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Connected

481: The 2023 Annies

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:07   Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 481.

00:00:13   It is made possible by our sponsors, MasterClass and Elettrik.

00:00:17   My name is Stephen Hackett and I have the pleasure of being joined by Mr. Mike Hurley.

00:00:20   Hello! And I have the pleasure of being joined on this very special episode by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:26   We're back together! Hi Federico! We did it!

00:00:29   Hello and welcome to the 10th annual Upgradies. No, wait, no.

00:00:34   Wait, what? Wait, what? No, no.

00:00:36   That is a different show. But as a huge fan of Upgradies, you gotta go listen to the Upgradies.

00:00:42   I just wanted to say this up front.

00:00:44   #JusticeForConnected.

00:00:46   Yeah, well, here's the thing, Stephen. Would you reward yourself? Would you do that?

00:00:51   We don't need justice.

00:00:52   But we just need one more to be a lifetime achievement winner.

00:00:55   I could say Stephen with the Obama giving himself a medal.

00:01:01   Somebody please make it.

00:01:04   Discord, you have your first assignment.

00:01:08   It's a complicated thing, right? Like, it's kind of down to Jason. I'm not giving myself an award.

00:01:13   The honor is to be nominated, you know?

00:01:16   Maybe.

00:01:17   It's the Annie's today!

00:01:18   It's the Annie's. So if you are not familiar with this, this is where we take our year's worth of news,

00:01:26   and we rank it on the tichi scale.

00:01:29   Now, if you're not familiar with this, this is an extremely...

00:01:33   Can I just stop you for a second? Nothing encapsulates this show more than two levels of "if you're not familiar with this."

00:01:41   Yes.

00:01:42   You said "if you're not familiar with this, it's this. If you're not familiar..."

00:01:45   It's like a flowchart of familiarity.

00:01:48   So the tichi scale is an internationally recognized scientific system of measurement.

00:01:53   It is ISO certified.

00:01:56   ISO 69420, I believe is the filing number.

00:01:59   Yep, exactly.

00:02:00   Nice.

00:02:01   Federico, could you name the different stops along this graph?

00:02:07   Sure enough. The tichi scale starts from the left side with the nightmare level scenario.

00:02:15   This is something that is extremely bad. It's a nightmare.

00:02:19   We then go up to inferior minus, which is halfway through to inferior, which is the third step in the tichi scale.

00:02:27   We then strike the middle of the scale with two more stops.

00:02:32   We have decent and normal.

00:02:35   And you don't really want to be either of them, but if you really have to, I would actually prefer decent,

00:02:41   because it means you've done something slightly bad, but it's still within the realm of normalcy,

00:02:47   but at least you got that slightly bad thing going for you.

00:02:51   Then we have good.

00:02:53   We move on to good plus.

00:02:56   And then finally, the last positive stop, best I love you.

00:03:01   This is when you've done something truly exceptional that deserves the love of the connected program.

00:03:08   Best I love you.

00:03:09   Best I love you. And a big thank you to Kate who illustrated this years and years ago, and it continues to serve us all very well.

00:03:19   And in fact, the nightmare stop is represented by a bat, which is really not an animal I appreciate personally.

00:03:32   It's a nightmare animal.

00:03:33   It's a nightmare animal.

00:03:35   Yeah. So that being said, usually the months they start in January, we're not doing any follow up today.

00:03:43   No time for that.

00:03:44   We don't have time for follow up.

00:03:46   Why don't we just go ahead and start with the first day with the first month of the what is it that we use the Gregorian calendar?

00:03:54   Is that what we use?

00:03:55   The connected calendar.

00:03:56   Calendars are weird, man.

00:03:58   Did you know that there's like a full like 10 or 14?

00:04:01   I never remember. Like there's 14 days missing from like a thousand years ago or something when the current calendar was invented.

00:04:11   So I'm sure that she'd like Gray know he can find his missing way.

00:04:14   Somebody in the discord will know what I'm talking about.

00:04:17   There is like four, I believe 14 days missing in a month.

00:04:20   If you if you're in fact, fun fact, if you open the Apple calendar app on your phone and you scroll back enough,

00:04:27   I believe Kate said in this quarter to the seventeen hundreds, you will find this missing days that I'm talking about.

00:04:33   They are represented in the Apple calendar as well.

00:04:36   Federico, do you remember when you said that we don't have time for anything else today?

00:04:41   So you started talking about my missing days in the seventeen hundreds.

00:04:45   It's seventeen seventeen fifty two.

00:04:48   Yes. Yeah.

00:04:49   We'll have a link in the show notes if you want to read more.

00:04:52   Thank you. Thank you.

00:04:53   I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

00:04:55   It's not not a genius.

00:04:57   But here we are.

00:04:59   January. I'm going to I'm going to kick us off.

00:05:01   And Apple started the year with a bang.

00:05:04   We got the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips.

00:05:08   This was about six or seven months after we got the M2 at WBC.

00:05:13   And of course, the good MacBook Air.

00:05:15   But with the M2 Pro M2 Max, we got updated 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros.

00:05:21   And the M2 Pro notably went into the Mac mini as well, killing off that space gray Intel Mac Mini finally.

00:05:28   So that was gone. And this is the machine that I use.

00:05:32   I have an M2 for M2 Pro 14 inch MacBook Pro and it's a fantastic computer.

00:05:37   I'm still very happy with it. This is a short lived generation.

00:05:41   If we'll get later in the show, you'll learn that Apple has already done the M3 Pro and M3 Max less than like like 10 months later.

00:05:49   So very strange in my memory that this was January.

00:05:53   This is not something that I would have been able to tell you happened in January of 2023.

00:05:58   Yeah, I thought it was going to be WBC. I guess that was the MacBook Air, though.

00:06:02   I just thought this was like 2022, you know, so that's where my brain was.

00:06:08   One day later, I was going to read the headline.

00:06:11   Apple introduces the new HomePod with breakthrough sound and intelligence.

00:06:16   So HomePod 2 looks like HomePod 1, 6 drivers, I think instead of 8.

00:06:21   And it moved to the S7 chip from the Apple Watch as opposed to the A8, which I believe was in the original HomePod.

00:06:28   Looks the same. Sounds basically the same. I think has a slightly updated that top kind of screen, but not a screen matches the HomePod mini now.

00:06:37   I don't have any of these. I'm full in on the HomePod mini lifestyle, but HomePod 2 there.

00:06:42   $299. Still too expensive.

00:06:45   Hilarious. Just a hilarious thing.

00:06:48   It's kind of sad. We also saw the ending of Dark Sky.

00:06:53   Apple purchased Dark Sky back in March of 2020. I don't think anything else happened that month, but they kept it around.

00:07:01   Oh no.

00:07:02   Kept it around for a while.

00:07:04   And next time Apple buys a weather app, look out, I guess is what I'm saying.

00:07:08   No! Please don't.

00:07:11   So this was shutting down the Dark Sky application.

00:07:15   The API would kind of linger on until the end of March with WeatherKit replacing it, of course.

00:07:21   But I know a lot of people who were using the Dark Sky app right until the end and some of them are still salty about it.

00:07:27   But Apple said it was going to do this. It said it well in advance. Like, I think they communicated it all pretty well.

00:07:33   Yeah.

00:07:34   We also got iOS 16.3, which brought advanced data protection. So this is opt-in and you get end-to-end encryption for almost all of your data in iCloud.

00:07:48   If you don't have this, some of your stuff is just encrypted in transit and Apple sells access to it on their server.

00:07:54   So if the government comes calling, they can let the government in, I guess.

00:07:59   The biggest one being messages, right?

00:08:01   Yes.

00:08:02   This is the thing where like messages were encrypted end-to-end if you didn't have messages in the cloud turned on.

00:08:08   But who would not turn that on if you have more than one Apple device? So everyone turned it on.

00:08:12   And they were in your backups.

00:08:13   And it meant because therefore they were in the back. That's why, because then it would go into the backup, I think, if you turn that on.

00:08:19   But no, because the backups are end-to-end encrypted. The issue was messages in the cloud is what made it like this.

00:08:28   Do you two both have this turned on?

00:08:30   I do not.

00:08:31   Okay, so we can't trust Federico with messages. Stephen, do you have it turned on?

00:08:35   I do.

00:08:36   Okay, so me and you can have secret conversations, but we can't have them with Federico because the government might find them.

00:08:41   It's fine. You can send me your pictures.

00:08:44   This is no judgement. Is there a reason Federico that you haven't done this or have you just not done it?

00:08:48   I always fear that if I do either this or sign up for the Apple One bundle, it's going to ruin my Apple ID inevitably.

00:09:00   Right, because you have the weird US Apple ID thing, right?

00:09:03   That's fair. And it does come with ramifications for unlocking your account if you get locked out, which you got to contend with too.

00:09:12   But I think that their process is good, right? With like setting the recovery contacts and like doing the whole right.

00:09:18   I think Apple take every step possible to try and make sure you can protect your account better than I've ever had anyone do this kind of thing with me before.

00:09:27   Like really making you do it. And it's like a whole pain, right? Just like manually type the thing in.

00:09:32   Yeah.

00:09:33   But I think they do a good job with it.

00:09:35   Yeah.

00:09:36   And I'm happy now because I want my messages to be encrypted. And there you go.

00:09:40   Yeah. And actually clarify, 16.3 made this worldwide. It was actually the end of 2022 with Iowa 16.2 that this started just in the US.

00:09:50   So it is now worldwide.

00:09:52   Just a clarification, Zach has said that you were right, Stephen, that it was the backups that were the problem. My apologies for correcting you incorrectly.

00:10:00   Also, Zach has created the me with the Obama hands, giving myself an award. And it's...

00:10:05   Perfect.

00:10:06   Incredible. Will you put that in the show notes or something so people can...

00:10:09   I will do that.

00:10:10   Thank you.

00:10:11   The last thing I want to bring your attention to in January, we got to kind of end on a down note. This is the end of third party Twitter apps.

00:10:21   So Elon Musk and his boys shut down the API and Ivory for Macedon was reborn out of the ashes of that, which is fantastic.

00:10:32   Ivory is my Macedon client of choice. But a sad day if you were using tweet bot or Twitter or something else for a long time. Those are dead and gone.

00:10:43   Can I be the first to posit this on the scale?

00:10:48   Yes.

00:10:49   I think, Stephen, the point that you've made, I think this was a good thing that Twitter clients were killed because it got more people away from Twitter and moved them to Macedon.

00:10:59   Interesting, Zach. I agree.

00:11:01   I think a year later, like 12 months later, this was good. This was good that this happened. Like, because our community got away mostly from Twitter, which I think has proved to be beneficial.

00:11:13   And so was bad at the time. Good in hindsight, which I guess is how we judge it, right? We judge it looking at the month and how we feel about it now.

00:11:22   So I would call this a good month. I think the HomePod 2 ruined it. But that's a stupid thing.

00:11:30   Yeah, I could go for good, I think.

00:11:33   What do you think, Stephen?

00:11:35   Yeah, I think good is where I land. I get what you're saying about the Twitter clients, but also it's sad and it really harmed a lot of businesses and developers we know. So I can't go higher, but I will give it good.

00:11:49   Yeah, I think, though, that by and large, the community helped those businesses out, right? And then they got to make their own decisions.

00:11:56   Obviously, I think Tapbot is in a much better situation than it was before. And ICON Factory decided to take a break, which also might be good for them. You know what I mean?

00:12:04   But I see what you're saying, but I think at large, I think it was better. Like, I think at large, the result of it was good, even if there might be. As always, some pockets of pain, but you have to try and look at the bigger picture.

00:12:18   Yeah.

00:12:19   All right, it's my turn to talk about February. In February, Apple named the, I think, finally named Carole Surface as Chief People Officer, making this is close to, but not exactly like Doug Bowser at Nintendo.

00:12:35   That's the all-time great, right?

00:12:38   If Carole's name was Carole Macintosh, that would have been better. But Carole is Carole Surface.

00:12:43   Carole iPad, you know, that's an old Carole iPad name.

00:12:46   Fun fact, this is the best Surface that came out in 2023.

00:12:51   Apple names best Surface of the year, Carole Surface as Chief People Officer, making Deirdre O'Brien full-time as Head of Retail, because O'Brien was managing both of those roles for a while.

00:13:05   Because I think Deirdre was HR, right? So people. Then when Angela Ahrendts left, she took retail, and now Deirdre moved full to retail and Carole Surface came in as Chief People Officer.

00:13:16   Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave us the best quote of the year when talking about Bing and its competition with Google, where Stone Cold Killer, Satya Nadella said,

00:13:27   "I hope that with our innovation, they will definitely want to come out and show that they can dance. And I want people to know that we made them dance, and I think that'll be a great day."

00:13:36   Yeah, make them dance.

00:13:38   And I think he was right, ultimately. I don't know where history is going to land, the LLMs with Microsoft and Google, etc, etc.

00:13:46   But Bard was rushed out because it was bad when it started, and I think that was purely because of what Microsoft was doing. So he brought them to the dance.

00:13:55   And also during this time on Connected, we were getting people to send us pictures of their thighs.

00:14:00   Oh yeah.

00:14:01   And measuring them with rulers.

00:14:03   I miss those days.

00:14:04   Simpler times back in February.

00:14:07   Yeah, yeah. If only for the thigh. No, I mean, this is a normal.

00:14:15   This is very normal. I mean, that just feels very normal. There was some news and we did something weird on the show. This feels like a normal month to me.

00:14:22   Straight up normal.

00:14:23   Normal month. All right, we now move on to March. Huge news, guys. We got the yellow iPhone 14 and 14 Plus.

00:14:33   Have you ever seen a yellow iPhone in the wild?

00:14:36   No.

00:14:37   I'm not sure I have either.

00:14:38   Well, how would you know? Everybody just has cases, you know what I mean?

00:14:42   That's true.

00:14:43   This was good, if anything, just to try and watch Jason do something, you know, like he got sent these and then he tried to make content out of it and he just did a stream where he just showed a bunch of yellow things, which was just great.

00:14:57   So if that for anything, Jason's yellow content made this fun experience for me.

00:15:03   Yeah. And later in the year, much more recently, Marco used it to compare the yellow on his new Rivian, which was also good.

00:15:11   So the yellow iPhone is not so much a phone as it is a measuring stick for color.

00:15:16   And content. And just content. It's just good for content.

00:15:20   We also finally saw the launch of Apple Music classical only on the iPhone. I believe the app later came to the iPad.

00:15:28   I don't think there's an Android version yet, but Apple Music classical is the sort of Apple Music spinoff based off of the acquisition of Primephonic, the classical music streaming service from a few years back.

00:15:43   This is a dedicated experience for classical music listeners.

00:15:48   You now have this curated sort of UI for composers, orchestras, you know, different way to browse classical music than the limitations of the standard Apple Music experience.

00:16:05   Yeah. I mean, this is nice that Apple is diversifying Apple Music for the classical music experience.

00:16:12   I think I've played around with it for like five minutes because I don't listen to classical music.

00:16:18   But there are elements of it, I think, that I wouldn't mind seeing in the Apple Music vanilla experience.

00:16:27   Like better search, more curation, you know, different way to browse.

00:16:31   Nice fonts.

00:16:32   Nice fonts. And you can see some of that like attention to metadata coming to Apple Music with their new credits functionality in Apple Music.

00:16:42   But it pales in comparison to the kind of metadata that you have in Apple Music classical.

00:16:47   Also the great artwork of composers, you know, like you kidding me right now? It's a bunch of paintings? Come on.

00:16:53   Apple Pay Later.

00:16:56   Let's just clarify real quick. It is on Android.

00:16:58   It is on Android now. Nice.

00:17:00   Apple introduced Apple Pay Later. I have no idea what this is because I don't get any of these Apple Pay features in it.

00:17:07   This is where you can split up a purchase into multiple installments.

00:17:10   OK.

00:17:11   Natively inside of Apple Pay.

00:17:12   Nice. Nice. Do either of you use it?

00:17:15   Don't have it.

00:17:16   I've never tried it.

00:17:18   And I try not to use these things. I wouldn't want to do this.

00:17:23   Because it's like if I can't afford it, I don't want to buy it.

00:17:27   Your mileage may vary.

00:17:29   Yeah. We start, well, first we got the announcement of WWDC was announced for June 5th in March.

00:17:40   Mike and I were ready that day with plane tickets. We had already hotel reservations good to go.

00:17:48   We were prepared. And of course, this is when our season of excitement officially started.

00:17:56   Yeah.

00:17:57   We knew that Apple, there were rumors if you roll back the clock, there were rumors that Apple was going to introduce the headset before WWDC.

00:18:05   And then it became apparent that Apple was not going to announce the then rumored Apple headset before June.

00:18:12   And so with the confirmation of WWDC, we knew that then that event was going to be the Apple headset announcement.

00:18:23   And yeah, I remember that day and you know, spent when WWDC was announced, spending a lot of money on flights.

00:18:30   But it was better than the year before. We had way less numbers.

00:18:33   I believe this date was announced as we were getting ready to record the show. We had to come back an hour later.

00:18:39   Oh my God. Yes. Yeah. I think there is a start of that show, right? Where it's like we actually started recording and then we stopped.

00:18:47   Yeah, that was funny.

00:18:49   Yeah. We said, nope, WWDC announced. Bye.

00:18:51   And then it's like an hour and a half later and we came back. That was a busy, busy day.

00:18:57   We started getting reports that the iPhone 15 Pro would feature a multi-use action button inspired by the Apple Watch Ultra instead of a physical mute switch.

00:19:09   Those reports would turn out to be correct. We did get an action button in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.

00:19:16   And it's it's it is alongside, I would say, the 5X lens on the Pro Max. It is my favorite feature of the new phones.

00:19:24   How are you guys liking the action button now? Do you still use it? Do you like it?

00:19:29   I use it multiple times a day, every day.

00:19:31   Nice.

00:19:32   And it is to add tasks to Todoist and you. I really, really value that. I think that's like the best thing to do for this. So I love it.

00:19:41   Same. Use it a bunch to get things into Todoist. It's best as a quick capture device. And I'm glad I have it.

00:19:48   It's a great feature. More programmable buttons. Apple, please. Thank you.

00:19:53   And lastly, you know, another huge announcement. Ted Lasso merch by Nike.

00:20:01   I actually saw this, this t-shirts and the sweater at the Apple store at the visitor center at Apple Park.

00:20:11   Bunch of people buying AFC Richmond t-shirts. Obviously, season three of Ted Lasso was ongoing at the time.

00:20:19   The final season of Ted Lasso. And yeah, Apple worked with Nike to release this official merch and looks nice.

00:20:27   I didn't get the t-shirt.

00:20:28   I have the sweatshirt and I love it.

00:20:29   Nice. Nice. And that about wraps up March. I don't know. Normal. I would say normal.

00:20:38   I would say the WWDC date would push it above normal.

00:20:42   I could go with good.

00:20:43   Good. But no more than good.

00:20:45   No more than good because it was like fine. But like getting that date is just always a relief.

00:20:50   Yeah. Okay. Now we'll go with good. Congratulations March for getting a good grid.

00:20:55   Good work March. Redeem yourself.

00:20:57   Well done. Well done March.

00:20:59   This episode of Connected is brought to you by Masterclass. When you learn something new, it feels good.

00:21:06   Mike, tell me about some practical advice you've learned via Masterclass.

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00:23:40   April!

00:23:42   April, of course, marks Earth Day and Apple always likes to talk about their environmental work leading up to that.

00:23:51   They had a pair of stories in April. One was recapping their goal to make every product carbon neutral by 2030.

00:24:02   We learned a lot more about this in the September event with the phones and watches, but Apple kind of laid this vision out again.

00:24:09   And I think it's one of the first times they've branded it like Apple 2030. They're making it a bigger deal talking about it more.

00:24:16   And one of the details that came out in this was by 2025, the company expects to use 100% recycled cobalt in all of its batteries.

00:24:25   So instead of mining this from the earth, which is terrible for the environment and terrible for people who have to do it,

00:24:31   using this recycled material will put a lot of that out of the picture, which is great.

00:24:38   It's funny. It's funny to see that in March because I feel like I didn't know about it when I heard about it in June.

00:24:45   So I must not have been paying attention to this.

00:24:48   Yeah, well, it was April and September, so you definitely weren't.

00:24:51   You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? I didn't know about it in March or June, but when they announced it here, it didn't stick in my mind like when they did the video in the iPhone event.

00:25:01   Yeah, skits work. You remember them.

00:25:03   Yeah, I guess so. But also they really hammered home the carbon neutral in that presentation.

00:25:08   And I think by being able to actually show products that were carbon neutral rather than just talking about wanting to do it, it made much more of an impact.

00:25:18   April also began a ongoing battle between Jason Snell and General Motors.

00:25:25   It was reported that GM had decided that future EVs would drop CarPlay and Android Auto using GM's own infotainment system built atop Android Automotive, which is like a low level OS for cars different from Android Auto.

00:25:42   You can run CarPlay and Android Auto on cars that do this. A bunch of cars are now using Android Automotive as kind of the base layer.

00:25:49   GM has decided not to. They want to monetize their customers.

00:25:53   This also started an ongoing story where people from Apple end up at GM. Some have already left GM.

00:26:00   Like it's just been a real revolving door over there. And I think this continues to be a mistake and the GM will continue to pay for it.

00:26:08   I mean, even just this week, I was talking to a friend about a new Cadillac SUV, electric SUV that they unveiled.

00:26:16   He was like, no CarPlay. Like it's off the table. And I think a lot of people feel that way.

00:26:20   I hope GM gets the picture. April also started the four month long Automation April. I was kidding. It wasn't that long this year.

00:26:30   The amazing series of events and stories over, of course, at Mac stories. Automation April showed up on Mastodon this year,

00:26:38   which was a great way to follow along kind of all in one place with giveaways and winners and contests, the whole thing. Federico, you all did a great job with that.

00:26:46   No, thank you. Thank you. It's always fun to always fun to fun to put this together every year and to see what people can build with shortcuts.

00:26:55   Hopefully we'll eventually get some bigger shortcuts updates from Apple compared to what we got in iOS and iOS 17.

00:27:03   I don't know what we can come up with for automation April next year, but we'll see.

00:27:09   You also published in April S GPT a shortcut to connect chat GPT to a bunch of native features in iOS and iPad OS.

00:27:17   You've done so much shortcut work. You just published a story today actually about shortcuts and good links.

00:27:22   But this was the one I was like, oh, oh, Federico is like a he's like a real developer.

00:27:28   You know, he's he's doing this thing with these APIs, bringing in content and suggestions and all this stuff from iOS and intermixing it with what chat GPT could do.

00:27:40   Is it something that you're still using on a regular basis? Like what's kind of the status of S GPT for you personally?

00:27:45   This is the kind of shortcut that really went mainstream in a way that I was not expecting. It was big.

00:27:52   It was big for and I still get requests from people like every single week. But the problem is I was hoping that iOS and iPad OS 17 were introduced new like system integrations for me to truly take advantage of S GPT in new ways.

00:28:07   And the reason why I haven't resumed working on it yet is because there are more things that I want to do, but I am currently limited by shortcuts so much.

00:28:18   And so does it even make sense like the amount of integrations that I that I can build haven't changed compared to last year.

00:28:29   So I should probably go in and make sure that S GPT is still working with the latest versions of chat GPT and the API.

00:28:37   But all the things that I wanted to do, like imagine if you could get S GPT to rearrange windows for you.

00:28:42   Nope, cannot do that on the iPad. Like I was hoping that I could build some nice upgrades to S GPT after WWDC and I cannot because Apple didn't really add any new system integrations to shortcuts that I can integrate with S GPT.

00:29:03   So that's why it's on pause at the moment, because it doesn't make sense for me to go in there and do what? There's nothing else that I can do right now.

00:29:11   You weren't the only one busy in April with content. I was in a car accident to test crash detection.

00:29:18   We appreciate your sacrifice.

00:29:20   I can report back that it works.

00:29:22   Jason's testing yellow phones. Stephen's flipping a truck, you know.

00:29:27   Crashing your car. Yeah.

00:29:28   Everyone's everyone's doing what they can.

00:29:31   That's right. It's all hands on deck. The relay FM extended universe.

00:29:35   Uh huh.

00:29:37   That was a time.

00:29:39   That was that was a terrible week.

00:29:41   OK. We also got news that Steve Jobs long time media boss Katie Cotton had passed away on April 6th.

00:29:53   She was one of those people that if you weren't in this racket, you may not have known who she was or, you know, interacted with her.

00:30:01   But if you've followed if you followed along Apple News and press coverage during the Steve Jobs time, her work was very familiar to you.

00:30:11   She seemed extremely loyal to Jobs and and a pretty tough person to to contend with if you had a disagreement,

00:30:20   but was behind the scenes for really some of the biggest announcements in the Jobs kind of 2.0 era and quite a loss, I'm sure, for people who knew her.

00:30:30   Yeah. It's like so much of the way that Apple communicates like the what seems like sometimes weird, sometimes very particularly planned stuff and secrecy.

00:30:40   Like this all seemed to come from Katie Cotton, from what how I understand it.

00:30:46   I never had any interaction with her, but we all know people that did. And it seems like her work was incredibly influential.

00:30:55   And she set a legacy.

00:30:57   Speaking of legacy, we got the Make Something Wonderful book, a collection of speeches and interviews and correspondence and more.

00:31:06   Some of it public, some of it not public before.

00:31:09   This came from the Steve Jobs archive, which is a collaboration between Lorraine Powell Jobs, Johnny Ive, other people who were close to Steve.

00:31:21   This came out in a website form, which is really incredible. Like I'm scrolling through it now. Like the website is so good.

00:31:29   It was also the Apple books and these books were given to Disney and Apple employees.

00:31:37   I know Mike's got a copy. I have a copy as well. It's it's really nice.

00:31:42   And, you know, I'm not one to want to idolize Steve Jobs.

00:31:46   He was definitely not a perfect person, but flipping through these pages, you can't help but but miss him.

00:31:53   It's no perfect person, Stephen.

00:31:55   It's true. But was April the perfect month?

00:31:58   No, actually, I'm going to say like that was really bad when Stephen had his car accident.

00:32:09   That was not good. I would genuinely I would that on its own nightmare.

00:32:15   But that's how I feel. I don't know how you two feel.

00:32:18   So obviously, Stephen is fine.

00:32:22   I would say inferior minus.

00:32:27   Oh, no, no, no. I would say inferior minus. It is like this.

00:32:31   It could have been worse.

00:32:33   Could it could exactly. It could have been worse.

00:32:36   Not a good month could have been worse.

00:32:39   I would say inferior minus. This is where we were almost a nightmare scenario, but it could have been worse.

00:32:48   So we move on to May now.

00:32:50   Apple and Google partner every time they've done this has been a success on an industry specification to address unwanted tracking.

00:32:58   So this is to set some standards and practices for AirTags and AirTag like devices.

00:33:05   This is like to build stuff into the operating system about the way that these devices are triggered and how they are triggered when there's people around you.

00:33:16   And also in ways to alert users in the event of unwanted tracking and all this kind of stuff.

00:33:23   Apple was pushed this forward on their own of AirTags, but they also worked with Google to set these practices.

00:33:30   I think in an attempt to try and calm some of the groups that were very upset with them because of some terrible things that had happened.

00:33:37   And so this was an example of them trying to like show that they were doing as much as they could possibly do while still continuing to produce AirTags.

00:33:47   Hell froze over and Final Cut and Logic came to the iPad.

00:33:51   They said it would never happen. Well, they said it would happen. Then they lost faith and said it would never happen.

00:33:57   And then out of the literally out of the blue, it happened. They just arrived where really they could have appeared a month later, but they decided to just put them out.

00:34:07   WWDC was pretty packed after all. So they put them out.

00:34:10   And you know, as is the way with some of these things, sometimes the promise of it when the news hits is very exciting.

00:34:17   And then you start digging into it and it doesn't always live up to your expectations.

00:34:22   I think we wanted a little bit more from Logic for our purposes, but they focused it around music, which I think is very fair to do.

00:34:29   But I've heard increasingly good things about Final Cut on the iPad.

00:34:34   And there are people that are that are using it to produce videos and using it as a companion for producing videos.

00:34:40   So that seems like the winner of the two.

00:34:43   And also, like as is standard for Accessibility Awareness Day.

00:34:48   Is it Accessibility Awareness Day? Because there are a couple of different days, right? I think it's Accessibility Awareness Day.

00:34:54   Apple took the opportunity to show off.

00:34:58   Is it G L A A D? Global?

00:35:03   Was it G A A D? Global Accessibility Awareness Day? Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

00:35:09   Apple took the opportunity to preview live speech, personal voice and a few other features.

00:35:14   So one of the big ones. Yeah, Global Accessibility Awareness Day. G A A D.

00:35:20   They showed off assistive access. This is the thing that created a simplified operating system UI for iOS.

00:35:27   For people who need that kind of thing, which was really cool.

00:35:32   And so it would allow for those with cognitive disabilities to be able to maybe more easily with less distractions, operate the iPhone.

00:35:40   It had live speech captions for videos and FaceTime.

00:35:44   So the device on device would create a selection of captions for video that's appearing.

00:35:50   Personal voice, where for those at risk of losing their voices, they could go through a training with the device,

00:35:57   which would ask you to say a bunch of stuff and it would record you and then overnight would generate a version of your voice that could be used with speech to text.

00:36:09   And also point and speak in the magnifier app. So you could point your iPhone with the magnifier app open a button, for example,

00:36:17   and it would be able to read the button to you what it says. Very cool.

00:36:21   Apple Tysons Corner reopens in Virginia. This is the first ever Apple store.

00:36:26   The key thing other than the store actually looking beautiful with refresh design language, which Apple is now rolled out to a couple of other stores.

00:36:35   It includes the return of the genius bar as a thing inside of the store with seats where you can go and know where to get help,

00:36:45   rather than just floating around where the cases are and hoping somebody will help you at a random table.

00:36:50   Yeah, I'm I'm super glad of that. I mean, the store here in Memphis was one of the first to get the design before this,

00:36:58   like the avenues and the grove, right? You just kind of sit around and like they put they type in what you're wearing and they come look for you.

00:37:04   That is confusing. And I think years in. I hate that as a way to think years in is still messy.

00:37:11   And so I'm glad this is back. And hopefully they continue to as they renovate the stores, bring back the genius bar.

00:37:17   I once was in an Apple store and I took my jacket off and waited for 45 minutes.

00:37:21   Yeah. Who's this guy? We don't know. How dare I take my jacket? How dare you, sir?

00:37:26   Beats Studio Buds Plus came out and they had a clear plastic option and we all got excited. It's good. You have them, right?

00:37:35   Oh, yeah. Yes. These are good. They look fantastic. Normal? Final cut and logic to the... I was going to say good.

00:37:46   Good. Or good plus. Well, you had the Beats Studio Buds Plus. It's right there in the name.

00:37:55   That's a very good point. But final cut and logic on the iPad. Okay, good. All right.

00:38:01   But they didn't give us what we wanted still. We wanted like full, big, fully featured apps.

00:38:07   And we got good versions of those things. Not like good plus versions.

00:38:13   Someone would say the iPad has baby apps. So some people say that. Some people would say that.

00:38:21   Okay, so we can go for good. We now get to the biggest and most important month of the year, June, or as we call it in Italy, "Junio".

00:38:32   It's very similar, actually. "WDC 2023". What an event. Okay. So this was the best time of the year.

00:38:43   Not just because I got to see you guys again in person. And Mike finally made his official debut at "WDC".

00:38:52   Yeah, baby. Can I just say real quick, if you don't mind me interrupting?

00:38:57   No, I don't mind it.

00:38:58   I'm sorry. I just saw this image and I can't get it out of my mind. I've opened the press release that Steven put in the show notes.

00:39:04   There was a picture I've never seen before of Tim Cook in front of the Vision Pro. And it is one of the greatest images I've ever seen.

00:39:10   This is hilarious to me. I love this photo. This is so fake. Yes, he's not actually there. This is incredible. I love this image.

00:39:21   I love this image. It's so good. I feel like there should be versions of this image with lots of people standing in front of it.

00:39:28   You know, like this is great. I love it. I love this so much.

00:39:31   Putting him in front of other things, you know, like...

00:39:34   Yes, anything. But like this image is incredible. Wow. I love it. I've never seen it before. I love it so much.

00:39:42   Where to begin? I guess with the boring stuff. We got the M2 Ultra Mac Studio and the Mac Pro, whatever.

00:39:49   We got the M2 MacBook Air.

00:39:52   Yeah, the 15 inch.

00:39:54   The 15 inch M2 MacBook Air. I do have the 13 inch M2 MacBook Air. Best computer Apple's ever made.

00:40:01   But we got the big boy, which I didn't even bother to go check out in person because I was obviously distracted by something else.

00:40:09   The Vision Pro. So this was the big headset announcement at WWDC. I remember Mike and I, you know, sitting together, basking in the sun of Apple Park,

00:40:22   watching the Vision Pro announcement and Vision OS, of course, as the software platform. What a day and what a week that we got to try the Vision Pro.

00:40:35   I got to try it the morning after. Mike, I believe you got to try the same day as me, but in the evening.

00:40:42   I think so. And it was an experience.

00:40:44   We were back together again, the three of us.

00:40:46   We were back together. Finally, John was there. A lot of our friends were there and a lot of developers obviously were there.

00:40:58   And just, you know, obviously there was watchOS 10 with the redesign of macOS Sonoma, iOS and iPadOS 17.

00:41:07   Big focus on widgets, right, this year. I think all of these operating systems can be easily described as widgets everywhere, I guess, except for tvOS.

00:41:19   Although the tvOS update was actually pretty nice, I should say, but it doesn't come with widgets.

00:41:25   Well, we got widgets, interactive widgets on iOS, iPadOS, standby, on watchOS.

00:41:31   We got widgets on the desktop in macOS Sonoma, which I use every day, unlike Jason Snell. I love him.

00:41:40   We got some stage manager fixes, but not really any reinvention of stage manager.

00:41:49   It just works better, as it's supposed to do, unlike last year's version.

00:41:53   But really, it was all about the Vision Pro and how we were able to try the Vision Pro on our faces, on our heads at Apple Park.

00:42:05   And it is one of my favorite memories of my career so far.

00:42:12   It's up there, top five memories, like the first time he tried the Vision Pro.

00:42:17   And I still think about what that demo felt like. It's sort of burned in my brain, that feeling of uneasiness, good uneasiness, after I stepped out of that room when I tried the Vision Pro.

00:42:34   It might be the best return on investment I've ever got for 30 minutes.

00:42:38   Yes.

00:42:39   The amount I have generated from that half an hour, you know what I mean? Like, oh yes, I got to, yes. Allow me to tell you what the experience is like, where I'm using memories from nine months ago that was half an hour long, but great times.

00:42:54   And what else was, I mean, there was something else in June. Apple opened the Battersea, what's it called? Is it an Apple store? Is it an Apple office?

00:43:05   Well, okay. Well, they have a store there.

00:43:08   They have a store, but it's also a campus of sorts?

00:43:10   It's a campus. It's a full on campus, which I've been to and it's beautiful. Like just unbelievably beautiful as a building. Visually, I prefer it to Apple Park.

00:43:24   It's just absolutely stunning space that they have built there.

00:43:28   This was the historic Battersea power station, which if I recall correctly, this was the building on the cover of a Pink Floyd album?

00:43:40   Yeah. The wall. Is it the wall?

00:43:43   No, no, no, no. It was the one. No.

00:43:46   It was the pig.

00:43:47   It was the pig?

00:43:48   Yes. Yes. That one, I think. Anyway.

00:43:51   Also, the Reddit client Apollo had to shut down at the end of June.

00:43:59   And if you recall, this was that moment of 2023 with the whole Reddit saga of subreddits going down to stage a blackout in protest of Reddit's new API policies.

00:44:14   And Apollo, arguably the most popular Reddit client for iOS and iPadOS, the developer Christian Selig decided to shut down because of the prohibitive costs of the new Reddit API.

00:44:28   Now I'm going to say something about this.

00:44:31   I sometimes wonder if that whole saga between Christian and the Reddit management didn't get so ugly at the time. We know with the phone calls and the press interviews and the recorded phone calls.

00:44:48   I sometimes wonder if there could have been a different outcome.

00:44:53   There could have been a different outcome. There could have been. We know this now. Like, I think time has told that there could have been.

00:45:00   Yeah. And, you know, we see, for example, Norwall, the other popular Reddit client is out version two.

00:45:07   There are Android apps too.

00:45:09   There are Android apps with subscriptions for Reddit.

00:45:13   And now I feel like I would pay a subscription to get Apollo back personally.

00:45:20   But I know that Christian will never do it because maybe now it's more of a principle thing, which I understand.

00:45:27   Things got real bad, right?

00:45:29   Things got real bad.

00:45:30   On all sides. And I think, like, with the way that it went down, I understand why it's not around anymore because I think that the situation between these two parties is untenable now.

00:45:43   Yeah.

00:45:44   But there clearly, time has shown that there is a path, whether it is a, and also like maybe Christian was, felt confident that any more money, like if the subscription was more expensive, it just wasn't going to be worth it, right?

00:45:58   Like, I don't know.

00:45:59   But like other apps seem to have struck some kind of deal with Reddit and they're making it work, but it didn't for Apollo.

00:46:08   And I think at the time in June, it seemed like there were going to be no third party apps, but that has borne out to be not the case.

00:46:18   So.

00:46:19   And lastly, we celebrated 10 years together in June since we started a podcast called The Prompt at the time.

00:46:31   Yeah, it doesn't, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about like grateful that we're still doing this, obviously, but like 10 years makes me feel kind of old.

00:46:41   No, I think a 10 year creative partnership is a kind of incredible thing.

00:46:47   The fact that we're able to still do this and we don't hate each other is like, that doesn't happen very much.

00:46:51   Like, it's a hard thing to do to work creatively with somebody for that period of time.

00:46:57   And we do it effortlessly.

00:46:59   Yeah, we do it.

00:47:00   I have some personal news I need to share with you all.

00:47:02   Oh no, we got so close to 11.

00:47:06   We can do it because as any good lasting relationship, we spice things up every once in a while, such as having people send us pictures of their thighs.

00:47:18   You know, that is the fire that keeps a relationship alive.

00:47:22   Yeah.

00:47:23   Yeah.

00:47:24   So, or as in the case of Steven, foot related content, that is also something that we do.

00:47:30   So that being said, put my thumb on the scale here and say June 2023 is a best I love you month.

00:47:40   Agreed. Sorry, Apollo.

00:47:42   But like Apollo, you've been taken out of this narrative. This is purely us.

00:47:47   Yeah. If only for the Vision Pro and how crazy that day was.

00:47:52   Yeah. Yeah.

00:47:54   So congratulations, June. Best I love you.

00:47:57   July is one of those months where Apple was very excited about its media components of its company.

00:48:03   They announced that various Apple TV plus shows and movies, I guess just shows.

00:48:11   I don't know how Emmys work.

00:48:12   54 Emmy Award nominations, including Ted Lasso, which is notable because it was the most Emmy nominated comedy for three consecutive years.

00:48:23   And like, I can't think of anything that deserves it better. Ted Lasso is perfect all the way through the Michael J. Fox movie, which I still haven't seen.

00:48:30   It's on my list. Maybe, maybe next week when, when I get some time off, I want to watch that.

00:48:35   But Apple TV plus continues just to rake in the awards. Some really great stuff in here for me.

00:48:41   I think shrinking was a real high point on Apple TV.

00:48:44   So good.

00:48:45   Such a good show.

00:48:46   Yeah.

00:48:47   It's coming back for season two, right?

00:48:49   Yeah, I think so.

00:48:51   Silo also very good. I love Silo.

00:48:54   Some guy named John Stewart.

00:49:00   Is that what I read this?

00:49:02   Oh, the one, the one, the one that has problems.

00:49:05   We'll get to him later on.

00:49:07   Apple has problems.

00:49:08   He's featured heavily here, which is awkward because that fell apart.

00:49:12   This was kind of hand in hand with everyone being very excited about Lionel Messi joining Miami and MLS season pass.

00:49:23   This guy's been all over the place.

00:49:25   Apple TV, the website, Apple's very excited about, about their MLS partnership, which is what, 10 years?

00:49:32   I don't know. I didn't notice. I didn't notice.

00:49:35   Didn't notice any Messi anywhere.

00:49:39   No.

00:49:40   Well, they tidied up after he left.

00:49:42   July was also the month of a lot of social media news.

00:49:45   So we saw threads come to life in July.

00:49:51   Some people were using blue sky in July.

00:49:53   And then this is also when Twitter was being rebranded as X.

00:49:58   Just a lot of stuff. A lot of social media stuff in July.

00:50:01   And then lastly, some foreshadowing for something that would come later that Goldman Sachs was looking for a way out of its partnership with the Apple card.

00:50:10   This came after months and months of stories of Goldman Sachs complaining about the Apple card and his partnership.

00:50:16   And this was apparently them beginning to work towards leaving that, that partnership.

00:50:23   For me, like decent, normal, and inferior even.

00:50:30   What I'll say is threads was really exciting.

00:50:34   Yeah.

00:50:36   Right. Like that, that was actually...

00:50:38   Briefly for me, but yes.

00:50:40   But it was a very exciting time, right? Like it kind of, we knew about it, but then it came out of nowhere.

00:50:46   And then it was like a really fun few days.

00:50:49   I don't know if that's enough to like really break it into good territory.

00:50:54   The rest of the stuff on this list is like, I have no real opinion.

00:50:58   You know what I mean? Like it doesn't really make me feel anything, right?

00:51:01   Like I feel nothing.

00:51:03   But like Apple winning, getting 54 Emmy award, it's like I'm proud of them.

00:51:06   Like, okay, you've got a bunch of Emmy award nominations.

00:51:10   It's, I would say normal, maybe normal to good, but normal would be fine.

00:51:17   Yeah. I lean towards normal just because like, I know, like I honestly do not care what happens to the company Twitter beyond just the gazing at the car accident.

00:51:27   But that brand dying for X, which is something that Elon's been obsessed with as a brand for 20 years, like that hurt.

00:51:35   That was sad.

00:51:37   Yeah. You shouldn't have done that.

00:51:39   Normal it is.

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00:53:32   August was pretty quiet.

00:53:35   There wasn't a lot of news in August, which is actually not surprising.

00:53:38   You're kind of sandwiched in between the tail off of WWDC and the ramp up to the iPhone.

00:53:44   But rumors began once again, or speculation began, of Apple potentially buying or investing heavily into Disney.

00:53:52   As Bob Iger started to scramble for waves to strengthen the company and talking about looking for strategic partners for ESPN,

00:53:59   he seems to have kind of waved that off now, but it was something we were talking about at the time.

00:54:03   The Relay FM podcast network turned nine years old and announced that their 10th anniversary show would be occurring in July of next year.

00:54:12   I don't know why I'm saying like this. In London. We're doing a show in London next year.

00:54:16   We announced it. It was awesome. And we effectively sold out of tickets.

00:54:21   There's like a very small amount left of the unreserved seats in the gallery area.

00:54:28   If you are still wanting to come to the show, you can. But we're going to be together in person for a big variety show in July of next year.

00:54:37   I'll also add just quickly that there is a live London channel in the Discord for members.

00:54:43   And some people who have gotten tickets who now have something else going on have tickets available there, too.

00:54:48   So if you're in the Discord, check that channel out.

00:54:51   And the iMac turned 25 years old.

00:54:53   And The Verge did some cool art. Of course, one of them written by Jason kind of about the iMac G3.

00:54:59   That was the one that turned 25, right? Not just the iMac, which was the G3.

00:55:06   Yes, the first iMac. Yes. I got confused with Mac. I don't know why I fell down that hole, but I did for a second.

00:55:12   The Mac turns 40 next year, though. Gross. Wild.

00:55:16   That's disgusting. It should be illegal.

00:55:19   So that's August. Good? Good. Good? Federico, let me tell you something.

00:55:27   Good. Good. Yes. We had a lot of tickets to sell. And we sold most of them. So that was pretty good.

00:55:34   Good month. Good month. It was scary. It was a scary time.

00:55:38   Good month. We now get to the other big month of the year. Why is it that I always get to talk about these months?

00:55:47   Well, whoever gets June gets September because of the round robin.

00:55:53   Yeah, I guess that's how calendars work. Hey, did you guys know that in the 1700s?

00:55:58   No way. No way. Come on. That round robin would be totally different.

00:56:06   Yes. New hardware. New iPhones. iPhone 15 and 15 plus. The ones nobody cares about. I'm kidding.

00:56:17   Oh my god, he said it. He said it. The inside voice came out.

00:56:23   Look, we're all thinking it, right? We all think it. When somebody comes to you and they're like, I got an iPhone 15.

00:56:29   And you look down and it's on a 15 point. You're like, where's your titanium? He says, titanium.

00:56:35   I saw a iPhone 15 in the wild just yesterday. The pink. And that's that's how I knew what it was.

00:56:41   I recognized the color. But yeah, it's it's. Did you did you did you scoff at it when you get that aluminum out of here?

00:56:50   This club is for titanium users only. We do not phone shame on this program.

00:56:56   Except for the fact that you're doing it. But it's for it's entertainment. You got to understand it's fine line.

00:57:01   We phone shame for entertainment purposes only. Yeah, it's like being a comedian. When you say horrible things as a comedian, you know, you get a free pass.

00:57:08   I guess that's how it works. Titanium, obviously. I am titanium. Yes.

00:57:17   Great phones, you know, and especially the 15 Pro Max this year with the 5x. Not a periscope, but actually a periscope camera.

00:57:26   Actually, I think you find a tetra prism. I beg your pardon. I know that. Yes.

00:57:35   Thank you, Macedon. Tetra prism, whatever lens. It zooms more. And I like it.

00:57:42   It's been excellent so far. It's something that I use every single day. And the action button, which we mentioned a few months ago in this episode.

00:57:53   It is a real feature that you can customize in a bunch of different ways with shortcuts, with apps, with flashlight. A bunch of things that you can assign to the action button.

00:58:02   Really, really, really good feature. And also Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.

00:58:09   That was nice until it lasted, I guess, with these watches. Later. Later.

00:58:15   We'll get to this, but relatively minor updates, I would say. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 in my mind is only exciting because Mike got it, finally.

00:58:28   So that's why. Mike, can you give us like a 30 second review of the Ultra 2?

00:58:34   I love it. The battery life is what's absolutely king. That's my biggest change. And the thing that I love the most about my Apple Watch now is I don't think about charging it.

00:58:45   I used to think about charging it all the time. I love the screen and the Apple Watch Ultra has just forced me to embrace what the Apple Watch is and just have one of the ugly watch faces with loads of complications on it.

00:58:56   But I'm happier now because I'm not trying to pretend that this watch is something that it isn't.

00:59:00   That's a good take. We also had the AirPods Pro 2 update with the USB-C and a kind of asterisk feature, which is the low latency audio support for the future Vision Pro integration.

00:59:16   I got the AirPods Pro 2 update with the USB-C case because at the time that was the only way you could get a USB-C case for your AirPods Pro 2.

00:59:26   You had to buy the whole thing, which I did. You know, it's fine. They are AirPods Pro 2 now with USB-C.

00:59:31   Apple in the process unveiled its first carbon neutral products. They made a big deal at the September event.

00:59:39   You guys remember the film that lasted forever with...

00:59:43   Too long.

00:59:44   What was it? Octavia Spencer?

00:59:46   Yeah, it was Mother Nature.

00:59:48   Mother Nature? Yeah, that was a cute idea for the first minute and then I just wanted to change the channel.

00:59:57   But I couldn't because I need to watch an Apple event.

01:00:00   And Steven, you got to go to the keynote, whereas Mike and I, we stayed in the comfort.

01:00:08   I don't know if your home is comfortable, Mike. I hope it is. But mine is.

01:00:13   Yeah, stayed in the comfort of my home.

01:00:15   Yeah.

01:00:16   And I couldn't go. But Steven went. How was it, Steven? 30 seconds review of the Apple event.

01:00:21   It is so different from W2C. You know, it's a lot of press people.

01:00:26   I only know because I've seen them on actual television, right? Not the developer scene that we're used to.

01:00:32   But very exciting to be there. Very exciting to be in the hands-on space.

01:00:37   I got some pictures and stuff in a blog post in the show notes.

01:00:41   But that was just as chaotic as you think it would be.

01:00:45   I mean, everyone's nice. Like, no one's like pushing or like, you know.

01:00:49   But people are trying to get their jobs and trying to get pictures, trying to get video.

01:00:52   And it's just a lot of people everywhere. But a true honor to get to go.

01:00:56   And it was exhausting. We'll talk about the end of September here in a minute.

01:01:02   Very quick trip to California for me, but well worth it. And I'm glad I was able to do it.

01:01:07   iOS 17, iPadOS 17, TVOS 17, WatchOS 10 and macOS Sonoma. Everything launched in September.

01:01:16   Love it when that happens. Should all be in the same month.

01:01:19   I got my iOS and iPadOS 17 review done in time.

01:01:24   Thank you, thank you, thank you. John got his review done.

01:01:30   Yeah, congratulations, John.

01:01:34   And I was betrayed. Don't forget that.

01:01:37   You were not.

01:01:38   I was betrayed.

01:01:40   You were not betrayed. You were retired.

01:01:45   Oh, forcibly.

01:01:47   For... No.

01:01:49   I was severed.

01:01:51   Some sad news. Unfortunately, we need to share.

01:01:54   Couple of sad news items and then a really, really, really good one.

01:01:59   First sad item, the iTunes movie trailers website app was finally taken offline.

01:02:08   If you recall, this is the website service that Apple was still running because they remembered they were running this service after Stephen sent them an email years ago.

01:02:20   Yeah, this one's on me, y'all. I'm sorry.

01:02:22   You are responsible for killing this thing, Stephen.

01:02:26   Blood is on your hands with this one.

01:02:29   You reminded the single person at Apple that was in charge of iTunes movie trailers that it was time to retire the website and the app.

01:02:38   This has reminded me about a complaint that I would just like to make on the show.

01:02:43   So now on the Apple TV, right, you can buy movies and TV shows in the Apple TV app.

01:02:50   But on the home screen, there's still icons for iTunes movies and iTunes TV shows that when you click them, it says go to the Apple TV app, but you can't delete them.

01:03:03   And I don't know why that's the case or who that's for.

01:03:08   Oops.

01:03:09   And I find it very annoying. You can't remove them and nor did I do anything. So I would prefer if they could deal with that.

01:03:17   Yeah.

01:03:18   Please.

01:03:19   I mean, I think that's a very, very honest wish lists and seventeen point two.

01:03:22   Some weird stuff going on over there in TV.

01:03:24   Oh, I also Apple introduced their post leather accessories, namely the fine one case for the iPhone.

01:03:35   And I guess there's also a fine one wallet.

01:03:38   And later we would get fine woolen Apple watch bands.

01:03:42   And the fine woolen case is really bad and Apple should feel bad about selling a quote unquote premium case that is essentially made of paper like material that scratches easily, ages badly, gets easily stained.

01:03:58   This has to be the worst case I've ever gotten for my iPhone. And it's so such a bummer that it's the official successor to the premium leather case that Apple used to make.

01:04:13   And instead of making a, you know, a vegan leather option, which is essentially plastic, I mean vegan leather is basically plastic.

01:04:21   They decided to go with this textile of sorts kind of material that is really bad. And I, I really, really dislike it in a way that you can dislike a fifty dollar object.

01:04:34   You know, it's, it's not like it's, it's not like it's, it's the end of the world, but it's a bad fifty dollar object. In my opinion.

01:04:42   Did either of you see Peter McKinnon's case?

01:04:46   Yep. I saw it on threads the other day.

01:04:49   It's bad. It looked bad.

01:04:53   I don't know how leather will have looked over the time like level would have aged too, but I think leather ages a little more gracefully than this material does and over a much longer period of time.

01:05:04   Yeah. I feel like this is, this does not look like two and a half months of patina on a leather case. I'll put Lincoln Schoenerts to his post on threads.

01:05:13   And lastly, we close out September with some incredible news. Real AFM, the community around Real AFM, raised for the kids of St. Jude, $776,000.

01:05:31   Let me, let me, let me spell that number in Italian because I think it makes even more of an impact.

01:05:37   $8,700,000. That does actually make a bigger impact. You want like, I told you, I told you would, that is an incredible amount of money reaching the total of five year, five years donations of $2,98,000,000 raised a lot of money, you know, by Real AFM for St. Jude.

01:06:02   What an incredible accomplishment for you two specifically. I know there's a lot of people who work on this thing, but you know, you two should feel proud.

01:06:12   It doesn't even describe what I think you should feel like this is a truly once in a lifetime opportunity to get to raise this amount of money and make an actual impact.

01:06:22   You know, fighting, fighting cancer that affects so many kids, unfortunately, worldwide and St. Jude doing their incredible work, you know, fighting childhood cancer.

01:06:36   Well done. This is an incredible milestone.

01:06:40   I feel like, I don't know how Steven feels, but like that, like the five year number now has passed my ability to conceive of it.

01:06:47   Like I struggle to work, to like think about that now and it's way easier for me to think about the year number.

01:06:54   I feel like I can't wrap my head around it now because it's just gotten so unfathomably large because of the generosity of our community.

01:07:02   Yeah, it's really incredible and I hope that we can vote as a trio that September is best. I love you.

01:07:09   Absolutely.

01:07:11   Two best I love yous. I will say this is felt like in this review, 2020 is a good year.

01:07:18   It feels like it's been a good year for our stuff for this specific stuff only we're talking about just the things in which we are talking about.

01:07:29   OK, that's what we're talking about.

01:07:31   It's been a good year for Apple stuff.

01:07:34   That's just the topics I'm connected.

01:07:37   Yeah, it's been a good year for connected.

01:07:39   OK, there's nothing there's nothing wrong in saying that.

01:07:44   Please don't cancel us for being optimistic about connected, you know.

01:07:50   Yeah, so it's been it's been a good year. It's been a best I love you month.

01:07:54   Congratulations to the folks who work on September for getting best.

01:08:01   I'd like to thank all the designers and developers who make September possible.

01:08:04   All the families of the employees who make September.

01:08:07   Markham. Mark.

01:08:09   Oh boy.

01:08:10   October. Big news.

01:08:12   October.

01:08:13   New Apple Pencil complete with a chart so you know which one works with your iPad and what features you get.

01:08:19   We all love a good chart.

01:08:21   You know, who doesn't?

01:08:22   Big chart boys over here.

01:08:24   Yeah.

01:08:25   So this is the Apple Pencil USB-C.

01:08:29   It retails for what is it $99 trying to find it and Apple's very confusing press release page.

01:08:36   But new pencil. Oh, $69.

01:08:39   Nice. Nice. Nice.

01:08:41   So there's that you can spend $99 and get the Apple Pencil first generation or $129 for the second generation.

01:08:50   Again, they all work with different ones.

01:08:52   There's a lot of hand wringing about why this wasn't out with the 10th Gen iPad.

01:08:56   Clearly Apple just didn't have it ready.

01:08:59   And I really think this pencil is sort of a it's you can look at it right and you can see all the confusing things.

01:09:05   And the iPad lineup just looking at this this pencil page, but it's out.

01:09:10   Apple also shipped a watch OS 10.1 which enabled double tap on the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.

01:09:19   The double tap gesture has its roots and some accessibility features that have actually been around for quite a while on the watch and watch OS.

01:09:29   But basically the way I think about this is like it's like the return key on the Mac.

01:09:34   It's just going to activate whatever is sort of the default thing is on the screen.

01:09:40   There is no support for this for third party apps, though.

01:09:43   It's just within Apple's UI and some of their apps.

01:09:47   So maybe this will open up in the future, but not yet.

01:09:50   So I use this. I have this.

01:09:52   OK, how is it?

01:09:53   It's OK.

01:09:55   Like, like really this for me is how to interact with notifications.

01:10:01   Like that's what it's for. Realistically, I use it for one thing, which is I'm walking and my and I know my watch is saying, hey, you're walking.

01:10:11   And I lift my wrist and I do the double tap action and then carry on because I have a coat on right now.

01:10:18   So it's easier for me to do this than to pull the sleeve of my coat up and tap it, especially as it gets colder and you have gloves on.

01:10:26   That's what it's good for.

01:10:27   Like this kind of really the only thing that I've been able to do consistently.

01:10:31   And I would say that the action is not very comfortable.

01:10:33   Like for me to do you have to like lift.

01:10:36   I find that it works way more reliably if I lift my wrist and then do the action.

01:10:42   So, you know, I haven't really found much more of a use for it outside of that.

01:10:47   I like it for that.

01:10:49   But it's not, in my opinion, that big of a deal.

01:10:54   It's not what definitely not worth upgrading your Apple watch for.

01:10:57   Tell you that.

01:10:58   No, it doesn't seem like it is. Google launched the 100 percent leaked Pixel 8 and Pixel Watch 2.

01:11:07   The Pixel 8 Pro is a little more expensive and has a temperature sensor.

01:11:10   And I believe we have a bet to see if the Pixel 9 Pro will come with the temperature sensor.

01:11:15   So we'll check back in on that next fall.

01:11:18   I think the bigger update here is the Pixel Watch 2 has a new processor, better battery life.

01:11:24   The design, like I got a friend with one.

01:11:26   They look really nice, but they're really small.

01:11:29   I mean, at least compared to the Ultra.

01:11:31   But if that works for you and you're in the Android ecosystem, this is probably the smartwatch to get.

01:11:36   Starts at $349 or $400 if you want LTE.

01:11:41   And then the end of October, we got a Mac event.

01:11:45   So the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max were all announced at the same time.

01:11:50   This is a departure from Apple has done this before with the M1 and the M2.

01:11:55   The M3 showed up in the iMac and a new base model, 14 inch MacBook Pro.

01:12:02   The touch bar is dead and the M3 Pro and Max are only available in the MacBook Pro.

01:12:07   So there's still some M2 Pro and M2 Max systems running around there for sale now.

01:12:12   I assume Apple will tidy all that up after the new year.

01:12:15   But this event was overshadowed by the drama that it was shot on an iPhone.

01:12:21   Oh, it's not shot on an iPhone.

01:12:23   If you use $1,000 worth of lights, like, yeah, it's fine.

01:12:26   It was still shot on the iPhone.

01:12:27   It looks incredible.

01:12:28   And the behind the scenes stuff is really cool.

01:12:30   I think that's awesome.

01:12:32   I like this story a lot.

01:12:33   And if it bothered you, you know, just just let us enjoy it.

01:12:38   I think it's really pretty exciting.

01:12:40   You can use a phone for something like this.

01:12:42   Yeah, I think it's cool.

01:12:43   macOS Sonoma.

01:12:45   And I think this is an iOS and iPad OS too.

01:12:47   It has got into some hot water because of the video reactions where you can like actually send fireworks,

01:12:54   you know, or balloons to your therapist if you're meeting online.

01:12:58   I had this problem where I was on a Zoom call and I accidentally did a thumbs up and my video just froze.

01:13:03   And I had to like turn my camera off and turn it back on.

01:13:05   That's even better.

01:13:06   That's even better.

01:13:07   Not great.

01:13:08   That's a little awkward.

01:13:10   No, I've sent accidental balloons to my therapist twice now.

01:13:13   So I put this in there because this is one of my favorite stories of the year.

01:13:16   I just think it's hilarious like that this is happening and that therapy platforms are having to put warnings up when you like, like tele, tele therapy.

01:13:24   Yeah.

01:13:25   It's just like a very strange thing that happens sometimes that I want is a call with my therapist and then there's all stuff going on.

01:13:31   Yeah.

01:13:32   I do think it was cool the other day.

01:13:33   I was on a call with me and Adina, we were talking to James Thompson and his wife Saskia and we were playing around with the things and balloons came from behind the sofa, which is pretty cool.

01:13:44   It worked out the depth of us on the sofa and had the balloons come from behind the sofa.

01:13:49   Yeah.

01:13:50   It's very clever technology, but just because of what it's doing.

01:13:54   Yeah.

01:13:55   It will activate accidentally sometimes because they're very simple hand gestures sometimes that you're doing.

01:14:03   Like for me, one of the things is like counting.

01:14:05   Like if you're counting one, two, three of your hands, like sometimes you'll send the piece thing, which I think I don't remember what that does like lasers or whatever.

01:14:14   So, yeah.

01:14:15   Yeah.

01:14:16   It's not not super real thought out.

01:14:18   I don't think I think it's just one of those things where like you don't know until it's out.

01:14:23   Hmm.

01:14:24   Yeah.

01:14:25   Like I think it's, you don't really think about it and then it's out and then it happens and then it's like, oh no, look what I've done.

01:14:30   You know?

01:14:31   Then October, we also had the unusual story that the problem with Jon Stewart had been canceled over editorial disagreements with Apple revolving around stories about AI and China.

01:14:45   I still don't know if we know the bottom of this, like what actually happened or what is happening.

01:14:52   No.

01:14:53   New York Times and Hollywood Reporter were seem to be well sourced with this.

01:14:58   So something something happened.

01:15:00   I will also say, though, not a very good show.

01:15:03   I don't I think it kind of missed the mark.

01:15:05   And that that made me sad.

01:15:07   If the show was better, I'm not sure this would have happened.

01:15:11   I think the show wasn't doing very well.

01:15:14   And then this was coming up and Apple was like, no, thank you.

01:15:18   Yeah.

01:15:19   That's what I reckon happened.

01:15:21   You can feel if that's good or bad or not.

01:15:24   But like realistically, a corporation is not going to just allow things that go against what its principles are or like what its business case is.

01:15:36   And like they don't want to be in trouble with China.

01:15:40   That's good or bad, depending on where you're coming from.

01:15:42   I say realistically, it's not great, but they pay for the content.

01:15:46   So I want to give October good plus.

01:15:52   Yeah, I think I think the John Stewart thing is worrying.

01:15:56   The pencil is kind of boring.

01:15:57   The Apple pencil was annoying, like more than anything else.

01:16:01   Right.

01:16:02   Yeah.

01:16:03   But I think I think the Mac event and the pixel eight event really solid, not best.

01:16:09   I love you.

01:16:10   But I feel like I feel like a good plus.

01:16:15   I don't know if it's good or good plus personally.

01:16:19   I don't know if I'm feeling good plus.

01:16:21   I'm doing it for you.

01:16:23   If you guys want to do good, I can I can live with that.

01:16:26   I tell you why.

01:16:27   Steven, the shot on iPhone thing would be good if it wasn't surrounded by so much annoying coverage.

01:16:31   Right.

01:16:32   Like that's fair.

01:16:33   Right.

01:16:34   That could have tipped it because that would have been like super cool.

01:16:36   And I love the little video, but like it just became really annoying, very fast.

01:16:40   Like the work, I think of the word, but like the like the discourse cultural moment of it.

01:16:47   The discourse.

01:16:48   Thank you.

01:16:49   It was frustrating.

01:16:50   OK.

01:16:51   OK, let's go with good then.

01:16:52   Let's go with good.

01:16:53   November logic and final cup of got updates, which is pretty cool.

01:16:57   Right.

01:16:58   Same year.

01:16:59   I pad.

01:17:00   No, no.

01:17:01   Yes.

01:17:02   The iPad.

01:17:03   Yes.

01:17:04   Sorry.

01:17:05   Thank you.

01:17:06   Yes.

01:17:07   The previously mentioned for the iPad versions got updates, which is great that they got

01:17:08   good updates within the same year.

01:17:09   So I'm going to go with good.

01:17:10   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:11   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:12   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:13   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:14   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:15   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:16   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:17   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:18   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:19   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:20   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:21   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:22   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:23   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:24   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:25   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:26   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:27   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:28   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:29   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:30   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:44   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:45   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:46   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:47   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:48   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:49   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:50   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:51   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:52   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:53   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:54   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:55   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:56   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:57   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:58   I'm going to go with good.

01:17:59   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:00   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:01   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:02   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:03   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:04   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:05   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:06   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:07   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:08   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:09   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:10   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:11   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:12   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:13   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:14   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:15   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:16   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:17   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:18   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:19   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:20   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:22   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:23   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:24   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:25   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:26   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:27   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:28   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:29   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:30   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:31   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:32   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:33   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:34   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:35   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:36   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:37   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:38   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:39   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:40   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:41   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:42   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:43   I'm going to go with good.

01:18:44   Incredible news story.

01:18:46   I would make this a good plus, I think.

01:18:48   I think this is a good plus.

01:18:50   There's just a lot of interesting things occurring.

01:18:53   The news was good.

01:18:54   The commentary was good.

01:18:55   The think pieces were good during November for like,

01:18:59   Humane and the OpenAI thing.

01:19:01   That was like good stuff.

01:19:04   So I would say good plus.

01:19:05   Yeah, I can go for good plus.

01:19:07   It was an interesting month.

01:19:09   Nothing really brought it down in this list, right?

01:19:12   Yeah.

01:19:13   Unless you ate almonds that a robot pen told you to eat.

01:19:16   That's true.

01:19:17   That is true.

01:19:19   Federico, take us home with December.

01:19:21   In December, AirPods Max turned three years old without an update.

01:19:26   Happy birthday!

01:19:28   Nightmare.

01:19:29   We're into nightmare territory.

01:19:30   We have to pull out.

01:19:31   I'm so sad about this.

01:19:33   It's very sad because I genuinely love these headphones.

01:19:36   Yes.

01:19:37   But the lack of updates is killing me because I don't want to charge them with lightning anymore.

01:19:42   Like I just don't want to and I want a new foldable design.

01:19:45   I want a new carrying case.

01:19:46   I want signs of life.

01:19:49   But this product maybe will come back in 2024.

01:19:52   Maybe not.

01:19:53   We'll see.

01:19:54   Then we get to this still ongoing saga, which I think is getting kind of silly at this point.

01:20:00   The company Beeper that was already making a service to sort of consolidate multiple messaging service into the same app,

01:20:10   into the same UI, launched Beeper Mini, an Android application to use iMessage on Android.

01:20:16   And they did so with a big splash in terms of YouTube creators explaining Beeper Mini, how it worked.

01:20:23   And the gist of it is the engineers at Beeper Mini were able to reverse engineer the iMessage protocol

01:20:30   and they were able at least initially to register a phone number from Beeper Mini onto your iMessage account.

01:20:38   And that was good until it lasted because after a couple of days, Apple, as part of a series of security updates,

01:20:47   closed the loophole that allowed Beeper Mini to register a phone number on iMessage.

01:20:52   And this started this sort of game of whack-a-mole between Apple and Beeper Mini in that Beeper Mini

01:21:01   then rolled out the ability to use iMessage on Android but just with an email address.

01:21:05   And then Apple closed that as well.

01:21:07   And then Beeper Mini yesterday came back and said, "Okay, Beeper Mini is working again,

01:21:12   but now you also need to have access to a Mac."

01:21:15   And this has gotten, I posted on threads that the next Beeper Mini workaround will be that you will need an iPhone

01:21:22   to use Beeper Mini, which you can see the irony there.

01:21:26   But we have officially reached the point where if you want to use Beeper Mini to have an iMessage on Android,

01:21:31   you've got to have a Mac, which I find it funny because you're still giving money to Apple to use iMessage on Android.

01:21:39   And we've gotten to the, I think, honestly ridiculous point where a bunch of senators have written a letter to the Department of Justice

01:21:45   saying that Beeper should be allowed to exist, which is like such that...

01:21:50   Like, make your point that iMessage should be on Android, not that Beeper should exist.

01:21:56   It once again shows that these people don't know what they're asking for when they could actually make a good case.

01:22:04   But making the case that Beeper should be allowed as like breaking laws, which I'm sure is somehow, right,

01:22:13   breaking some kind of end user license agreement thing to do this, it's bananas to me that you would...

01:22:19   It's like an absolute whiff. You had the opportunity to make a good case and they bungled that case in my opinion. So stupid.

01:22:27   So moving on from Beeper Mini, the reports that Apple is going to end their relationship with Goldman Sachs for the Apple card.

01:22:36   And they are... Who knows who they are approaching? They said somebody, German said Chase would be a good fit.

01:22:44   I'm not sure if that was based on anything. A suggestion or based on any information. But yeah, Goldman Sachs probably...

01:22:55   I have some personal news. Okay, are you taking it on?

01:23:00   We're now a bank. Oh, congratulations. Interesting, interesting. Well done, well done.

01:23:05   Hackett Incorporated. Putting those kids to work once again.

01:23:12   You're now settling balances, children.

01:23:15   That's right. Get to trading some stocks, kids.

01:23:17   Children, today I'm going to teach you how to use a ledger.

01:23:21   We finally got details of what the two of the founders of Workflow, then Shortcuts, are up to these days after leaving Apple.

01:23:36   Conrad Kramer and Ari Wenstein joined by another former... I believe their previous... their former boss at Apple.

01:23:46   What's her name, guys? Help me out, please.

01:23:51   I will work this out for you when it continues.

01:23:52   I want to say Kim Bevret, maybe. She was on stage at WWDC a few years back and she was running the whole Shortcuts initiative.

01:24:01   They have created a company with an incredible name, Software Applications Incorporated, and they are basically working on AI as applied to the Mac desktop, it seems.

01:24:13   They are working on the next big step in terms of large language models as applied to what you're doing on your computer.

01:24:21   Very few details at this point. The only thing we know is that they have an incredible website, which is an emulator of Mac OS 8,

01:24:28   and they are thinking about ways to leverage AI and large language models to extract information from what you're doing on your computer rather than typing into a text field.

01:24:40   We don't... literally don't know...

01:24:43   It was Kim Bevret, by the way. You were right.

01:24:44   Kim Bevret, yeah. There you go.

01:24:45   We literally don't know anything else, but if there's people out there that know how to take advantage of integrations with the operating systems, it's these folks.

01:24:57   They know what they're doing, and I think it'll be exciting to see how they can put a different spin on AI that goes beyond having conversations with chat GPT.

01:25:06   Very, very fascinating.

01:25:08   Getting this right before the holiday break, but finally the first cars with the next generation CarPlay have been officially announced.

01:25:16   If you recall, this was a last... The next generation CarPlay, was it last year or was it this year?

01:25:23   It was 2022 WWDC.

01:25:25   That's right. Last year. So anyway, if you have the money, say it for a Porsche or an Aston Martin, and you want to use next generation CarPlay, you know, you got to do it.

01:25:35   You got to do it for the Mike and Steven.

01:25:38   If you're shopping for a new car, may I suggest the Aston Martin? That's a really nice brand.

01:25:45   Very British.

01:25:46   Very British. So yeah, they're going to have the...

01:25:49   If you recall, the big giant multi-display thing with CarPlay and different modules and widgets and whatnot.

01:25:56   Looks really nice, but also you got to be a billionaire to afford it.

01:26:00   And finally, we saved the best/worst thing for last.

01:26:06   As we are recording this, the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 have barely, barely 24 hours to continue existing in the United States.

01:26:20   Because as part of an ITC ruling in the US, a long-standing patent dispute between Apple and the medical company called Massimo, Massimo,

01:26:31   around how the Apple Watch blood oxygen sensor technology works, like the algorithm for scanning your heart rate and determining the blood oxygen level.

01:26:40   Well, the ITC has ruled that Apple must stop sales in the US of the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Ultra 2.

01:26:49   What an incredible story, but what a nightmare for Apple just before Christmas.

01:26:57   Well, I don't know if this is going to affect their Christmas, right? Because that's like, that's wrapping up.

01:27:03   But it is a big problem.

01:27:05   But surely to have your watches taken out of stores because the ITC, the International Trade Commission ruled that they are basically...

01:27:14   I don't want to say... They are illegal to sell right now. They are illegal.

01:27:18   So can I, if you wouldn't mind, give some clarification on this.

01:27:21   I don't mind when you...

01:27:23   What the ITC ruling stops is imports and it also stops Apple from selling it.

01:27:27   So any stock that's in America can still be sold by a third party. So Best Buy can still sell them even after the ban comes into effect.

01:27:35   Yeah. But once all the stock's gone, they can't re-stock, right? So like, watches can still be bought after this point.

01:27:42   Apple is hoping that President Biden will veto this.

01:27:48   When I first heard about this news, it was kind of like, oh, wow, that's wild. And then I read Ben Thompson's Chitakuri update where he kind of details Massimo's case.

01:28:00   And honestly, I say after reading this, good.

01:28:04   Basically, Apple approached this company, their like merger and acquisitions head approached this company and was like, hey, let's work together.

01:28:13   We want to see what you're working on. And then slowly over the case of like a year, hired all of the key employees of the company.

01:28:22   It's not a good look.

01:28:23   And now did what Massimo's doing, apparently, like this sense of technology.

01:28:29   And one of the people said like there was like an interview or an email that came out or something where they were like, where this person spoke to Apple and was like, oh, I believe I can advance your business in all the ways about and go around the patents.

01:28:42   It's not going to affect it. And now we've gotten to the point where this has happened.

01:28:46   Also, the fact that Apple have done this to Samsung, right? Like this ITC ban, Apple did this to Samsung.

01:28:52   So it's kind of like a what goes around comes around. And from my perspective, it's like this is the bed you've made for yourself.

01:28:59   Right. Like that Apple thought that it was OK to do this in the past.

01:29:03   The companies that they felt were infringing on their patents. And now this company's doing it and they have this history of poaching employees from Massimo.

01:29:13   I don't see any scenario in which they're not getting what they deserved here.

01:29:18   And I do not see any way that Biden vetoes this.

01:29:24   That would be shooting himself in the foot.

01:29:28   Right. Like he's basically like siding with big tech at that point.

01:29:33   Right. Like I can't imagine it's going to happen. So I don't know what they're going to do.

01:29:37   There's been reports that Apple's working on a software fix, but there are reports saying that, well, Massimo is saying hardware is the thing here.

01:29:45   So I don't know what's going to happen. But my I would say like it was it's a paid daily update.

01:29:52   But I think it's well worth reading. Like Ben's reporting really enlightened me. I'll be honest.

01:29:58   This is the only report that I've read in any detail, but he's quoting other sources. It's not his sourcing.

01:30:06   And so if all of this is true and this is what this is, Massimo's account. Right.

01:30:10   But I guess it's clear that their employees went to work for Apple. Right. Like that is a thing that can be proven.

01:30:17   And if this is all laid out as it is, then yeah, like this is what should happen.

01:30:23   You can't just like do this and expect no ramifications. So that's where I'm coming from.

01:30:29   If that's the case, then I agree. So what do we think of December, which is still not over.

01:30:35   So for keep this in mind, things may get better. Things may get even worse. I go inferior.

01:30:42   Yeah. It's like there's stuff going on, but like none of it makes me feel good. Like the beeper mini thing has just gotten really annoying now.

01:30:49   Oh, there is one thing I do want to know on the story, which I hadn't done yet because I got really excited.

01:30:55   Huge props to friend of the show, Chance Miller for getting this information. Oh yeah. Yes.

01:31:01   Yes. Chance got the exclusive on this and I'll just like tip my hat to 9 to 5 Mac

01:31:07   under chance at the moment where they have been getting more and more and more like breaking news from Apple.

01:31:14   And like there was some discourse about this on threads, but like I think one of the things that was an issue.

01:31:20   No, the discourse is that you can call 9 to 5 Mac an enthusiast website. You know, I was really annoyed.

01:31:26   There's a lot of connotations around this word to people that write and I understand it.

01:31:30   I was really annoyed by that.

01:31:32   I consider myself an enthusiast, but I also don't consider myself a journalist and I think that that's the thing.

01:31:38   That's the kind of objective that you can consider yourself because when you refer to others as enthusiasts, there's no way around it.

01:31:46   You are looking down upon them. And I just don't think as I replied to Nili Patel, the editor in chief of The Verge,

01:31:54   as I replied on threads, I just think it lacks a little taste and style.

01:32:00   There is a long history with this word, which is too much to go into, but I understand the idea that if you consider yourself a journalist,

01:32:08   which I'm not saying nobody here isn't, but like if you think of yourself as a journalist, being called an enthusiast isn't great.

01:32:14   I consider myself an enthusiast. Partly so, I just say whatever I want.

01:32:19   And you know what I mean? Ethics schmethics. You know what I'm saying?

01:32:23   It's incredible to go back and imagine, you know, 9 to 5 Mac a few years ago getting this kind of scoop directly from an Apple spokesperson.

01:32:30   It's wild. And yet here we are.

01:32:32   Also, they got the RCS scoop, which was I think in November, which we forgot to put in the thing. I don't know why.

01:32:37   I honestly don't know how that missed.

01:32:39   Let me go over the list real quick, starting from January.

01:32:43   January was a good month. February was a normal month. March was good again.

01:32:49   Then we get to April, an inferior minus month. May was good, but June was best I love you.

01:32:57   July was normal and August was good. September was best I love you again.

01:33:02   October was good. November was good plus. However, December is an inferior month.

01:33:09   That sounded like a poem.

01:33:11   And with that, well, yeah, thank you.

01:33:13   And with that, I am happy to say that we don't have a single nightmare month.

01:33:19   Hey, look at us.

01:33:21   Don't let us down 2024.

01:33:23   Official historian Kate said in the Discord that they've they've equated this to a mathematical formula.

01:33:31   Of course.

01:33:32   And the averages have increased.

01:33:33   So 2021 4.25, 2022 4.5, 2023 4.67.

01:33:39   So things are getting better slightly.

01:33:43   The years are getting the years are getting better for us as they get worse for planet Earth.

01:33:50   Yes.

01:33:51   Which is an interesting correlation.

01:33:53   Yeah.

01:33:54   But there you have it.

01:33:55   Maybe that says something about technology that we shouldn't get into today.

01:33:59   We're done.

01:34:02   We have 98 things in the show notes.

01:34:05   So if you want to go read a bunch of stories, you can check those out on the Web at relay.fm/connected/481 or in your podcast app.

01:34:16   You can also join and get access to Connected Pro, which is a longer and ad free version of the show.

01:34:21   There's a link right there in the show notes for that.

01:34:23   And also to our feedback form online where you can submit feedback or follow up.

01:34:28   You can choose to do so anonymously if you like.

01:34:30   We will get back into follow up next week, I'm sure.

01:34:33   You can find us all online.

01:34:35   I'm just going to read our threads handles because we're all together on threads.

01:34:38   You can find Mike there as I Mike.

01:34:40   I am YKE.

01:34:41   Federico is on threads as Vitici.

01:34:43   V I T I C C I.

01:34:45   And you can follow me on threads as ISMH 86.

01:34:49   I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Masterclass and Electric.

01:34:53   And until next time, guys, say goodbye.

01:34:55   Arrivederci.

01:34:56   We will be here next week.

01:34:58   Happy holidays.

01:35:00   We'll be back what?

01:35:01   January.

01:35:02   So Happy New Year.

01:35:03   - Happy New Year.

01:35:04   - Cheerio.