00:00:28 ◼ ► It's a pleasure and it's my pleasure to also introduce Mr. Stephen Hackett to the connected podcast.
00:01:00 ◼ ► So this listener wrote in to say, I recently went to a very tragic funeral of a friend who suddenly passed away.
00:01:08 ◼ ► Attendance was so large there was a spillover room where we watched the funeral service via zoom on a projector screen.
00:01:28 ◼ ► As people gave remarks, including the priest, it kept interpreting their gestures, sending big thumbs up and balloons behind them.
00:01:36 ◼ ► It even did it during the slideshow of photos of the deceased, just random balloons and emoji appearing over treasured images set to sad music.
00:01:49 ◼ ► While horribly embarrassing for the venue, it gave my colleagues and I something to look at each other and laugh about during one of the saddest days of our lives.
00:01:57 ◼ ► I will tell you right now, we have made reference to the fact that this is a bad feature in some of these kinds of instances.
00:02:11 ◼ ► The people in that room were having the best time they could have had in that environment.
00:02:21 ◼ ► But if you were in that room, you would not have been able to help yourself, but start laughing, right?
00:02:29 ◼ ► Like I feel like it would have lightened the mood a little bit, at least for these people.
00:03:09 ◼ ► This reminds me of one time when I was in high school and we went to the funeral of a grandparent, of a friend of ours, and the dad of a classmate went to say, he wanted to say my condolences to the relatives.
00:03:27 ◼ ► And so the dad of one of my friends just walks up there and shakes the hand of the wife, I believe.
00:03:59 ◼ ► I don't think I told y'all, but after my car accident last year, you know, I went to the emergency room, got checked out.
00:04:05 ◼ ► And as I was leaving, the nurse who had kind of been helping me was like, I hope you feel better.
00:04:23 ◼ ► A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a YouTube live stream of this creator that I like, and they kept having this happen.
00:04:37 ◼ ► And so in the chat, I was like, hey, go to the camera icon in your menu bar and you can turn them off.
00:04:52 ◼ ► And if you have a creator that you like and you do something to help them, or they acknowledge you in some way, like it's always a good feeling.
00:05:03 ◼ ► It's just it being good, like the way in which it is good is also incredibly problematic, right?
00:05:26 ◼ ► Because I cannot bring myself to believe that you would not assume that these kinds of weird things could happen.
00:05:34 ◼ ► Like, even if you're, even if you never imagine someone using a zoom call to have an overflow room at a funeral, you must assume that like sometimes someone might be having a FaceTime call with a friend that is some about something sad.
00:05:52 ◼ ► Like you, I can only imagine you have to have run through that scenario, but they decided to ship it anyway.
00:06:06 ◼ ► Like if I was in that scenario and like had this feature, I would run through, you know, like what are the ways in which this could go wrong?
00:06:19 ◼ ► And I would say like, this is a feature that's worth shipping because it is a fun thing, but yeah, it's going to go weird.
00:06:53 ◼ ► I've seen people use, like in my life, use their computers and they just ignore everything that the thing tells them, right?
00:07:01 ◼ ► Like if, if you put up like a little splash screen or whatever, people just don't even read it, you know?
00:07:12 ◼ ► I was getting off the train and just as I was walking, like I was waiting to get off, like I just turned to the left and I could see somebody, they were on their iPhone and they were like really studying a subscription splash screen, like really reading it all.
00:07:31 ◼ ► It was just very interesting to me, like that, you know, somebody put together, like this is whatever this app was and these are all the features it has, like this person was like really reading it.
00:07:47 ◼ ► You know, if the text was just enormous, it'd be easier to understand what was happening, but we'll get to that later.
00:07:53 ◼ ► That, by the way, like big text is like, you know, everyone does it in design. I do designers that I work with, I know it must drive them at. Can we just make the text a little bit bigger? Like this is one of those.
00:08:06 ◼ ► Listener Mark R wrote in, we were just watching a YouTube video where there was a sketch involving a police officer. Suddenly our HomePod mini called out. Would you like me to call emergency services? Luckily it listened when we hastily said no, no. But I'm curious if you know what would prompt this. I couldn't find anything quite like this online.
00:08:29 ◼ ► The closest thing I found was Apple support document called use HomePod for phone calls. And so it says, if you call emergency services.
00:08:41 ◼ ► And then it gives the phrase, you know, Hey thing, I'm going to say like, Steven, are you like, no violence today? Like where is he going? Is he going to say, Hey, say, Hey, hey, thing.
00:09:00 ◼ ► People all over the world are pulling over in their cars right now, just in case you're about to do this.
00:09:05 ◼ ► Hey thing, call emergency services. Then the HomePod will attempt to place a telephone call using the iPhone. If you've set it up to make personal requests. I don't have personal requests on any of my HomePods.
00:09:18 ◼ ► Because they're all in shared spaces except for the ones in my office. And if I'm in my office, I'm at my computer, so I don't need to talk to it to do anything. But yeah, what a, what a situation. I mean, I think we've all had.
00:09:31 ◼ ► I think that it could even be something like emergency, like, you know, like, I feel like if there are, there are more words that you could say to it where it would ask, do you want me to do this rather than just do it? Because I feel like in some of these, it should just make the call. Right. It shouldn't just ask you if you want to make the call.
00:09:52 ◼ ► I mean, if you're, if you're watching a thing about a police officer, like it's very easy to understand how the words like emergency services could be. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is that it picked up the activation phrase from the video. Yeah, I mean, I think the issue. Well, honestly, are we surprised?
00:10:12 ◼ ► Sometimes it's not related to Siri, but I've noticed that my LG TV just randomly activates its built in assistant, which I don't even know what it's called. LG bot, whatever. I honestly don't know. LG Q. I don't know. And I got to get to the bottom of it because now it's happening every few days and my TV also replies in British English for some reason.
00:10:34 ◼ ► Yeah, I cannot do it, but it's like it's got a very thick British accent to the LG assistant and I got to figure out what's, what's triggering it. But yeah, this is season's man. They're done. Not that strong, but yeah, yeah.
00:10:51 ◼ ► The telly. We got a little bit of follow up about the Ricky's episode last week. First of all, it's not the document, but, um, we're going to get to it. Mike already has a point, which is upsetting. A lot of people wrote in saying they missed the humming and the bell. So I think we made a mistake by getting rid of that.
00:11:13 ◼ ► I think the humming, our humming error is over. Wow. To be honest, I feel like we were losing steam on it. I feel like we weren't enjoying it the same and it was just becoming a thing we did. I think like, I feel like we're past our humming error.
00:11:29 ◼ ► I mean, I have also seen feedback in the past where people ask us to please, please stop doing it. So I think, you know,
00:11:51 ◼ ► We also have just a mountain of blue shell ideas to spice up the game and we will get to those in a future episode. Not today. There's a lot of stuff.
00:12:13 ◼ ► We're going to be creating the rule set around allowing what someone can and can't do with their temporary rule change. That's the thing we need to work out. Maybe we'll wait until there's an episode where there's nothing going on and then we'll talk, we'll try and hammer this one out.
00:12:30 ◼ ► Boys, do not follow this link to the world. Whatever you do, don't buy anything online. Everybody knows you cannot use your credit card online because you will be frauded.
00:12:49 ◼ ► Everybody knows. No, you're going to be frauded. Don't use your credit card on the internet.
00:12:55 ◼ ► Well, I clicked a link on an Instagram ad and I purchased a product so I guess now they're going to take my family now.
00:13:05 ◼ ► Just from 9to5Mac, Apple is updating its app store guidelines to allow developers to link to alternative payment methods, providing that the app also offers purchases through Apple's own in-app purchase system.
00:13:19 ◼ ► So this is around what is called the anti-steering rules. This is one of the things that fell out of the Apple Epic case. It went all the way up to the US Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court was like, "No, you have to give people the option to go and sign up on the web and you can't tell developers that they can't tell their customers to do it."
00:13:40 ◼ ► Well, technically, one true John will tell you the Supreme Court decided not to decide, therefore the previous ruling stands.
00:13:58 ◼ ► Anyway, this is all the same. All of the rules, all of the processes, everything is the same as what Apple has done currently in the Netherlands and in South Korea.
00:14:10 ◼ ► So if you want to, as a developer, opt into this system, you have to basically apply to get an entitlement to allow you to do it.
00:14:18 ◼ ► You are allowed one link where you can tell people that they can go and sign up for your service outside the App Store.
00:14:28 ◼ ► When somebody clicks that one link, which cannot take people to an in-app browser, it has to take them to Safari. I don't understand that part of it.
00:14:38 ◼ ► It's very strange that they are making people do that. It shows this big splash screen with huge text which says, "You're about to go to an external website.
00:15:00 ◼ ► Your App Store account, store payment and related features such as subscription management or refund requests will not be available.
00:15:16 ◼ ► So people see that splash screen. The original text of this splash screen when they were working on it in South Korea, the Netherlands first, I don't remember which one.
00:15:29 ◼ ► The Netherlands courts made them change it. The original text was basically saying what I was making a joke about before.
00:15:38 ◼ ► Like, "Buying something on, using your card, we cannot verify the security of your bank card." It was pretty insane.
00:15:51 ◼ ► There is an episode of Upgrade that we just referenced on last week's show where it's like the title was something like "This App May Kill You."
00:16:11 ◼ ► So either 30 or 15 percent depending on what it is and where you are in their programs.
00:16:23 ◼ ► Apple also expects you as the developer, the company, to do all of the accounting for this and then provide that to them along with the money that you are collecting for them.
00:17:04 ◼ ► And I think Apple are hoping that the threat of being removed from the App Store will make people comply.
00:17:12 ◼ ► It says either they gave this quote to 9to5 or it was in some documents I'm not sure about but it's a 9to5 Mac.
00:17:17 ◼ ► Apple said although developers are contractually obligated to pay the commission, as a practical matter with hundreds of thousands of developers with apps on the US storefronts for the iOS and iPadOS app stores, collection and enforcement will be exceedingly difficult and in many cases impossible.
00:17:40 ◼ ► And Apple's whole thing about this is the 27 or 12% is what is to pay for all of the things they give you as a developer.
00:17:56 ◼ ► I have my views on this and other people have their views on this and Apple have their views on this.
00:18:06 ◼ ► 9to5 Mac, I also got this from them, Apple has provided templates that developers can use for communicating with customers about alternative in-app payment systems.
00:18:16 ◼ ► You can say, and this is actually much more lenient, like the wording that they would like you to use than I expected.
00:18:32 ◼ ► That is surprising to me that Apple is fine with you saying to get 27% off this price, go here.
00:18:40 ◼ ► But I guess from Apple's perspective they expect to then get that 27% anyway so what do they care?
00:18:54 ◼ ► So you can't have a screen for your in-app purchase and then you tap it and then you see this.
00:19:06 ◼ ► So while they provide some templates, if you look at the entitlement documentation, they are still really picky about where these links can go.
00:19:25 ◼ ► Apple is saying you can do this but if you look at their layouts it's very clearly a downplayed option versus what the standard app store checkout screen flow looks like.
00:19:40 ◼ ► Yeah, they're being very prescriptive and I will be fascinated to see who actually takes them up on this.
00:19:55 ◼ ► I think large companies would still be inclined to do it because they're going to get more customer data this way.
00:20:04 ◼ ► And they're also going to have people's cards on file. So you think of a Spotify and Netflix, whatever.
00:20:11 ◼ ► I think they would even be happy to do the whole, provided they already do it in-app purchase, right?
00:20:17 ◼ ► I think they would be happy to give Apple their money because they will get something that they're not currently getting.
00:20:27 ◼ ► They have people's cards, they have their emails, whatever. Stuff that they may not have depending on the way that the person signs up for an in-app purchase.
00:20:36 ◼ ► I just think the whole thing is like, I think it's, honestly I think it's, this just shows the, it kind of like lays it all bare what Apple think.
00:20:55 ◼ ► Yeah. They are complying with what they're supposed to do, but they're doing it through as gridded teeth as possible.
00:21:11 ◼ ► And, you know, you mentioned earlier that 27 percent or 12 percent, if you're in the small business program after the year, blah, blah, blah.
00:21:18 ◼ ► They view that as a service fee to get to use their platform and they view it as their platform, their tools, and you are paying for access to it.
00:21:34 ◼ ► I mean, it is, yes, technically you can go now outside the App Store for these purchases, but Apple has done every single thing they can to disincentivize developers and users, honestly, to do it.
00:21:54 ◼ ► I know, you know, our friends who are indie developers, I don't think any of them are interested in this.
00:22:01 ◼ ► Because the amount of work you would have to do to do the accounting, because you will be too scared that Apple is going to kick you out of the App Store, right?
00:22:39 ◼ ► Like, I know what it means in, like, what Apple's saying, but this entitlement is their entitlement for that money.
00:22:49 ◼ ► Which I think, I think I've said this for years, I think they've gone too far, and I think they're continuing to do it too far.
00:22:57 ◼ ► And I think the next 12 months, we're just going to see more and more and more of this.
00:23:01 ◼ ► And like, how much they are willing to give, and what they are willing to give up to get what they believe they're entitled to.
00:23:13 ◼ ► And I'm just not sure that Apple deserves all the money that they think that they should get.
00:23:22 ◼ ► Actually, no, I'm not sure. They don't deserve all the money that they think they should get, in my opinion.
00:23:26 ◼ ► I mean, obviously, there is value in Apple providing you with the platform and the SDKs.
00:23:31 ◼ ► And the question is, and I agree with you, Mike, the question is, is that worth 27% of someone else's work?
00:23:41 ◼ ► And especially, and you get this problem, which I think it's impossible to separate the context of like,
00:23:48 ◼ ► the trillion dollar company wants 27% off of your work because of fees, and that just doesn't sit right with me personally.
00:24:05 ◼ ► And I mean, my personal opinion is just pick a lower number and stick to that without all these exceptions
00:24:15 ◼ ► Even though I do understand that there is a cost involved with Apple building the platform, and I agree with that.
00:24:25 ◼ ► It's not the only place that they're making money. They're making the actual money from the sale of the iPhone.
00:24:31 ◼ ► And like, part of the reason the iPhone is so successful is because there's apps on it.
00:24:54 ◼ ► But if you look at Spotify, right? Spotify doesn't like, need Apple to be successful, right?
00:25:03 ◼ ► People want Spotify, right? So like, for Widgetsmith, Widgetsmith needs Apple to have done what Apple did to make Widgetsmith a success, right?
00:25:18 ◼ ► Like, there is a thing to me where I'm not sure why Apple believes that because they have an iPhone, they should have 30% of Spotify's revenue.
00:25:28 ◼ ► There's an argument to be made in favor of the opposite scenario in which there are some cases in which Apple should go to certain companies and give them money to say, "Hey, please bring your app to my platform."
00:25:44 ◼ ► Well, like, cut some kind of deal, right? Like, that is, I mean, I know that you can get in weirdness with that.
00:25:57 ◼ ► Like, if the rules were we make deals, like, it would be fine. But that's not what they said that they did.
00:26:06 ◼ ► But I just, you know, it's funny to me that, like, for Apple, because they make the SDK for, so there are apps for the iPhones and people want to buy an iPhone because they sell the iPhone.
00:26:19 ◼ ► But then they also think that people should want to pay them to make software for the iPhone. It's very weird to me.
00:26:29 ◼ ► It continues to be weird and this is just completely barefaced in my opinion of, like, what they are, what they think.
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00:29:26 ◼ ► It started with a newsroom article earlier this week outlining some of the entertainment opportunities that await us on the Vision Pro headset.
00:29:36 ◼ ► Including Avatar Way of Water being one of the 150 3D movies that will be ready at launch.
00:29:53 ◼ ► It's already started the way in which it will continue. I'm the winner right now. I will continue to be the winner into the future.
00:30:17 ◼ ► A couple of noticeable absences in Apple's press release about entertainment. No mention of YouTube or Netflix. Have y'all heard of those services? Are they important to you personally?
00:30:28 ◼ ► It's almost like Apple should have a better relationship with these important partners other than just Disney.
00:30:57 ◼ ► I want to watch like Avengers Endgame from inside of Stark Tower. You know, like the Avengers Tower. Like I'm there for that big time. I'm going to have a good day with that one.
00:31:07 ◼ ► They should honestly do environments based on their own properties. Like let me watch and hear me out. Let me watch For All Mankind while sitting in the chair in Jamestown or Happy Valley Base. Like let me do that.
00:31:23 ◼ ► They should do that. They might, right? Like I think if the Disney one gets such a good reaction, maybe they would want to do that too, you know?
00:31:32 ◼ ► But the thing about YouTube and Netflix. So I was thinking about this a few days ago. And when I, when, you know, obviously we were sort of feeling that these two companies were not going to be available at launch with native apps.
00:31:44 ◼ ► And I started thinking, well, maybe I should be able to add a PWA, like a save them as a web app with Safari on the Vision Pro. But there's no support for saving web apps from Safari on the Vision Pro.
00:31:56 ◼ ► Well, I know this because I've been talking to a developer who's been working on this third party app to stream NVIDIA GeForce Now on the Vision Pro.
00:32:09 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. 4K 6C. Yeah. It's a whole thing. We'll get into it when we have the Vision Pro.
00:32:14 ◼ ► And so this developer told me there's no support for PWAs. You cannot save a web app with the Vision Pro. So they actually made like a custom app to stream GeForce Now, VI third party VisionOS app.
00:32:28 ◼ ► So if you want to watch YouTube and Netflix, I guess you will have to use, you will have to open those websites in the regular Safari browser for the Vision Pro.
00:32:40 ◼ ► Apple says they could try and head this off in the press release. They're very aware of what they have and haven't got, where they specifically say that you can watch others, that users can also watch popular online and streaming video using Safari and other browsers.
00:33:00 ◼ ► Which is one of the most hilarious lines in a press release. You know those other popular online streaming video things?
00:33:11 ◼ ► I'm assuming that the, and I would love for some developers to confirm this with me. I'm assuming that Safari on the Vision Pro presents itself with a macOS user agent or an iPad user agent to websites.
00:33:25 ◼ ► In that case, any website that works on an iPad or Mac should work just fine on the Vision Pro.
00:33:35 ◼ ► Yeah. The desktop mode is enabled by default. If you disable it, it presents itself as a tablet browser, which is the old user agent.
00:33:46 ◼ ► Again, trying to set your mind back. I know that when we did it, it was looking at a website and that looked like a desktop version of a news website.
00:33:55 ◼ ► It didn't look to me like an iPad. I mean, surely it isn't, right? If I go 100 inches on this screen as a mobile view.
00:34:04 ◼ ► Yeah, that's the only potentially interesting thing for web developers. Like if you have this person opening your website from a Vision Pro and he presents itself as a Mac and then it becomes this giant, like a 180 degree viewport.
00:34:28 ◼ ► I mean, so like what you'll end up with a lot of the time is just a really big window with a column of text in the middle.
00:34:48 ◼ ► Yeah, I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing.
00:34:59 ◼ ► Yeah, I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a really good thing.
00:35:05 ◼ ► Well, you referenced you were excited that the Alicia Keys one was going to be on there. It just reminded me of like how personal this experience is for people because for me, that was the one in the reel that I didn't like.
00:35:20 ◼ ► It felt weird to me. There is no world in which Alicia Keys would look into my face and sing at me. So it felt very strange. And I liked all of the other ones because they felt like natural things that a person could experience where like I don't really know if I believe that Alicia Keys would sing at me.
00:35:38 ◼ ► Plus it was like weird because she's like gesturing to you. So like, you know, it's odd. To me it was odd. I liked more like the other stuff, including the typewrote walking, which made me feel upset, but it was a fun thing.
00:35:52 ◼ ► The guest user mode is going to be exceptionally welcome because I was already told by all my friends and neighbors that they will want to check out the Vision Pro. And so I mean, this is obviously the kind of device where you know, those brave enough are going to buy one.
00:36:08 ◼ ► They're going to have, you know, family and friends, you know, just looking at it and wanting to try it. And so having a native guest user mode built in from the start is going to be very, very useful.
00:36:22 ◼ ► I do wonder how that's going to work. This thing is such a personalized device with like the face shield and like what if you have your prescription lenses in there? Like I appreciate that it's there, but I just wonder how good of a experience it will be.
00:36:37 ◼ ► Yeah, I mean, lenses should be easy enough to remove. They are magnetically attached. So you remove those. And I'm just going to do what I do whenever like I have friends over who want to try the PSVR or the MetaQuest.
00:36:50 ◼ ► I just keep a polishing cloth nearby and like sanitizer, you know, just because it's gross to get something off of your face and put it on someone else's face with direct skin contact.
00:36:59 ◼ ► So, you know, clean that thing, have a polishing cloth nearby, remove the prescription lenses and have them try it. And if the face shield is too tight or not big enough, well, so be it.
00:37:09 ◼ ► I'm still like wondering, could you wear your glasses under this if you didn't tighten it up too much? Like that's the thing that I am going to try.
00:37:19 ◼ ► I don't know what the inside is like, right, which might preclude it, but I feel like it's doable. Like I've worn my glasses. I wear my glasses inside of my MetaQuest.
00:37:32 ◼ ► You can fit them in there. And especially that top strap version means you won't have to tighten up the back strap so much. It might be possible.
00:37:45 ◼ ► Just for a demo for someone, like not for all the time, like it's better to have prescription lenses if you can do it, but for like a demo, you know, for a loved one to try it on, you might be able to squeeze a pair of glasses inside of there.
00:37:59 ◼ ► And speaking of all of this, like hardware related aspects of the Vision Pro, you know what I cannot wait for? Third party accessories and replacements. Like I cannot wait for other companies.
00:38:25 ◼ ► The one thing this makes me again come back to is like so many of Apple's devices are just single user. Really the Mac's the only one. Right. Or if you have an iPad managed by an education organization. But I don't know. More things that have guest user modes.
00:38:43 ◼ ► I guess the Apple TV has multiple users, but I don't know who is using that. I don't know. I wish more of these products were more easily used by more people.
00:38:51 ◼ ► I know it's like take the price out of it for a minute, but like of all of the products I have that Apple make, this is the one I would least likely want to have other people use.
00:39:01 ◼ ► No, but like I mean on the regular, right? Like as like a one time, like, you know, one time, but like.
00:39:10 ◼ ► No, but like the idea of there being a device in my house and like everyone's just picking it up and using it, like of all of the things that I could own, this would be the one that I would least likely want someone to use because every time I pick it up, then I have to reset it to my head shape.
00:39:23 ◼ ► Like this is the experience I had to have a Quest. Like every single time it required new setup because it had been, you know, it's been shared by me and my wife. So like, but with an iPad, it's not like I changed the physical shape of the iPad every time one of us uses it.
00:39:37 ◼ ► And I know people want it to have multiple users because it costs three and a half thousand dollars, but like it's not always going to be that way.
00:39:44 ◼ ► And I know that like, oh, everyone's going to have to have one if you want to want to use one. But like, I don't know. I struggle to see a world in which somebody needs four of these in their house. Like they have to have them.
00:40:01 ◼ ► That's what I'm saying. Like that time isn't now, right? Like that time might be in the future, maybe, but it's also, I also can't personally imagine a scenario where there are three people, four people in a home, right?
00:40:14 ◼ ► So you're like two parents, two kids, and you want to watch something like a piece of media. I don't think I imagine everybody picking up their headset and putting it on.
00:40:22 ◼ ► Like TVs exist and they're good and people like TVs and it's fine. You know, this is going to be its own experience. It's going to be its own thing.
00:40:31 ◼ ► It's going to be fun and cool and it's going to do what it's going to do. But I can't imagine it's going to be like watching a movie on this thing.
00:40:40 ◼ ► We did see those comments from people back in June and be like, I'm going to sell my 4K OLED TV and get rid of it and just use the Vision Pro.
00:40:47 ◼ ► Not like, I mean, if you live on your own. Yeah, exactly. Sure. Maybe you would want to do that. But like, I just, I don't imagine this scenario for a really long time. So like, I think it's okay.
00:41:01 ◼ ► Yeah, I mean, even if you live on your own and maybe you have the expectation that you're never going to have someone over and if you do, what are you going to do? Like, you're going to be like, well, let's watch a movie. I'm going to put on the Vision Pro. You will watch it on your iPhone.
00:41:21 ◼ ► They also gave like the travel, it says like a travel mode, right? Which is quite interesting. I'd love to know a little bit more about this. I haven't given more information yet, but I think it's cool. Like if you want to watch a movie on a plane, say that you turn on this mode and it increases the stabilization for visuals.
00:41:37 ◼ ► So the movie's not going to be bouncing around or whatever. I really want to know more about that. Like how and why is this different to normal? Like that's going to be an interesting thing to get more details on.
00:41:53 ◼ ► It's strange. So a couple of weeks ago, Mark Gurman reported on social media that the reviewer experience for the Vision Pro was going to be quite different and that it would include two sessions with Apple, then hardware given over.
00:42:14 ◼ ► So like you'll go in this week and they'll give you a demo and then go in next week and you get another demo. Then you get the hardware and you publish the review. I expect, you know, the week of it going on sale.
00:42:27 ◼ ► Like I think normal, right? Like to my memory, reviews never go up before preorder. They go in between the preorder buy window. But that's my memory of products.
00:42:37 ◼ ► But I don't know if it's true. It looks like that has started because also for the first time, Apple has allowed people to have photos of them wearing the units. Although Apple is taking the photos. I understand why they're doing this.
00:42:52 ◼ ► They want them to look as good as they possibly can. And so, you know, there seems to be some Apple photographer who's been taking pictures and a bunch of people have been posting them over the last 24 hours.
00:43:03 ◼ ► And also given some early impressions, it seems like there is no embargo for these at all, which is the same as for WWDC. Like for the, there wasn't an embargo on people's experiences.
00:43:15 ◼ ► I'm sure there'll be an embargo on a review, but Apple's crafting this hour long, what looks like, or I think I heard someone say like an hour long experience, which is a little bit longer than what was at WWDC.
00:43:26 ◼ ► And then next week or whatever, maybe they go for another one. But so there's a bunch of reporting about it now. These aren't reviews. These, I think are barely first impressions, right?
00:43:36 ◼ ► It's just a little bit more information. More people have got to see it than they got to see before. Some people got to see it multiple times and, you know, therefore there are more takes.
00:43:46 ◼ ► Yeah, I think that's cool. I mean, in lieu of a keynote, which clearly they're not doing, I think having people come in and then be able to talk freely about it, like a bunch of people in the tech press and sort of the creator space have just been answering open questions on like Mastodon and Twitter and Threads over the last couple of days as they've experienced this.
00:44:12 ◼ ► Well, you're speaking to the enthusiasts, right? Because they're the people that are going to buy this if anyone. It's enthusiasts and developers. And so like this rollout is pretty smart. They know who's going to be buying this. They know who they're talking to.
00:44:23 ◼ ► And they're finding a way to get to them, which isn't necessarily drawing the intention of the entire planet right now. Because there kind of isn't really any point in doing that now. It seems like where they're going with this.
00:44:44 ◼ ► So there's an Engadget, the Engadget Roundup, they talk about it. Marcus Brownlee talks about it too. I don't know what to think about this.
00:44:57 ◼ ► The way that I thought about it at the time, I don't really remember now, but I remember saying at the time, it reminded me of the AirPods Max. It was heavier than any headset I'd used.
00:45:12 ◼ ► But it didn't feel to me, again, with a 30 minute experience, like it was so bad, it was going to cause me a problem. Like, it wasn't the most comfortable thing that I'd worn.
00:45:23 ◼ ► But none of these things, they're not comfortable, like inherently they are not comfortable, but there is a level in which you are okay with it.
00:45:34 ◼ ► Like, there are a bunch of people that say they can't use AirPods Max because they're too heavy. But I use my AirPods Max fine.
00:45:40 ◼ ► I use my AirPods Max for nine hours at a time, right, that they are my airplane headphones.
00:45:46 ◼ ► And so I expect that there is an element of that. It's going to be everybody's own individual experiences, but that's the same again for like every product.
00:45:55 ◼ ► Like, I use a mouse that other people can't use. Stephen, do you use the mouse that I use now? You changed, right?
00:46:06 ◼ ► Yep. Yeah, but there was a time where you didn't want to use that mouse because you'd use something similar and it hurt your hands.
00:46:11 ◼ ► Yeah, the original MX Master didn't really work for me, but this one's pretty good. I've been using it, I don't know, six months.
00:46:17 ◼ ► But like this product will cause neck pain for some people. Like that is just inevitable.
00:46:24 ◼ ► Different people will be able to experience it differently. Like, it being heavy doesn't mean that it's going to be bad.
00:46:30 ◼ ► It just, it's, look at the thing. You can see it's heavier than a Quest, right? Like we all knew this.
00:46:39 ◼ ► Exactly. Like, you know, there's been a lot of people making fun of this and whatever, like it looks weird. Federico's post on threads was the very best one.
00:46:47 ◼ ► Where it was like, as if you were choosing a Fire from a video game. Very good. But like, I think of all of the devices that have existed, this is the best looking one.
00:46:57 ◼ ► Like, it doesn't mean it looks good, but I actually think it's handsomely designed. Like, I think the thing looks pretty cool. It's very futuristic.
00:47:06 ◼ ► It looks premium. It looks like something that costs three and a half thousand dollars, in my opinion.
00:47:12 ◼ ► Notably, one part of the design we haven't seen though is the eyesight feature. People who went in for these demos apparently got to see it, but no pictures of it and no video of it.
00:47:28 ◼ ► I think the fact that it hasn't been panned by these people is actually pretty positive. Because I think it is the thing that has drawn the most criticism, right? Visually, I think, is the eyes.
00:47:45 ◼ ► And I think the fact that I have, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't come across anyone that said it was terrible, but it was just like a little bit weird or like a bit, you know, just strange.
00:48:01 ◼ ► Or that it was broken. Because there's been a lot of people, a lot of people have a lot of theories about this device.
00:48:07 ◼ ► And I've heard a lot of people saying, "Clearly the eyesight thing is not working and they've taken it out." Like, I don't know, you know, whatever.
00:48:15 ◼ ► We all draw our conspiracy theories from the way that we build our business on talking about what we think Apple might be doing.
00:48:29 ◼ ► And I think that this is just a thing where it seems like it takes a lot of setup to do because it's related to creating your persona.
00:48:37 ◼ ► And I think they just like with everything, they want to control this part of the experience, the whole thing for as long as they possibly can before it gets out there.
00:48:44 ◼ ► But like, I think it was in the Engadget review, I think, where they said like, they saw somebody blink and it blinked.
00:48:51 ◼ ► Like, that's cool, man. Like, this is cool. You might not like it, but it seems to work.
00:48:58 ◼ ► Yeah. I do wonder if, and other people have said this too, it's not super original, like, is the eyesight something that they would lose if they try to make a cheaper version of it?
00:49:15 ◼ ► And I'll be curious, I mean, in their initial talking about it, it seems very important to them that people around you know what sort of mode you're in, because if they can see your eyes, then they can see you.
00:49:34 ◼ ► And I wonder how important that really is to people in the real world, or if people even know the difference between them, right? If I'm using this and my wife can see my eyes, does she know that I can see her or is she going to be, you know, she's going to want me to take it off to have a conversation with her.
00:49:53 ◼ ► Like, so I just want to correct myself, it was Victoria's song in The Verge, and she said it's a bit goofy, but you can see the wearer's eyes, part of what Apple calls the persona. When Apple's Vision Pro demo person blinked, we saw a virtual version of their eyes blink.
00:50:07 ◼ ► Like, I believe that they believe this is an important part of the product. And so I would be surprised to see it go. And like, so in a scenario, Steven, where you are at home and you're using this thing, and Mary asks you a question, and you look at her and she can see your eyes, once the initial shock of that goes away, like, I think that is key that you can see her because we understand what that means.
00:50:36 ◼ ► Like, I think the idea is sound, right? That like, if you don't see the eyes, I can't see you. When you can see my eyes, I can see you. And the reason that works is because that's what life is like. Right? Like, if you can't see my eyes, I can't see you. If you see my eyes, I see you.
00:50:57 ◼ ► And like, and I think that that idea is interesting. And I would, I think people will get used to what that means. And I think I'm bullish on this idea, even though I know it's going to be strange, and it's going to be weird, and it is a bit dystopian. But if we're going to have to cover our faces, this at least feels like the best compromise.
00:51:21 ◼ ► Yeah, and I think that's what Apple's going for. I think that they are leaning on the fact that this is lifelike. I think you said it really well. I think even some of that came up when, oh, I forget his name, but the Apple executive who Gruber interviewed at the talk show this year, who was heavily involved.
00:51:37 ◼ ► Yes, Mike Rockwell. I think that was a lot of, I think he talked a lot about that too. I think it is important to them because they keep saying like, this is the first one of these devices that keeps you connected with people around you. And all, you know, kind of inherent or unsaid in that conversation is the meta quest has a piece of plastic over your eyes and you're completely cut off. And I do think there's an idea there that's good.
00:52:02 ◼ ► I just, I wonder how people are going to respond to the execution of it. Because if it's Uncanny Valley, like some of the persona stuff, which I think is labeled data and when this rolls out, is it going to turn people off to the whole thing? I just don't know. We're going to see how people respond to it.
00:52:20 ◼ ► It has to be Uncanny Valley. There's no world in which this couldn't be an Uncanny Valley because they're not actually your eyes. They're the best technology company in the world. They can't make it look like it's really your eyes. Like they can't do that. It's like they can't do that. That's madness, right? There's no way. But the thing about the eyesight, what happens on the other side is also interesting, right? That when someone can see my eyes, they've broken through my VR environment.
00:52:49 ◼ ► And that is also, these two things go together and I think it makes for a compelling part of the product. As goofy as it looks. And it does look goofy, but that's okay.
00:53:02 ◼ ► Maybe there's something about the goofiness that makes it endearing to some people. Maybe looking at it now, yeah, it's kind of strange and maybe even a little off-putting, but maybe that's okay because it makes it less threatening in a way? I don't know. I haven't used it. No one's really seen this. It's been able to talk about it. I guess we'll find out.
00:53:31 ◼ ► Yeah. I will say, during the announcement and stuff at WBC and afterwards, kind of showing Mary some of this stuff and talking about it with her, the eye thing kind of freaks her out.
00:53:48 ◼ ► I have no doubt it's going to freak a lot of people out. It's going to. But what I mean is I think that there will be a tailing off of that. There is the initial reaction and then you just kind of get used to it. Because if you think about the time that we've been in technology, these kinds of things have happened lots of times. Just look how mainstream those Ray-Bans have become.
00:54:12 ◼ ► Like the meta Ray-Bans with the camera. What people didn't like about Google Glass is it had a camera on it. But now the meta Ray-Bans are a mainstream product that people are just buying because it's cool and tech talk and you take fun videos.
00:54:27 ◼ ► And people aren't really asking that question anymore about, "Oh, but you've got a camera on me." Because we've moved so far from that point because there are cameras everywhere all the time in our faces and we just don't care about it the same.
00:54:49 ◼ ► What are our plans? What are our plans? We are running a spectrum on this podcast of effort. There's all kinds of efforts going on. Do you want to start with Steven? Least effort?
00:55:04 ◼ ► Mine's the lowest effort. It's got to be up at 7 a.m. to order this thing. Apple rolled out some of those details about ordering and you're going to need a face ID equipped device to scan your face.
00:55:20 ◼ ► My plan is to be in my office, do the thing where I can have my laptop open and have my phone with me and see which one comes up first. It seems like if you start on the web, then it kicks you to the Apple Store app or maybe later you go in there and scan your face with face ID.
00:55:37 ◼ ► My plan is to pre-order because as we get to y'all's plans, I think I have the most likely chance of having one on day one. I spoke about this on more power users, but my interest in this is 75% professional talk about what Apple is doing with their new platform and only about 25% personal.
00:56:00 ◼ ► I don't know where this fits into my life or my work or whatever, but here we are. So yeah, my plan is to get up and drop a bunch of money on Friday morning.
00:56:11 ◼ ► Well, we all have the same chance of getting one, right? We all have the same chance of getting one. It's then just about like the way in which it is collected.
00:56:30 ◼ ► Yeah. I created this whole system with John. I'm using a spare iPhone and a secondary Apple ID that belongs to John, that John was kind enough to set up for me.
00:56:46 ◼ ► So I will log into the Apple Store app with a VPN, pretending that I'm in the United States and that I am John Voorhees, purchasing a Vision Pro.
00:57:02 ◼ ► So I'm going to do it and put in the order using this VPN and an Apple ID that belongs to John method.
00:57:09 ◼ ► We have already tested this method and I, in fact, I bought a 30 pin dock connector for John from the Apple Store because he needed it for his revived iPod.
00:57:31 ◼ ► Also, because I need the prescription, but Apple said that in order to get the prescription lenses, you're going to have to upload a valid prescription issued by a US eye care professional.
00:57:46 ◼ ► So I found a way to get one of those. I have a US prescription for my glasses, for my lenses.
00:58:11 ◼ ► Then John will overnight it to me and I'm going to pay a very, very large amount of money on shipping and taxes for Italian customs.
00:58:35 ◼ ► As someone who has mailed three calendars to you and a bunch of other stuff over the years, I'm always jealous that John has a much higher success rate than I do.
00:59:01 ◼ ► A few days ago, the DHL delivery guy that delivers packages in my area saw me and was like, "Hey, you're Federico."
01:01:39 ◼ ► And then I'll be in America recording podcasts and using a headset for a few days or whatever.
01:14:21 ◼ ► These phones got too bright at a certain point, in my opinion, to try and live that way.
01:15:02 ◼ ► Members also get access to the Relay Members Discord, newsletter, a couple of members-only podcasts.