Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 458. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN

00:00:16 ◼   ► and Uni Pizza Ovens. My name is Mike Curley and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi Jason.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi Mike.

00:00:21 ◼   ► We're like less than a month away now from WWDC.

00:00:26 ◼   ► I feel like it's all slotting into place. I don't know, there's something,

00:00:30 ◼   ► it's been all kind of amorphous up to now, but now suddenly I feel like, you know, it's, it's

00:00:36 ◼   ► next week we do this and next week we do that, yeah, week after we do this, and like it's,

00:00:40 ◼   ► it's all kind of forming now. It's more real now, I think. It's coming. Yeah. But,

00:00:46 ◼   ► tradition remains and I have a Snell Talk question for you. It comes from Ramona who wants to know,

00:00:52 ◼   ► "Jason, which are your favorite pizza toppings and do you like to eat pizza crust?"

00:00:56 ◼   ► Did we, have we not covered this?

00:00:59 ◼   ► Oh, of course we have, but like, what, you think everyone that's listening now has been listening

00:01:04 ◼   ► for the last five years? That's not how this works. People dip back into the archive for

00:01:10 ◼   ► the pizza supercut that we should make now about all of our conversations about pizza.

00:01:14 ◼   ► You could have changed, your topping choices could have changed.

00:01:19 ◼   ► People do change, but my pizza preferences remain the same.

00:01:23 ◼   ► Pepperoni's always been my favorite pizza topping.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Easy.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Yep.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Always. Always been. Which is funny because like my kids, especially my son, is like,

00:01:33 ◼   ► "Cheese pizza." He doesn't want any toppings on it at all, which I don't understand at all.

00:01:36 ◼   ► But as a kid, you know, really I think you're offered two kinds of pizza. It's a little more

00:01:43 ◼   ► sophisticated today, but back when I was a kid, there were two kinds of pizza. Cheese pizza and

00:01:48 ◼   ► pepperoni pizza. And you could order special of stuff, but like if you're getting something for

00:01:54 ◼   ► kids or you're just getting a slice, your choices are cheese or pepperoni. Those are the choices.

00:01:58 ◼   ► And I always liked the pepperoni. I thought that was great. So in college, you experiment as you

00:02:06 ◼   ► do, right? In college, it's a time in your young life when you're like, "Let's try new things. Let's

00:02:11 ◼   ► try different things. Put different things inside our bodies and see how it makes us feel."

00:02:17 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:02:18 ◼   ► And for whatever reason, while working at the, just let it go, Mike, working at the college

00:02:23 ◼   ► newspaper, we would end up ordering pizza late because we were hungry and working all evening

00:02:29 ◼   ► on the newspaper until like the early hours of the morning. And it was out of there that,

00:02:34 ◼   ► and I don't know who ordered it or if I ordered it and thought it was a funny thing. I think somebody

00:02:39 ◼   ► must have ordered it and I just had it. Somebody had a pepperoni with pineapple on it. And again,

00:02:46 ◼   ► formative moments in my young life. I had the pepperoni with the pineapple. You got the salty,

00:02:53 ◼   ► slightly spicy pepperoni, and you got that sweet pineapple flavor.

00:02:59 ◼   ► The good texture of cooked pineapple too, I feel like.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Yes. I was a changed man, Mike. That was the end of it. So since then, pepperoni and pineapple,

00:03:07 ◼   ► which is funny because I did not, it wasn't like I had a Hawaiian pizza and said, "You know, this

00:03:12 ◼   ► Canadian bacon on here, this ham would be better if it was pineapple or if it was pepperoni."

00:03:19 ◼   ► That's not how I came to it. Maybe the person who ordered it came to it that way,

00:03:22 ◼   ► or maybe the Domino's pizza we ordered from did not have Canadian bacon. Regardless,

00:03:29 ◼   ► it became my favorite. So now that's what I get. I like other kinds of pizza though, I will say.

00:03:35 ◼   ► Barbecue chicken pizza is really good. I know that there's some people out there, John Siracusa, who

00:03:40 ◼   ► scoff at barbecue chicken pizza. I kind of love it. We were visiting Salt Lake City on our way to

00:03:47 ◼   ► the eclipse a few years ago. We did a road trip to Idaho to see the eclipse. And we ate at a,

00:03:54 ◼   ► it was like a underground pizza bar place that I think it was the summer, so there was not very

00:04:02 ◼   ► many people there, but I think University of Utah people go to there. So it's like a college pizza

00:04:07 ◼   ► place. And they had a barbecue chicken pizza with Gouda, with smoked Gouda on it, was maybe the best

00:04:16 ◼   ► pizza I've ever had. Like it was amazing. So runner up barbecue chicken pizza, and if you're in Salt

00:04:24 ◼   ► Lake City, find that college pizza dive, because oh my god, it was great. Do you eat the crust?

00:04:32 ◼   ► Crust strategy. Yeah, I like the crust. Depends on how much I'm eating.

00:04:37 ◼   ► If I'm ordering- It also depends on the quality of the pizza.

00:04:41 ◼   ► And yeah, sure, right. I mean, lousy crust is lousy. There are times when I will, like, we will

00:04:48 ◼   ► order a pizza and it's nice and hot now and we're probably not going to take it home, or it's like,

00:04:52 ◼   ► it's personal sized enough that whatever is left you're not going to take home, and I will then,

00:04:57 ◼   ► I will often prioritize the non-crust parts because it'll be like, well, I'm going to fill

00:05:03 ◼   ► up on crust and I'd rather have more of the cheese and sauce, please. So it varies. At home, Lauren

00:05:11 ◼   ► frequently doesn't eat the crust, and occasionally if it's a particularly good dough that I have made,

00:05:16 ◼   ► I will eat her crust because that's real good crust and I'm not going for another piece.

00:05:21 ◼   ► That's husband's prerogative, man. That's what you get.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. It's, I made that crust and now I take it back and I'm going to eat it.

00:05:27 ◼   ► So yeah, yeah, sure. Sometimes, sometimes not. If you're not, if I'm not hungry enough and I like

00:05:33 ◼   ► the cheese, the pizza itself is filling enough, then the crust is the first to go. I'll put it

00:05:39 ◼   ► that way. It's optional, but I do like it. Long time listeners will know that I have always been

00:05:45 ◼   ► a fan of pepperoni too, and you turn me on to the ways of pineapple pepperoni, which I think is the

00:05:49 ◼   ► perfect combo for a pizza. I will say the thing that has changed in my life is if, you know,

00:05:55 ◼   ► something like pineapple is not available to you, you want to try something different. Spicy honey

00:06:00 ◼   ► serves a lot of the like, the flavor balancing for pepperoni. So like pepperoni with like a spicy

00:06:06 ◼   ► honey, it's very good because it adds a bit of sweet and also adds a bit of spice. So I'll add

00:06:10 ◼   ► that in there too. Hot honey. A little hot honey. Yeah. The hot honey trend. It's very trendy,

00:06:14 ◼   ► the hot honey, but I get it. I get it. I love honey also. So that might be an interesting way

00:06:21 ◼   ► to do it. I'll, I'll keep that in mind. I don't know if I've seen a pizza place here that offers

00:06:25 ◼   ► hot honey as a, as an, I should say, I, I, I eat other kinds of pizzas. Like, I mean, I don't mind

00:06:30 ◼   ► mushrooms and I don't mind onions and I don't mind peppers and like, I don't mind other toppings,

00:06:38 ◼   ► but I'm never going to prioritize them. I'll have them, right? If like, well, we, we just got this

00:06:43 ◼   ► pizza that's mushroom and onion. I'll be like, okay, like fine. But I, I, I would not choose

00:06:49 ◼   ► that. If you are, you know, you're the pizza holder, you're gonna, you're gonna make the

00:06:53 ◼   ► decision. Plan a pepperoni. Right. Well, I mean, it depends. Yeah. Right. Do you get,

00:06:57 ◼   ► one of the beautiful things about pizza is in most settings, you choose what your pizza is,

00:07:01 ◼   ► right? It's only if you're like ordering a slice from a limited supply, or if you're like at an

00:07:06 ◼   ► event or something where they have pizza and it's already been pre-selected for you, for you, like

00:07:11 ◼   ► to choose the kinds and it's similar to having a slice where it's like, sorry, buddy, these are the

00:07:16 ◼   ► kinds of pizza we've got. Then, you know, you compromise. I would like to thank Roman for

00:07:22 ◼   ► sending in this question. It's a good question. I think it's Ramon according to the, uh,

00:07:25 ◼   ► our show document. I think you've said Ramona and Roman. No, I said, I said Ramon the first time and

00:07:31 ◼   ► it sounded like I, or Ramon, and it sounded like I added an A, but that was an unintentional sound

00:07:36 ◼   ► that my mouth made. Just to be clear, thank you Ramon. And also real time follow up from Dan

00:07:41 ◼   ► Morin reporting that the pepper, that he has a pizza place near him that has pepperoni and hot

00:07:46 ◼   ► honey. So it has penetrated into the United States. If it, you know, if it's not here already,

00:07:51 ◼   ► it will reach me soon. The first place I ever tried this combo was in Portland. Oh,

00:07:58 ◼   ► of course it was. Well, all right, then I'll just, I'll look for it. I'll keep an eye on it,

00:08:02 ◼   ► but if there's pineapple, I'm going to choose that instead. So thank you to Ramon for sending in.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I'm just covering all bases at this point, Jason. Okay. Uh, so sending in that question,

00:08:13 ◼   ► you can send it in a question of your own by going to upgradefeedback.com and send us a

00:08:17 ◼   ► Snell Talk question to open a future episode of the show. I have quite a bit of follow up today.

00:08:23 ◼   ► I have a lot of interesting things that people have written to us via the same feedback form.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Upgradefeedback.com. We love, we love it. We love it. I actually have some Snell Talk feedback.

00:08:32 ◼   ► David writes in and says 160 degrees? Four question marks. Four question marks. Does Jason

00:08:40 ◼   ► have heat shielding in his mouth? My Ember mug has a maximum temperature of 145 degrees.

00:08:46 ◼   ► Has Jason jailbroken his mug to allow hotter temperatures? What is happening here? So last

00:08:51 ◼   ► week's Snell Talk question, I asked Jason what his preferred temperature was for his tea,

00:08:56 ◼   ► and Jason said 160 degrees. Yes. I don't know about heat shielding. Is that what the,

00:09:02 ◼   ► is that what the inside of your mouth is not meant to be? Is heat shielding? 160 degrees for me is

00:09:06 ◼   ► fine. Um, it's a little bit on the hot side, but the thing is, uh, it doesn't stay there very long.

00:09:12 ◼   ► And I think David is right here. I didn't check, but I now have a memory of finding my ideal

00:09:19 ◼   ► temperature because the Ember mug prompted me to find it. And I found it. And then I found out that

00:09:24 ◼   ► the Ember mug doesn't go that high. So I set it to as high as the Ember mug goes. Right. So when I

00:09:30 ◼   ► serve myself at 160, what I'm basically getting is I can drink it then and it's really nice and

00:09:36 ◼   ► piping hot, but then the Ember mug won't let it go too far away from that. Whatever that high,

00:09:41 ◼   ► high point is, if it's 145 and it's not as good at 145 than it is at 160, but the Ember mug,

00:09:48 ◼   ► I mean, like I've got half a cup right now. And if I were not using the Ember mug,

00:09:52 ◼   ► it would probably be unpleasantly cool. And instead it's pretty warm. Yeah.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Joe wrote in and said, Jason asked if watchOS 10 widgets will update without the paired iPhone

00:10:03 ◼   ► in range. So the idea of if the widgets get added to the watch, uh, would we have to keep them

00:10:08 ◼   ► together to get that information? Right. Because that's an issue with some current watch stuff.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Joe said probably this will be the case because since watchOS 9 widget kit complications can make

00:10:22 ◼   ► network calls and update without an iPhone. So that was one of the things that changed when they

00:10:27 ◼   ► went from watch kit to widget kit. He says, and regarding stale complication data. So the

00:10:31 ◼   ► information being out of date widget kit complications vastly improve this because

00:10:36 ◼   ► they can make updates themselves. Clock kit complications relied on the app,

00:10:40 ◼   ► waking in the background to refresh, which would lead to stale data when it failed.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Widget kit has been a big improvement to watchOS and I look forward to see what's next.

00:10:49 ◼   ► Uh, I'm I just, uh, swipe to my watch and I, uh, am looking at the weather, which is coming from

00:10:58 ◼   ► carrot weather and what it is telling me, uh, there it did. Okay. It did update. I swiped over

00:11:04 ◼   ► from a different face and it did update. It was telling me the weather the last time that face

00:11:09 ◼   ► was on. And then after about 20 seconds it updated. So that's good. That's, that's not bad. That's,

00:11:16 ◼   ► that's what I want, right? Is I just wanted to make an effort to stay updated. So this is great news.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Um, that widget kit's already kind of doing this. And the idea, I mean, Apple has been trying very

00:11:25 ◼   ► hard to get the watch to stand alone and do things itself because that's what you want, right? You

00:11:29 ◼   ► want to be able to set up your watch using your iPhone if need be. And then if you've got the

00:11:33 ◼   ► cellular model walk away and still have everything work, that's the goal here. So I hope that, uh,

00:11:42 ◼   ► I hope it continues because I love having that stuff on there. And my biggest frustration with

00:11:47 ◼   ► my Apple watch is when stuff doesn't update, especially when those complications don't update.

00:11:51 ◼   ► It's very frustrating. Yeah. So I guess the hope would be that widget kit made a bunch of things

00:11:57 ◼   ► better, uh, just kind of a fundamental layer. And you would hope that if they're continuing to push

00:12:02 ◼   ► in that direction where it's like it's actual widgets now, maybe it would have gotten even

00:12:06 ◼   ► better, right? Like this is just like the pathway is towards more and more independent data gathering

00:12:13 ◼   ► from the watch and a more reliable update. Yeah. In fact, I think what we could probably say is

00:12:20 ◼   ► watchOS has been on a path in this direction, but it's, it's got, there's a bunch of sort of, uh,

00:12:27 ◼   ► technical debt or, or, or legacy tech technical stuff where there's stuff that's just kind of like

00:12:33 ◼   ► from back in the day, if not the original Apple watch from early in the Apple watch,

00:12:36 ◼   ► we're so dependent on the iPhone and new stuff is pushing the platform in this direction,

00:12:44 ◼   ► which I think is great. Like, again, this is, this is what I'm sure Apple wants to,

00:12:48 ◼   ► but the problem is you've got older apps and things kicking around in the system that, uh,

00:12:54 ◼   ► maybe preclude some of this. So when we look at reports that say watchOS 10 is going to be much

00:12:59 ◼   ► more widget forward, the encouraging way to look at that is by sweeping away the old stuff, but

00:13:07 ◼   ► really by bringing the new stuff front and center, you're also motivating every app developer to

00:13:13 ◼   ► update. And if all of those widgets are self updating and can reach out over the network and

00:13:19 ◼   ► pull their data and don't have to rely on their app, then the net result is going to be that

00:13:25 ◼   ► watchOS doesn't have to rely on the apps on the phone either. And the more of that, the better.

00:13:30 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm just, I'm just a little hesitant only because I've been using an Apple watch since

00:13:34 ◼   ► the beginning and it has been a painful process some of the time in terms of data, not getting,

00:13:40 ◼   ► you know, data getting stale on the watch, but I'm hopeful that this is going to, is going to do

00:13:43 ◼   ► that. I'm really, I mean, it's funny, Mike, you know, we go years where we're like, yeah,

00:13:47 ◼   ► and watchOS, I guess I'll get an update, whatever. And we spent the last few weeks really kind of

00:13:51 ◼   ► like nerding out on watchOS, but I think for good reason that this is really encouraging news of

00:13:57 ◼   ► a rethink of parts of watchOS and I can't wait to see it.

00:14:01 ◼   ► - And like, and I hope that all my expectation might be stuff like this might get better

00:14:05 ◼   ► because they don't, they're supporting more modern watches now, right? If they've been able to start

00:14:10 ◼   ► letting go some like the series three, for example, maybe there was some constraints with watchOS just

00:14:15 ◼   ► because of battery life concerns that like, if you're constantly refreshing information,

00:14:20 ◼   ► it's going to kill the battery, so. - Also widgetKit is something that should be

00:14:23 ◼   ► familiar to a lot of developers because they're also using it on iOS. And so that's another one

00:14:28 ◼   ► of those examples of Apple, again, they have to do it, right? Because they can't invent a new API

00:14:34 ◼   ► for everything. They really can. They have to like reuse things in different places, but it's also a

00:14:39 ◼   ► huge advantage because they'll be like, oh, widgets on Apple watch and everybody who's built widgets

00:14:44 ◼   ► on iOS should go, oh yeah, okay, great. - You already know how to do it.

00:14:46 ◼   ► - Yeah. - I've got a couple of pieces of anonymous

00:14:50 ◼   ► feedback, some tips, some tips from tips. - I was listening to Connected last weekend,

00:14:55 ◼   ► was surprised to discover that the Mike Hurley secret, double secret tip line had been established.

00:15:01 ◼   ► - And I have two more pieces of anonymous feedback via the Mike Hurley tip line.

00:15:06 ◼   ► You could just get in contact with me, find a way, you know, that's what these two people did,

00:15:12 ◼   ► enterprising individuals. - upgradefeedback.com will also work.

00:15:14 ◼   ► - It will also work and there is also possible to give anonymous feedback, but these people.

00:15:19 ◼   ► - Do we need to create like a signal account for the show? Can you even do that? I don't know if

00:15:23 ◼   ► you can. I think it's all good. - Well, the thing about these two

00:15:25 ◼   ► pieces of feedback is I know who these two people are, but they are submitting.

00:15:29 ◼   ► - Oh, I see. - You're keeping,

00:15:31 ◼   ► they're your anonymous sources. - They're my.

00:15:32 ◼   ► - None to you, but anonymous to us. - They're my informants.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - Okay, good. - So informant number one wrote in to say,

00:15:39 ◼   ► in regards to the journal app being closer in kind to Find My rather than, remember we were saying

00:15:45 ◼   ► about like, oh, it's not a social network, the journaling app, or it's more like in the Find My

00:15:50 ◼   ► department or something that Mike was talking about and talking about what capabilities it may

00:15:55 ◼   ► have. Your devices already track which people you have close by to you, regardless of whether you're

00:16:02 ◼   ► sharing Find My with them. This happens through a system called Rapport, R-A-P-P-O-R-T, Rapport.

00:16:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's French like. - Rapport.

00:16:12 ◼   ► The underlying protocol used for many things such as continuity, handoff, and airplay.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Currently, it can detect when a contact's device is nearby, but it doesn't do anything with that

00:16:22 ◼   ► information unless you activate AirDrop. It's completely local and relies on Bluetooth low

00:16:28 ◼   ► energy and/or Wi-Fi. And I confirmed with this person that this is how, you know, if you're in

00:16:33 ◼   ► somebody's home and you wanna get on their Wi-Fi and you get the Wi-Fi network password sharing,

00:16:38 ◼   ► it works through this rapport system. So the idea, you know, like we were talking about, well,

00:16:43 ◼   ► would I have to have all of my friends on Find My to see them in the journal app? In theory,

00:16:49 ◼   ► they could do this. So like, you know, maybe I'm not friends with Bob and Mary and Alex, right?

00:16:58 ◼   ► Like we're not in Find My together, but if we're hanging out, our phones will know that we were

00:17:03 ◼   ► together because we share contact information. So maybe that is a way that I would then be able to

00:17:09 ◼   ► add like, oh, I was with Bob and Mary and Alex today at the park to my journal. - And I would

00:17:13 ◼   ► assume that would end up being like an opt-in thing of like share your proximity information

00:17:19 ◼   ► with other people in your contacts list or something like that. - Well, maybe, but it's

00:17:23 ◼   ► already doing it and we didn't opt into it. - Well, yeah, but it's the logging part of it.

00:17:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the logging part. - It would really require that, right? Because then it's,

00:17:31 ◼   ► then you're, I think that that would be how they would build it is like, you would say, yes, sure.

00:17:35 ◼   ► You know, you can share with Mike that I was near Mike when, you know, when we were near each other

00:17:41 ◼   ► and have it be okay. You wouldn't want that if you're like spying on somebody from behind a bush

00:17:45 ◼   ► or something. That would be less good. - This is one of those things where like, when I read,

00:17:48 ◼   ► I was like, oh, of course, right? This system, of course it works, right? 'Cause like,

00:17:52 ◼   ► how would airdrop from contacts only work? Like realistically, how does it do that? - Yeah, yeah.

00:17:58 ◼   ► You have to exchange with nearby devices and find the ones that are in your contacts. - Which is

00:18:02 ◼   ► fascinating this system exists and that it's all local. - Right, I wonder how that works. It must

00:18:09 ◼   ► be like that there's a unique, like a hash or something attached to every phone number or Apple

00:18:16 ◼   ► ID that it saves in your, maybe in your contacts. And then when it sees that it knows that that's a

00:18:24 ◼   ► recognized device or something like that. I wonder, I mean, it's gotta work that way, right? Because

00:18:31 ◼   ► you've gotta be able to see the devices around you and know what they are, even if they're not

00:18:35 ◼   ► in your, right? They're not known to you. - Yeah, I expect you are broadcasting your Apple ID

00:18:42 ◼   ► information and like maybe your phone number, right? Like outwardly. - It wouldn't be that

00:18:47 ◼   ► though. It would be like a hash of it or something. - Yeah, that's what I mean. I don't mean like so

00:18:51 ◼   ► clearly, but. - So when I add somebody to contacts, in the background, Apple is also downloading their

00:18:57 ◼   ► unique kind of like blurb thing that they send out. And then when it sees that it goes, oh,

00:19:02 ◼   ► I actually know that one. Interesting, I hadn't really thought about that, but yeah, they've

00:19:06 ◼   ► gotta be doing stuff like that. Anyway, that would be, sure. I mean, being able to log when you were

00:19:09 ◼   ► with friends and have it be kind of magical. Sorry, I guess that's a word Apple would probably use.

00:19:16 ◼   ► But the idea there that at the end of the day, where you spent the day with friends,

00:19:19 ◼   ► to have it say you were with Mike for four hours at this location, and then you can choose what

00:19:28 ◼   ► you wanna do with that. It's pretty cool. It's like your phone knows that already, but like,

00:19:32 ◼   ► do you want to write that down and have it be part of the record or not? That's fun. - 'Cause

00:19:39 ◼   ► for me, I feel like if they wanna make this a feature, they have to find a way to do it.

00:19:44 ◼   ► That doesn't mean that I have to become, find my friends with all of my friends. 'Cause I don't

00:19:48 ◼   ► think that's gonna take off, but this could be the building blocks of that. - And for people who

00:19:53 ◼   ► would accuse this of being an invasion of privacy, I would say when you're present around other

00:19:59 ◼   ► people, is it an invasion of privacy? You're all present around other people. - You've decided to

00:20:02 ◼   ► be together. - Exactly, so that the physical proximity is different. It's a log of your

00:20:08 ◼   ► physical proximity where you already were proximate. That's very different than, I'm

00:20:12 ◼   ► gonna make you a find my friend, and you're gonna see where I am forever, or until the end of the

00:20:20 ◼   ► day, or whatever, right? It's a very different kind of thing. You're opting in. I mean, I know

00:20:25 ◼   ► people can do bad behaviors here, but when you're in the same space as somebody, you know you're in

00:20:33 ◼   ► the same space as somebody. And so it's basically a public record, I would argue. So I don't think

00:20:38 ◼   ► it's that weird. In fact, yeah, the only way that this works is if you don't have to add everybody

00:20:43 ◼   ► to your find my roster or something like that. - Mike Hurley, Tip Line Informant number two says

00:20:49 ◼   ► about Keynote. So someone wrote in to ask if Apple uses Keynote for Keynotes. They wrote in to say,

00:20:57 ◼   ► yes, we do use Keynote for Keynotes, but it is just one stage in the pipeline. Marketing bring

00:21:02 ◼   ► their assets into the Keynote app. They arrange them the way that they want and export them as

00:21:07 ◼   ► a video. This is then pulled into Final Cut or whatever the video team is using. And occasionally,

00:21:14 ◼   ► the marketing team does still request new features that get added to Keynote so they can use them in

00:21:19 ◼   ► their presentations. So it is what we expected. - I like that we got this more or less right,

00:21:25 ◼   ► which is that they build it in Keynote and then they're doing an export because these final videos

00:21:29 ◼   ► are a whole production and the screen isn't there or what's on it isn't there. It has to be part of

00:21:37 ◼   ► the movie production workflow essentially for these videos that they do. But it starts life

00:21:43 ◼   ► in Keynote, which is cool that it still does that and that they still ask for new features in Keynote.

00:21:47 ◼   ► And that's one of the reasons Keynote is so good is because it really gets used by the people who

00:21:52 ◼   ► make the product. And that's good stuff. Love it. Thank you, secret informants to the Mike Hurley

00:22:01 ◼   ► tip line. Very exciting. - This one is not from my tip line. Ford CEO Jim Farley. Can you imagine?

00:22:08 ◼   ► He just hit me up. - Hi Mike. - Ford CEO Jim Farley has told Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal

00:22:16 ◼   ► that Ford is going to be sticking with car play. Farley says, "70% of our Ford customers in the

00:22:23 ◼   ► US are Apple customers. Why would I go to an Apple customer and say, 'Good luck.' In terms of content,

00:22:29 ◼   ► we kind of lost that battle 10 years ago. So like get real with it because you're not going to make

00:22:33 ◼   ► a ton of money on content inside of the vehicle. It's going to be safety, security, partial autonomy

00:22:39 ◼   ► and productivity in our eyes." - This is such a great statement. I mean, really you couldn't craft

00:22:45 ◼   ► a better statement from an auto executive who seems to actually be in touch with reality than this.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Whereas GM, I think, and we've made all these arguments before, is not in touch with reality.

00:22:58 ◼   ► And that's the part, two things I wanted to focus on here. One is why would I go to an Apple customer

00:23:04 ◼   ► and say, "Good luck." Right? It's so true, right? Which is you're used to having this thing, but

00:23:11 ◼   ► forget it. You don't get it now. We've decided you don't get it now. It is baffling when Apple

00:23:17 ◼   ► customers are such an important part of the new auto market in America. Like what? And then

00:23:24 ◼   ► the realism of, in terms of content, we lost that battle 10 years ago. To say what we've been saying,

00:23:30 ◼   ► which is really like, people love their smartphones and their smartphones are up to date

00:23:35 ◼   ► and they've got their stuff on it. And their stuff, it comes from all sorts of different sources. And

00:23:39 ◼   ► like, don't get between me and my smartphone, between me and my stuff. And then he says,

00:23:44 ◼   ► quite rightly, "Okay, one, you're not going to make a ton of money on content inside the vehicle."

00:23:48 ◼   ► I think there's a level of realism there that GM doesn't share. GM with its history, with things

00:23:53 ◼   ► like OnStar, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. We offer them services and we charge them and we

00:23:58 ◼   ► get them on an annual plan and we make it impossible to cancel it. And we get in with the

00:24:03 ◼   ► insurance companies to say, give them a break when they pay for our services, which is a thing they

00:24:08 ◼   ► do, by the way, with OnStar is that they have like a deal where if you have OnStar and you're

00:24:14 ◼   ► sending all your safety information back to GM, your insurance company will give you a break on

00:24:20 ◼   ► your insurance because they're looking at the data coming from your car. It's bananas, right?

00:24:25 ◼   ► So like, I think maybe company culture-wise, GM just isn't there. The GM really does think

00:24:32 ◼   ► that they've got to be making a ton of money on content inside the vehicle. And I think Ford looks

00:24:38 ◼   ► at this and says, nah, it's not going to happen. And I think it's more realistic that it's not

00:24:42 ◼   ► going to happen. And yet, second, it's going to be safety, security, partial autonomy, and

00:24:47 ◼   ► productivity. The stuff that needs to be on the car will be on the car. And then carplay is for

00:24:51 ◼   ► the other stuff. And that is a really reasonable split to me. The idea that your car stuff is in

00:24:58 ◼   ► the car and your entertainment stuff is on your phone and the best car interfaces are going to

00:25:06 ◼   ► have places for both, right? Which is what carplay already does, where there's a little entertainment

00:25:12 ◼   ► spot and then wrapped around it is the car stuff. And I think that's perfectly reasonable. It's

00:25:17 ◼   ► refreshing and a little shocking that it's so reasonable from a car industry CEO. It's amazing.

00:25:25 ◼   ► This isn't really follow-up, but I'm just going to put it in follow-up anyway. Apple have launched

00:25:31 ◼   ► 20 new games for Apple Arcade, and there are some bangers in here. And I just wanted to let people

00:25:37 ◼   ► know about some of these games. So they've done what they've done before, where they've added a

00:25:41 ◼   ► bunch of existing hits. Games like Limbo and Temple Run get the plus treatment, right? Limbo Plus,

00:25:48 ◼   ► Temple Run Plus. They take old hit games, remove all that purchase from them, make them compatible

00:25:54 ◼   ► for all devices that are currently running, and put them on Apple Arcade. I think this is just

00:25:59 ◼   ► like a fantastic way to bolster the service and you build a foundation. There's a bunch of just

00:26:04 ◼   ► really good games in here. I'm just scoring through the press release now. Just a ton of

00:26:09 ◼   ► classics that are in here. They've got, like I said, Limbo already, Hill Climb Racing, Getting

00:26:14 ◼   ► Over It, Farming Simulator is in there, if that's your kind of thing. So there's a bunch of stuff

00:26:19 ◼   ► there, but there's also new games. They've added a few, but I wanted to recommend two that I've

00:26:24 ◼   ► started playing and really enjoying. One is Disney Spellstruck. It's just Disney Scrabble.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Ah.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And it's just good. It's like a good Scrabble game. And as you're playing it, it's like with

00:26:36 ◼   ► a lot of these games, you can see where it was supposed to be in an in-app purchase focused game.

00:26:41 ◼   ► But then Apple were like, "Hey, why don't you put it on Apple Arcade?"

00:26:46 ◼   ► Because you can get these power-ups to help you out and they just randomly give them to you.

00:26:52 ◼   ► That's not how it is supposed to go. I was supposed to buy those, but it's great.

00:26:56 ◼   ► The other one is What the Car, which comes from the same people who made What the Golf.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:27:02 ◼   ► And it is equally excellent. And I'm going to make a prediction here.

00:27:06 ◼   ► This could probably be a draft prediction, but I'm just going to say it now.

00:27:10 ◼   ► The game company behind What the Golf and What the Car have made a VR game called What the Bat.

00:27:17 ◼   ► And it's available on Oculus and...

00:27:21 ◼   ► Oh.

00:27:21 ◼   ► Like on Quest, sorry. And it's available on PlayStation.

00:27:24 ◼   ► 100% it's going to come to this device because it doesn't...

00:27:29 ◼   ► This is a game that would work perfectly with hand tracking. Your hands are bats and you just

00:27:33 ◼   ► have to just do things. You're just smashing things. So this team, this company clearly has

00:27:40 ◼   ► a good relationship with Apple, right? Because this is now two games that have come to...

00:27:46 ◼   ► It's arcade.

00:27:47 ◼   ► Apple Arcade. And their third game is a VR game and Apple doesn't have anywhere for that right

00:27:52 ◼   ► now. And I'm convinced it's going to come to Apple Arcade when games get added to the headset.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I'm frightened to try Cityscape's Sim Builder.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Ask my next one to try too.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Because I loved Sim City so much. And I'm concerned that I will be swallowed whole by

00:28:11 ◼   ► Cityscape's Sim Builder. But I mean, if this is the last you hear from me, know that I was

00:28:18 ◼   ► doing what I love, which is apparently playing Cityscape's Sim Builder.

00:28:22 ◼   ► If you try out What the Car and enjoy it, then I recommend you give What the Bat a go to.

00:28:31 ◼   ► You haven't been to Quest 2, right?

00:28:32 ◼   ► I mean, I love What the Golf. I love What the Golf. It was great. I played the whole thing.

00:28:35 ◼   ► What the Car is incredibly absurd. I think it actually might be more absurd than What the Golf.

00:28:40 ◼   ► So it's hard to believe.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it is cool.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Great.

00:28:45 ◼   ► And there's a lot of the game.

00:28:47 ◼   ► So Mike, I'm still wasting all of my spare time playing Marvel Snap because of you.

00:28:53 ◼   ► So thanks a lot for ruining my life.

00:28:55 ◼   ► Oh really? I fell off Snap.

00:28:55 ◼   ► Anytime.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Oh God.

00:28:57 ◼   ► Anytime.

00:28:57 ◼   ► It's it's uh, yeah. Yep. Yep.

00:29:01 ◼   ► We also wanted to remind the Upgradients that we do have a selection of on-demand

00:29:07 ◼   ► t-shirts always available that you can get at upgradeyourwardrobe.com.

00:29:12 ◼   ► This is probably a really good time to pick up your draft shirt.

00:29:15 ◼   ► We have the WWDC draft coming up pretty soon.

00:29:18 ◼   ► You can get yourself the upgrade draft t-shirt or hoodie.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Sorry, t-shirt or sweatshirt or tank top or onesie.

00:29:25 ◼   ► If you want to draft your baby, you could do that.

00:29:29 ◼   ► So you can go ahead and check those out.

00:29:31 ◼   ► We do have sweatshirts and hoodies, sweatshirts and hoodies.

00:29:34 ◼   ► You can get both.

00:29:36 ◼   ► And that also we have some upgrade logo tees available there and a Rumor Roundup t-shirt,

00:29:43 ◼   ► which I am wearing today, which is one of my very favorites.

00:29:45 ◼   ► It is just the Lasso Rumor Roundup.

00:29:48 ◼   ► So is that upgradeyourwardrobe.com.

00:29:52 ◼   ► You can go and check those out and there'll be a link in the show notes.

00:29:55 ◼   ► If you want to go and buy yourself a very cool upgrade t-shirt.

00:29:58 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by our friends at Ooni Pizza Ovens.

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00:31:20 ◼   ► Jason, we were talking about pizza a lot at the beginning of the episode.

00:31:23 ◼   ► I know this is how you make yours.

00:31:25 ◼   ► Yeah, well, actually what I was going to say is I am very excited that the weather, well,

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00:31:47 ◼   ► although I can make a decent pizza in my oven, the fact is my oven goes up to whatever,

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00:33:29 ◼   ► Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money.

00:33:33 ◼   ► Money!

00:33:34 ◼   ► It's money time.

00:33:35 ◼   ► It's money time.

00:33:37 ◼   ► It's money!

00:33:37 ◼   ► Ching!

00:33:38 ◼   ► Ching!

00:33:39 ◼   ► It's Apple's Q2 2023 results.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Let me give you some headlines and we'll dig into it.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Okay.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Revenue, $94.8 billion, down 3% year over year.

00:33:55 ◼   ► This is the second largest Q2 in Apple's history.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Obviously, you have the clues here to work out which was the largest.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Profit was at $24.2 billion.

00:34:06 ◼   ► That was down from $25 billion year over year.

00:34:08 ◼   ► So my initial read on that is like margins was good though, right?

00:34:13 ◼   ► Like the drop in profit is not the same as the drop in revenue.

00:34:18 ◼   ► Um, iPhone, $51.3 billion up 2% year over year.

00:34:23 ◼   ► This was a Q2 record for the iPhone.

00:34:26 ◼   ► My question to you here was, do you think that this is the result of some sales being

00:34:33 ◼   ► pushed on from shortages in previous quarters that we had?

00:34:37 ◼   ► So like there was, there was some supply chain stuff, right?

00:34:40 ◼   ► Do you think this may have been a push through?

00:34:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:42 ◼   ► It's possible.

00:34:43 ◼   ► I mean, they were correcting it, but they, they did suffer in the holiday quarter for

00:34:47 ◼   ► having problems with the pro phones.

00:34:49 ◼   ► So it's possible that that's what it is.

00:34:51 ◼   ► It's not, I mean, it's basically flat, but in a quarter where everything else was

00:34:55 ◼   ► down, that the iPhone was able to do this, I think it's Apple's most important product.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So having them be able to do this, um, I think that you have to look into the past

00:35:05 ◼   ► for trying to understand all of these results, but for the iPhone, I'm not sure

00:35:10 ◼   ► how much of this is retrieved from out of the past quarter shortages or whether it

00:35:15 ◼   ► really is just that they, you know, soldiered on and yeah.

00:35:19 ◼   ► So maybe the 2% is just, it's up a little bit for that, but I don't know.

00:35:23 ◼   ► I don't think it was a huge thing.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Cause I think that they started to get into balance by the end of last quarter.

00:35:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Oh, by the way, I just wanted to note that the change in profit is actually about

00:35:34 ◼   ► the same as roughly 3%.

00:35:37 ◼   ► So it's, yeah, it is about the same.

00:35:39 ◼   ► So I think margins were, were, although they, they report their margins.

00:35:42 ◼   ► I don't actually know what the margins are, but they were, they were probably

00:35:44 ◼   ► pretty similar.

00:35:45 ◼   ► Appreciate the clarification.

00:35:46 ◼   ► The Mac was at $7.2 billion down 31% year over year, making it the lowest quarter

00:35:56 ◼   ► since 2020.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Uh, very tough compare the iPad $6.7 billion down 13% year over year.

00:36:05 ◼   ► So just flip those numbers 31 to 13.

00:36:08 ◼   ► Also the lowest quarter since 2020 services is a 20.9 billion, which is up

00:36:13 ◼   ► 5% year over year.

00:36:15 ◼   ► It's also growth in the previous quarter, which.

00:36:17 ◼   ► Yep.

00:36:18 ◼   ► Uh, earlier in the year, late last year that had started to dip, right?

00:36:21 ◼   ► Like there was something that I was talking about a lot.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Was wondering what was going on there, but it seems like they're growing back

00:36:25 ◼   ► again.

00:36:26 ◼   ► Wearables home and accessories is at $8.8 billion down 1% year over year.

00:36:33 ◼   ► Yeah, essentially flat.

00:36:35 ◼   ► The Mac and iPad being way down.

00:36:37 ◼   ► I think the only way like the Mac and the iPad have both been running at the

00:36:42 ◼   ► high and I don't look at this and say, ah, now people have turned against the Mac

00:36:48 ◼   ► and the iPad.

00:36:49 ◼   ► Cause remember it's, it's changes in, in growth compared and sales compared to

00:36:54 ◼   ► last year.

00:36:55 ◼   ► It is at a high level, but not what it was last year.

00:36:59 ◼   ► I feel like, like I have nothing in my heart that says, oh no, people are

00:37:04 ◼   ► turning against the Mac and the iPad.

00:37:05 ◼   ► I just don't.

00:37:06 ◼   ► It's very clear to look at the history here and say, what happened is one, the

00:37:11 ◼   ► pandemic, which sold a lot of computers and iPads because people were in

00:37:16 ◼   ► lockdown and they're like, and they're and work adapted and they're like, oh

00:37:20 ◼   ► geez, we need another computer at home or we need another tablet at home, or we

00:37:24 ◼   ► need to update the old thing.

00:37:25 ◼   ► And, and that drove sales.

00:37:27 ◼   ► And that's one reason that the iPad and the Mac have done so well over the last

00:37:31 ◼   ► couple of years.

00:37:32 ◼   ► And that that's tailed off.

00:37:33 ◼   ► Now I think that there's some truth in that, that the buying cycle was kind of

00:37:36 ◼   ► short-circuited and now it needs to reset.

00:37:39 ◼   ► And so you're going to have that, that a place where it's, I think the way that

00:37:43 ◼   ► they often describe it metaphorically is that the sales were pulled forward

00:37:47 ◼   ► essentially, right?

00:37:48 ◼   ► That you took your, your three years of sales and it all went in the first year

00:37:52 ◼   ► and a half.

00:37:52 ◼   ► And I think that there's truth in that.

00:37:55 ◼   ► And then for the Mac, you also had the arrival of Apple Silicon and there was a

00:37:59 ◼   ► lot of pent up demand for Apple Silicon.

00:38:01 ◼   ► Plus those M1 Macs, especially the reviews were so spectacularly good because

00:38:08 ◼   ► they are spectacularly good.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And a lot of people bought them and it drove a lot of sales in addition to the

00:38:12 ◼   ► fact that there were pandemic changes in how we all worked.

00:38:15 ◼   ► And so the Mac, I think has benefited from that twice, but you know, the M2

00:38:23 ◼   ► again, nothing wrong with the M2, but if everybody who was waiting to buy a

00:38:27 ◼   ► MacBook Pro waited for the M1 MacBook Pro to come out, then you're going to

00:38:32 ◼   ► sell a lot of them.

00:38:33 ◼   ► And then the next year they come out with the M2 and it's like, well, but so

00:38:36 ◼   ► many people already bought the M1, so they're not going to buy the M2.

00:38:39 ◼   ► And that was a high number.

00:38:41 ◼   ► You know, you do the math and it's like, well, yeah, this is what you're going

00:38:44 ◼   ► to see.

00:38:44 ◼   ► It's going to go down because everybody was really excited about it.

00:38:48 ◼   ► I think the Mac, like, if you look at the average Mac sale, like the Mac has

00:38:52 ◼   ► never been stronger.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Um, I think it, it will continue to be strong.

00:38:56 ◼   ► I think this is an issue where they just have to deal with the fact that they're

00:39:01 ◼   ► not going to reach those heights for a little while, and they're going to have

00:39:04 ◼   ► to wait for the buying cycle to catch up with them.

00:39:07 ◼   ► So David in the live chat, just go, which you can get access to.

00:39:11 ◼   ► If you're a member, go to get upgrade plus.com and you can find out more

00:39:14 ◼   ► about them has said, the narrative is strange to me.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Apple had lots of success.

00:39:19 ◼   ► Now that makes them look bad.

00:39:20 ◼   ► The problem with Wall Street, which is what a lot of this is, right.

00:39:24 ◼   ► They look at whatever you're doing now and they're betting on it being a

00:39:28 ◼   ► trend, right?

00:39:29 ◼   ► Like, right.

00:39:30 ◼   ► Cause you sell loads of Macs.

00:39:31 ◼   ► Cause it's all priced into the stock.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:39:32 ◼   ► You sell loads of Macs.

00:39:34 ◼   ► If you keep doing this, we will continue to be confident in your business to this

00:39:39 ◼   ► level.

00:39:39 ◼   ► But if it changes, it's going to go down.

00:39:41 ◼   ► Like, right.

00:39:42 ◼   ► They want to see growth.

00:39:44 ◼   ► They always want to see growth and we can debate whether that's right or wrong,

00:39:47 ◼   ► whether that's corrosive to have businesses are run spoiler alert for my

00:39:51 ◼   ► opinion.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Yes, it is corrosive.

00:39:54 ◼   ► Uh, but that's how it works.

00:39:56 ◼   ► And um, and it's the same thing I always tell people like when they're like, oh,

00:39:59 ◼   ► Apple released results and they made all this money and their stock went down.

00:40:01 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:40:02 ◼   ► And the answer is because the expectation is priced into the stock.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Apple, as we expect it is priced into the stock.

00:40:09 ◼   ► The stock price is what it is because of everything we expect for Apple.

00:40:12 ◼   ► So then it becomes what happens next.

00:40:14 ◼   ► And if you give them, if they get growth, then that increases the future value of

00:40:19 ◼   ► Apple.

00:40:19 ◼   ► That increases everybody's estimation and the stock goes up.

00:40:22 ◼   ► And if you say, oh, Apple's going to be flat for a while in the doldrums, then

00:40:26 ◼   ► the stock will stay steady or go down, which is bad for investors.

00:40:29 ◼   ► Doesn't necessarily mean it's bad for Apple as a business if it's throwing off

00:40:32 ◼   ► all this profit and it's generating, uh, it's doing stock buybacks and it's

00:40:36 ◼   ► generating dividends for its investors, which it is doing.

00:40:40 ◼   ► And that's what, if you're a company that makes enormous profits and you're

00:40:44 ◼   ► looking at your growth and saying, our growth is probably going to slow because

00:40:47 ◼   ► we've been so successful for so long.

00:40:49 ◼   ► This is what you do.

00:40:50 ◼   ► And they identified this, like, I don't know, five, six, seven years ago, and

00:40:54 ◼   ► just started buying back stock and doing dividends and giving, essentially

00:41:00 ◼   ► giving money back to the shareholders because, uh, that's how you kind of

00:41:04 ◼   ► counteract some of that fear of flatness is by saying, yes, but we're very

00:41:10 ◼   ► profitable and you get to share in the profits.

00:41:12 ◼   ► And so they've been doing a lot of that too.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Tim Cook introduced a new catchphrase, the parade of horribles as a way to

00:41:21 ◼   ► describe our current socioeconomic climate.

00:41:25 ◼   ► Yeah, he's used a bunch.

00:41:26 ◼   ► This is, this is apparently something that is out there.

00:41:28 ◼   ► This is, this is a, a phrasing somebody told me that, that you've seen in other

00:41:32 ◼   ► places, but Tim Cook has adopted it, which I find funny just because it was,

00:41:37 ◼   ► uh, last year we had the cocktail of headwinds, which I thought had a little

00:41:40 ◼   ► panache to it.

00:41:41 ◼   ► The cocktail of headwinds served to you by, uh, Luca Maestri, the CFO.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And he, he, it's a, probably an Italian cocktail of some sort, um, full of headwinds.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Maybe those are bubbles.

00:41:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:53 ◼   ► Um, but the parade of horribles, I think it actually sounds kind of Willy Wonka

00:41:57 ◼   ► like, right?

00:41:58 ◼   ► Like, oh, there's a bunch of horrible, strange monsters that are coming down.

00:42:02 ◼   ► But anyway, uh, Cook used it to say, uh, that, uh, yeah, there's bad stuff out

00:42:08 ◼   ► there, but we're fine.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Essentially.

00:42:10 ◼   ► He was like, we have the luxury box at the parade of horribles.

00:42:13 ◼   ► So, um, I think that that shows you how Apple has kind of gone from it saying,

00:42:19 ◼   ► you know, things are bad out there and we're worried and we're concerned and

00:42:22 ◼   ► we're trying to do what we can to being like, things are bad out there, but we've

00:42:26 ◼   ► been fine.

00:42:27 ◼   ► And so we're fine.

00:42:27 ◼   ► And that is again, like we see this covering Apple like we do and looking to

00:42:35 ◼   ► the wider technology industry, they're in a very different position.

00:42:39 ◼   ► And like, you know, we, we have a lot of, you know, many, many times over the

00:42:44 ◼   ► years, we've spoken about the idea of like, why do they just sit on this cash?

00:42:48 ◼   ► Like, what are they doing with it?

00:42:50 ◼   ► Well, it probably helps them in times where all of their, um, colleague

00:42:56 ◼   ► companies in the industry are laying people off their front and center and

00:42:59 ◼   ► Apple's not doing that because they have so much money.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:03 ◼   ► I mean, that's, that's the truth of it.

00:43:04 ◼   ► And I said this during the, um, during 2020, let's just say, we'll put it that

00:43:10 ◼   ► way.

00:43:10 ◼   ► Uh, I said, Apple actually looks a little embarrassed because they're doing so

00:43:15 ◼   ► well when the world is so terrible.

00:43:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:17 ◼   ► I feel like we're coming out of it now where they're like, yep, we we've

00:43:21 ◼   ► survived.

00:43:22 ◼   ► We did it.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Um, and we know that bad things have happened, but we, we, we feel like we're

00:43:26 ◼   ► in a good, a good place and not gloating about it or anything, but they're able

00:43:29 ◼   ► to say now, I think maybe with a little more confidence than they could back

00:43:32 ◼   ► then, just cause they, everything was all messed up saying, you know, we're

00:43:37 ◼   ► actually in a pretty good place right now.

00:43:39 ◼   ► Now, of course, a down quarter is just the time when you need the CEO to say,

00:43:43 ◼   ► we feel pretty good, right?

00:43:44 ◼   ► Cause you want to make everybody feel good, but I, unless you are literally a

00:43:49 ◼   ► bear.

00:43:49 ◼   ► Investor who is out to get Apple because you want them to tank.

00:43:53 ◼   ► I don't know how you look at Apple's last few years and, and not rationally

00:43:58 ◼   ► understand the place that this business is in, especially as we've talked about

00:44:02 ◼   ► many times before the mega cycle of the iPhone, because the iPhone more than

00:44:06 ◼   ► half the revenue.

00:44:07 ◼   ► And we know that the iPhone buying cycle is very visible because they do major

00:44:11 ◼   ► revisions to the iPhone and it kicks sales.

00:44:13 ◼   ► And that happens every three years ish.

00:44:15 ◼   ► We'll see what happens this fall because whatever that iPhone is, this is when

00:44:19 ◼   ► we might expect a new iPhone that will drive sales unclear, whether they're

00:44:23 ◼   ► going to keep that strategy or whether they're going to kind of split up the

00:44:28 ◼   ► new look iPhone into multiple releases over multiple years in multiple iPhone

00:44:32 ◼   ► levels, right?

00:44:33 ◼   ► Cause they've got more iPhones that they sell now different models, but yeah,

00:44:38 ◼   ► hard, hard not to look at Apple's last few years and say, first off, you

00:44:41 ◼   ► wouldn't even tell that there was a, you know, just a series of terrible

00:44:45 ◼   ► economic conditions as well as a global pandemic.

00:44:49 ◼   ► And that their factories got shut down.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Like you couldn't even really tell.

00:44:54 ◼   ► And that they're in a pretty strong position here, but you know,

00:44:58 ◼   ► if I were a wall street investor and I was worried about where Apple was

00:45:00 ◼   ► going in the future and where their stock was going, I would obviously be

00:45:03 ◼   ► concerned about is the iPhone going to plateau, in which case they're an

00:45:07 ◼   ► incredibly profitable company, but they're not growing anymore.

00:45:10 ◼   ► Or growing very slowly, or are they going to have another kick?

00:45:14 ◼   ► You know, can the Mac be taken up a notch?

00:45:17 ◼   ► Can the iPhone still be taken up a notch?

00:45:19 ◼   ► Can the iPad still be taken up a notch?

00:45:21 ◼   ► And I think that there that's an open question there, which is why they

00:45:25 ◼   ► started talking a lot more about emerging markets, I think this time,

00:45:28 ◼   ► where they did better, Apple actually did better in emerging markets than

00:45:31 ◼   ► they did in their existing established markets.

00:45:34 ◼   ► And that's, that's a message that they want to send because they want to

00:45:37 ◼   ► say, look, this is where the next growth spurt is going to come from.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Especially when one of those emerging markets is as big as India, which is

00:45:44 ◼   ► what they're talking about.

00:45:45 ◼   ► I spent a lot of time talking about India.

00:45:47 ◼   ► They saw some, they saw double digit sales growth in the region.

00:45:52 ◼   ► Tim Cook says India is a major focus for the company and said, and I'll

00:45:57 ◼   ► read a quote from Tim.

00:45:59 ◼   ► There are a lot of people coming into the middle class, and I really feel

00:46:02 ◼   ► that India is at a tipping point and it's great to be there.

00:46:06 ◼   ► And I will now read a quote from Jason's Macworld article where Jason

00:46:10 ◼   ► says, if this sounds familiar, it's because Cook said a lot of very

00:46:13 ◼   ► similar things about China a decade ago.

00:46:17 ◼   ► But when asked specifically to compare the potential in India to that in

00:46:20 ◼   ► China of the past, Cook demurred a politically wise decision and said, I

00:46:25 ◼   ► think each country is different and has its own journey.

00:46:27 ◼   ► That emerging middle class line, I felt like I have massive flashbacks

00:46:33 ◼   ► like to reading that.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Cause that was what they said for years about China.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:37 ◼   ► No, it's exactly the same words.

00:46:38 ◼   ► And then when pressed to sort of like say, can you draw a parallel

00:46:41 ◼   ► between China and India?

00:46:42 ◼   ► He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:46:43 ◼   ► We'll never do that.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Don't ever ask me again.

00:46:45 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:46:46 ◼   ► And it's like, well, first off China and India don't really like each other.

00:46:48 ◼   ► And they've got this thing where they're trying to diversify outside

00:46:51 ◼   ► of China, including into India.

00:46:53 ◼   ► And the last thing China wants to hear is Apple say, yeah, India is the

00:46:56 ◼   ► next China, right?

00:46:57 ◼   ► Like that you know, no, no, no, no, no.

00:46:59 ◼   ► So instead he's like, everybody's on their journey together, but it's

00:47:02 ◼   ► very hard not to see the parallels there where Apple is saying that in

00:47:07 ◼   ► lots of, uh, lots of emerging markets.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And they mentioned a bunch of them that Apple did really well, like set

00:47:13 ◼   ► records in the last quarter.

00:47:15 ◼   ► So that's what their message is.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Now, what are the size of those markets?

00:47:20 ◼   ► What's the potential of those markets?

00:47:22 ◼   ► Is it just trying to get out some happy news for investors?

00:47:25 ◼   ► Uh, when the truth is that those markets are relatively small, but it

00:47:28 ◼   ► seems like India and I would say Tim Cook's visit to India right before

00:47:32 ◼   ► this cannot have been a coincidence, right?

00:47:35 ◼   ► Like this is all about making the narrative about Apple right now about

00:47:39 ◼   ► potential future growth.

00:47:40 ◼   ► It's kind of brilliant, assuming that this is all sort of part of a bigger

00:47:43 ◼   ► plan that Apple going to India.

00:47:46 ◼   ► It's about future growth and diversification.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Um, I wonder what message it does send to China, but, um, Apple and

00:47:54 ◼   ► China are pretty tight.

00:47:55 ◼   ► So it's probably, you know, they, they, China knows what Apple's doing,

00:47:59 ◼   ► but I think Apple's not abandoning China.

00:48:01 ◼   ► It's just diversifying.

00:48:02 ◼   ► And that's the message they're sending is we want to be in China, but we're

00:48:05 ◼   ► going to be in other places too.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And yeah, for, if you're an investor and you look at India and you say,

00:48:10 ◼   ► wow, if India's middle-class can skyrocket like China's can, all those

00:48:14 ◼   ► people are Apple buyers.

00:48:16 ◼   ► And, uh, imagine another market like China's market, uh, where Apple can

00:48:22 ◼   ► come in and has very little market share.

00:48:25 ◼   ► And so there's enormous growth opportunity just by definition.

00:48:28 ◼   ► So we were talking about, you know, looking at the overall product lines

00:48:33 ◼   ► and you've got the Mac and the iPad are down, but the level, like, you know,

00:48:38 ◼   ► when we're talking about like the iPhone as a, as a thing, if the iPhone

00:48:41 ◼   ► starts to decline, like this quarter was saved by the fact that the iPhone

00:48:45 ◼   ► was up a little bit and services were up a little bit, but it was mostly

00:48:49 ◼   ► because the iPhone was up a little bit.

00:48:51 ◼   ► So this idea of if the iPhone did start to significantly decline, like we

00:48:55 ◼   ► started to see consistent decline, then the company's overall revenue

00:49:00 ◼   ► declines just because, right?

00:49:02 ◼   ► Again, what was it?

00:49:03 ◼   ► 54% of the revenue in the quarter was the iPhone.

00:49:07 ◼   ► Like that's what people were looking for.

00:49:09 ◼   ► So what, you know, Apple one is to sell iPhones in India and whatever

00:49:14 ◼   ► it's going to take to do that.

00:49:15 ◼   ► So Savra in the discord is a listener who's in India and they're like, well,

00:49:19 ◼   ► the prices are going to change.

00:49:21 ◼   ► And I can, we've heard of this before of like, and it's one of the reasons

00:49:24 ◼   ► Apple's continued to push on the SE and had devices that were more price

00:49:29 ◼   ► focused.

00:49:30 ◼   ► And so my expectation is if Apple really does consider India to be this

00:49:35 ◼   ► growth market, the overall pricing strategy of the iPhone may have to

00:49:40 ◼   ► change to accommodate that.

00:49:42 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Whether it's the iPhone SE or whether it's bringing down the price.

00:49:49 ◼   ► I mean, they do have this freedom now, which they have not exercised, but

00:49:53 ◼   ► this freedom with the iPhone and the iPhone pro split to make that iPhone

00:50:00 ◼   ► more affordable than it's been.

00:50:01 ◼   ► And what they've really done is sort of make it not really more affordable

00:50:05 ◼   ► than it's been, but that the pro one is really expensive, but it does give

00:50:09 ◼   ► them the ability to say, look, iPhone, whatever number and sell that into

00:50:13 ◼   ► markets that are not seriously going to consider the iPhone pro, but the

00:50:16 ◼   ► SE is the other way in there.

00:50:18 ◼   ► And again, I I've been hearing for, you know, more than a decade now from

00:50:23 ◼   ► people in India who are like Apple is kidding itself because the prices

00:50:26 ◼   ► are just bananas and it doesn't make sense and they're hard to get and all

00:50:29 ◼   ► that and like, sounds, sounds like Apple is, is focused on India now to a

00:50:34 ◼   ► certain extent.

00:50:35 ◼   ► So they're going to have to find a way to figure it out.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:37 ◼   ► I doubt that they're delusional about what they're going to do, but what,

00:50:42 ◼   ► what is that strategy going to be?

00:50:44 ◼   ► And I don't know.

00:50:45 ◼   ► I mean, I will also say though, there was, there was a time when Apple

00:50:48 ◼   ► trying to sell iPhones in China or computers in China was seen as a

00:50:52 ◼   ► bananas kind of decision where it's like, you're not gonna, you're not

00:50:56 ◼   ► going to do that, like you're, you're, you're so expensive and this market

00:51:02 ◼   ► can't handle it.

00:51:03 ◼   ► And what happened in China is that the market changed and grew and it

00:51:09 ◼   ► embraced Apple.

00:51:10 ◼   ► And a lot of those people who now had way more money than they used to have

00:51:14 ◼   ► spent some of it on Apple products.

00:51:16 ◼   ► So I don't, that's where I think maybe the parallel is going to break down

00:51:21 ◼   ► with India.

00:51:22 ◼   ► But again, I'm sure Apple is paying more attention to it and some of the

00:51:26 ◼   ► clueless decisions they've made in the past about India are probably going

00:51:30 ◼   ► to change because it's got, you know, more senior.

00:51:35 ◼   ► I mean, I've heard this before, like there's some people who are involved

00:51:38 ◼   ► in Apple in certain countries where like nobody cares.

00:51:41 ◼   ► And so they just sort of drift off and do their own thing.

00:51:43 ◼   ► And then if Apple execs suddenly are like, no, this is a key market for

00:51:48 ◼   ► us.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Everything changes.

00:51:49 ◼   ► Right.

00:51:49 ◼   ► And so I would imagine that that's going on with India now.

00:51:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:52 ◼   ► If pricing has to change, they'll change the pricing.

00:51:55 ◼   ► If that's what they think will grow the iPhone.

00:51:57 ◼   ► Like we are where we are now with the iPhone being what it is partly almost

00:52:04 ◼   ► because of the China market.

00:52:07 ◼   ► Right.

00:52:08 ◼   ► So huge.

00:52:09 ◼   ► And so if they can add another one of those, be very happy.

00:52:12 ◼   ► I'm reading again from your article Macworld.

00:52:15 ◼   ► It's become clear that the Mac and iPad are victims of their own recent

00:52:19 ◼   ► success, at least when it comes to sales trends.

00:52:21 ◼   ► Both products sold well during the early days of the pandemic and the Mac

00:52:25 ◼   ► also got a huge sales boost due to the arrival of Apple Silicon.

00:52:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:29 ◼   ► I think we already covered this.

00:52:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:31 ◼   ► But it's just like, I think it's just a nice way of summing it up of like,

00:52:35 ◼   ► well, thank you.

00:52:36 ◼   ► They are, it's hard to, it's that tough compare that we would talk about.

00:52:41 ◼   ► There was a big boost and now we're back down to a more settled level, but

00:52:45 ◼   ► that settled level was higher than they were before.

00:52:47 ◼   ► It's higher.

00:52:47 ◼   ► That's it.

00:52:48 ◼   ► I mean, that's the, that's the story with Apple in the last decade is they

00:52:52 ◼   ► get these huge growth spurts followed by a year or two where there's not a

00:52:56 ◼   ► lot of growth and everybody rings their hands about it.

00:52:59 ◼   ► But if you look at the numbers, you can see huge growth spurt followed by

00:53:04 ◼   ► flat is establishing a whole new level for the product.

00:53:08 ◼   ► And Apple has been really good at doing that.

00:53:10 ◼   ► What you don't want to see is the huge growth spurt, and then it goes back

00:53:13 ◼   ► to where it was, but Apple has never, well, has recent times Apple has not

00:53:18 ◼   ► done that.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Every time that these growth surges have happened, they've, they've reset

00:53:23 ◼   ► the bar.

00:53:24 ◼   ► There's been a new level they stay at, which means I think that suggests

00:53:28 ◼   ► long-term growth opportunity continues to exist, but that people who are

00:53:33 ◼   ► expecting it every quarter are kind of short-sighted.

00:53:37 ◼   ► Last thing, this is a long quote, but there was some conversations about Tim

00:53:43 ◼   ► Cook in regards to AI.

00:53:45 ◼   ► So this is Tim.

00:53:47 ◼   ► This is Tim.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I do think it's very important to be deliberate and thoughtful in how you

00:53:52 ◼   ► approach these things.

00:53:53 ◼   ► And there's a number of issues that need to be sorted as is being talked

00:53:56 ◼   ► about in a number of different places.

00:53:58 ◼   ► But the potential is clearly very interesting.

00:54:00 ◼   ► And we've obviously made enormous progress integrating AI and machine

00:54:03 ◼   ► learning throughout our ecosystem.

00:54:05 ◼   ► And we've weaved it into products and features for many years.

00:54:08 ◼   ► You can see that in things like fall detection and crash detection and ECG.

00:54:12 ◼   ► These things are not only great features, but they're also saving people's

00:54:15 ◼   ► lives and it's absolutely remarkable.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And so we view AI as huge and we'll continue weaving it into our products

00:54:22 ◼   ► on a very thoughtful basis.

00:54:24 ◼   ► This to me felt really similar about the ways that Tim would start talking

00:54:30 ◼   ► about AR.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Right?

00:54:32 ◼   ► Of like, yeah, we think this is really important and we're going to keep

00:54:36 ◼   ► working on this.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Like, I feel like this is, as you would naturally assume, would be a front

00:54:41 ◼   ► that Apple's going to continue to try and do more on.

00:54:43 ◼   ► And at the moment, I think they are in, you know, with how much he went into

00:54:48 ◼   ► detail here is clearly a prepared idea.

00:54:51 ◼   ► They want to, I think, maybe try and turn the tide on the impression that

00:54:56 ◼   ► they don't know what they're doing in this field.

00:54:58 ◼   ► Where they can talk about, look at all these things that are shipping with

00:55:02 ◼   ► what this AI actually is, which is just advanced machine learning.

00:55:06 ◼   ► It's not artificial intelligence.

00:55:08 ◼   ► I really wish that we, that that wasn't what we decided to call it, right?

00:55:11 ◼   ► AI.

00:55:12 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:12 ◼   ► It's all just machine learning.

00:55:13 ◼   ► It's ML.

00:55:14 ◼   ► And Apple has been doing machine learning for a long time and they're good at

00:55:18 ◼   ► it with the things that they're doing.

00:55:20 ◼   ► But the problem is what we consider to be conversational machine learning,

00:55:24 ◼   ► which is now what we think of the chat bots.

00:55:26 ◼   ► They're not so good.

00:55:27 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:28 ◼   ► They're not doing a chat bot, which right.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Like, well, Siri, I mean, like Siri, you have a conversation with, right?

00:55:33 ◼   ► Well, you don't.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Well, yes.

00:55:35 ◼   ► The problem, but yes.

00:55:36 ◼   ► Well, you do it with 20 people, 20 people you talk to.

00:55:38 ◼   ► We know this now.

00:55:40 ◼   ► So I think this is the perfect answer to give if you're Tim Cook, because

00:55:46 ◼   ► what it says is, yes, there's a lot of potential we're being deliberate and

00:55:52 ◼   ► thoughtful, right?

00:55:53 ◼   ► He says, I think it's very important to be deliberate and thoughtful translation.

00:55:57 ◼   ► We're being deliberate and thoughtful.

00:55:58 ◼   ► There are issues that need to be sorted out and we're, you know, it's being

00:56:03 ◼   ► talked about like, it's controversial.

00:56:04 ◼   ► We know that too.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Then it shifts gears and he says, he says, yes, it's very interesting, but

00:56:10 ◼   ► we are already doing this.

00:56:11 ◼   ► So now it's, he's sending the message.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Like we have made enormous progress already in our ecosystem throughout.

00:56:20 ◼   ► And he uses the phrase that I kind of appreciated.

00:56:23 ◼   ► We weaved it into products and features for many years.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:27 ◼   ► The point here is like, we're already doing this.

00:56:30 ◼   ► And I, in conversations about this, I keep bringing this up too.

00:56:33 ◼   ► People are like, Oh, Apple's behind.

00:56:34 ◼   ► They haven't done any AI.

00:56:35 ◼   ► And it's like all the object detection and photos is AI.

00:56:39 ◼   ► It's ML, right?

00:56:41 ◼   ► All the sensor processing and fall detection and crash detection in

00:56:45 ◼   ► activity monitoring on the Apple watch.

00:56:48 ◼   ► There's machine learning models there.

00:56:49 ◼   ► The ECG apparently is using machine learning models as well.

00:56:52 ◼   ► Like Apple has built a lot of machine learning models in, in a lot of places.

00:56:56 ◼   ► What they haven't done is built it into Siri and they haven't released

00:57:00 ◼   ► a beta chat bot on the web.

00:57:01 ◼   ► And so then they're accused of being behind.

00:57:03 ◼   ► It's like, maybe they're behind, but I'm not sure we've got enough

00:57:07 ◼   ► evidence to suggest that.

00:57:08 ◼   ► And that's what Tim Cook is saying here.

00:57:10 ◼   ► It's like, we've been on this for a long time, but we're being careful and

00:57:13 ◼   ► we're putting in places where it makes sense.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Now, is he throwing shade a little bit?

00:57:16 ◼   ► Yes.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Is he doing that because it's an area of weakness for him?

00:57:21 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:57:21 ◼   ► I mean, maybe, or maybe there's some amazing thing behind the scenes

00:57:25 ◼   ► that we don't know about, but we don't have the evidence for that.

00:57:28 ◼   ► So, so we'll say maybe, maybe he's, he's running down the stuff that's

00:57:32 ◼   ► out there that where Apple's behind.

00:57:33 ◼   ► But pointing out all the other places where Apple has is using this and is

00:57:37 ◼   ► weaving it into their ecosystem, which is one step away from the only Apple

00:57:42 ◼   ► can do this, right?

00:57:43 ◼   ► Which is we have hardware, we have software, we have our own processors

00:57:47 ◼   ► that we design and we weave AI and machine learning throughout our ecosystem.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Instead of just, you know, releasing a chat bot.

00:57:55 ◼   ► That's sort of what he's saying here.

00:57:57 ◼   ► And then he pivots from that back to, we think it's huge.

00:58:02 ◼   ► We'll continue weaving on a thoughtful basis, which is his last little poke

00:58:07 ◼   ► of like, we know this is controversial.

00:58:10 ◼   ► We are also skeptical about the issues here.

00:58:12 ◼   ► You know, look at us.

00:58:14 ◼   ► We, we do it carefully, but we are doing it.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Don't get upset.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Don't get afraid.

00:58:20 ◼   ► It's masterful.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Like whether you believe it or not, like whether you believe that, I mean,

00:58:24 ◼   ► I think that what he says is factual, but there's that whole underlying

00:58:28 ◼   ► question, which is yeah, but like Siri is a good example, like, but you

00:58:31 ◼   ► haven't woven it into Siri really.

00:58:34 ◼   ► And we've seen what happens when you start, start having something

00:58:38 ◼   ► that's sort of Siri-esque, but uses this tech and you haven't done it yet.

00:58:41 ◼   ► So where is that?

00:58:42 ◼   ► And maybe the answer is they're still working on it, but it's close.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And maybe the answer is they've tried it and failed and it's a disaster.

00:58:48 ◼   ► He's not going to say that, but like that's what's on people's minds.

00:58:51 ◼   ► But I think he did as well with this question as you could possibly do,

00:58:55 ◼   ► from the perspective of being the CEO of Apple.

00:58:59 ◼   ► >> Because I feel like from my layman's view, they have done a good job of

00:59:07 ◼   ► what is the fundamentals here, which is very large data sets and being able

00:59:12 ◼   ► to draw information from them, right?

00:59:13 ◼   ► Because that's what a large language model is, right?

00:59:16 ◼   ► But they just don't have a shipping machine learning large language model

00:59:22 ◼   ► thing.

00:59:22 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:59:23 ◼   ► >> But they are, I mean, you know, they're doing tons of stuff that their

00:59:28 ◼   ► competitors are doing.

00:59:29 ◼   ► They're doing a very good job in some cases, and they're doing it all on

00:59:32 ◼   ► device, right?

00:59:33 ◼   ► So like photo recognition stuff, being able to search for things in photos.

00:59:39 ◼   ► I'm sure that live text is another example of this, right?

00:59:42 ◼   ► So like all of these little pieces of information that come from their

00:59:47 ◼   ► abilities in machine learning, plus the fact that they create their own

00:59:51 ◼   ► silicon, which has machine learning processes on it.

00:59:53 ◼   ► Like if they're able to line the pieces up, I can imagine that they can

00:59:58 ◼   ► have that point on a presentation sometime that you just said of like,

01:00:01 ◼   ► only Apple can do this.

01:00:02 ◼   ► But they've got to do it.

01:00:05 ◼   ► But I think what is telling to me here is they were willing to answer the

01:00:09 ◼   ► question meaningfully.

01:00:11 ◼   ► And to me, this feels very prepared.

01:00:15 ◼   ► Like to mention fall detection, crash detection, and ECG, like those three

01:00:20 ◼   ► specific features out of everything you could have mentioned, like they're

01:00:24 ◼   ► really good ones.

01:00:25 ◼   ► And I think it shows that they're considering it.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And like if they're considering it and they're willing to engage with it and

01:00:33 ◼   ► talk about like, it's huge.

01:00:35 ◼   ► And you know, there's a lot of promise here.

01:00:36 ◼   ► It feels like that they've got their eye turned towards it at least.

01:00:40 ◼   ► - I don't know if Shannon Cross, who asked this question, who used to be

01:00:46 ◼   ► out on her own and now works for Credit Suisse.

01:00:48 ◼   ► She's been doing this a long time.

01:00:50 ◼   ► She's been on Apple calls as long as I can remember.

01:00:52 ◼   ► I don't know whether Apple said somebody from Apple nudged her and was like,

01:00:57 ◼   ► you should ask them about AI or not.

01:00:59 ◼   ► But I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

01:01:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:01 ◼   ► - Certainly Apple was ready with this response.

01:01:03 ◼   ► - They wanted someone to ask.

01:01:04 ◼   ► - Figuring somebody would ask about AI, right?

01:01:06 ◼   ► Certainly.

01:01:07 ◼   ► Because this is, again, this is a setup.

01:01:09 ◼   ► It's a perfect setup.

01:01:11 ◼   ► I think Tim Cook's answer is very much put together and exactly what needs to

01:01:16 ◼   ► be said here.

01:01:17 ◼   ► And then we all can judge whether it's entirely.

01:01:19 ◼   ► I mean, everything they do on this call is a self-serving statement.

01:01:22 ◼   ► That's the whole point of it.

01:01:23 ◼   ► - One of it.

01:01:23 ◼   ► - Really?

01:01:24 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:24 ◼   ► - But I think this was handled very well, portrays things really.

01:01:28 ◼   ► The goal here is to say, we recognize that this is controversial.

01:01:31 ◼   ► We also agree with everybody who thinks this could change the world.

01:01:34 ◼   ► We have shipped lots of stuff that uses this and have for a long time.

01:01:39 ◼   ► So don't portray us as being behind.

01:01:41 ◼   ► And we're still on it.

01:01:43 ◼   ► Next, right?

01:01:45 ◼   ► Like that's exactly what Apple wants to say here.

01:01:49 ◼   ► And then the question is just, is he saying that while he's hiding a decaying

01:01:53 ◼   ► Siri team behind him?

01:01:56 ◼   ► Or is he saying that knowing that they've actually got more stuff that people don't

01:01:59 ◼   ► know about that is going to be great?

01:02:02 ◼   ► And I don't know.

01:02:03 ◼   ► I don't know which one of those it is.

01:02:04 ◼   ► - But also I like tying a different thread through what you said of like,

01:02:08 ◼   ► oh, we know it's controversial.

01:02:11 ◼   ► We think, and people believe it could change the world.

01:02:14 ◼   ► But the things he decided to speak about were the things that save people's lives.

01:02:18 ◼   ► - Yep, that's true.

01:02:19 ◼   ► - So like, we believe it can be helpful.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Like what he's saying to me there is like, we believe that the ways that we will use

01:02:29 ◼   ► this technology is the way we have been and will continue to, will have meaningful effect

01:02:32 ◼   ► on the world as opposed to just like doing a Google search.

01:02:37 ◼   ► - The headline is very important to be deliberate and thoughtful.

01:02:42 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:02:42 ◼   ► - That's the message, right? Which is we are deliberate and thoughtful.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Here are some examples.

01:02:48 ◼   ► They didn't, he doesn't mention photos by the way, right?

01:02:51 ◼   ► Because he really is leaning into things that'll save your life.

01:02:54 ◼   ► Because AI can save your life.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Great.

01:02:56 ◼   ► And then thoughtful, he's not only saying, this is why you don't see us out there with

01:03:02 ◼   ► stuff right now.

01:03:02 ◼   ► We do stuff, but like when you're saying where's Apple's chat bot?

01:03:06 ◼   ► This is why we're deliberate and thoughtful.

01:03:08 ◼   ► We agree with all the people who are critics who are like, oh no, what's this going to

01:03:11 ◼   ► be?

01:03:11 ◼   ► It's like, yes, it's valuable, but you got to think about it.

01:03:14 ◼   ► And then it's also taking a shot at the people and at competitors who are like just throwing

01:03:19 ◼   ► stuff out there and saying, is this what we want?

01:03:21 ◼   ► You know, is this the right way to do it?

01:03:23 ◼   ► And again, if you're in a position where you don't have that, that is the right thing to

01:03:27 ◼   ► do is to throw shade at that stuff.

01:03:30 ◼   ► But it's also the right thing to do if you've got something in the works that you think

01:03:34 ◼   ► is better.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Like, I don't think we can really detect from this where the state of other machine learning

01:03:41 ◼   ► projects are at Apple, but it's the right answer to give to say we're there, but also we're

01:03:47 ◼   ► better than you because we're being more careful and thoughtful.

01:03:50 ◼   ► It's a great answer.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Great PR.

01:03:53 ◼   ► I know this is what I want, right?

01:03:55 ◼   ► Like I am intrigued and concerned in equal measures, sometimes more concerned about some

01:04:01 ◼   ► of these AI tools.

01:04:02 ◼   ► I would like the largest companies that are involved in this stuff to actually be really

01:04:10 ◼   ► thoughtful and not just fast.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Right, which I think is some of the problems we're falling into right now.

01:04:17 ◼   ► I think Microsoft and Google are just trying to be quick in some cases to be the best rather

01:04:23 ◼   ► than necessarily thinking about what is best for their users and for people at large.

01:04:28 ◼   ► And so I hope that Apple will continue down that train, especially because they're the

01:04:31 ◼   ► products that I use the most.

01:04:33 ◼   ► Like when it comes to me, that's what I want to see.

01:04:39 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN.

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01:06:47 ◼   ► It is time for some Ask Upgrade Questions to finish out today's show.

01:06:54 ◼   ► The first one comes from Ramon.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Ramon again!

01:07:00 ◼   ► Ramon is back!

01:07:01 ◼   ► Ramon, yes.

01:07:03 ◼   ► And says "Or is it a different one?

01:07:05 ◼   ► Maybe one was Ramon and one was Ramon?

01:07:07 ◼   ► Who could tell?"

01:07:08 ◼   ► You know what I'm- I don't know.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Anyway, last week's discussion of the rumors of changes to the upcoming health app made

01:07:15 ◼   ► me wonder.

01:07:16 ◼   ► So this is like the idea of more data, more processing, all that kind of stuff.

01:07:21 ◼   ► Should we be concerned about Apple gathering so much of our data to grow their services

01:07:26 ◼   ► business as we've been with Google in the past?

01:07:29 ◼   ► Is the on-device argument enough to give them a pass?

01:07:32 ◼   ► It's complicated.

01:07:35 ◼   ► This is complicated.

01:07:36 ◼   ► I would say I don't think Apple gathering data- I think that there is a functional difference

01:07:47 ◼   ► between Apple building a profile of us on our device that is with us at all times.

01:07:54 ◼   ► And it is complicated, right?

01:07:58 ◼   ► Because I feel like, first off, the on-device argument is mostly about we don't need to

01:08:05 ◼   ► pass all of your data up into our servers in order for us to know stuff about you.

01:08:09 ◼   ► And I think that that's good.

01:08:11 ◼   ► And I think that that's a separate thing.

01:08:13 ◼   ► There's the commitment to privacy.

01:08:15 ◼   ► The idea that we don't need to upload all your photos onto iCloud in order for us to

01:08:23 ◼   ► analyze them and tell you whether there are dogs in them or whatever, right?

01:08:27 ◼   ► Which is, I think, the right thing to do.

01:08:29 ◼   ► So I'm less concerned about like, "Ah, yes, but now you're looking at that data on device.

01:08:34 ◼   ► And also you've got on-device algorithms that are going to drive me into on-device

01:08:39 ◼   ► purchases of services."

01:08:41 ◼   ► I'm concerned about Apple pushing services on me that are really things that are just

01:08:49 ◼   ► software features.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And I went into a whole rant about this last week.

01:08:53 ◼   ► The personal data that is being analyzed on devices is not part of my concern about it,

01:08:59 ◼   ► I guess would be my answer.

01:09:00 ◼   ► I feel like maybe it's interesting, but I think this is a conflation of things that

01:09:04 ◼   ► I don't think need to be conflated.

01:09:06 ◼   ► Mike, what do you think?

01:09:07 ◼   ► I think it's complicated.

01:09:10 ◼   ► I think it becomes more complicated because of the phrasing of Ramon's question to include

01:09:16 ◼   ► Google in the discussion.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Because as soon as you invoke Google or Amazon when talking about this stuff, people's brains

01:09:24 ◼   ► go into a route, which is like, "They are going to take my information and sell it to

01:09:31 ◼   ► advertisers."

01:09:32 ◼   ► If you brought Meta into this conversation, right?

01:09:35 ◼   ► And a lot of people, I think, have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that some of this

01:09:39 ◼   ► stuff works.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Some people believe, and I think most of our listeners would know this, but some people

01:09:44 ◼   ► believe that Meta and Google just give your phone number out to companies, right?

01:09:48 ◼   ► But it's not like that.

01:09:49 ◼   ► That's not what they do because they want to build a business where you have to come

01:09:52 ◼   ► to them to buy access to demographics.

01:09:56 ◼   ► And so they don't share that information.

01:09:58 ◼   ► They keep it within Google or wherever.

01:10:01 ◼   ► Well, within Meta.

01:10:01 ◼   ► The only people that know that information are in theory the companies you're giving

01:10:05 ◼   ► your information to.

01:10:07 ◼   ► They're not spreading it out past that.

01:10:10 ◼   ► But they're using it to sell ads that other people buy, but they're keeping a company

01:10:17 ◼   ► confidential.

01:10:18 ◼   ► So access to you is being sold.

01:10:21 ◼   ► Your data...

01:10:22 ◼   ► I mean, there are places where there are data brokers and there are apps that are leaking

01:10:25 ◼   ► information and all that.

01:10:26 ◼   ► But generally with these companies like Google and Meta, it is the crown jewels, right?

01:10:32 ◼   ► It's that data.

01:10:33 ◼   ► They don't want to give it away.

01:10:35 ◼   ► They want to set a premium price for you to have access to the knowledge that they've

01:10:38 ◼   ► got about you.

01:10:39 ◼   ► So they're selling...

01:10:40 ◼   ► In the end, it can still make you feel just as gross.

01:10:44 ◼   ► But just let's be clear, they're not selling your data.

01:10:47 ◼   ► They're selling access to you.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Isn't that better?

01:10:51 ◼   ► It's not.

01:10:51 ◼   ► I think it's not.

01:10:52 ◼   ► It's a little better, but it's still different.

01:10:55 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:10:56 ◼   ► It still should probably give you pause, but it's not the same as saying, would you like

01:11:00 ◼   ► to know everything?

01:11:00 ◼   ► Google is not, I believe, saying, hey, I've got all this information I built about Jason.

01:11:05 ◼   ► I've got a dossier.

01:11:06 ◼   ► Would you like to buy it?

01:11:08 ◼   ► Instead, it's like, would you like to reach people who are like Jason?

01:11:11 ◼   ► Because I know who they are.

01:11:13 ◼   ► And then you have to pay to get access to them.

01:11:15 ◼   ► Personally, I am fine with that.

01:11:17 ◼   ► Like me, like I'm fine with that.

01:11:19 ◼   ► But like, I know, I know that different people have different feelings about it, but I feel

01:11:22 ◼   ► like if you really don't like that, don't use those services.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Like, it seems pretty simple to me.

01:11:25 ◼   ► Like if you really hate the meta do that, just don't use Facebook.

01:11:28 ◼   ► Like it's...

01:11:29 ◼   ► But anyway, that is not the conversation we're having.

01:11:31 ◼   ► But my point is like, it's not that different, really.

01:11:37 ◼   ► Like fundamentally, what's going on here?

01:11:39 ◼   ► Because what Apple is doing is saying, give us all of your information and we'll do what

01:11:46 ◼   ► we do with it.

01:11:48 ◼   ► And while we may not be selling it to other companies, we're still using the fact that

01:11:52 ◼   ► we have your information to sell you things, whether it's the next Apple Watch, like Fitness

01:11:57 ◼   ► Plus or like whatever.

01:11:58 ◼   ► So like realistically, it's just because Apple doesn't have the business model that meta

01:12:05 ◼   ► and Google do.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Let me see if I can draw a line here.

01:12:08 ◼   ► If Apple were, and I don't think Apple will do this, but if Apple were to say, we've analyzed

01:12:15 ◼   ► your health data on your device and oh boy, you really need to get healthier.

01:12:24 ◼   ► Sign up for our service where we let you get healthier.

01:12:26 ◼   ► Sign up for Fitness Plus or whatever.

01:12:28 ◼   ► - How far away are we from something like that happening realistically?

01:12:31 ◼   ► - Well, here's the thing.

01:12:32 ◼   ► I don't think Apple will cross that line.

01:12:34 ◼   ► So contrast that with Apple just says, hey, we've got a new service where we look at your

01:12:39 ◼   ► health data and it's wrapped into Fitness Plus or it's a different service.

01:12:43 ◼   ► 'Cause we don't know, this is just a rumor that we are talking about.

01:12:47 ◼   ► But this question of like, is it a service?

01:12:49 ◼   ► Is it part of Fitness Plus?

01:12:50 ◼   ► Is it something different?

01:12:51 ◼   ► I think that that is actually a pretty strong dividing line, which is, is Apple looking

01:12:56 ◼   ► at our data on our device and then using it to sell us things?

01:13:01 ◼   ► Or is Apple just selling us things because we are who we are?

01:13:04 ◼   ► And does it matter?

01:13:05 ◼   ► 'Cause then the next question is, does it matter that Apple's analyzing our personal

01:13:09 ◼   ► data for marketing purposes for its own products on our device?

01:13:11 ◼   ► It doesn't matter that it's on our device at that point if they're doing that analysis?

01:13:16 ◼   ► And what I would say is, I think this is the lesson learned by the CSAM scanning that was

01:13:24 ◼   ► gonna go on and that got canned, that was gonna go on when your device was about to

01:13:30 ◼   ► upload something to iCloud, where it was using its algorithm to scan your photo to see if

01:13:36 ◼   ► it was child sex abuse material before it got uploaded to iCloud.

01:13:41 ◼   ► And everybody was like, what do you mean there's a cop on my phone now?

01:13:44 ◼   ► And Apple's like, oh, yeah, backing off, right?

01:13:50 ◼   ► So that's what I would say here is, if Apple's just doing what it does, which annoys people

01:13:55 ◼   ► to no end, right?

01:13:56 ◼   ► Which is marketing its services to you.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Hey, we added some features to Fitness Plus, isn't that awesome?

01:14:01 ◼   ► You should sign up.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Or if you're already a Fitness Plus member, you should opt into this and we'll analyze

01:14:05 ◼   ► your data and give you tips.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And you say, yes, what they can't do, I think, is look at your data and then market it to

01:14:14 ◼   ► you, right?

01:14:15 ◼   ► Like, I think that's where I would draw the line is, I don't want you saying, hey, you

01:14:23 ◼   ► got a problem and we're the solution and we know it because we've seen your data on

01:14:28 ◼   ► this iPhone.

01:14:29 ◼   ► But like, they do this with App Store ads, though, right?

01:14:31 ◼   ► Yeah, the App Store is not your health data that's on your device.

01:14:34 ◼   ► The App Store is in the cloud.

01:14:36 ◼   ► Right, but it's still only a step.

01:14:38 ◼   ► Well, my point is, like, if Apple continue pushing into advertising, which it seems like

01:14:42 ◼   ► they are, right?

01:14:43 ◼   ► There has been like, they are just trend they're going into advertising further and further.

01:14:47 ◼   ► Where does it stop?

01:14:49 ◼   ► Like, my point is that I agree with you that these things will be bad.

01:14:53 ◼   ► I'm just not confident that they won't do them because they're a company we've just

01:14:59 ◼   ► spoken about their earnings report and the services push like, enough is sent as a line

01:15:05 ◼   ► and they'll be like, well, we're going to start recommending to customers.

01:15:10 ◼   ► We don't know who they are because it's all on device, but we're going to start making

01:15:14 ◼   ► these recommendations to people like, hey, why don't you check out this activity in

01:15:18 ◼   ► Fitness Plus?

01:15:18 ◼   ► So that's that's the question is what if App Store I mean, this is not the question that

01:15:23 ◼   ► Ramon asked, but let's go down that path, which is what if Apple's App Store ads stopped

01:15:29 ◼   ► being based on your cloud and iCloud and Apple ID data stuff that Apple has on its servers

01:15:37 ◼   ► that it knows about?

01:15:38 ◼   ► And what if it started being that all your ads in the App Store were based on on device

01:15:44 ◼   ► behavior, right?

01:15:45 ◼   ► Let's just walk down that path.

01:15:47 ◼   ► So it doesn't on your device, your device could theoretically know what's on a home

01:15:54 ◼   ► screen versus an app library.

01:15:55 ◼   ► How often do apps get launched?

01:15:58 ◼   ► What are those apps?

01:15:59 ◼   ► How often are you using particular kinds of apps?

01:16:02 ◼   ► And then all on device, it goes, oh, wow, Jason is playing Marvel Snap a lot on his

01:16:07 ◼   ► iPad.

01:16:08 ◼   ► What are other apps we could push at him that are like Marvel Snap?

01:16:11 ◼   ► Because he's playing that one a lot, which is probably more than Apple has off device,

01:16:17 ◼   ► right?

01:16:17 ◼   ► I mean, maybe not.

01:16:18 ◼   ► It depends on device metrics and all that, but they don't seem to be using that level

01:16:22 ◼   ► of data to sell me things up in the App Store.

01:16:24 ◼   ► So let's just go with it for a moment.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Like, does that cross the line where it's like, well, wait a second.

01:16:29 ◼   ► What apps?

01:16:30 ◼   ► I feel like this about TikTok.

01:16:31 ◼   ► Honestly, it's one of the things that repels me about TikTok is that if you pause and don't

01:16:37 ◼   ► do anything to indicate I like this video, but you watch a lot of it or watch some of

01:16:44 ◼   ► it, TikTok will be like, gotcha and log it.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And that's what it does.

01:16:49 ◼   ► It's watching your behavior, not your chosen.

01:16:53 ◼   ► I am going to say I like this, but literally like, yeah, you said you didn't like it, but

01:16:57 ◼   ► you watched it for 40 seconds.

01:16:58 ◼   ► So we know you liked it, right?

01:17:00 ◼   ► This is that kind of thing, which is my iPhone is now watching all of my behavior and you

01:17:07 ◼   ► are using it to build a profile all on device, all on device, but it's using that and they

01:17:12 ◼   ► build an algorithm so that now they can advertise to me more effectively.

01:17:16 ◼   ► I doubt they would do that.

01:17:21 ◼   ► I would have a problem with it, but I also see your point, which is, can you imagine

01:17:28 ◼   ► a scenario where Apple continues down this path while searching for advertising revenue

01:17:32 ◼   ► and services revenue?

01:17:33 ◼   ► I would say I can envision it, but I feel like we've already learned some lessons about

01:17:39 ◼   ► when people start to push back on what happens on device.

01:17:42 ◼   ► When on device goes from being a privacy feature to being a surveillance feature, that's when

01:17:49 ◼   ► it all falls apart.

01:17:50 ◼   ► And I'm not sure Apple really wants to go down that path because they use on device

01:17:54 ◼   ► as a shield to say, we do things on device and that means it's safer for you.

01:17:59 ◼   ► And if they muddy the waters by saying, no, no, actually on device is spying, which it

01:18:03 ◼   ► was sort of with the CSAM detection thing where, I mean, we talked about it last year.

01:18:08 ◼   ► It's a detailed argument.

01:18:08 ◼   ► It's very complex.

01:18:09 ◼   ► But the idea was people walked away thinking there's a cop on my phone, right?

01:18:13 ◼   ► The last thing you want is to say Apple is spying on me.

01:18:17 ◼   ► Everything I do on my phone, Apple is watching and turning it into a product all on device,

01:18:22 ◼   ► but still turning me into a product.

01:18:23 ◼   ► I think people would really resist that and I think Apple would probably not stoop to

01:18:28 ◼   ► that, but it's worth considering because the technology is there.

01:18:32 ◼   ► You could do it.

01:18:33 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:18:34 ◼   ► That situation that you've painted, if they did that, that would be terrible.

01:18:38 ◼   ► I just feel like sometimes some of their ad stuff and like the, um,

01:18:43 ◼   ► at tracking transparency stuff, like I had kind of a problem with that at the time.

01:18:47 ◼   ► I still continue to, because it hasn't really changed anything, like, except like it's,

01:18:53 ◼   ► it's made things maybe smaller, harder for smaller companies to try and do tracking.

01:18:59 ◼   ► I think it's made things harder for Facebook, but you're right.

01:19:01 ◼   ► It's also made things harder for anybody who is trying to use Facebook

01:19:04 ◼   ► to reach people with their advertising.

01:19:08 ◼   ► But like if Facebook's most recent earnings, they kind of seem to be like,

01:19:11 ◼   ► "Oh, it's good now."

01:19:12 ◼   ► It's like, oh, they've worked out their own thing, like whatever this is now to try and

01:19:18 ◼   ► work out the segmentation again.

01:19:20 ◼   ► My point is like Apple does a bunch of segmentation stuff.

01:19:22 ◼   ► They do all the same things, right?

01:19:24 ◼   ► Like they're not for like purchases and how they recommend ads.

01:19:27 ◼   ► And they like, they put you into a bucket and they look at that bucket and they sell

01:19:32 ◼   ► these buckets and all that kind of stuff.

01:19:34 ◼   ► So my concern is that, as you say, like the on-device stuff is a shield.

01:19:39 ◼   ► Hopefully they don't ever try and put ads behind that shield.

01:19:42 ◼   ► But I do feel like from a fundamental level, they are still using your data to sell things

01:19:52 ◼   ► to you.

01:19:53 ◼   ► They just sell different things.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:56 ◼   ► That they're not selling your information for necessarily people to advertise to you

01:20:01 ◼   ► unless it's apps.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:04 ◼   ► They're doing a similar kind of thing there.

01:20:06 ◼   ► And a lot of the information that you put that's on device is weirdly used as like a

01:20:11 ◼   ► lock-in to sell you more of their own products anyway.

01:20:14 ◼   ► So it's all kind of comes down to what companies you feel most comfortable with.

01:20:21 ◼   ► I feel most comfortable with Apple and giving them all of my information.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Like I am most comfortable with them.

01:20:26 ◼   ► But the idea that they are like fundamentally different from anyone else doesn't necessarily

01:20:34 ◼   ► pass with me because ultimately it's still the same or it's still just your data.

01:20:39 ◼   ► They're just using it to sell to you differently.

01:20:43 ◼   ► And then you maybe you're just happy with that different.

01:20:45 ◼   ► This is the, yeah, this taking a step back.

01:20:49 ◼   ► The point here is that Apple has data that it's using to profile you and sell things

01:21:01 ◼   ► like app store ads.

01:21:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:21:03 ◼   ► And while Apple's business is different, it's not that different.

01:21:07 ◼   ► Right.

01:21:08 ◼   ► It's the thing you and I have talked about a lot, which is like, there's a lot of reflexive

01:21:12 ◼   ► ooga booga scary boogeyman stuff about Google and Facebook and Amazon.

01:21:18 ◼   ► And like, and it's true, their business models do require a level of profiling and surveillance

01:21:24 ◼   ► that maybe Apple's business model doesn't.

01:21:26 ◼   ► But app tracking transparency in a way is just a self, although it's a privacy thing,

01:21:33 ◼   ► that's how it's sold.

01:21:34 ◼   ► What it really does is say, well, you should only collect data as a first party and Apple

01:21:41 ◼   ► is the first party.

01:21:42 ◼   ► And so Apple, because it runs the app store knows everything about your app store behavior.

01:21:47 ◼   ► And they use that to sell ads.

01:21:48 ◼   ► So although it's different than Google and Facebook, not that different.

01:21:55 ◼   ► It's not that different.

01:21:56 ◼   ► It's different, but it's not as different as you might think.

01:22:00 ◼   ► And you need to go in with your eyes open.

01:22:02 ◼   ► I guess I would just say, I think there's a point at which it goes from being, you know,

01:22:10 ◼   ► we're using your data that you do on our servers to do ads.

01:22:17 ◼   ► We're using your app store data to do ads in the app store is different.

01:22:23 ◼   ► It's way different from the idea that like we're watching all your behavior on your iPhone.

01:22:26 ◼   ► Let me use that for an array of different products.

01:22:28 ◼   ► And I don't think they'll get there, but I think it's also important to point out that

01:22:35 ◼   ► on device isn't necessarily a panacea that on device could potentially go from being

01:22:41 ◼   ► this shield of we don't want to process all your photos unless you upload them to iCloud.

01:22:47 ◼   ► You know, we don't want to see them and we're going to do things end to end, which means

01:22:50 ◼   ► that it's going to be has to be on your device and like, that's all good.

01:22:54 ◼   ► But you can flip that over and say, we've built stuff to spy on you for our profit and

01:23:00 ◼   ► put it on your device.

01:23:01 ◼   ► And that's the danger of that.

01:23:05 ◼   ► So it's something for all of us to watch.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Because as you mentioned a minute ago, they got very close to we built something to spy

01:23:13 ◼   ► on you so we didn't have to worry about it.

01:23:15 ◼   ► Right.

01:23:16 ◼   ► They got super close to that.

01:23:18 ◼   ► So it wasn't inconvenient for us.

01:23:20 ◼   ► We made it inconvenient for you.

01:23:21 ◼   ► And I should point out when we talk about app store, we should say, keep in mind, this

01:23:27 ◼   ► is literally the only app store you can use, right?

01:23:31 ◼   ► So they're using their power to say, we know everything about all software buying behavior

01:23:38 ◼   ► on our platform, everything.

01:23:41 ◼   ► And if you don't like that, it's not like photos where you can be like, no, I don't

01:23:45 ◼   ► want to use iCloud photo library.

01:23:46 ◼   ► And you still get those scanning features and it all still works because it's on device.

01:23:50 ◼   ► With the app store, you have no choice but to be in their system.

01:23:55 ◼   ► And it's a system where they're making money on ads.

01:23:58 ◼   ► So I mean, I think app store ads are offensive.

01:24:02 ◼   ► And this is one of the reasons I think they're offensive is because you can't really escape

01:24:06 ◼   ► it and they degrade the user experience and they know everything you've bought so that

01:24:10 ◼   ► they can customize those ads.

01:24:12 ◼   ► Including in app purchases.

01:24:13 ◼   ► So at the point where you as a person have become a customer of another company and are

01:24:19 ◼   ► buying things within their app, Apple knows that information and uses that information

01:24:25 ◼   ► to make more ads for you.

01:24:26 ◼   ► Right.

01:24:26 ◼   ► And doesn't consider you a customer of another company.

01:24:28 ◼   ► They consider that purchase an Apple purchase, right?

01:24:30 ◼   ► That's part of it too.

01:24:31 ◼   ► It's like, it's all still first party because an in-app purchase in somebody's app is

01:24:35 ◼   ► still a purchase through Apple.

01:24:37 ◼   ► So you're still Apple's customer as far as they're concerned.

01:24:39 ◼   ► And that's part of the story.

01:24:41 ◼   ► There's a lot here.

01:24:42 ◼   ► I don't entirely agree with Ramon's take, but I appreciate him having us explore this

01:24:48 ◼   ► because I think that there's a lot of really interesting potential here.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:51 ◼   ► I think Ramon is just concerned, right?

01:24:53 ◼   ► And I get that concern because I think about it a lot.

01:24:56 ◼   ► Right.

01:24:57 ◼   ► On device, I love the, does the on device argument give them a pass?

01:25:01 ◼   ► And I think the answer is no, that on device can be used for good or evil, right?

01:25:07 ◼   ► And that's something that we all need to watch.

01:25:09 ◼   ► And I think, again, I think maybe Apple learned that lesson in the reaction to the CSAM scanning.

01:25:14 ◼   ► I think maybe Apple realized there are some things that if you do it on device, it blows

01:25:21 ◼   ► their whole on device argument and they need to not do that.

01:25:24 ◼   ► But you never say never, you know, you get a vice president somewhere who's being given

01:25:29 ◼   ► an incentive to maximize revenue and they have enough pull to get a feature installed

01:25:33 ◼   ► that does something like never say never.

01:25:36 ◼   ► But I'm skeptical that they'll go down that path because I feel like maybe they learned

01:25:40 ◼   ► a valuable lesson from this.

01:25:42 ◼   ► But it doesn't change their business model in other places.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:46 ◼   ► Chris asks, do you think Apple's headset will have a cellular connection or will it just

01:25:52 ◼   ► be on wifi?

01:25:54 ◼   ► This one, wifi.

01:25:55 ◼   ► Long term cellular, right?

01:25:57 ◼   ► Because long term you're going to want to do mixed reality and you're going to be out

01:26:00 ◼   ► there, but in this one, it's just going to be wifi, right?

01:26:02 ◼   ► Like this is an inside thing.

01:26:04 ◼   ► And I think Apple considers inside spaces, wifi spaces.

01:26:07 ◼   ► If you're in the hotel, you might have to log in with your browser in VR, put in your

01:26:12 ◼   ► room number, whatever.

01:26:13 ◼   ► But like, I think in the long run, obviously it's going to have to be cellular, but not

01:26:19 ◼   ► in the short run.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Hmm. Now you have one of those, like, you know, I was thinking you're in hotels and

01:26:24 ◼   ► you had that like pop-up thing is put your room number in massive 70 foot, right in your

01:26:29 ◼   ► view.

01:26:29 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

01:26:30 ◼   ► You got to climb up onto the field, smash the button, type it in.

01:26:35 ◼   ► Uh huh.

01:26:36 ◼   ► Yep.

01:26:37 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on this show, as you can tell,

01:26:43 ◼   ► they could be very different.

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01:27:48 ◼   ► I've got to say, I'm coming around.

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01:27:52 ◼   ► I really like the clips.

01:27:54 ◼   ► Clips are good.

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01:27:56 ◼   ► Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus.

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01:28:03 ◼   ► But most of all, thank you for listening and we'll be back next time.

01:28:06 ◼   ► Until then, take good by Jason's now.

01:28:09 ◼   ► Everybody enjoy your pizza.