip, uh, spring,
00:42:29 ◼ ► you know, spring to mid next year, 22. Okay. That's, that's an 18 month thing. Maybe there's
00:42:45 ◼ ► Then apple in the fall comes out with the next iPhone chip that they're going to lay everything
00:42:52 ◼ ► else on. So we get the a 16. So now it's 2023 and the Mac book air has been out for a year.
00:43:00 ◼ ► And they've got the a 16 out there and it's on the new three nanometer process from TSMC. Let's say
00:43:05 ◼ ► maybe, maybe not. I don't know, but let's just say, and your apple and you're looking at the Mac
00:43:10 ◼ ► book air and you're like, we haven't updated the Mac book air in a year. This is the question I
00:43:15 ◼ ► have is, do you let the Mac book air lay there for another year or another six months or another nine
00:43:23 ◼ ► months with the M two, even though you've already moved on in your iPhone chips, do you just let it
00:43:31 ◼ ► lay there so that you've got a system with a chip that is your chip design, but you haven't updated
00:43:35 ◼ ► it in almost two years. I think that's the question is, is that okay or not? Because I can see
00:43:40 ◼ ► both sides. I can see both sides there. I can see saying, well, like, but if, but if so, here's the
00:43:47 ◼ ► thing. So do they forgo designing an M three at that point or do they, or do they not, or do they
00:43:53 ◼ ► say, you know, the M two is fine. The M two will take us for two years, you know, and the M two
00:43:57 ◼ ► may be so the M one so impressive that maybe the M two will be so impressive that they're like,
00:44:00 ◼ ► it's fine. We don't need to bother and, and we're going to focus on our pro systems for this
00:44:08 ◼ ► generation. Maybe I think that your argument is, is perfectly valid, but I can see the counter,
00:44:14 ◼ ► which is, or they could just seize complete control over their chip production line and say,
00:44:21 ◼ ► every year we'll do A and M and M pro. But they would never benefit from like the scale, right?
00:44:32 ◼ ► Because if you continue to make M one chips for on an 18 to 24 month period, by the time you get
00:44:38 ◼ ► towards the end, you're producing them much better from an efficiency perspective. Sure.
00:44:44 ◼ ► If you're changing them over every single year, you're not getting that benefit anymore. And like,
00:44:50 ◼ ► and if you're thinking about margins, you know, they make more money on those machines,
00:44:53 ◼ ► the longer that they have them around. And I just feel like it would just logistically,
00:44:59 ◼ ► that just seems very complicated, like every single year changing it over, especially when
00:45:03 ◼ ► like, Oh, well, if you're not going to change the chassis, well, what if you need different cooling?
00:45:08 ◼ ► Probably not. I'm sure that they're not going to develop that. But you know what? I just think it's
00:45:11 ◼ ► a lot. And it's just I look at the iPad, right? That's what for me is really like, that's what
00:45:17 ◼ ► solidifies it in my mind, like the iPad Pro, they update it every two years. And that's fine. Like
00:45:23 ◼ ► the fact that the iPhone gets a new chip every year. It for me, it doesn't matter because you
00:45:28 ◼ ► can't like it, an iPhone and a Mac do different things. And like, just because the iPhone gets
00:45:37 ◼ ► its new chip every year doesn't mean the Mac is going to then it's not like all now the Mac's
00:45:42 ◼ ► being quote left behind like when they're so incredibly powerful already. Well, and nobody's
00:45:48 ◼ ► saying the M1 Macs is a an embarrassment to Apple because the A15 exists. Exactly. Like nobody,
00:45:55 ◼ ► nobody's saying that. I wonder if the truth is that to get all these new Macs out on Apple silicon,
00:46:04 ◼ ► there's this transition strategy where year one, which is M1 and M1 Pro and M1 Max is followed
00:46:13 ◼ ► immediately by M2. And that's going to generate the M2 chip that will run, you know, with four
00:46:18 ◼ ► in the Mac Pro. And they may update the laptops to an M2 Pro, M2 Max at that point too next year.
00:46:23 ◼ ► But that the long, the long term plan is to settle down. But maybe because they're in this
00:46:30 ◼ ► transition now, they're going to step it up a little bit because they need to clear out
00:46:34 ◼ ► everything and get everything on new systems and or on new chips and get the Intel stuff out. And
00:46:39 ◼ ► that maybe they settle back to a cadence where the it's every other A generation is a Mac generation.
00:46:47 ◼ ► Every M chip is actually every other A chip. Eventually. Yeah. That's what I think it will
00:46:54 ◼ ► end up going. Yeah. Honestly, that's one of the things that surprises me about these second
00:46:58 ◼ ► generation chips in 2022 rumor because, and that's been a, I mean, Mark Gurman said, I believe new
00:47:05 ◼ ► Macbook Airs with a new chip coming next year. And honestly, I, part of me is surprised that that's
00:47:14 ◼ ► the case and that they wouldn't just make a new looking Macbook Air with an M1. Well, I think that
00:47:23 ◼ ► the idea is that Macbook Air will then be with an M2 for two years. For two years. But like, I think
00:47:29 ◼ ► that because it's like, for example, we got a Macbook Pro a year after the first one, but like,
00:47:32 ◼ ► they've got to get these new designs out. And so they'll put kind of the best that they can put in
00:47:37 ◼ ► that new design and then they will live for a period of time. Let it rest. Yeah. That could be,
00:47:42 ◼ ► that could be what I would expect. This report made me have a question in my brain. The Mac Pro,
00:47:48 ◼ ► right? Yeah. We get a third brand name for a chip. And I was thinking genuinely M1 Pro Max. Pro Max.
00:47:58 ◼ ► I don't know. I think M1 Max Pro, M1 Max Max. Will there be a third name? Cause it's not going to be
00:48:04 ◼ ► the same chip, right? In theory, from a marketing perspective. If, if it is truly two or four M1
00:48:13 ◼ ► Max chips or M2 Max chips, if you want, depending on the generation, if it truly is two or four. M1 Extreme. I think that,
00:48:22 ◼ ► yeah, but they could also very easily just say it's got two M, it's got two M1 Max. It's got four M1
00:48:28 ◼ ► Max. M1 Max times four. They could just do that. They could just, it's not a, cause it's not a new
00:48:33 ◼ ► chip. It's four of them. In the Mac Pro, at least I that's where I, that, you know, I was saying that
00:48:38 ◼ ► earlier thing about the two M2 chips. I think that's too complicated, but in the Mac Pro and
00:48:43 ◼ ► just the Mac Pro, I think you could get away with that. They may also just call it by cores. That's
00:48:47 ◼ ► how they differentiate so many of these chips now is just by core count. Um, and so like the, the CPU
00:48:52 ◼ ► cores and then the secondarily the GPU cores. So they may just simply say M1 Max 10, M1 Max 20,
00:49:01 ◼ ► M1 Max 40 core, right? Like just call it by the core count. You're right. They may just say like
00:49:06 ◼ ► the Mac Pro comes of an M1 Max chip. Like that's just it. Right. But it's, but it starts at probably
00:49:13 ◼ ► the highest configuration of M1 Max now, but then can also increase, but they're all M1 Max. Yeah,
00:49:20 ◼ ► I think that M1 Max chip, sorry, I forgot. They're all M1 Max chips, but then you just get the core
00:49:26 ◼ ► counts. With M1 Max chips. Cause they have kind of run out unless they did do, which I don't think
00:49:31 ◼ ► they should, but unless they did do something like M1 Max Pro, which would be horrible. Well,
00:49:36 ◼ ► they'd have to do Pro Max cause that's already what they have, but I don't think they will. I
00:49:40 ◼ ► think that they've used Pro and Max and that, that it will be more likely be either it comes
00:49:49 ◼ ► and this is the 20 core version and you can also get our super awesome binned 16 core version or
00:49:57 ◼ ► whatever it is. Yeah. I don't know. This episode of upgrade is brought to you by Hunter Douglas.
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00:51:36 ◼ ► Relay FM. Let's talk about the MacBook Pro a little bit more because yeah, it's just fun to
00:51:41 ◼ ► talk about this computer right now. You put in the show notes and it is really worth reading. We
00:51:46 ◼ ► don't want to spoil this too much. Stephen Hackett's review of the 14 inch MacBook Pro genius.
00:51:53 ◼ ► Like every every now and then like someone comes across like, oh, I have a little idea and then
00:51:58 ◼ ► the way you realize that review it perfect basically in a nutshell, Stephen reviewed the
00:52:04 ◼ ► computer as if the 2016 MacBook Pros never existed. And it's a different look comparing it to
00:52:11 ◼ ► the MacBook Pro that looks a lot more like it in terms of ports and things which is the last
00:52:17 ◼ ► before the USB-C switch over. That's good stuff. It's an interesting approach. What I like about
00:52:22 ◼ ► the review is that it's just it's it's saying different things. Like he was showing some stuff
00:52:29 ◼ ► to me during it and like I really loved it and like, I love that it didn't. It's just not talking
00:52:34 ◼ ► about the keyboard. Like it's not talking about ports coming back. Like it's just it almost makes
00:52:40 ◼ ► me think of when you know, we were talking about iPhone blips earlier on right like you have this
00:52:45 ◼ ► blip where like all of a sudden there's a ton of revenue. And it's like really if you just plot
00:52:49 ◼ ► these MacBook Pros on a trajectory back from the PowerBook to now like the the 2016 era ones were
00:52:56 ◼ ► just a blip where everything went wrong. But if you remove that, this one is just on a similar
00:53:01 ◼ ► trajectory to what the 2015 or before MacBook Pros would have been like. And that's it's kind of fun
00:53:06 ◼ ► to look at it that way. Yeah. Now you've taken your MacBook Pro with you on your little trip.
00:53:11 ◼ ► On this trip, I actually had the the I extended my my review length so that I could take this on this
00:53:21 ◼ ► trip because I thought it would be at least a little bit instructive to travel with the MacBook
00:53:25 ◼ ► Pro. And it's you know, it's bigger and heavier than the MacBook Air that I usually take on a trip
00:53:31 ◼ ► like this. But it's been fun. You know, it is it is big, although that the screen is nice and
00:53:37 ◼ ► beautiful and big like it always is. But now I can take it with me and work from elsewhere. I think
00:53:44 ◼ ► what I would say is it's more like my whole iMac is with me. Yeah. Then when I bring the MacBook
00:53:52 ◼ ► Air with me, where it's not my because this is not my computer and it's not migrated from my my
00:53:59 ◼ ► stuff. And I've been, you know, all weekend I've been like, Oh, I need that app. I better go install
00:54:03 ◼ ► it. Right. It's not migrated at all. So I'm slowly kind of been adding some stuff in that I didn't
00:54:08 ◼ ► need when I was using it at home that now I realize I need for whatever I'm doing this weekend.
00:54:12 ◼ ► But it's been a long time since the computer that I brought with me was essentially as capable or
00:54:23 ◼ ► was the computer that I use at home. It's been at least since I switched to the 5k iMac because
00:54:31 ◼ ► before that my MacBook Air was my primary for a few years. And so although it was a MacBook Air,
00:54:36 ◼ ► it had all of my stuff and it was I wasn't losing capability by traveling. It wasn't greatly capable,
00:54:42 ◼ ► but it was capable and I wasn't feeling that loss. So it's been at least since then, since 20 what,
00:54:48 ◼ ► at 15, 14, something like that. So it's been a long time. And that's the thing that struck me the
00:54:56 ◼ ► most about it is, although it is not my computer from home, it's as capable as my computer that I
00:55:02 ◼ ► use every day. And that's a different feeling, right, than having it be, well, I'm this is the
00:55:07 ◼ ► road life that I'm leading now. And that means everything's not quite as good. And yeah, the
00:55:12 ◼ ► screen's not 27 inches, I'll give you that. But otherwise, I don't feel like I'm working in a,
00:55:19 ◼ ► you know, make do with the compromised device. And everybody's gonna have a different feeling
00:55:24 ◼ ► about that. And I wouldn't, I'm not gonna go out and buy one of these to replace my M1 MacBook Air.
00:55:33 ◼ ► I'm not gonna do it. Not gonna happen. No. Hey, hey, self, don't do it. Don't do it. Does somebody
00:55:38 ◼ ► in my family need a M1 MacBook Air that I could hand down so I could buy one of these? No, no,
00:55:42 ◼ ► they're fine. They're all fine. But it has been delightful, honestly, to have such a good screen
00:55:49 ◼ ► and such a powerful computer when I'm not at home. Yeah. Because I haven't had that. Like, again,
00:55:56 ◼ ► not like that MacBook Air that I was traveling with was powerful, but it was always the level of
00:56:02 ◼ ► performance and functionality that I expected day to day. And so when I took it with me, it was no
00:56:08 ◼ ► change. And with this, it's the first time since then where I have not felt like I was compromising,
00:56:16 ◼ ► I guess, to travel. Yeah, I was saying about the iMac Pro thing. MKBHD published his review,
00:56:22 ◼ ► and he's known for, you know, if he was going to a WWDC, an Apple event, or whatever, he would take
00:56:30 ◼ ► his iMac Pro with him because the render times were that important for getting his videos out
00:56:36 ◼ ► quickly. And he was saying now, like, the MacBook Pro is faster than that. He doesn't need to do
00:56:43 ◼ ► that anymore. Now he can replace the travel iMac Pro with a 16 inch MacBook Pro. Like that's the
00:56:50 ◼ ► one he's going with because it's, you know, the fastest of the fast, right? Travel iMac Pro.
00:56:55 ◼ ► But this is, I, WWDC 20 something, I don't remember which one, I saw him. He was waiting for a taxi
00:57:04 ◼ ► on his own. And he had two suitcases and a massive Pelican case. And in that Pelican case was the
00:57:13 ◼ ► iMac Pro. And I've never seen somebody look more flustered than he did because he was just waiting
00:57:18 ◼ ► for an Uber like surrounded by luggage on his own. I have no idea how he managed to move all of that
00:57:25 ◼ ► stuff around. It was kind of incredible. So my MacBook Pro, a couple of other observations, I've
00:57:29 ◼ ► been, you know, using it as a laptop more and similar to you. Like, it's just fantastic. It's
00:57:34 ◼ ► just such a beautiful screen. I have succumbed to the screen real estate. I've gone from the
00:57:42 ◼ ► more space. I used the scaled mode. I use more space. You've left 2X scaling behind. I know I've
00:57:48 ◼ ► always done more space because for me, a Mac laptop, it's just, I can't fit enough things on
00:57:55 ◼ ► the screen if I use it in the native resolution. Like, I mean, that's the one thing that I noticed,
00:58:01 ◼ ► right? Going from a 27 inch iMac down to this thing is that everything's, everything's really
00:58:06 ◼ ► cramped. And if I was in a scenario where I really needed more space, I would do that. And more
00:58:13 ◼ ► space looks good. Everything's a little smaller, but it looks better now than it did previously.
00:58:18 ◼ ► It really does. To my eyes anyway. But I can't, I just can't deal with the native resolution. It's
00:58:25 ◼ ► just, it's not, I just can't get enough on the screen that I want. I get it. All of my RAM issues
00:58:30 ◼ ► have been completely solved and that's fantastic. Like, I've really been putting it through its
00:58:34 ◼ ► paces and I have not once gotten a warning that I didn't have enough RAM, which is something that
00:58:37 ◼ ► would happen to my, me on my 13 inch MacBook Pro quite a lot. And I am 100% used to the size
00:58:45 ◼ ► difference of this machine. Like, I don't notice it anymore. It just feels like what a laptop feels
00:58:49 ◼ ► like. You know, I know it's not, it's not a ton different, but it's just like a thing that is not
00:58:53 ◼ ► a thing at all. And I continue to just, I love the design. I love the design so much of this computer.
00:58:58 ◼ ► I think it looks so freaking cool. I really like it. I get every time I open it up, I'm like, this
00:59:04 ◼ ► is fun. I just, as you were talking, I switched to more space. Yeah. And now I can see the discord
00:59:14 ◼ ► in the show notes. Yeah. Side by side. And it's like, oh yeah, this is why I do it. I know it's
00:59:19 ◼ ► not ideal and I know people are going to be so bad that I haven't got retina, but, uh, the screen
00:59:25 ◼ ► looks great. It's just not, it's just scaled. It is. That's the beauty of it. Yeah. It's not the
00:59:30 ◼ ► native retina or whatever, but it's not native resolution to X, right? It is. It's scaled. And
00:59:35 ◼ ► so it's not going to be as perfectly crisp and all that. Like every Apple laptop, uh, up to now,
00:59:40 ◼ ► basically it took a bit getting used to it because at first I was like, oh no, now the text is too
00:59:43 ◼ ► small, but, but I got used to it pretty quickly. Yeah. I can see that. Um, let's also, we've got a
00:59:50 ◼ ► couple of stories to follow up on, uh, around app store legality stuff like antitrust and all that
00:59:56 ◼ ► kind of stuff. So the first is kind of not Apple, but will be probably Apple at some point, which is
01:00:02 ◼ ► Google and South Korea. So you remember that the South Korean government made a ruling that to you
01:00:09 ◼ ► to be able to sell apps in South Korea and an app store, they were going to require both Google and
01:00:15 ◼ ► Apple to have alternate payment processes in the app store. Um, so far Apple has kind of just waved
01:00:22 ◼ ► their hand at this, which I'm intrigued to see how this is going to run, but maybe they were waiting
01:00:27 ◼ ► to see what Google did because really weirdly, I think this, uh, whole thing was focused on Google
01:00:33 ◼ ► mostly, which was always strange to me, but they called it like it was known as the Google law in
01:00:39 ◼ ► South Korea. Um, so Google have published what they're going to do and they've done a couple of
01:00:44 ◼ ► things. First is they've created a user-friendly user interface for people to be able to choose how
01:00:50 ◼ ► they want to pay. So you want to buy an app or you want to buy a subscription. It will pop up with
01:00:55 ◼ ► Google play always as an option. And then any other option that that developer may have asked for, you
01:01:00 ◼ ► know, if they're going to use like, I don't know, say Stripe or whatever for their payment processing.
01:01:04 ◼ ► But what Google has done, which I don't think anyone saw coming was they're still going to charge
01:01:13 ◼ ► you as the developer, but they're going to reduce their fee by 4%, which they say should be enough
01:01:20 ◼ ► for payment processing might not always be so you could end up paying more money overall, depending
01:01:26 ◼ ► on the size of your transaction. So you can use whoever you want to process the payments, but you
01:01:33 ◼ ► I, I expected this move, but I expected this move from Apple. And in fact, at one point there was a,
01:01:40 ◼ ► some sort of maybe testimony where Apple described a scenario where they said, how would we get paid?
01:01:47 ◼ ► Yeah. If we can't get paid by taking our percentage for all of our largesse and providing a development
01:01:54 ◼ ► platform. Again, it's that, it's that Apple argument that we want money from developers because we
01:01:59 ◼ ► give them the tools and we give them the platform, which is true. But again, we have talked about how
01:02:06 ◼ ► developers and their apps also provide fundamental value to Apple's products that they sell and that
01:02:13 ◼ ► Apple has decided that's not good enough. And they also want to have a tariff on all of the money that
01:02:20 ◼ ► developers make. Okay. So they said this and they said, well, you know, we could do that, but then we
01:02:25 ◼ ► need to make our money somewhere else. And here, Google walks in to Korea and says, all right, just
01:02:31 ◼ ► to be clear here, because, because you may have heard it and you may not have understood it. I'm just
01:02:36 ◼ ► going to say this again. Google says, okay, if you don't use us, you don't, we won't take our 15%
01:02:44 ◼ ► transaction because you're not using us for payment. However, because you're using Google play,
01:02:51 ◼ ► you owe us a percent of the transaction you make independently. That's what they're saying. They're
01:03:00 ◼ ► saying because you use Google's APIs, Google's operating system, which we give away for free and
01:03:05 ◼ ► everybody gets to use it because of all of our largesse for developers. If you're not going to let
01:03:12 ◼ ► us take a cut right on top of our payment system, we'll let you use a third party system. You still
01:03:17 ◼ ► got to give us our cut. And we'll make it a little bit less than it normally was because we know you
01:03:22 ◼ ► actually need and for, for eBooks and stuff, it's a little bit less than that even, but it's still,
01:03:26 ◼ ► you got to give us our cut. And so the argument here is basically you can lose us as a payment
01:03:33 ◼ ► processor, but you cannot escape the money you owe us. And that sounds so much like something Apple
01:03:42 ◼ ► Really? Like it's genuinely incredible because if you did find and replace Google for Apple, you'd
01:03:49 ◼ ► be like, yeah, that makes sense that this is just not, I honestly, I was expecting Google to just be
01:03:55 ◼ ► like, okay. But I think for them, like when the more I thought about it after reading this was
01:04:00 ◼ ► like, well, they do offer sideloading, right? So it's like for Google, it's like, well, you can just
01:04:06 ◼ ► do this other thing if you want to. And I think in the, in Ben Thompson's daily update, he made a good
01:04:11 ◼ ► point where it was like, clearly developers don't want to because they just, Oh, clearly, right. You
01:04:16 ◼ ► want to be in the Play Store and Google's done lots of stuff in the last few years to make the
01:04:21 ◼ ► Play Store more, um, enticing. Like I noticed this recently when I was in the Play Store, you get
01:04:27 ◼ ► points when you download apps and stuff, and you can use those points for money off apps, right? So
01:04:34 ◼ ► you get like loyalty points, basically. Stuff that Apple doesn't have to do because they're not
01:04:38 ◼ ► competing against anyone for stores, right? But Google maybe feels that they want to do these
01:04:43 ◼ ► kinds of things to just make sure that people stay in the Play Store. But something also to know is
01:04:50 ◼ ► Google also recently reduced their fees for basically every type of subscription based payment
01:04:57 ◼ ► in the App Store. They're all fit in the Play Store. They're all at 15% now. Some media services
01:05:03 ◼ ► can qualify for 10%. This is like ebooks and streaming music, because Google recognizes that the
01:05:08 ◼ ► margins are smaller, and there are no earning thresholds or anything. So I think that there are
01:05:15 ◼ ► some instances where just consumables, I think may or like upfront purchases can be a bit smaller,
01:05:21 ◼ ► but don't quote me on that. But basically, Google is pushing towards 15%. But the idea being that
01:05:27 ◼ ► if you said, Hey, I want to use Stripe for processing, Google will say, Well, we expect 11% of
01:05:34 ◼ ► Yeah, so so here's what this means. This means that everybody who thought alternate payment
01:05:41 ◼ ► processing meant getting away from giving up 10 or 15% or 30% or whatever of your revenue to the
01:05:48 ◼ ► platform vendor plus credit card transactions. They're saying no, it doesn't. It doesn't actually
01:05:55 ◼ ► mean that this is not how you get to keep more of the money for the software you sell. Because the
01:06:01 ◼ ► platform owners feel like you thought you were getting you thought you were paying them a
01:06:08 ◼ ► percentage in exchange for being on their store. But what they've decided is that you're actually
01:06:14 ◼ ► paying them embedded in your revenue, you're paying a fee for being a developer for having on
01:06:23 ◼ ► iOS, you know, having Xcode, having, you know, whatever the App Store infrastructure is, that's
01:06:29 ◼ ► and Google's equivalent. That's what they're saying is, is that the thing you thought was just
01:06:33 ◼ ► a skimming off the top, more than we take in credit card fees was actually us taking charging you a
01:06:42 ◼ ► fee for being a developer and using our platforms that we built and we spent money on. And so we
01:06:47 ◼ ► want some of your money. The fact that Google did this, I think also shows a supreme level of
01:06:54 ◼ ► confidence that while laws may control something like exclusivity of a payment system, that it's a
01:07:07 ◼ ► lot harder to change the law to say that a company that makes an operating system can't charge
01:07:17 ◼ ► developers a fee for using it. And that they will get that fee no matter what and however they want
01:07:23 ◼ ► it. And I'm not a lawyer, but I am observing behavior of large companies who have lots of
01:07:27 ◼ ► lawyers. And for Google to do this, because my immediate reaction was all they're going to do,
01:07:33 ◼ ► like they're honoring the letter of the law without giving up any of their money or almost any of
01:07:45 ◼ ► know, they're just going to make everybody angrier and this, and that may be true, right? Like this
01:07:49 ◼ ► is an environment where everybody's grumpy at tech companies. But when you think about it a little,
01:07:55 ◼ ► it really feels to me like this is a move where they are supremely confident that they're not
01:08:02 ◼ ► going to, that they can be required to do things like allow competition for payment services, but
01:08:09 ◼ ► that what they're not going to be legislated into abandoning is their fee to developers that they
01:08:17 ◼ ► charge for using their platforms. That that's a different thing and that it got tied. We've been
01:08:22 ◼ ► all viewing it as one thing. And I think they did too, honestly, they did too. But now that the
01:08:29 ◼ ► rubber meets the road, they're like, oh no, no, it's two things. What are you talking about? We
01:08:33 ◼ ► always said this. And honestly, even if there was a law that said you can't tie it to individual
01:08:41 ◼ ► purchases in a store, you know what would happen is, let's use Apple as an example, Apple would
01:08:48 ◼ ► say, well, great news. We're not going to charge you anything and you can use alternate payment
01:08:53 ◼ ► systems. However, in addition to your annual Apple developer membership, you now need to submit your
01:09:02 ◼ ► revenue statement with Apple and pay a fee on your revenue and we will audit your revenue in the app.
01:09:09 ◼ ► And you need to basically you need to pay your tax at the end of the year. Like there are lots of ways
01:09:14 ◼ ► that they could do this that make it more onerous actually, and maybe even more expensive for
01:09:20 ◼ ► developers if they have to. But it seems like it's going to be a at least a much tougher thing. And
01:09:27 ◼ ► obviously their lawyers think it's a much tougher thing to tell a company you can't charge people
01:09:32 ◼ ► ever for using your stuff. Your operating system is essentially a public utility. So that's I'm
01:09:41 ◼ ► fascinated by that. So this is a power move by Google and ultimately will probably be by Apple to
01:09:46 ◼ ► basically say, if the only way that you're going to be able to throw the book at us is limited
01:09:52 ◼ ► competition and not charging a fee, then sure have competition, but we got our money either way.
01:10:05 ◼ ► This could be like as well what they've done here is they're opening, you know, and they may get
01:10:10 ◼ ► requested or forced to tweak it. Like the one thing for me that is I think a little questionable and
01:10:18 ◼ ► does reduce any kind of benefit to developers is the fact that Google Play is always a payment
01:10:30 ◼ ► That's the sign in with Apple move, right? Which is like, sure, you can, you can offer other
01:10:37 ◼ ► And Google make a compelling reason, you know, like they can't confirm that they're going to be
01:10:42 ◼ ► able to do parental controls, etc, etc, etc. But what this does is reduces basically the reason for
01:10:49 ◼ ► a developer to do this alternate payment thing to zero. Because if you had your own, if you were
01:10:55 ◼ ► just using your own payment system, even though Google is still going to charge you, there could
01:10:59 ◼ ► be benefits to it. Like now you just have one payment processor that you use, right? And it all
01:11:04 ◼ ► goes to one place. And it may make other cost savings for you as a business, depending on your
01:11:09 ◼ ► size, for just managing all of your payments going to one place. If you have say, Android and iOS
01:11:16 ◼ ► apps might make it easier to confirm payment and subscription status and all that kind of stuff.
01:11:22 ◼ ► But if you always have to have Google Play as an option, like I don't know why any user would
01:11:31 ◼ ► And so then it's kind of like, well, now we're just adding unnecessary complexity into the whole
01:11:36 ◼ ► thing. So we're not going to do it. So, you know, I would like to see that not be the thing, right?
01:11:41 ◼ ► Like from a developer's perspective, but from a user's perspective, I don't know. I also just feel
01:11:47 ◼ ► like I know what Google is saying, like, oh, there's no way, there's no possible way for parental
01:11:53 ◼ ► controls to be like, you could make an API and you know, like, right, you could, right? Like,
01:12:01 ◼ ► You have no interest in doing it because you're putting resources towards something. But that
01:12:06 ◼ ► actually, it goes back to what I think is the fundamental thing here is the only danger and
01:12:12 ◼ ► lawyers obviously think it's not much of a danger and I think they're probably right. The only real
01:12:31 ◼ ► Let's do this again. Mr. Google, I know that you have no reason to want to put a lot of extra effort
01:12:39 ◼ ► into building an API for parental controls so that you can have people use third party payment
01:12:47 ◼ ► systems with parental controls. But we're now legally going to make you build an API specified in
01:12:53 ◼ ► a law. It's going to be real good, folks, if it's in a law. That's going to be a really good API.
01:12:58 ◼ ► You have to do it, which means we're now at the down at the level of literally telling you how to
01:13:03 ◼ ► use your employees. It actually brings to mind the was the FBI Apple thing where they're like,
01:13:08 ◼ ► you need to hire you need to make employees available to us to do this. And they're like,
01:13:13 ◼ ► you can't tell us as a private company that we need to hire a bunch of people to do a thing for
01:13:19 ◼ ► you, to do work for you. This is similar to that in the sense that it's basically saying, is a law
01:13:25 ◼ ► going to say, Google, you need to do this thing. You need to build an API. You have to do all this
01:13:29 ◼ ► because we have decided that the government and the laws are going to control what you do with
01:13:36 ◼ ► your code and your operating system that you built and that you own. And I think that there is a risk
01:13:51 ◼ ► that the government is going to declare Android or iOS a public benefit that is controlled by
01:14:03 ◼ ► the public and that the corporation that built it can't run it anymore, especially since there's
01:14:12 ◼ ► competition at least between the two giants. That's also their biggest risk, right? Their biggest
01:14:17 ◼ ► risk is that the company comes in and says, guess what? iOS now belongs to the people, right?
01:14:22 ◼ ► Android belongs to the people or Google Play belongs to the people. And what Google is saying
01:14:28 ◼ ► is like, if Epic wants to take all the money, that's fine. Build your own damn operating system,
01:14:36 ◼ ► but this is ours and you pay us if you use it. Interesting thing because practically you can't.
01:14:44 ◼ ► Practically it would be very hard to do that, to build your own operating system and have it be
01:14:48 ◼ ► successful in any way. They want access to the people who are using Google's operating system
01:14:52 ◼ ► and Apple's operating system. And I see the argument that it's a what, monopsony. The idea
01:14:56 ◼ ► is these two players and they're skimming all this money out of the market. But I do think that
01:15:00 ◼ ► there's the counter argument, which is it's their private property. They built it. They do get to
01:15:07 ◼ ► decide what they do with it and they do get to profit from it. And if I look at what Google's
01:15:13 ◼ ► move was in Korea, that's what I take out of it is they seem to be very confident that there are
01:15:18 ◼ ► limits to what a government is going to tell Google to do with its operating system. And so,
01:15:28 ◼ ► This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Capital One. Have you ever hit a technical glitch
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01:16:33 ◼ ► virtual card numbers easier and faster. All of this stuff sounds so good to me. Like, I love the
01:16:39 ◼ ► idea of machine learning and artificial intelligence stuff, making things like banking easier. You know,
01:16:44 ◼ ► like I feel like it's one of these areas where technology can move slowly in and I love that
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01:17:16 ◼ ► and Relay FM. Let's do some #askupgrade questions. First one comes from Stepan, who asks two part,
01:17:25 ◼ ► just a two part question. Part one. Do you use or plan to use any of the Apple iCloud Plus features?
01:17:34 ◼ ► And also, do you use sign in with Apple? If it's actually a three part question, this is part 2b.
01:17:40 ◼ ► If yes, do you hide your email? So iCloud Plus features. Where do I fill in the bubbles on this
01:17:46 ◼ ► and then who do I send it to with the multi part? To me. Question. iCloud Plus is just paid iCloud.
01:17:52 ◼ ► So the answer is yes, I use the extra storage. I don't use the private browsing at this point
01:17:58 ◼ ► because it doesn't or the what is it called? Magic. Private Relay. Magic Tunnel, private relay.
01:18:03 ◼ ► I don't use that because it doesn't work right. Like I tried it and it didn't work right and it
01:18:09 ◼ ► slowed everything down and things were incompatible and so I'm not using it right now. Maybe I'll turn
01:18:13 ◼ ► it on later. But I am using all that. iCloud Plus is literally it's just you're paying for stuff on
01:18:19 ◼ ► iCloud and I have the two terabyte plan so I'm using a lot of iCloud Plus storage but that's
01:18:25 ◼ ► about it. Well they also have the like when you die thing right? That's part of it. Oh yes, coming
01:18:31 ◼ ► this fall. We're all dying this fall. Yeah sure. And also they do the hide my email and custom
01:18:39 ◼ ► email domain. This is all part of iCloud Plus too. I'm not using any email related things for Apple.
01:18:44 ◼ ► As for sign in with Apple, I have used it with some things and where I really have used it is
01:18:52 ◼ ► there's like an app that I want to try and they're like oh you need to try this app you need to sign
01:18:57 ◼ ► up for an account. I'm like oh boy and I have you sign in with Apple for those with the hidden email
01:19:02 ◼ ► address so that I can basically treat it as a disposable account if I don't want to ever
01:19:07 ◼ ► tell them who I am and I can turn off that email address and say goodbye. I like that. I like not
01:19:13 ◼ ► having to give them my email address right away. I have also used it with some stuff where I ended
01:19:19 ◼ ► up going with it. My problem with sign in with Apple is that you get your accounts can often get
01:19:24 ◼ ► in a very weird state where Apple kind of owns your account a little bit and some web apps are
01:19:31 ◼ ► better than others at like yes can I change my password exactly so that I can just log in normally
01:19:37 ◼ ► and not use sign in with Apple and some of them do and some of them don't and honestly I get so used
01:19:42 ◼ ► to using autofill passwords and stuff that I get to there's one in particular the the web alternate
01:19:50 ◼ ► reality game place ball where I set up a sign in with Apple account along when it announced and I
01:19:57 ◼ ► still look at it and play it and it's fun but every time I go there I'm like oh right and I have to
01:20:03 ◼ ► click sign in with Apple and then I have to put in my Mac password in order for it to log me in
01:20:09 ◼ ► and it only logs me in for a certain amount of time and I think to myself I regret using sign
01:20:15 ◼ ► in with Apple because I'd rather have it be like everything else that I do. Where sign in with
01:20:19 ◼ ► Apple is great is if you're on an iPad or an iPhone and it can just do like face ID and sign you in
01:20:26 ◼ ► like when it works super smooth it's nice but honestly I sort of have decided I other than for
01:20:34 ◼ ► sort of throw away I don't want to commit stuff I don't use it because I'd really rather have my
01:20:39 ◼ ► account be normal and be able to have control over it. So I have a couple of thoughts on this so I use
01:20:45 ◼ ► all the same iCloud plus features that you and do do and don't do. Sign in with Apple I do really
01:20:51 ◼ ► like it but I have hit this I hit a thing the other day where I signed I used sign in with Apple it's
01:20:57 ◼ ► like oh great because I would prefer to use similar to you it's like I don't know if I'm going to want
01:21:01 ◼ ► this in the long term I don't know if I want this company to have my email address and so sometimes
01:21:06 ◼ ► I hide it but not always it's like oh this is nice and easy but then I thought to myself if I need to
01:21:12 ◼ ► sign in with this and sign in with Apple isn't working my account does not exist because what I
01:21:20 ◼ ► want Apple to do with sign in with Apple is to surface a password that I can get in the passwords
01:21:28 ◼ ► section of the settings right so like if I had to sign in somehow can I get a username and password
01:21:37 ◼ ► that I could use if sign in with Apple was broken somehow because otherwise I have this account
01:21:51 ◼ ► Why can't I have it too right like why can't you put it in the passwords section of the settings
01:21:59 ◼ ► app or system preferences like I would also like to have it I don't have it and I find that to be
01:22:06 ◼ ► odd like I just used sign in with Apple to create an account with a government website which I
01:22:13 ◼ ► thought was awesome because I could use that but then as soon as I did it I was like hmm
01:22:18 ◼ ► I don't have the password for this account right like I don't have it I have to use sign in with
01:22:27 ◼ ► Apple which is probably going to be fine but what if it isn't fine right now I don't have that
01:22:32 ◼ ► anymore similarly the thing that I wanted to mention and look we're all friends here all right
01:22:38 ◼ ► so just okay my logging in to my Mac password is not as good as my one password password from a
01:22:47 ◼ ► strength perspective right and I expect that now I've said that about 95% of our listeners have
01:22:53 ◼ ► gone oh yeah because now we're like keychain is so like and the password app is like so ingrained
01:23:02 ◼ ► it is really easy to sign into stuff in theory where if you had physical access to my Mac
01:23:09 ◼ ► compared to if everything was in one password like my one password password is really complicated
01:23:16 ◼ ► my Mac password not so much because in my mind is it who has been in the past well all my passwords
01:23:23 ◼ ► are in one password and you can't get to those now that we're also all saving things for auto
01:23:29 ◼ ► fill more because the passwords functionality of of on Mac devices and an iOS device has gone better
01:23:38 ◼ ► so what I thought the other day is I would like to set a more complicated password when a password
01:23:45 ◼ ► is needed for auto fill there's something that I would like that is what I'm throwing out there
01:23:50 ◼ ► to Apple's passwords team if you are asking me to enter a password for auto filling I would like that
01:23:57 ◼ ► to be a much larger password than the one just to get in to my Mac with so there you go and for all
01:24:03 ◼ ► the people that think they now need to tell me I need a 25 character cryptographic password to sign
01:24:09 ◼ ► into my Mac thanks I don't want your feedback all right yeah we're all cool here you know
01:24:13 ◼ ► yeah I mean that would be their argument I think at Apple too would be you need a stronger password
01:24:19 ◼ ► for your Mac I know but then I would also ask what they use because I'm I'm assuming that most
01:24:27 ◼ ► people are in a similar boat to me ecomony asks how frequently do you raise and lower your standing
01:24:33 ◼ ► desk it varies my standing desk is basically a seated desk it can but I I very very ever
01:24:41 ◼ ► I sit by default and then I have I feel like I want to stand and so then I stand for a while
01:24:47 ◼ ► and then and then and then I need to feel like I need to go back down and sit for a while so I'll
01:24:52 ◼ ► do that often when I feel like I need to stand I actually just go and out into the other room and
01:24:57 ◼ ► write on the iPad at the at the bar in the kitchen and I can do that sitting or standing but I usually
01:25:03 ◼ ► stand so I often will just move but it happens it happens when I'm you know maybe my back hurts or
01:25:10 ◼ ► something like that or I'm just uncomfortable or I've been sitting all day and I want to do
01:25:13 ◼ ► something different and then I'll pop it up I have a little preset button and it just goes up and
01:25:18 ◼ ► it's great but mostly it's sitting and Andy asks I've heard Myke and other podcasters talk about
01:25:23 ◼ ► using their MacBook Pro in clamshell mode of an external monitor I'm just curious why do you keep
01:25:28 ◼ ► the lid closed why not keep the laptop lid open and use it as a second display does leaving the
01:25:35 ◼ ► lid open cause issues so I can answer for me I can't answer for other people my physical desk space
01:25:42 ◼ ► means that the laptop really can only fit underneath the display and the display is not
01:25:48 ◼ ► high up high up enough off the desk to have it open I also don't like having two keyboards in
01:25:55 ◼ ► front of me like and two track pads because I use external keyboards and external track pads
01:26:00 ◼ ► I find it to be neater also I have a 31 inch display a 14 inch display next to or underneath
01:26:08 ◼ ► the 31 inch display to me just looks really weird like the size difference is so massive
01:26:13 ◼ ► so for those reasons it's not needed and also I have a 30 inch display I do not need a second
01:26:18 ◼ ► 14 inch display I don't I don't feel like I need that um but in those instances so they're all the
01:26:25 ◼ ► reasons that I do it I don't know why everybody else does it the way they do it it's awkward I
01:26:29 ◼ ► used to have a stand from ergotron I want to say at work at IDG that was I had my Apple display
01:26:39 ◼ ► and then the stand was um I think it was the the display was on the stand on an arm or like a mount
01:26:47 ◼ ► a base amount and then there was a tray basically with for a laptop and it was so the the idea there
01:26:56 ◼ ► was for to do just this we just run two monitors and so it was much higher up and it was sort of
01:27:02 ◼ ► wider open so that the screen was was kind of taller right like not at an angle where you'd
01:27:07 ◼ ► type on it but an angle for display purposes to try and sort of get rid of all of the length
01:27:22 ◼ ► it was awkward I mean it was weird and awkward um that second display really did become kind of
01:27:29 ◼ ► just a garbage place for secondary stuff because the first display was so big and the other display
01:27:34 ◼ ► was so small that I you know I tried it but it only really ever became kind of an ancillary thing
01:27:40 ◼ ► and then I didn't use it enough for it to make sense and then I ended up just running it mostly
01:27:44 ◼ ► in clamshell after that so I think that's the truth of it is that laptop screens are so much
01:27:50 ◼ ► smaller than external displays at this point and ergonomically to contort your laptop into
01:27:55 ◼ ► something so it looks like a workable second screen I don't know it's it's a tough one so
01:27:59 ◼ ► what I think is mostly it's a nice idea but then you when you put it in practice you're like I
01:28:05 ◼ ► really rather just have one display or even really rather have two displays that are that fit together
01:28:10 ◼ ► and are going to be similar sizes I like multiple displays like as a thing I just don't really like
01:28:16 ◼ ► laptop displays as my second display because it's like usually it's a very varied in size and also I
01:28:23 ◼ ► just don't like having the keyboard and the trackpad and all of that there in front of the
01:28:27 ◼ ► display it kind of tends to mean that either the display's further away than you would want it to
01:28:31 ◼ ► be or now I have like another and also then I find myself like even though I have one keyboard in
01:28:37 ◼ ► front of me I'm like reaching over to type on the other ones sometimes and then that's not so good
01:28:41 ◼ ► for ergonomics like so I just like to keep it that laptop just keep it closed yeah if you'd like to
01:28:48 ◼ ► send in a question for us to answer on the show just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade
01:28:52 ◼ ► or you can use question mark ask upgrade in the relay fm members discord which you'll get access
01:28:57 ◼ ► to if you sign up for upgrade plus go to get upgrade plus dot com and you get longer ad free
01:29:02 ◼ ► episodes every single week of upgrade so you get bonus content and no ads go to get upgrade plus
01:29:09 ◼ ► dot com and sign up thank you so much to everybody that has also thank you to capital one hunter
01:29:15 ◼ ► douglas and amazon music for their support of this week's episode but most of all thank you for
01:29:20 ◼ ► listening if you'd like to find jason online go to six colors dot com the incomparable dot com and
01:29:25 ◼ ► jason hosts many shows here at relay fm as do i you can go to relay.fm shows and pick out something