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454: The Home Home

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 454.

00:00:13   Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN

00:00:16   and Ooni Pizza Ovens.

00:00:17   My name is Mike Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snow.

00:00:19   Hi, Jason.

00:00:20   - Hi, Mike, how are you?

00:00:22   - I'm very good, how are you?

00:00:23   Happy Easter.

00:00:24   - Yeah, sure, hi.

00:00:27   I went to a baseball game yesterday.

00:00:28   - Chocolate time.

00:00:29   - Yeah, it was a nice time.

00:00:29   - Did you have chocolate involved in the baseball game?

00:00:31   - I had some marshmallow peeps.

00:00:33   No, there was no chocolate at the baseball game for me.

00:00:35   I did have some marshmallow peeps yesterday.

00:00:36   So that was great.

00:00:38   A tradition like none, like no other.

00:00:40   - I don't think I've ever had a peep.

00:00:42   - Have you had a marshmallow?

00:00:44   - Yep.

00:00:45   - It's like that.

00:00:46   - Okay.

00:00:47   - With a little bit of like, I don't know,

00:00:51   sugar sprinkles on top.

00:00:52   It's basically just, which is unnecessary,

00:00:54   but that's what it is.

00:00:56   That's all it is.

00:00:57   Marshmallow peeps, they're marshmallows.

00:01:00   - I have a snow talk question for you

00:01:01   to start off this week's episode.

00:01:03   Comes from Marley's. - Is it about marshmallows?

00:01:04   - No, it's not.

00:01:05   It's about audio logos.

00:01:08   Marley's asks, "I personally really like

00:01:10   "the Apple TV+ thunk,

00:01:13   "but the THX and HBO ones are absolute classics.

00:01:16   "What's your favorite?"

00:01:18   - By thunk, does Marley's mean the C chord

00:01:21   that's the startup sound for every Mac

00:01:23   and then also is the startup sound for Apple TV+?

00:01:25   (mimics drum roll)

00:01:28   I assume.

00:01:29   - Nope.

00:01:31   - Audio logos, THX is that

00:01:32   kind of thing.

00:01:35   - And then HBO is like

00:01:38   (mimics drum roll)

00:01:41   - Yeah, exactly.

00:01:43   I have two.

00:01:44   I actually, what I found out was that

00:01:46   the things that I like the most are

00:01:48   sitcom tags from production companies.

00:01:52   I enjoy those.

00:01:54   I thought of a couple of classics.

00:01:56   The Simpsons always ends with the Gracie films,

00:02:02   which I think is, is that James L. Brooks?

00:02:06   It's the Gracie films thing.

00:02:08   So it's doodle-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo,

00:02:10   followed by the 20th Century Fox logo.

00:02:12   So I always think about that one, the Gracie one.

00:02:14   And Sit, Ooboo, Sit, Good Dog,

00:02:18   which was the Gary David Goldberg title card

00:02:22   for family ties begin back in the day.

00:02:27   That was very memorable, a dog.

00:02:28   A dog, actually his, I think, dead dog.

00:02:30   And he had a picture of his dead dog.

00:02:33   He named Ubu Productions was named after his dog.

00:02:37   So those are classics.

00:02:38   And there are some modern ones

00:02:39   that I suppose are like that too.

00:02:41   And I'll throw in a runner up for back in the 90s, 2000s,

00:02:46   the CNN's bumper was James Earl Jones saying,

00:02:50   "This is CNN."

00:02:52   And there's nothing like Darth Vader

00:02:54   to snap you out of it.

00:02:56   Like, "Whoa, okay Darth Vader, I get it.

00:02:58   It's CNN, I get it."

00:02:59   Those are classics.

00:03:00   What about you?

00:03:01   You have anything?

00:03:02   - I mean, the HBO one is a classic to me.

00:03:05   'Cause like so many of my favorite shows then start,

00:03:08   you know, like after that sound.

00:03:11   So I think that that one is a classic of mine, I think.

00:03:14   If you would like to send in a snow talk question

00:03:17   of your own, just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send it in and we may help open

00:03:24   a future episode of Upgrade.

00:03:25   Got quite a bit of follow up today, Jason.

00:03:28   Oh.

00:03:29   A big chunk of it is in regards to carplay and General Motors.

00:03:34   So you wrote a blog post, sometimes will happen when we record an episode and you're like

00:03:40   fired up about a topic.

00:03:41   I talked about it a lot and realized I hadn't written a word about it and sometimes I had

00:03:45   that moment where I think to myself,

00:03:46   if I wasn't a podcast listener

00:03:48   and only read Jason's writing,

00:03:50   did I just skip over this entire topic

00:03:53   by only talking about it on podcasts?

00:03:55   And the answer sometimes is yes.

00:03:57   And so I try to make sure that those kind of get in sync.

00:04:01   So I did, I wrote what was going to be a brief link

00:04:04   to that Verge story that basically says,

00:04:06   everybody's mad about General Motors

00:04:08   saying they're gonna drop CarPlay.

00:04:10   And it did not turn into a brief link.

00:04:13   I was going to do the, like, look, I'm tired.

00:04:15   I'm not going to rant about it now.

00:04:17   And then I proceeded to rant about it.

00:04:19   And I was like, OK, well, I guess I did that again.

00:04:22   So we've got a lot of thoughts out there.

00:04:24   But we also had some stuff coming in from listeners.

00:04:26   So Matt wrote in and says, I have a Polestar 2, which

00:04:30   features an Android automotive.

00:04:32   They added CarPlay last summer.

00:04:34   I prefer the built-in Google Maps

00:04:36   because it's more EV-friendly, but use

00:04:38   CarPlay for everything else.

00:04:40   There are so few apps for automotive,

00:04:42   Chrome isn't even available.

00:04:44   And I found that interesting,

00:04:45   Polestar seemed to be doing it right.

00:04:47   And they got all of it,

00:04:48   a little bit of all of it in Polestar.

00:04:50   - Yeah, I got a nice listener letter from Don,

00:04:55   who said something very similar,

00:04:57   which is Android Automotive Operating System

00:05:00   has deep integration with car systems.

00:05:02   It's much more than just Navin Entertainment.

00:05:04   It's got the climate control and other car stuff.

00:05:06   It's that low level stuff.

00:05:08   We receive regular over the air system updates,

00:05:12   and it brings more stability,

00:05:13   navigation is excellent.

00:05:14   And I'm sitting reading this thinking,

00:05:16   okay, this person really loves their Android Automotive.

00:05:19   But Don says, the kicker is,

00:05:23   CarPlay is always available as an app.

00:05:26   And frankly, it's a more robust implementation of CarPlay

00:05:29   than in our Chevy Bolt.

00:05:30   So the point here is Google certainly has an API for CarPlay

00:05:33   to be part of Android Auto Automotive.

00:05:36   The decision to not include it is GMs.

00:05:37   And I think that's great at getting at the point here.

00:05:41   which is there's nothing that precludes GM

00:05:44   from also offering people who have an iPhone

00:05:48   the opportunity to look at some of their stuff

00:05:50   through CarPlay while offering

00:05:53   a full featured Android automotive experience.

00:05:55   They just don't want to.

00:05:57   So I thought that was a great bit of feedback

00:06:00   from our listeners who have the Android automotive

00:06:03   experience with CarPlay, right?

00:06:05   - Yeah. - And it's competition, right?

00:06:07   That way, if GM is really lagging,

00:06:10   It's good for the user if you're like,

00:06:12   well, I got a brand new iPhone with brand new software

00:06:14   and it's got this great feature

00:06:15   and it's better than what's on my car,

00:06:16   so I'm gonna use that.

00:06:17   And GM doesn't wanna do that, right?

00:06:20   They don't wanna risk that there's gonna be things

00:06:22   outside of their control, which is infuriating.

00:06:27   - For any of the shows, Sam Edels-Somid wrote in

00:06:31   with a bunch of information about,

00:06:33   well, kind of follow up on what we were talking about,

00:06:35   Sam, who is a, I would say an expert--

00:06:39   - Auto industry analyst.

00:06:40   - Yes. - Yeah, on cars

00:06:42   and technology and how these two things

00:06:44   kind of intersect. - And he was on

00:06:45   the verticals last year, yeah.

00:06:47   - So he says, "In contrast," so like, you know,

00:06:50   I mentioned there was an article that I found

00:06:51   which had a list of car makers that were gonna be

00:06:54   integrating with the new CarPlay.

00:06:56   Sam says that no automaker themselves

00:06:59   has publicly committed to using the new CarPlay.

00:07:02   That list came from Apple, so.

00:07:06   I don't know, like, you know, I feel like

00:07:07   in the way that Sam was writing in was like,

00:07:09   "This is wrong."

00:07:10   And it's like, well, I feel like it's only half wrong.

00:07:12   Apple's saying it, so it's not like it's not being said,

00:07:15   but just the car companies aren't committing to it.

00:07:17   But Apple was saying that there's a list of 14 or 17

00:07:21   companies that will have the new carplay.

00:07:22   So unless they know, unless they think they know something

00:07:25   that's not gonna happen, I don't know what's gonna happen.

00:07:29   - Yeah, well, I mean, the point is,

00:07:30   that was an announcement made last June,

00:07:32   have the car makers changed their minds?

00:07:34   We wouldn't know.

00:07:35   I imagined at the time that what that was is,

00:07:38   we're gonna tell you that these car makers support us,

00:07:40   but we're gonna let them announce their new cars

00:07:42   that support this feature.

00:07:44   And as Sam points out, that hasn't happened.

00:07:46   So you're ending up in this limbo state,

00:07:48   which is sort of like, are they going to still or not?

00:07:52   And we don't know.

00:07:54   So that's all we can tell.

00:07:55   Maybe there'll be an announcement at WWDC about it,

00:07:58   who knows?

00:07:59   - Yeah, 'cause like the other part of it is just maybe

00:08:00   Apple hasn't wanted anyone to talk about it yet,

00:08:02   'cause they wanna show it off properly

00:08:04   when they're ready too, so who knows?

00:08:05   - Maybe so.

00:08:06   Sam also says, "The system in these vehicles,

00:08:09   so the GM vehicles, is Android,

00:08:12   and therefore the Play Store is present,

00:08:13   which means any Android developer can submit apps

00:08:16   that fall into the vehicle-appropriate categories,

00:08:19   like media streaming and messaging,

00:08:21   and they can appear in the Play Store on GM EVs."

00:08:25   So, you know, like CarPlay, in a way,

00:08:28   you can have an application

00:08:30   that can be kind of rubber-stamped

00:08:32   to be used in that environment,

00:08:35   and Android will do the same.

00:08:37   - You have to specifically, like with CarPlay,

00:08:39   you have to specifically have it be flagged

00:08:42   as being approved for automotive use.

00:08:45   And I don't know if it's a rubber stamp

00:08:47   or if there's actually some more attention paid to,

00:08:50   'cause there's some liability, I think,

00:08:52   if something that just plays video,

00:08:54   like it's not legal.

00:08:57   So I think that there is some stuff

00:09:00   that they have to probably check before they allow it.

00:09:02   I don't know the details.

00:09:03   I don't know if they're just doing automated scan

00:09:04   if somebody has to actually approve those or what. This is good to know. I will point out, though,

00:09:10   that first off, it does actually have to be properly tagged as being something for automotive use.

00:09:15   Even if the app you use on your iPhone has an Android equivalent, is it in Android automotive?

00:09:22   Secondly, is the experience of using that app comparable to using it in CarPlay or is it not?

00:09:29   It's sort of an up in the air thing. And then I would anticipate, and this is just me inventing

00:09:34   something, but based on observations, I would also anticipate, I wonder if GM will exert a level of

00:09:43   authority over what is available to be installed on their cars, right? Because that's the other,

00:09:48   the way they're acting with something like saying, "Oh, no carplay. We're not going to allow that."

00:09:52   I don't know if there's anything to stop them from saying, "We're only going to let certain apps

00:09:58   be installed on our cars, right, from the Play Store.

00:10:03   - I don't know.

00:10:04   I don't know if they're able to control

00:10:07   the Play Store experience, right?

00:10:09   I don't think phones can do this,

00:10:11   unless it just does, like, there's something

00:10:12   about the phone that doesn't support it.

00:10:14   - Yeah, but it's, the cars, right,

00:10:17   like, I just don't know if they can blacklist apps

00:10:21   on Android Automotive, I don't know.

00:10:24   - So on that Android developer site, I found you,

00:10:26   The app is reviewed for compliance with driver

00:10:28   distraction guidelines and the technical quality criteria

00:10:31   described in these sections.

00:10:33   So it's got a bunch of lists.

00:10:35   The detail review process might take more time

00:10:37   than you're accustomed to when submitting phone and tablet

00:10:39   apps until your app or update is approved, it's not published.

00:10:43   So unlike-- just to confirm what we thought--

00:10:46   kind of like CarPlay and unlike regular app review on Android,

00:10:51   if you want to be able to use the requirements

00:10:54   and you want to use the entitlements that are available

00:10:57   and the features that are available

00:10:58   to have your app in the car,

00:10:59   it does go through an additional approval process

00:11:02   to make sure that it's, as you say, not like,

00:11:04   "Hey, here's a video app to watch videos

00:11:08   when you're driving."

00:11:09   It's like, well, that's not gonna happen.

00:11:11   - Yeah, yeah.

00:11:12   So the fact that I am really grateful to Sam

00:11:16   for sending this feedback.

00:11:17   The fact that in theory,

00:11:20   Android apps that have essentially

00:11:23   would display like Android Auto apps,

00:11:25   but they're running on the Android automotive platform

00:11:27   and in the Play Store and all that.

00:11:29   That's great.

00:11:30   It depends on GM's implementation.

00:11:31   And then it doesn't actually change my argument

00:11:33   in a lot of ways, because while you might rely on an app

00:11:37   that has an Android equivalent,

00:11:39   that is flagged properly and allowed on GM's hardware,

00:11:43   and therefore you can put it on the GM hardware platform.

00:11:47   Like that's a lot of steps,

00:11:48   but it's gonna happen for a lot of stuff and that's great.

00:11:52   But my larger point was also,

00:11:54   like I certainly use, at least with Overcast,

00:11:57   the podcast player, one app that will never be on Android.

00:12:00   And so for me, CarPlay means I can have my podcast app

00:12:05   on my car, and this decision means I can't.

00:12:09   And that's the car maker saying,

00:12:11   "You need to change everything

00:12:13   "about how you live your life, right,

00:12:16   "in order to be compatible with our car."

00:12:19   And like, that's a power move.

00:12:21   And I'm completely open to the idea that while Apple talks about 79% of people saying car

00:12:27   play has to be on their new car that they buy, of new car buyers, I'm also open to the

00:12:33   idea that General Motors looks at that and goes, "It's soft. It's soft. In the end, if

00:12:38   they want to buy our car, they're not going to care. We're going to show that we have

00:12:40   an equivalent infotated system. It'll be good enough." But will it be good enough? I don't

00:12:45   know. I look at this and I think, as we saw from our previous commenters about people

00:12:51   who have Android automotive cars, like they could also just say, "Look, if you want to

00:12:57   use overcast, sure, use CarPlay for that." And they're like, "No, no, we don't want anything

00:13:01   on our system from your iPhone." And that's the part that infuriates me. So we'll see

00:13:07   how it plays out, right? Like either it'll matter or it won't, right? In the end, either

00:13:11   people will be like, "I don't like this. I'm gonna avoid GM cars because of this and the

00:13:18   GM sales are gonna be a problem and their salespeople are gonna be like this lack of

00:13:21   carplay is killing us, or it won't matter. Those of us who do care will just have to

00:13:28   try and avoid the cars that don't have carplay, which is what's happening now. I heard from

00:13:33   a lot of people who are like, "I'm never going back to a car without carplay." I get it.

00:13:40   That's potentially a problem for GM if it turns out that people are… At the end of

00:13:45   this, I didn't write this. I haven't said this anywhere, but I think in the end what

00:13:49   my point really is, if I want to boil it down, is what are people more loyal to? The software

00:13:55   running in their car or the iPhone in their pocket? Like, what are they more loyal to?

00:14:01   And I think the only person who believes they're more loyal to the software in their car is

00:14:06   the car maker.

00:14:07   I don't even know if it's the software part either as well, right? Like, I think that

00:14:10   people like car brands, but I think for the average consumer, is there that much differentiation

00:14:16   between car A and car B. If you want to get a hatchback or whatever, I think unless you're

00:14:22   really into cars, you just drive a bunch to find one that you like. I don't know, I mean,

00:14:29   I'm not a car person, but I don't know if the typical car buyer has an affinity towards

00:14:38   a brand, like a strong one. Do you think that's the case?

00:14:43   I think it varies.

00:14:45   I think it varies.

00:14:46   I think most people know, right?

00:14:48   - Yeah.

00:14:49   'Cause I feel like that's where you're gonna end up

00:14:50   in a problem, right?

00:14:52   I wanted to give a kind of a clarification of terms,

00:14:55   which I found helpful, so about Android Automotive.

00:14:59   So Android Auto is CarPlay.

00:15:03   So it is a platform that runs on your phone

00:15:06   and extends to the car, right? - And projects, exactly.

00:15:08   Android Automotive is effectively Android,

00:15:13   the open source project.

00:15:16   So like what Android the open source project is to phones,

00:15:19   Automotive is to cars.

00:15:20   Like it is a operating system.

00:15:22   - The car is the phone, right?

00:15:24   It's running on the car, not projected into the car.

00:15:27   It's Android running on the car.

00:15:30   - But like Android is for a phone,

00:15:33   you can use Android Automotive

00:15:36   and have no Google stuff on it.

00:15:38   no Play Store or anything.

00:15:40   That is Google Automotive Services,

00:15:43   which is a different layer on top,

00:15:45   which is like Google Play Services for a fun.

00:15:48   So.

00:15:51   - Right, and it allows the automakers

00:15:53   to use the basis of Android Automotive

00:15:56   and tie it into their systems and all that.

00:15:58   This was the question about like next-gen CarPlay is,

00:16:00   what's Apple doing with next-gen CarPlay?

00:16:02   Is that a version of iOS that's running on the car

00:16:08   all the time.

00:16:09   And when I talked to Sam last summer about it,

00:16:12   he said, "I can't see it."

00:16:13   He's like, "I really can't see that."

00:16:15   Because what you have to do is build

00:16:17   a car real-time operating system,

00:16:19   and is Apple really gonna do that?

00:16:21   But that's what Android Automotive is, right?

00:16:24   Android has been set up, and Google has set it up,

00:16:28   to say, "Yeah, we wanna be the basis for your car OS."

00:16:32   Which is fine, right?

00:16:33   Like, that's cool, because if you're GM,

00:16:35   or Polestar, or whoever, you're like,

00:16:37   "Well, this is good.

00:16:38   "We don't have to build our own operating system

00:16:39   "and we get an app platform with it and that's nice.

00:16:42   "And then we can put CarPlay and Android Auto on top of it."

00:16:45   So we've got our fundamental like in the car stuff

00:16:48   and then the things people can project from their phones

00:16:50   that they carry around with them.

00:16:52   It's just the GM chose to not make that last step

00:16:55   and say, "No, we're not gonna do that.

00:16:56   "We're gonna close that door."

00:16:58   And what I've realized in all their statements

00:17:01   is they keep, it's such deflection.

00:17:04   I mean, in my piece on six colors,

00:17:05   I basically said they're lying, right?

00:17:07   its spin, its lies.

00:17:09   What they keep saying is,

00:17:10   "Well, we have to do it because of this and this."

00:17:13   But they don't have to do it.

00:17:14   They're using those as excuses.

00:17:16   They've chosen a platform

00:17:18   that fundamentally can allow projection,

00:17:20   as well as allowing everything that they want.

00:17:22   They just don't want projection

00:17:24   because what are they afraid of?

00:17:26   They're afraid of losing control of their platform

00:17:29   and letting people make choices

00:17:31   that aren't the choices that GM wants to make.

00:17:33   And I would argue that the navigation part of it

00:17:37   that GM is so hot on,

00:17:38   like, well, we're gonna have self-driving cars

00:17:39   or driver assist, and we need to know where you're going,

00:17:41   so you need to use our navigation.

00:17:43   It's like, well, that's the carrot, right?

00:17:44   That's the reason that you are going to motivate people

00:17:49   to use the in-car navigation system

00:17:51   is that if you wanna use all the advanced features of the car

00:17:53   you gotta use the in-car navigation system.

00:17:55   That's fine.

00:17:57   But the way they're acting

00:17:59   is more that they're just fearful.

00:18:01   And it leads me to think that the truth

00:18:03   is not about that at all.

00:18:05   The truth of it is they want to limit what's on the car

00:18:09   so that you have to use the services that they approve

00:18:13   and probably have to pay them

00:18:15   or the services have to pay them for access to GM cars.

00:18:19   I think that's really what's going on here in the end

00:18:22   is that it's not this sham about navigation.

00:18:27   The truth is it's about like what other things

00:18:29   are on your phone.

00:18:30   And the answer is, well, it's like music and podcasts.

00:18:34   And they're like, well, yeah, they don't want that.

00:18:36   They want you to pay for their connectivity

00:18:39   and pay for, maybe they only have Spotify on there

00:18:42   and they've cut a deal with Spotify

00:18:44   or they dream of cutting a deal with Spotify

00:18:46   to allow Spotify to be pre-installed on their cars.

00:18:51   And they get a cut for that.

00:18:53   And I think that that's their big strategy

00:18:55   is we're gonna use the exclusivity of our platform

00:18:58   as a lever to pull money out of our customers

00:19:03   after they buy the car, either directly or indirectly.

00:19:07   I think that's what's going on,

00:19:09   despite everything they say.

00:19:10   'Cause everything they say makes no sense.

00:19:12   Like none of GM's justifications for this move hold water.

00:19:17   They are all, I mean, that's why I say it.

00:19:20   They're lies, they're lying.

00:19:22   They are lying because having Apple Maps on your phone

00:19:25   doesn't preclude their navigation system

00:19:27   from being required for using their features.

00:19:30   It doesn't, but they say it does.

00:19:33   Why is that?

00:19:34   It's because they're lying

00:19:35   because they have a grander strategy at work

00:19:37   which involves taking complete control

00:19:39   over the software platform of their cars

00:19:41   and not letting anyone else on board.

00:19:43   Good luck.

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00:21:55   So should we do some follow up now?

00:21:57   Okay, I mean continuing the follow up.

00:22:01   I feel like that was its own topic, that became topic number 1 and now we're going to follow

00:22:05   up.

00:22:06   Okay.

00:22:07   So Stefan wrote in to say, "Regarding a revamped watch user interface, Jason mentioned

00:22:12   at the end of your discussion that a new watch UI

00:22:15   or something that he would like to see

00:22:17   is a currently running timer interface

00:22:19   if you set a 15 minute timer or whatever

00:22:21   to actually see it running all the time.

00:22:23   This sounds a lot like the use of the dynamic island.

00:22:26   Maybe a revamped watch UI could center

00:22:29   around dynamic island concepts for the watch face.

00:22:33   Curious to hear if that gives you any additional thoughts.

00:22:36   It's live activities, right?

00:22:38   Can they do something? - Yeah, I mean,

00:22:40   live activities watch face?

00:22:42   Yeah.

00:22:43   Maybe?

00:22:44   Kind of like the Siri watch face.

00:22:46   I always feel like that was something that Apple didn't fully express.

00:22:50   Right.

00:22:52   Which was a frustration for me.

00:22:53   I was actually a fan of the Siri watch face.

00:22:55   What I liked about the Siri watch face was it made the Apple watch feel like a

00:23:01   computer like it is because it felt like it was surfacing things for me, which

00:23:07   were relevant at a certain time.

00:23:10   Right?

00:23:11   So if I had an appointment coming up,

00:23:13   it would show me that.

00:23:15   And so complications are great and all,

00:23:17   but they're very static in a way.

00:23:19   I think we were talking about this,

00:23:22   kind of more dynamic complications.

00:23:25   For example, I have the fantastic hell complication

00:23:28   on my watch, but I only really need it a few hours a day

00:23:32   when I've got appointments going on.

00:23:33   In the evening, when it's, I'm not gonna have anything

00:23:37   for another, say, 12 hours or whatever,

00:23:39   I don't need that there anymore, that complication.

00:23:42   It's still like so much of watchOS

00:23:45   feels like it's stuck in this idea of like being a watch.

00:23:50   - The lack of dynamism in the individual.

00:23:52   So like, yeah, you can create a complication that's got,

00:23:55   that's dynamic,

00:23:56   but the complication slot itself isn't dynamic.

00:23:58   The complication slot is whatever is in it.

00:24:00   And we've seen like, you know, Widget Smith,

00:24:04   or Watch Smith experiments with this.

00:24:06   The idea that the data that goes in your complications

00:24:08   changes depending on context.

00:24:11   You can do shortcuts that do things like change your,

00:24:14   which face is open at a particular time.

00:24:17   That's clever.

00:24:18   But what would really be clever is Apple thinking about this

00:24:22   from the top down and saying,

00:24:25   "How do we solve this problem on a level that isn't sort of

00:24:28   like a hack, but like is built into the watch?"

00:24:33   Because what I, so, and what I mean by that is,

00:24:38   Imagine something like WatchSmith,

00:24:42   which for people who haven't used it, has a little clock.

00:24:45   And you basically can draw out different segments

00:24:47   of the clock and say, show this data here

00:24:51   and show this data here.

00:24:52   And it's very clever because it means like

00:24:54   during the workday, it shows this kind of data

00:24:57   in its complication slot.

00:24:59   And the rest of the time it shows this other kind of

00:25:00   complex or data in the complications.

00:25:03   Okay, great.

00:25:04   But compare, so if you're Apple, you're like,

00:25:06   do we really want people to do that?

00:25:08   To have like this clock, you know, we appreciate,

00:25:11   I'm sure this theoretical Apple person,

00:25:13   what David Smith has done with WatchSmith,

00:25:15   but is that the UI we wanna give people or we're Apple,

00:25:19   we can do better than that.

00:25:20   We're gonna do, we're gonna reconceive it.

00:25:22   - Siri intelligence.

00:25:23   - And that's, well, so what I was thinking is,

00:25:26   we're talking about the live activities

00:25:27   in the dynamic island and things like that.

00:25:30   Like I could see Apple saying,

00:25:31   what we're gonna do is we're gonna create

00:25:35   a dynamic complication that has a base complication mode

00:25:40   that you select, but that in certain contexts,

00:25:45   it's replaced by the dynamic complication.

00:25:49   And if there's a series of them,

00:25:50   you can swipe between them.

00:25:52   And like, I'm making this up off the top of my head,

00:25:53   but you could see Apple doing something like that,

00:25:55   which is, "Oh, no, no, no, we're not gonna have you say,

00:25:58   'From nine to five, show this,

00:25:59   and then otherwise show that.'

00:26:01   That's not what we're gonna do.

00:26:02   Instead, we're gonna create a developer API,

00:26:04   and we're gonna build a new class of complication,

00:26:07   and it's gonna have a base state,

00:26:09   and then the developers will be able to insert theirs

00:26:12   contextually based on certain data

00:26:14   that'll be from their apps pushed in

00:26:16   to the same complication spot on this one watch face

00:26:19   that we're enabling it for, right?

00:26:21   That sounds much more like how Apple approaches this.

00:26:23   I'm not saying it's the right decision.

00:26:25   I'm saying that that sounds like something Apple might do.

00:26:27   And they've already got the Live Activity concept

00:26:30   and the Dynamic Island concept.

00:26:32   So taking that dynamism and existing APIs basically

00:26:36   and saying, okay, here's a dynamic complication spot,

00:26:40   which is not necessarily what I want,

00:26:42   which is, can I just, you know,

00:26:44   but it might have the same effect,

00:26:46   which is I leave that dynamic complication spot open

00:26:48   and when I am running a timer,

00:26:50   the timer shows up in it, right?

00:26:51   Like, okay, that is actually kind of,

00:26:54   you're giving me what I want,

00:26:56   but not exactly the way that I wanted it.

00:26:59   I told you I wanted it.

00:27:00   And that's not wrong.

00:27:02   You can tell an artist, draw,

00:27:06   I want this person to be blue

00:27:09   and this person to be green and have an angry expression.

00:27:12   Or you say, just draw me the picture

00:27:14   and here's what the picture is.

00:27:16   And micromanaging them, you're destroying

00:27:19   the thing that makes them the artist and you not the artist.

00:27:22   And this in user interface,

00:27:24   this is a similar kind of thing where it's like,

00:27:25   I just wanna be able to have this timer go in this slot

00:27:29   Sometimes, and Apple's like, yeah,

00:27:31   but what you really want is in the sort of step back

00:27:33   and then build the whole API around it.

00:27:35   So I think it's an interesting idea.

00:27:37   - So you have also experienced Friday night baseball.

00:27:41   So we were talking on a previous episode that the radio,

00:27:44   the local radio broadcast could now be piped

00:27:48   into Friday night baseball and the season has begun.

00:27:52   The balls have been rolled out from the gates

00:27:53   and we're off to go off with the races.

00:27:55   - They opened the gates.

00:27:56   How was your experience with this?

00:27:59   I assume you, did you do this as a tester?

00:28:01   Is this what you want from Friday Night Baseball

00:28:04   to listen to the local announcers?

00:28:05   - I mean, if it's my local team, I probably would.

00:28:09   So there's the two biggest complaints

00:28:10   about Friday Night Baseball.

00:28:12   One is you gotta be now an Apple TV.

00:28:14   It used to be you had to use Apple TV to watch the games.

00:28:19   And this year it's turned into you have to pay

00:28:21   for Apple TV Plus to watch the games, right?

00:28:24   The number two complaint though is

00:28:26   Who are these announcers, right?

00:28:27   Because so many fans are fans of a local team.

00:28:29   They are living with their local announcers day in, day out

00:28:32   for the whole summer.

00:28:33   162 games of baseball.

00:28:37   It's a lot of baseball.

00:28:38   You're used to those people.

00:28:39   And then you get a national broadcast

00:28:42   and they're not your announcers.

00:28:43   There are other announcers who cover lots of different teams

00:28:46   and move from place to place.

00:28:48   And I hear from a lot of people who are like,

00:28:49   "Oh, those announcers are so bad."

00:28:51   It's like, you know, are they?

00:28:53   Are they especially bad?

00:28:54   I think they aren't personally. I think it's that you expect your local announcers.

00:28:59   Bottom line. It's not like, yes, they're not necessarily great, but I think the state of

00:29:04   national baseball announcing is not particularly great in general. So anyway, leaving that aside,

00:29:09   now you have this feature where you can switch over just as you could already on MLB TV,

00:29:17   their TV package, the MLB app let you switch to other audio and you could watch,

00:29:22   you actually watch your home team's TV and then switch it to your home team's radio for the audio,

00:29:26   which is kind of funny. But here with Apple, what they're doing is exactly what they're doing with

00:29:30   MLS actually, which is they're letting you overlay the national broadcasters with your local radio.

00:29:35   So on Friday, it was the first Friday Night Baseball, and I tried it out. There was a Cubs

00:29:40   Rangers game. The Rangers, strangely, are the one team that does not offer road radio. I don't know

00:29:45   why, but the Cubs radio was available and I was able to flip over. And then in the second game,

00:29:50   it was Atlanta and the Padres, and you could choose from the Atlanta or San Diego radio

00:29:56   broadcast. They're synced perfectly. I think what's going on is that Apple is actually

00:30:00   taking a feed of just the announcers and then underlaying their stadium audio so that the

00:30:08   crack of the bat is actually coming from their stadium audio and is perfectly aligned with

00:30:15   the video, but it may be that it may not,

00:30:18   I'm not a hundred percent sure on that,

00:30:20   but whatever it is, it's not out of sync or weird,

00:30:23   and they fade it out at the end of the inning

00:30:25   before they go to the commercial break on the radio,

00:30:27   they fade it out.

00:30:28   So you, you know, if the TV stays a little longer,

00:30:30   you got the stadium noise in the background,

00:30:32   sort of like with silence,

00:30:33   and then it goes to their local,

00:30:34   or it goes to their TV ads.

00:30:36   And then it comes back the same thing

00:30:38   if it needs to fade it in.

00:30:40   It's really, really, really well done.

00:30:42   So if people were wondering,

00:30:44   It means that if you want to experience

00:30:46   your local broadcasters on a Friday night baseball game,

00:30:49   you will still get the very good looking picture

00:30:53   that Apple is providing, and you can have your local audio,

00:30:57   and it sounds good.

00:30:58   - So I'm intrigued about this from a technical perspective.

00:31:04   She said there's no delay.

00:31:07   - No delay.

00:31:07   - So how are they managing that?

00:31:09   - Right, well, so my theory, and I would love,

00:31:12   I should probably ask somebody at Apple,

00:31:14   maybe they can actually walk me through it.

00:31:15   - Or if someone knows. - That would be fun.

00:31:17   - Please write to us and let us know.

00:31:19   But like how are they managing that?

00:31:20   - But I put up PR contact for this.

00:31:22   My guess is that they are taking the audio

00:31:25   out of the radio booth at the stadium.

00:31:29   That there is a feed that's coming out of the stadium

00:31:35   of the audio for the home and away radio.

00:31:38   And that they are taking that into their,

00:31:41   consuming that and putting it into their TV truck.

00:31:45   So it's as if they've got three different sets of announcers.

00:31:50   That's my guess.

00:31:51   - So I guess my question is then,

00:31:54   'cause again, I don't know enough about this,

00:31:56   these announcers, they're at the stadium, right?

00:31:59   - Yeah.

00:32:00   - Okay, so they're just, you reckon, okay, see,

00:32:03   I don't know why for some reason I was imagining

00:32:04   they might not be there.

00:32:05   I don't know why I would have thought that.

00:32:07   - Well, this is the funny thing though.

00:32:09   They're not always all there.

00:32:11   And the angels, I think, are not even sending

00:32:14   their announcers around.

00:32:16   They're doing it all remotely.

00:32:17   - I see, that's what I don't understand then.

00:32:19   Like if they're not there, 'cause if they're there,

00:32:21   it's like, oh, it's just like having any announcers.

00:32:24   - So the other option here is that MLB,

00:32:26   so MLB TV, like I said, also does this.

00:32:29   So the other possibility is that there is a place somewhere

00:32:36   where they are taking the feed from Apple

00:32:39   and they're taking the feed from the TV

00:32:42   or from the radio stuff that's coming in

00:32:45   and they're mixing it somewhere

00:32:46   and then that is what's going out.

00:32:48   They're almost like overlaying the other two audio streams

00:32:52   and then sending it on to the CDN.

00:32:54   And then in that case,

00:32:55   they're using Major League Baseball's infrastructure

00:32:58   that they've already built up for MLB TV.

00:33:00   And they're essentially just sort of like making it,

00:33:04   having it be Apple and then the other two.

00:33:06   and then it's going out.

00:33:07   And maybe that's what this is,

00:33:09   is maybe they're really using

00:33:10   the existing MLB TV infrastructure for this.

00:33:14   What impresses me is that it is synced, right?

00:33:17   Because it means that if there's any delay,

00:33:20   like they either have to delay,

00:33:22   like if one of them is ahead, they have to delay it

00:33:25   and then get them to match.

00:33:28   And that takes some calibration, which, you know,

00:33:30   it's their job and they do that before the game.

00:33:33   But whatever they're doing, it's solid.

00:33:36   Like it's not a second ahead or a second behind or something like that,

00:33:40   which often happens if you're like tuning it in on the radio and setting your radio

00:33:45   on your coffee table while you turn the volume down on the TV sync is all out of

00:33:49   whack for that, but it's not out of whack on Friday night baseball.

00:33:53   So I, I, I, I don't know what they're doing there, but given the angels

00:33:57   broadcasters, actually, it may very well be that they're just running it through

00:34:02   Major League Baseball's own platform for this,

00:34:07   and then out to Apple instead of out to their app.

00:34:11   - Ridley Scott's Napoleon movie,

00:34:13   which is a movie I didn't know,

00:34:14   I keep getting surprised at the breadth

00:34:18   of Apple's content right now.

00:34:20   They have a show that I wanna watch,

00:34:22   it's called "Monster Factory,"

00:34:24   and it's about a group of aspiring professional wrestlers,

00:34:28   like it's an actual documentary series,

00:34:31   which speaks to me, and they've got a movie

00:34:35   about Michael J. Fox's life called Still,

00:34:40   which is coming soon, which looks awesome,

00:34:42   like I saw a trailer for that.

00:34:44   The funny thing is I am finding out about these shows

00:34:47   from my YouTube recommendations.

00:34:50   I keep getting recommended trailers for Apple shows.

00:34:53   That's how I'm finding out about new content on Apple TV+.

00:34:58   But this is a movie about Napoleon,

00:35:01   starring Joaquin Phoenix, directed by Ridley Scott.

00:35:04   It's going to be on Apple TV+,

00:35:07   but first it will be shown in theaters.

00:35:11   For this movie, Apple has chosen to work

00:35:14   with Sony Pictures Entertainment to handle the distribution,

00:35:17   and it's going to be the first movie

00:35:19   that is distributed under this new plan that Apple has

00:35:22   that we were talking about recently,

00:35:24   to put movies in theaters.

00:35:26   this is the first one that they've confirmed at least,

00:35:28   will be put in theaters with the help

00:35:30   of a third-party production company.

00:35:32   - Right, this is, in the long run,

00:35:34   Apple is planning on having all,

00:35:38   most of their originals have a theatrical release,

00:35:41   or at least some of them.

00:35:42   And so here is one.

00:35:44   And the first ones we see, a lot of those are gonna be

00:35:47   that they agreed for theatrical to close the deal.

00:35:50   Martin Scorsese is the best example of that,

00:35:53   were like, they needed to guarantee him a theatrical release

00:35:56   or he wasn't gonna make the deal.

00:35:58   And so they did that.

00:35:59   But in the long run, they're gonna do this as policy

00:36:01   because of what we said before,

00:36:03   the shorthand version is marketing something

00:36:05   in theatrical benefits in terms of people being aware of it.

00:36:09   That's good for when it comes on Apple TV Plus,

00:36:12   and they can make some money from theatrical.

00:36:14   So that's good too.

00:36:16   So there's lots of reasons that streamers

00:36:18   that aren't Netflix are trying this.

00:36:20   - And bit of information for you, Jason,

00:36:22   Apple will be announcing its Q2 2023 earnings on May the 4th.

00:36:27   - May the 4th be with you, Mike.

00:36:29   - They're gonna feel the force

00:36:30   and they're gonna announce their earnings.

00:36:32   - They're gonna feel the 4th.

00:36:34   So everybody will be there, they'll be wearing costumes.

00:36:36   Tim Cook's gonna have the Han Solo outfit on, I think,

00:36:40   a little vest, a little leather vest.

00:36:42   And in the annual question or the quarterly question,

00:36:46   how did Jason learn when the earnings call was going to be?

00:36:50   my very professional planning system

00:36:53   where I place a calendar event early in the month

00:36:57   saying check for when the Apple financials are,

00:37:00   succeeded, it was last week, it was last Thursday,

00:37:04   I am on my calendar called check for Apple financials.

00:37:09   And I went to investor.apple.com and found the date.

00:37:15   So I win this one.

00:37:17   - Excellent.

00:37:18   Well, I'm happy that you're already new.

00:37:19   Anyway, look forward, everybody out there,

00:37:21   just an alert for Upgradients that on May the 8th,

00:37:26   whoo. - Money time.

00:37:28   - That's gonna be good stuff.

00:37:30   It's gonna be chart palooza.

00:37:33   - Did they hype this one up at all

00:37:35   or were they still like trying to be like,

00:37:37   whoa, it's gonna be bad?

00:37:40   - No, this is gonna be bad, it's gonna be bad.

00:37:42   It's gonna have weak max sales

00:37:44   and it's gonna be, it's not gonna be great.

00:37:45   This is, at least the thought is,

00:37:48   this is gonna be another rough one.

00:37:50   And that they said it's gonna be another rough one

00:37:53   when they did their last one. - They said that?

00:37:54   Okay. - So yeah.

00:37:56   Although again, rough for Apple.

00:37:58   - It's one of those good bad problems for them typically.

00:38:05   - It's good bad.

00:38:06   It's not a result you kind of like, but it's good bad.

00:38:09   It's not bad bad.

00:38:11   It's good bad. - Yeah, I like it.

00:38:12   - We should do that.

00:38:13   From now on, we should rate every quarter at Apple

00:38:15   based on flophouse recommendation levels.

00:38:18   So was it a good quarter, a bad quarter,

00:38:21   or a quarter you kind of liked?

00:38:23   - Well, we could try and judge that

00:38:25   based on Tim and Luca's comments.

00:38:27   - Yeah.

00:38:28   - This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens,

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00:40:14   With two of the coolest models being the Unikaru,

00:40:17   which I already mentioned is the multi--

00:40:17   - Hottest.

00:40:19   - Hottest. - Hottest, Mike.

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00:40:22   Well, they say coolest, but I guess I should say hottest.

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00:40:29   They also have an awesome app

00:40:31   to help you perfect your dough recipe.

00:40:32   And they also have tons of accessories,

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00:40:39   Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni Pizza Oven, which is up

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00:41:08   Our thanks to Ooni Pizza Almonds for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:41:14   Time for a room around up.

00:41:16   Saddle up.

00:41:17   Saddle up everyone.

00:41:18   Ross Young has got, he published like a roadmap for the next few years of things that he's

00:41:24   expecting Apple to be doing in the display technology of their phones.

00:41:30   So the iPhone and iPhone Pro line.

00:41:32   So we've got a few little, there's lots of pieces of information but there were a couple

00:41:35   of things here that I thought were particularly interesting. So, Young is predicting that

00:41:40   the iPhone 17 Pro, that is the 2025 iPhone, I will tell you today, I sat and counted on

00:41:48   my fingers for about 5 minutes to try and work out what year the iPhone 17 would come

00:41:53   out and it took me quite a while. So if that's wrong, you know, there you go. The iPhone

00:42:00   The new iPhone 17 Pro 2025 will be the first iPhone to get an under display Face ID sensor.

00:42:07   There would still be a circle cut out for the front facing camera at this point, so

00:42:11   it would just be removing the pill shape, moving those to under the screen.

00:42:16   This would be the new kind of design language until the iPhone 19 in 2027, where this is

00:42:25   all removed for an all-screen design with both the camera and the Face ID sensors sitting

00:42:32   beneath the all-screen design.

00:42:34   Steven: Okay, great. Wake me up in 2027.

00:42:39   Geoff - Every phone until then, I don't even want them. You know what I mean?

00:42:43   Steven - That's garbage. They're all garbage.

00:42:44   Geoff - Holes in the phone? No thank you. Young also says that he expects that ProMotion

00:42:50   will remain a pro only feature until the iPhone 17 in 2025 and is unsure it seems at this moment

00:42:58   as to whether always on will be a feature of this phone or if it says a pro feature

00:43:02   so it'll be getting an LTPO display at this point and I thought it was super interesting how these

00:43:09   features lined up so that like once the pro phone in 2025 takes a step they will allow the regular

00:43:17   or iPhone to take a step.

00:43:18   Like it's not gonna get promotion

00:43:21   until the Pro phone has something else it can offer

00:43:24   on this in the screen display kind of area.

00:43:26   You know what I mean?

00:43:27   And so it was really interesting.

00:43:28   It's like, we're gonna wait

00:43:30   and we'll make those jumps at the same time.

00:43:32   - Fascinating.

00:43:33   I love this.

00:43:35   I guess we should check back in.

00:43:37   Our successors can check back in in late 2027.

00:43:41   - You think we're not gonna be doing this in 2027?

00:43:43   - I don't know.

00:43:44   I don't want to make any assumptions about 2027.

00:43:47   That's far away.

00:43:49   But yeah, sure.

00:43:51   We'll check back in then.

00:43:52   What episode of upgrade?

00:43:53   We need a little calculating app.

00:43:55   It's like what episode of upgrade will be?

00:43:57   That's a long way off.

00:43:59   So, 2027 is four years from now, right?

00:44:04   Four and a half years from now, right?

00:44:06   Four and a half years.

00:44:07   Are you calculating this?

00:44:09   I am.

00:44:10   Okay, I'm excited to know.

00:44:11   Let me make a guess.

00:44:12   So this is 454, I'm gonna say like episode 1912.

00:44:17   I feel like I've way overshot that.

00:44:20   I've way overshot that. - Episode 688.

00:44:22   (laughing)

00:44:24   - Can you see why I had to do the counting

00:44:25   on my fingers today?

00:44:27   No good. - Yeah, 688.

00:44:29   - All right, that's not too many.

00:44:31   That feels like nothing.

00:44:33   We'll still be doing this by then.

00:44:34   - Okay.

00:44:35   - Through reporting the various leakers and sources,

00:44:37   9to5Mac put together some very pretty images

00:44:40   of what they expect the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro to look like.

00:44:43   So these are some computer assisted,

00:44:46   is it computer assisted or aided CAD?

00:44:48   Is it aided, computer aided design?

00:44:50   They made some models basically, some digital models.

00:44:53   This features some imagery of the curved titanium frame

00:44:56   coming to the Profones, the thinner bezels.

00:44:58   But one additional detail that I'd not seen yet

00:45:01   was the color for the new Pro iPhone.

00:45:04   9to5Mac is saying it will be a deep red,

00:45:07   which is almost like a wine color.

00:45:09   I don't like this color.

00:45:11   Of course it's deep.

00:45:12   I don't like this color at all, personally.

00:45:15   Not exciting, obviously, because it's the Pro Phone color.

00:45:20   But that's a piece of information for you.

00:45:24   Does a red, deep red iPhone excite you, Jason?

00:45:27   Take off that red phone?

00:45:29   It's better.

00:45:31   No, I can't because I couldn't take it to a football game.

00:45:34   Or I'd have to leave it in my pocket.

00:45:36   leave it in my pocket, but I'm glad that it's a color.

00:45:40   Like that's good.

00:45:42   But again, it feels like it's a boring color.

00:45:45   I wonder how these phones will be received

00:45:49   because changing the frame to be titanium

00:45:53   and bringing the bezels in a little bit,

00:45:54   like it's super subtle, right?

00:45:56   Like would you look at one of these phones

00:45:58   and say, "Whoa, it's the new iPhone."

00:46:01   'Cause I wouldn't, it feels very much like a continuation

00:46:05   of the existing design language.

00:46:06   Yeah, it is very much so.

00:46:09   Uh, the, I think if you say these changes

00:46:11   will be minimal because yes, they're

00:46:15   curving the edges, but realistically

00:46:17   they photograph the same, you know.

00:46:19   I think that Apple will be pushing

00:46:23   this phone on whatever is going

00:46:25   on in the Pro Max this year.

00:46:27   So like the, the new camera layout

00:46:29   and what that will enable.

00:46:31   I think this will be another year where

00:46:33   they can maybe try and get away with

00:46:34   of what's on the inside than rather than what's on the outside.

00:46:38   But this is definitely not looking at these images anyway.

00:46:42   This is not gonna be a year where it's like,

00:46:44   oh wow, look at the new design.

00:46:45   No, this very much is in the iPhone 12

00:46:49   kind of design language.

00:46:53   It's not changing.

00:46:54   I am personally happy about that

00:46:56   'cause I like the iPhone 12 design language a lot.

00:46:58   I think it's aged way better than the 6s did.

00:47:00   - I like it, but again,

00:47:03   as I've said a million times before,

00:47:04   I don't like how understated the Profones are,

00:47:07   and I wish the Profones would have,

00:47:08   by having the kind of frosted glass back

00:47:12   with the bright camera bump,

00:47:15   that they end up being kind of subdued

00:47:18   in a way that I wish they didn't have to be.

00:47:20   However, I will say titanium instead of stainless,

00:47:24   so presumably they'll be lighter.

00:47:27   That's good.

00:47:28   That's very good,

00:47:29   because while stainless steel is a nice material,

00:47:33   it was adding weight to those phones that is not necessary.

00:47:36   It's just not necessary.

00:47:38   And I understand them wanting to create a premium

00:47:40   kind of feel and all that, but like, it was not,

00:47:44   you don't want those phones to be heavier

00:47:47   than they need to be, and they didn't need to be that heavy.

00:47:51   - Mark Gorman is reporting,

00:47:52   he put a big piece together on Bloomberg

00:47:55   with some more details about Apple's plans

00:47:57   to make stronger moves for their manufacturing

00:48:01   over to places outside of China, namely mostly India.

00:48:06   I have a few quotes from this article to read, Jason,

00:48:09   if that's okay.

00:48:10   - Okay, sure.

00:48:11   - Its most ambitious plans are for India,

00:48:13   where it will work with a swath of partners

00:48:15   to make iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Pencils,

00:48:18   as well as components for the Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac.

00:48:22   Apple has already tapped three of its main assembly partners

00:48:25   from Taiwan to build devices in India,

00:48:28   Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron.

00:48:30   Why are they all on?

00:48:31   Why do we all end it on?

00:48:33   That Mark didn't say that.

00:48:34   That was me.

00:48:34   It's technology.

00:48:35   That was my fault.

00:48:36   It's also recently brought on an additional key supplier

00:48:39   in India, Tata, to build iPhone exteriors

00:48:42   and ultimately assemble the whole product.

00:48:45   Apple produced more than 6.5 million

00:48:48   of the 200 million iPhones it made in 2022 in India.

00:48:52   It aims to produce 10 million units in 2023.

00:48:56   People involved in the process believe

00:48:58   that this number could exceed 15 million units next year, some think it could move as much

00:49:03   as 25% of iPhone production to India by 2025 if it sticks to the most aggressive timeline.

00:49:10   The company has discussed moving the majority of aluminium iPhone production out of China.

00:49:15   It expects to ship the iPhone 15 from both countries simultaneously, which would be a

00:49:20   first.

00:49:21   stop with that part because there's some interesting detail here right so at the

00:49:25   moment the only phones they are making in India are the aluminium frame phones

00:49:31   they're not making the pro phones there right and Mark's piece actually said

00:49:36   that even as they continue to go down this and even for you know this 2023

00:49:40   2024 they're still going to continue making the pro phones in China and the

00:49:45   plus phone as well is still gonna be made there we're looking at like the SE

00:49:48   and the standard iPhone is gonna be made in India.

00:49:52   But they are looking at,

00:49:55   I find that super interesting that now they're aiming

00:49:58   for the majority of aluminum iPhone production

00:50:01   to be outside of China.

00:50:02   - Yeah, it's creeping in that direction.

00:50:07   I think it was Mark Gurman is reporting on all of this

00:50:12   as a way, and I appreciate it.

00:50:15   This is a very different kind of story

00:50:16   from a product-based report from Mark.

00:50:19   And it highlights all the reasons that it's hard

00:50:22   for Apple to move production

00:50:23   and that they're taking these steps, right?

00:50:26   To diversify their production locations.

00:50:31   And the pandemic closures of various factories in China,

00:50:36   I think gave Apple a thing to point to and say,

00:50:42   see we need to have factories all over the world so that we aren't just in China.

00:50:49   But also I think this gives you an idea of just how extended this process is, where they're

00:50:54   like, "We're hoping that if we push this really hard, we might have 25% of our iPhones produced

00:51:01   in India in a few years."

00:51:04   And that's the most aggressive version.

00:51:06   But keeping in mind that a lot of stuff is still coming from China and a lot of stuff

00:51:09   still being made and assembled in China.

00:51:12   And it's a long ongoing process.

00:51:17   And it's not like, yeah, Apple's moving out of China

00:51:20   and then it won't be a problem.

00:51:21   That's not what's happening here.

00:51:23   - They also mention, well, saying about,

00:51:26   there's also David in Discord is talking about Taiwan

00:51:29   is another issue.

00:51:30   And Mark talks about that,

00:51:31   but it wasn't particularly interesting or new for the story

00:51:34   where he's talking about, you know,

00:51:35   like Apple looking at making some chips in,

00:51:39   is in Arizona is where the TSMC plant's gonna be.

00:51:42   - Yep.

00:51:43   - But we know this from talking before of like,

00:51:45   realistically they're not making much of anything

00:51:49   that seems to be exciting from that plant for many years.

00:51:52   But like, yes it's diversifying,

00:51:54   but it is also still TSMC.

00:51:56   So like, and this is the same,

00:51:58   I do still continue to find this funny of like,

00:52:01   it's the same companies they're still using,

00:52:03   like Foxconn and Pegatron.

00:52:05   Like these are the same companies that they use.

00:52:07   I don't know if that diversifies them or not.

00:52:10   Like I don't fully understand the corporate structure

00:52:15   of some of these companies, right?

00:52:17   And like how that could affect it,

00:52:18   where it's like, if Apple has an issue with China

00:52:23   and the Chinese government potentially,

00:52:25   is that going to make it complicated

00:52:27   for the companies that they work with

00:52:28   that have huge Chinese presences?

00:52:31   That like even if they're working with them in India,

00:52:33   could it still not cause a problem?

00:52:35   Like one thing to do is to diversify yourself

00:52:38   from a geographical perspective,

00:52:40   but you also surely want to diversify yourself

00:52:42   from a supplier perspective as well,

00:52:45   which it seems like they're doing with Tata,

00:52:47   which I believe is an Indian focused company,

00:52:50   if I'm remembering correctly.

00:52:53   So like that is kind of what I would expect

00:52:56   and hope to see them do more as like a further push.

00:53:00   And I understand, you know, from reading our favorite book,

00:53:04   how complicated this can be and like Apple has to do the work which I'm sure they're

00:53:08   doing of getting these manufacturing companies up to their standards and doing what it takes

00:53:15   to get them to their standards which is why they continue to use Foxconn and Pegatron

00:53:19   because they put all this work for many many years to get them to the level of like okay

00:53:26   this is what we're willing to accept and which is different to maybe other companies and

00:53:30   what they're willing to accept.

00:53:31   So we'll see what it ends up being there.

00:53:34   But Mark Gorman also says managers

00:53:38   in Apple's operations department have instructed employees

00:53:40   to focus on sourcing additional components

00:53:43   and locating production lines outside of China

00:53:46   for more new products coming in 2024.

00:53:48   - More new products, not necessarily the iPhone just,

00:53:51   but other things.

00:53:52   And that is the basically challenging people to say

00:53:57   when we roll out this product,

00:54:00   are we gonna build this whole supply chain

00:54:02   and manufacturing structure for this product

00:54:06   inside China too?

00:54:07   Could we not do that?

00:54:09   Could we build this new product?

00:54:11   'Cause then it's not taking that product out of China.

00:54:13   It's not ever making that product in China,

00:54:16   which is part of the long-term strategy here,

00:54:19   is to do that.

00:54:20   So yeah, this is a...

00:54:22   And it's a challenge because they don't want

00:54:27   to give offense to China, but they do need to send the message that they can't be entirely

00:54:34   reliant on China for their operations.

00:54:37   I think leaving aside, which is hard to do, the global sweep of geopolitics for a moment,

00:54:44   I think it's also just smart on a larger level of not keeping all your eggs in one basket.

00:54:48   Happy Easter to everybody.

00:54:50   like maybe it's wise to not put every single regardless of China's status

00:54:57   politically every single product that you make in a small section of a country

00:55:05   like when they had those shutdowns and they couldn't make max for a while like

00:55:09   that's probably not great right that's probably not what you should be doing

00:55:13   and they got so it was such a great deal to build everything in China for Apple

00:55:20   that they did it and now this is the sort of latter-day Tim Cook era of "okay,

00:55:27   we need to back off of all that strategy." MacRumors is reporting that iOS 17 is

00:55:34   going to see some quote "major changes" to Control Center. Don't really mention

00:55:38   what these might be, but it comes from a source of theirs. And it did just make me

00:55:42   sit and think like about Control Center as a thing and how it kind of, I don't

00:55:47   it feels a little bit old and weird to me now and is also one of these things in iOS

00:55:51   kind of like notification center really all the centers where they've never it never

00:55:55   really feels like they have nailed what people are looking for out of this part of the operating

00:56:02   system so like when I use control center now I feel like overall this design feels tired

00:56:09   Like it still looks very like iOS 70 to me,

00:56:13   like these like kind of like opaque buttons.

00:56:16   - Right.

00:56:17   - And I would love to see it kind of just generally

00:56:22   get a fresh design with different kinds

00:56:25   of information density.

00:56:26   Like I've seen a lot of people post concepts online

00:56:30   like I was like Googling around for concepts today

00:56:32   to kind of just like what things might you want to see

00:56:35   added to this.

00:56:36   And a lot of people like, you know,

00:56:37   different toggles and switches and dials and like you know like maybe putting the

00:56:41   volume as a horizontal rather than a vertical because it would take up less

00:56:45   space and I just thought like little things like that I thought were

00:56:47   interesting but there were a couple of features that I thought for myself

00:56:51   rather than just out of design that I would like to see. One of them is better

00:56:56   access to home controls so like all of the home kit stuff because it feels like

00:57:02   like it is. iOS is trying to guess what it thinks I want, right? Which is fine. I would

00:57:08   like to have more of them there and I would like to be able to pin some. Just be like,

00:57:13   I always want these controls to be there. Just show me these controls. And then I was

00:57:17   thinking just conceptually, let's put some shortcut buttons in there. What about some

00:57:23   widgets? You know, I could put lock screen widgets in control center too. And also could

00:57:28   maybe finally developers be able to put a button in there,

00:57:33   something like that.

00:57:34   - Yeah, that is, I mean, you mentioned home,

00:57:37   and that's one of my great frustrations is like,

00:57:39   it just guesses what I want in home,

00:57:42   and like I can turn, don't show this,

00:57:45   and it will just, it will, and then,

00:57:47   so I just turned off my lava lamp was in there.

00:57:51   - Yeah.

00:57:52   - And so now I turned it off as show it in home view,

00:57:58   and it disappeared and it just replaces it

00:58:00   with like another random light bulb

00:58:01   that's somewhere else in the house.

00:58:03   And it's like, it's so frustrating

00:58:04   because I'm playing the game of what switch do I flip

00:58:07   deep down in the home app in order to get that one

00:58:11   to disappear from control center?

00:58:13   And the answer is, I guess, you know,

00:58:15   show in home view is the answer

00:58:18   because it will show me six of them.

00:58:20   - But then by doing that,

00:58:21   you end up with like other ramifications.

00:58:24   And now it's not gonna show

00:58:25   in a certain part of the home app,

00:58:26   which isn't necessarily what you want,

00:58:28   - Exactly. - You're just trying

00:58:29   to hide it from Control Center.

00:58:30   - Right, so number one is I should be able to say

00:58:33   what things show in Control Center.

00:58:35   And if they wanted to make that another switch

00:58:37   in the Home app, that's fine.

00:58:39   But like it's intuiting things from my home decisions

00:58:43   that it should not.

00:58:45   And it's frustrating.

00:58:46   And I've had to do it both ways

00:58:47   where I want to take things out of the Home app,

00:58:49   or out of Control Center.

00:58:51   And then there are also things

00:58:52   I want to put in Control Center.

00:58:53   It's like, okay, well, how do I do that?

00:58:54   It's frustrating.

00:58:57   and nothing like having to tap and swipe like eight times

00:59:00   in order to get something off of your control center.

00:59:02   And then it replaces it with something else that's worse.

00:59:05   Like, okay, I don't want that either.

00:59:06   - Also, I have a very particular issue,

00:59:09   which is like a weird one,

00:59:11   but most people won't have this situation, I just do.

00:59:15   In HomeKit, you can have multiple homes,

00:59:18   which I always found that,

00:59:19   I remember finding this funny at the time

00:59:21   when I got the studio,

00:59:22   'cause I have a home at the studio

00:59:25   and I have my home as a home, right?

00:59:26   So I have HomeKit in both places.

00:59:28   And it was funny to me at the time,

00:59:30   'cause when I was looking at Google and Amazon and HomeKit,

00:59:33   to like try and work it out,

00:59:34   the only one that I could find that had robust support

00:59:37   at that time for multiple homes was HomeKit.

00:59:40   And there was something funny to me there of like,

00:59:43   Apple's designed for multiple homes.

00:59:45   We have multiple homes, you know?

00:59:47   So we've got like the beach home and the home home,

00:59:50   and we've got to have a HomeKit set in both places.

00:59:52   but I have my studio as a home, right, in HomeKit.

00:59:57   And you have the ability to geofence them

01:00:00   and for the home app to auto switch.

01:00:03   The home app works about 70% of the time

01:00:06   to do the auto switching.

01:00:07   Control center is maybe 40 or 50% of the time.

01:00:11   That like, I'm in my house and I pull down control center

01:00:15   and it's showing me controls for my studio.

01:00:18   Like that's not good, right?

01:00:20   Like that's like another thing for me personally

01:00:22   why the home controls annoy me in Control Center

01:00:24   is I'm trying to get,

01:00:25   and that's why I'd like to pin things

01:00:27   'cause there are a couple of things that I access a lot.

01:00:30   And like, I actually, there's one,

01:00:31   like I want to turn on my heat controls at the studio

01:00:35   when I'm at home.

01:00:37   - Ah.

01:00:38   - So I've set up a shortcut for this

01:00:41   and I put it in the widget so I can do it.

01:00:43   But what I would like to be able to do in Control Center

01:00:46   is pin that scene for the studio's controls

01:00:50   in Control Center.

01:00:51   so it doesn't matter where I am.

01:00:53   - Right.

01:00:54   - Let me turn the heat on and off, you know?

01:00:56   So like, I would like to be able to do more

01:00:59   of that around home.

01:01:01   I mean, honestly, Jason, for me,

01:01:03   what I would like Control Center to do

01:01:05   is have my music, some quick toggles,

01:01:08   and then just be the home app.

01:01:10   Like, that is what I'm using it most for.

01:01:13   Like, if I just had access to everything

01:01:16   that's in the home app in Control Center,

01:01:19   that would make me a happy man.

01:01:20   Like they're just basically the same thing

01:01:23   because that's what I'm using it for.

01:01:25   It's like media volume, turning wifi on and off

01:01:29   and then just using the control center,

01:01:31   using the home kit part, like the home.

01:01:33   - Yeah.

01:01:34   - That would be great.

01:01:35   I would love that.

01:01:37   - So yes, I agree with you 100% on home.

01:01:42   I love having home access in the control center,

01:01:44   but I don't love that I have no control, ironically,

01:01:48   over what goes in there and the context that it's in.

01:01:53   I also say, would like to say that they changed the behavior

01:01:57   of lights that have a dimmable area that drives me crazy.

01:02:02   That they, it used to be that if you tapped

01:02:04   on a dimmable light, it would open up the dimmer

01:02:07   and then you could swipe it up and down

01:02:08   to make it brighter or dimmer.

01:02:09   Now, if you tap on the button,

01:02:12   it just turns it at a hundred percent.

01:02:14   If it's off, you have to tap and hold,

01:02:17   wait for it to come up, then slide it, then tap away.

01:02:22   It's like, that's not, that's worse.

01:02:25   That's worse.

01:02:26   I guess it's worse unless you're somebody

01:02:27   who normally just flips it on and off,

01:02:29   but sometimes wants to adjust the dimming.

01:02:31   That's not the case with me.

01:02:33   If it's dimmable,

01:02:33   I probably wanna choose the brightness level.

01:02:37   So that's not there.

01:02:38   So I agree, the whole home thing needs to be fixed.

01:02:40   It does feel kind of old.

01:02:42   I love that it's customizable now,

01:02:44   but it's customizable with such a limited set of things.

01:02:48   And that's what, so when you mentioned shortcuts,

01:02:50   I immediately thought, well,

01:02:51   that's the beauty of something like shortcuts,

01:02:54   is that you can open the door to other things

01:02:57   you want to do on your device

01:02:59   that you can nest inside Control Center

01:03:02   and make it switchable with one tap.

01:03:04   I really like that.

01:03:06   Also, I find it, you know, yeah,

01:03:08   I think they need to refresh the language here.

01:03:11   In the Home app, they've got this whole thing

01:03:13   where the circles are inside the rectangles

01:03:18   and you can't tap on the rectangle,

01:03:21   you have to tap on the circle inside the rectangle,

01:03:23   that's the button.

01:03:24   It's very confusing.

01:03:25   So I hope they don't go there with that

01:03:28   'cause that's awful.

01:03:31   But it is when I look at the big square

01:03:34   with the four circles in it on my iPad now, right?

01:03:39   For airplane, cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth,

01:03:42   I'm like, I don't know.

01:03:44   Like there's something about the circles inside the squares.

01:03:49   It's like, I don't know what we're doing here.

01:03:52   And it does, yeah.

01:03:53   Like it does.

01:03:54   - It has remnants of a different era in it,

01:03:57   I think like throughout.

01:03:59   Control centers had very similar kind of design language

01:04:03   for quite a while.

01:04:04   - Right.

01:04:05   It has no organizational principles either, right?

01:04:09   like it seems to me that it's just sort of like,

01:04:13   they're not like sections of it,

01:04:14   other than those big rectangles

01:04:16   that have a bunch of buttons inside it.

01:04:18   They're not sections in it.

01:04:20   So you end up with sort of like just icons all the way down.

01:04:25   (laughs)

01:04:26   - I just found an image of iOS 7 Control Center.

01:04:29   It's actually the image that I found

01:04:31   and pasted in the Discord

01:04:32   was of a jailbreak tweak to emulate it, but nevertheless.

01:04:35   And it's just a reminder,

01:04:36   so this was when Control Center was,

01:04:38   you swipe up from the bottom, right?

01:04:40   In iOS seven times.

01:04:42   But the design is still incredibly similar,

01:04:47   that it is like a translucent layer,

01:04:49   and the buttons are circular,

01:04:51   and then there are some buttons at the bottom

01:04:53   that are round-recs.

01:04:54   And it's just like, that is,

01:04:56   that has been this way for a very, very long time now,

01:05:00   kind of like fundamentally.

01:05:02   - Yeah, I mean, talking about home,

01:05:05   The other thing is I have a home rectangle

01:05:08   next to all my home items.

01:05:09   And if you tap that, it brings up kind of like a version

01:05:11   of the Home app and that's got my favorites on it.

01:05:15   But the favorites are not what appears in Control Center.

01:05:19   So I don't understand that at all, right?

01:05:23   Like my, again, it's inconsistent and frustrating.

01:05:26   It's also a little weird that I've got like the whole Home

01:05:28   app inside Control Center.

01:05:29   Plus I've got all these little tiles that I can't control.

01:05:32   Like there's just,

01:05:34   I appreciate that this is hard,

01:05:37   but I think what we're saying is when we hear

01:05:40   there are gonna be major changes to Control Center,

01:05:41   I say, yes, please.

01:05:43   And after that, most of what I say is,

01:05:45   I would like to be able to customize this

01:05:47   at a much higher level.

01:05:48   Think about how you can customize widgets.

01:05:50   I actually would like to be able to tap and hold

01:05:53   in Control Center and then start deleting items

01:05:56   and have a little plus where I could add items.

01:05:59   And I definitely wanna be able to add something

01:06:01   like shortcuts so that I can very quickly change

01:06:06   what I'm doing with more sophistication than is allowed

01:06:11   by what's on Control Center right now.

01:06:12   I think that that's all good.

01:06:15   And we'll throw in, since we talked about it with the watch,

01:06:17   how about dynamic items in here too?

01:06:22   Like I have a big square that says not playing right now.

01:06:29   'cause I need to have a big square that tells me

01:06:31   I'm not currently playing any media on my iPad.

01:06:33   And it's like, well, if I'm not playing media on my iPad,

01:06:36   maybe I don't need the big square.

01:06:37   Maybe it should get smaller.

01:06:39   Maybe it should change based on context, but it doesn't.

01:06:43   So yeah, I would use,

01:06:47   I would love to see a new take on Control Center

01:06:50   because I think Control Center as a concept is great,

01:06:53   but right now it's limited to stock things from Apple

01:06:58   and a bunch of home things that are a guess.

01:07:01   And like, it could use some rethinking.

01:07:05   - We are eight weeks away today

01:07:08   from maybe finding out if iOS 17

01:07:11   will include something like a control center change.

01:07:14   If you enjoy this show and want more of this show,

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01:07:54   Every single week we produce additional content for the Upgrade Plus members.

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01:08:04   I think today we're going to talk about some inside baseball things in the show,

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01:08:12   We have some follow up on that.

01:08:14   And some issues that Jason's been dealing with the bot that we were using on Twitter

01:08:19   to post that we were live.

01:08:22   So Jason's had a little bit of time with that.

01:08:25   So we'll be talking about that in Upgrade Plus today.

01:08:27   Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up.

01:08:30   Thank you if you do.

01:08:32   It is time for some new and improved Ask Upgrade.

01:08:37   (imitates laser)

01:08:40   The lasers have reached from inside of the show

01:08:44   and into your podcast app.

01:08:46   We have brand new Ask Upgrade artwork

01:08:48   courtesy of our designer, JD Davis.

01:08:51   So this was part of a, I think we were talking about,

01:08:53   you mentioned to me, there's a hashtag on the Ask Upgrade.

01:08:56   And I'm like, oh yeah, we don't call it that anymore.

01:08:59   And so we decided it was time for,

01:09:02   we were originally like seeing if we could find

01:09:03   the old artwork file, which actually I didn't have this one,

01:09:06   but whatever, but also the artwork had like a tweet

01:09:11   is the central part.

01:09:12   So it's like, all right, it's time to rethink this.

01:09:15   We have brand new Ask Upgrade artwork

01:09:17   and it is now gonna be a part of every episode.

01:09:19   So you'll be able to see it there.

01:09:20   it's beautiful, it's full of lasers of course. Now the actual first Ask Upgrade question

01:09:25   for today's episode is going to come from Steve who says "I just got an M1 MacBook

01:09:31   Air, and there are a few bits of software, mainly printer related of course, that require

01:09:36   Rosetta 2. Is there any downside to installing Rosetta on my new Mac?" I'm wondering if

01:09:43   I should maybe be looking for different Mac apps that work directly with Apple Silicon

01:09:47   to replace this into an Air software instead.

01:09:50   Look, there's no reason not to install Rosetta.

01:09:52   It's funny that Apple makes you.

01:09:55   There's probably some very specific legal requirement

01:09:57   why they do that that way.

01:09:58   But don't worry about it.

01:10:00   Go ahead and install it, get the compatibility you seek.

01:10:03   Of course you should see if there's any app

01:10:05   that you're using that you rely on for lots of stuff

01:10:07   and it's only available as an Intel version,

01:10:09   you should probably look into

01:10:11   whether they've got an Apple Silicon version.

01:10:13   I'm not sure if there's an app that you use and you like

01:10:16   and it hasn't been updated and it still works.

01:10:19   you know, either they're gonna need to update,

01:10:22   I mean, it does say something, right?

01:10:23   If it hasn't been updated,

01:10:24   that maybe they're not gonna update it.

01:10:26   And if at some point here,

01:10:27   Apple will ship a version of Mac OS

01:10:29   that doesn't have Rosetta 2 on it, right?

01:10:32   Like that is gonna happen eventually.

01:10:34   That is their track record,

01:10:35   is eventually they'll ship an OS version and say,

01:10:37   "Sorry, no Intel compatibility at all at this point."

01:10:40   And you'll just have to deal with that.

01:10:43   But I don't think that is a,

01:10:46   I don't think you should worry about it.

01:10:47   Like Rosetta is fine.

01:10:48   If you've got a powerful piece of software

01:10:51   that you use all the time,

01:10:52   maybe you should get a native version of that.

01:10:54   Maybe that's a good idea.

01:10:56   But in general, Rosetta actually works great and is fine,

01:11:00   and you're not gonna really even notice for most things.

01:11:03   So don't sweat it, just install Rosetta

01:11:05   and don't worry about it.

01:11:07   - Yeah, I had forgotten completely about Rosetta

01:11:10   until I saw this question from Steve,

01:11:12   just because like on the new Ample Silicon chips,

01:11:15   Rosetta is unnoticeable, basically.

01:11:17   So it's not an issue.

01:11:19   Install it if you need it,

01:11:20   especially for stuff like printer stuff.

01:11:22   Eventually, as Jay said, you'll get around to it.

01:11:24   But it is also worth checking,

01:11:26   'cause I've seen this where sometimes apps

01:11:28   don't offer you the right version.

01:11:31   Like, and there is actually,

01:11:32   sometimes on people's website,

01:11:34   like if you download this version,

01:11:35   it's actually the absolute conversion.

01:11:37   I don't know why some developers do it this way,

01:11:39   but just is the way it tends to be with weird stuff.

01:11:42   - Yeah, I have like nine processes currently running

01:11:45   on my Mac that are Intel,

01:11:46   and they're all like little helper apps and stuff

01:11:50   that are not that important, but they're there.

01:11:52   - Activity, you go to activity monitor

01:11:56   and when you see all the process loads-

01:11:58   - Kind. - Kind.

01:12:00   How kind?

01:12:01   - Be kind, rewind.

01:12:04   - Oh boy, I was gonna say I was 100%, but I'm not.

01:12:07   I have like 20?

01:12:11   - Yeah, I have like the Keyboard Maestro Stream Deck plugin

01:12:15   and the KM link are both this way.

01:12:18   - I don't know why Skype helper,

01:12:20   well Skype is not open on my computer.

01:12:22   - OSA script, that's hilarious.

01:12:25   That's a Apple script.

01:12:27   - I've got keyboard, my shirt.

01:12:28   Most of mine are Wacom for my tablet, my drone tablet.

01:12:32   I've got like six of them here that are doing their thing.

01:12:36   And it's a bunch of stuff that I obviously,

01:12:37   I have no idea what these things are.

01:12:39   They're just like look effectively codes

01:12:42   for things that I don't understand,

01:12:44   but there's quite a few things going on in there.

01:12:47   Jeremy asks, do you think Apple's headset

01:12:49   will allow hot swapping the external battery pack,

01:12:52   which has been rumored,

01:12:53   without losing power to the headset?

01:12:56   For long sessions, it seems like a clunky user experience

01:12:59   would be to have to turn off the device

01:13:01   in the middle of a work meeting or a game,

01:13:03   switch the battery and wait for it to boot back up again.

01:13:06   - Maybe.

01:13:06   - I was wondering if maybe it would have

01:13:08   a very small internal battery to deal with this.

01:13:12   - It's possible.

01:13:12   if it allows you to actually do it all, the swapping.

01:13:16   'Cause there is the idea of the battery pack

01:13:18   and we think it will probably allow for swapping,

01:13:21   but we don't know that it will do that.

01:13:23   - No, or they've got some sort of a, what is it?

01:13:27   A transformer or a resistor, I forget what it's called,

01:13:31   but one of those things where it holds power

01:13:33   for a very small amount of time,

01:13:35   so that you could swap it in and out

01:13:36   and it would still hold the power and it would be okay.

01:13:39   I don't know.

01:13:40   It's a good question.

01:13:41   It would sure be nice if you,

01:13:45   I think the question is,

01:13:46   are people going to be chain battering these things, right?

01:13:51   Where they're using it so long

01:13:53   that they have to just keep on swapping in new batteries

01:13:56   or whether that's not a real common use case.

01:14:00   - Yeah.

01:14:01   - And that's the mystery of it.

01:14:02   - We just don't know.

01:14:03   Frank wrote in and says,

01:14:06   "I hear more and more people talking about the VR goggles

01:14:09   projecting a Mac desktop in front of your eyes

01:14:11   and how that could be useful.

01:14:13   But not everybody is a touch typist.

01:14:15   How are we supposed to see what keys

01:14:17   on a physical keyboard we would be pressing

01:14:19   whilst wearing the goggles?

01:14:21   Now obviously that's no problem for you, Jason,

01:14:23   'cause you can type away. - I see it in my mind.

01:14:27   - Right, but I cannot do this

01:14:29   and I need to look at my keyboard.

01:14:31   And so I will use my experiences

01:14:33   of the MetaQuest products and the AR modes.

01:14:38   So it's a couple of things that they do.

01:14:40   So this is like in, say like in a Meta's Horizon workrooms thing,

01:14:44   where you can designate an area of your desk

01:14:47   to be shown to you through their pass through.

01:14:50   So this is where the AR comes to the fore.

01:14:52   So you're in a VR environment, but you look down

01:14:55   and you can actually see through the cameras on the front of the headset,

01:14:58   your actual desk in front of you.

01:15:00   That's one way to do it.

01:15:02   They've also built the ability to recognize certain keyboards.

01:15:07   Apple's Magic Keyboard is one of them.

01:15:09   So if you have a Magic Keyboard on your desk,

01:15:10   if you look down, there is a virtual one,

01:15:13   like on your desk, and when you hold your hands over it,

01:15:16   it just shows pass-through of just your actual real fingers.

01:15:19   It's super weird and cool, so you can actually type away.

01:15:23   So I expect Apple will do things similar to this,

01:15:25   at least I would hope.

01:15:26   They're not gonna expect us all to be typing

01:15:28   on a virtual keyboard the whole time.

01:15:30   That would be sad.

01:15:31   - Right.

01:15:32   - So there are ways to do with it.

01:15:33   - It's mixed reality, right?

01:15:35   So the idea that you could detect a keyboard,

01:15:40   probably just from the key layout, right?

01:15:42   I mean, this is the thing is you say certain models,

01:15:44   but like ideally it should be able to detect a keyboard

01:15:49   and that's it.

01:15:52   And then it could pass that through

01:15:54   or it can make a virtual version of the keyboard

01:15:57   or it could show your hands or it can show virtual hands,

01:16:00   but it's matching your hands.

01:16:02   Like there are lots of different ways to do this

01:16:04   where you can have a physical keyboard

01:16:08   and have it be part of the environment

01:16:10   along with your giant virtual display

01:16:13   that's in front of you.

01:16:14   - Yeah, like I don't use an Apple Magic keyboard,

01:16:17   but I've been able to trick the Horizon work

01:16:20   to think I'm using one.

01:16:21   I could just put one of my keyboards in front of it

01:16:24   and most of the time it's like,

01:16:25   oh, I can see your keyboard

01:16:26   and it just shows me in the virtual environment

01:16:29   a Magic keyboard, but that works

01:16:31   'cause I can still just type away.

01:16:32   - And is that the keyboard that you're using for input?

01:16:34   - No, I'm using one of my other ones, but it thinks,

01:16:38   oh wait, when you say for input, what are you asking me?

01:16:41   - Well, I think the question is,

01:16:42   if I have just a completely unplugged nothing keyboard

01:16:46   and I start typing on it, does it know what keys I'm typing

01:16:50   and types them in for me, or am I typing on a keyboard

01:16:53   that's connected to the computer

01:16:54   that's being projected in front of me?

01:16:56   - I'm only using a keyboard when I'm using

01:16:59   like a virtual desktop inside of the space.

01:17:02   So I haven't tried that the other way.

01:17:04   I think it's just like- - Probably not.

01:17:06   - Yeah.

01:17:07   - But I'm just saying, you know,

01:17:08   what if you had an unplugged keyboard

01:17:09   and you're like, here's my keyboard.

01:17:11   And it was like, great, I'll type for you.

01:17:13   - Yeah, I don't know. - I don't know.

01:17:14   - I don't know if it does that.

01:17:15   - I don't know.

01:17:16   - I don't know if it does that.

01:17:17   - Or the virtual thing, right?

01:17:18   Which is like, I'm just at a table here,

01:17:19   but I'm gonna do a hand gesture

01:17:20   and it's gonna make a virtual keyboard

01:17:22   come down in front of me.

01:17:23   At which point I can type on the table

01:17:26   and it knows what the keys are that I'm pressing.

01:17:29   That would be the other way you can do it.

01:17:31   - And Savva wrote, and to say recently,

01:17:32   you were discussing Tim Cook's legacy.

01:17:35   And I think we were talking about that

01:17:36   in the sense of the headset, right?

01:17:38   Of like, could this be the thing where he's like,

01:17:41   does this huge thing, it's like an iPhone-like thing,

01:17:43   and that's his legacy.

01:17:44   Why do you think AirPods are not discussed more

01:17:47   as a game-changing product

01:17:49   that were released under his leadership?

01:17:51   They have pretty much single-handedly changed

01:17:53   the headphone market with budget players

01:17:55   getting into true wireless earphones as well.

01:17:57   - I don't know. - It's an accessory.

01:17:59   That's why. - It's an accessory.

01:18:01   And so people don't think of it the same way

01:18:03   as they think of the platforms.

01:18:04   It's absolutely a very successful product.

01:18:07   It wasn't the first at what it did,

01:18:09   but it did it so well that it popularized

01:18:11   the whole category, you know, and that's the truth of it.

01:18:14   And it still does very, very well.

01:18:16   I talked to some people who say,

01:18:19   it's not even the best deal,

01:18:20   you should just get these others.

01:18:21   But if you're on Apple platforms,

01:18:23   it actually is the best at it, right?

01:18:25   And they've, but yeah,

01:18:26   they've also transformed the market around it.

01:18:28   So yeah, they're great.

01:18:30   and they will be on the list of his achievements.

01:18:31   I think the reason that they're not more widely

01:18:34   viewed that way is that they're an accessory

01:18:36   that lives inside an ecosystem.

01:18:38   And part of the secret of the product

01:18:40   is the extra stuff they put in their platform to support it.

01:18:43   You know, it's complicated, but it's definitely on his,

01:18:48   it's gonna be on his resume when, well, not a resume,

01:18:50   'cause that means he's looking for another job,

01:18:51   on his, carved into his statue on the campus,

01:18:56   the Apple campus or whatever, when he retires.

01:18:59   Because I would say that like, even for Steve Jobs, people don't mention the iPod as much.

01:19:05   You know, and like the iPod is a similar thing to AirPods.

01:19:08   If like there was a market, but Apple came in and owned the market and everyone wanted

01:19:13   that one thing.

01:19:14   Like people tend to talk about the Mac and the iPhone, maybe the iPad, and then maybe

01:19:18   the iPod.

01:19:19   And so like, you know, there might be a time when we're like, oh, under Tim Cook's leadership,

01:19:24   it was the Apple Watch, the headset and AirPods.

01:19:28   they're not like the new computing platform, right?

01:19:32   Like that's what we're talking about

01:19:34   when talking about these legacy, big, huge legacy items

01:19:37   of like, oh, you change the way people use computers

01:19:41   is slightly different to,

01:19:43   you change the way that people listen to audio,

01:19:45   which is like, look, AirPods are one of these things

01:19:49   that when I first saw them,

01:19:51   I just thought there's no way it could work.

01:19:54   And so like, it really is like,

01:19:56   If I'm thinking back to MacNail,

01:19:58   it is the most potentially jobsy thing

01:20:03   under Cook's leadership of like,

01:20:05   there's no way that can work.

01:20:07   People aren't gonna understand it.

01:20:09   People are gonna think they're silly.

01:20:11   It's not gonna happen.

01:20:12   And then in a few years, absolutely dominant.

01:20:17   You know, like I don't know what it is,

01:20:18   but there's like people say you could break it out

01:20:20   and it would be a Fortune 500 company of its own,

01:20:22   like AirPods just on their own.

01:20:24   I think that's correct.

01:20:26   It may even be more than that.

01:20:27   But yeah, so it's a huge thing,

01:20:31   but I just don't think people consider it

01:20:34   as like a legacy product as such, right?

01:20:38   - Yeah, I think, and that may not be fair,

01:20:41   but that's the truth of it, so yeah.

01:20:44   - And hey, if the headset doesn't work out,

01:20:45   maybe that's what we would think of it as the AirPods,

01:20:47   the AirPods Z, which is no joke.

01:20:50   - Apple Watch and AirPods.

01:20:51   - Thank you so much for listening

01:20:54   to this episode of Upgrade.

01:20:55   If you would like to send us your feedback, your follow up, your ask upgrade questions,

01:20:59   your snow talk questions, go to upgradefeedback.com and you can fill out our lovely form there.

01:21:05   Until next week's episode you can check out Jason's writing over at SixColors.com, hear

01:21:09   his podcast at TheIncomparable.com and here on RelayFM.

01:21:21   You can listen to my podcasts here on Relay FM, check out my work as well over at cortexbrand.com.

01:21:27   We're both on Mastodon, you can find Jason at JasonL on zeppelin.flights.

01:21:33   You can find me on Mike.social at iMike and we have an account for the show on relayfm.social.

01:21:40   Is that it?

01:21:41   Relayfm.social.

01:21:42   Is that how we do that?

01:21:43   Relayfm.social.

01:21:44   That's what it is.

01:21:45   That's how we did it.

01:21:46   Interesting.

01:21:47   Well, there wasn't, I think this was all Steven.

01:21:49   I don't really pay attention to that one so much.

01:21:52   Maybe that makes me a bad co-founder.

01:21:54   - It's upgrade@relayfm.social, check it out.

01:21:57   - We are @upgrade on relayfm.social.

01:22:01   - That's it, you nailed it.

01:22:02   - Thank you to our members who support us of Upgrade Plus.

01:22:05   Thank you to ExpressVPN and Ooni

01:22:07   for their support of this week's episode.

01:22:09   But most of all, thank you for listening.

01:22:11   Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:22:14   - Goodbye, Mike Hurley.

01:22:15   (upbeat music)

01:22:17   [ Music ]

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