0:00:00[Music]
0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 506. Today's show is brought to you by
0:00:14SaneBox, Ooni Pizza Ovens and Express VPN. It is
0:00:19April 1st, 2024. We're no fools. My name is Mike Hurley. I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason.
0:00:25It's great to be here, Mike. It's great to be here on the worst day of the year. The worst day.
0:00:30I, I, this morning I just turned to Lauren in bed while we were, uh, like having our tea and I said,
0:00:35"Oh, by the way, it's April 1st, don't believe anything today." She's like, "Okay, great."
0:00:39And then there's an ugh, like, "Ugh, boy, yeah, great." Everything we say here is real.
0:00:45I like it when people just have fun. They're not like trying to trick you. That's, you know,
0:00:50I'm not into that. No, it's a great day for funny bits, right? Funny bits are fine. Most of them are.
0:00:54Be funny. Well, yeah, it is also a day for people who aren't funny to try to be funny and those
0:01:00don't work out so well. But faking fake stuff is not, is my least favorite. I have a Snow Talk
0:01:06question for you. It comes from Levan who asks, "Have you tried reading comics on your Vision Pro?
0:01:12I see that the Marvel Unlimited app works in compatibility mode." Honestly, my,
0:01:20I don't view Vision Pro as a reading device. I will read things in it, but that's just not
0:01:25how I use it. I haven't tried comics. I guess I will, but I just even my, I just have no
0:01:32enthusiasm for it. Like I'm enthusiastic about immersive video and about 3D movies and even
0:01:38about just watching like a baseball game like I did last week. Like there are lots of things about
0:01:42it that I'm interested in. Reading, I feel like I've got better devices. Like if I'm gonna read
0:01:49a book, I've got a better device. It's my Kobo. If I wanna read a comic book, I've got a better
0:01:55device. It's my iPad Pro. And I think I just prefer that. Now I have scrolled articles,
0:02:02but even like longer articles, I don't really wanna read them on the Vision Pro. I'd really rather
0:02:06read them somewhere else. So I have been reading this. So this is one of those cases where I just
0:02:11kind of take the question and totally turn it sideways. That's fine. I have an answer so we
0:02:15can come back around. Okay. But here it is. I have been reading the Amazing Spider-Man comic that you
0:02:22recommended to me. That was in Upgrade Plus. So in Upgrade Plus I made a good recommendation for
0:02:26Jason, I think. I hope. Nick Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man run. And I've been reading that and
0:02:31enjoying it. I have come to realize, and I think Marvel has done this too. When I was reading comics
0:02:38the first time, and then certainly the second time I really got into reading comics when the iPad
0:02:43came out. The struggle is something that I think they call it the eternal present in comics, but
0:02:50it's this idea that every comic that's ever existed, there's actually a great book called
0:02:54All of the Marvels about this, where a guy decided to read every Marvel comic in the Marvel universe
0:03:00in order from start to finish and tell the story. 'Cause it's meant to all have happened.
0:03:07And the problem with that is that first off, it's way too much. It's like how the TV show M*A*S*H,
0:03:13if you do a timeline of everything that happens in the TV show M*A*S*H, it's literally impossible
0:03:18for it to have happened during the Korean War. Korean War was too short for M*A*S*H.
0:03:22It's a little like that, where Peter Parker, even if he's in his 30s and married to Mary Jane Watson,
0:03:29Peter Parker has lived too much and there have been too many lives and too many things have come
0:03:36and gone. And it's this eternal present also where Peter Parker today is in the 2020s, and he
0:03:44remembers events that happened to him a couple years ago, but when those events actually happened,
0:03:48it was the 1970s. And you're like, "Well, how does it all mean?" It doesn't make any sense.
0:03:52This is a long way of saying that one of the things that I appreciated in reading these first few Nick
0:03:56Spencer Spider-Man comics is I feel like Marvel philosophically has gotten over the whole idea
0:04:10that it makes sense. I feel like, I didn't even mention, the other problem is if you try to do
0:04:16essentially a reboot and say, "Oh well, but he's actually back in school now," or "Oh, he and Mary
0:04:21Jane weren't actually married," and you try to make him younger again. So he gets into his 30s
0:04:26and then suddenly he's in his early 20s again, but everything happened, which doesn't make any sense.
0:04:31So the Nick Spencer Spider-Man, it sets him in a certain age, recent events are remembered,
0:04:37distant past events are vaguely remembered, but I feel like it gets over the hump of like,
0:04:43"It's good enough." You get it. You get who this is. We're just telling some Spider-Man stories here.
0:04:49And that's all that matters, which is great because the burden of trying to make everything
0:04:54connect and make sense, which is impossible anyway, makes for worse storytelling. So I felt
0:04:59a freedom of just saying, "Look, this is what this book is about. He's back with Mary Jane and he's
0:05:07unemployed for a different reason. And just get over it." I liked that about it. I really
0:05:15appreciated that I could just dive in and accept the premise of what this Spider-Man story was
0:05:20trying to do and then just go with it. So yeah, as the series goes on, more things come up from
0:05:27the past, but I think he does a very good job of just picking what's necessary. Yeah, and you just
0:05:31have to accept it. I mean, I find that the "But what about this?" and "Didn't he already meet this
0:05:36person in this?" and all that, it's like, I just am over it now. I just want to tell some good stories.
0:05:41Like that's all that matters. I think they're getting ready to reboot everything again, right?
0:05:46They're doing new ultimate stuff. That's fine, whatever. There's gonna be new ultimate Spider-Man.
0:05:52It's like, I think it's already started, but it's on Marvel Unlimited in a couple of weeks.
0:05:57So yeah, I have tried the Marvel Unlimited app on Vision Pro. It doesn't work for me.
0:06:04The issue is you end up with this huge comic page in front of you and it's too much head movement
0:06:13to get through the comic. What I didn't try and what might be nice is if you are somebody who likes
0:06:19the Marvel Unlimited app, same as the Comixology app before it, does the thing where it zooms into
0:06:25each area. I know that some people like that and maybe reading it like that would be pretty nice,
0:06:32but I mean, you'd probably be tapping quite a lot, but no, I like the full page. Just read the
0:06:36full page. And it is kind of cool that the Vision Pro has the "You can switch from landscape to
0:06:42portrait." That's actually really nice for when you're reading a comic because you don't actually
0:06:47have to physically move the iPad around. You can just look at the button. It is a good experience.
0:06:53It is just not what I would particularly want. But what I'm happy about what Marvel did here
0:07:00is they would just like, "Screw it. We're just gonna make it available." Because I think that
0:07:04that is what a lot more apps should be. I think they should be like, "We'll just put it up."
0:07:11You can use it if you want to. And if you like it, great. I really wish more people would have
0:07:14done that. If you would like to send in a Snell Talk question of your own to help us open a future
0:07:21episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your own Snell Talk question.
0:07:27I have a follow up for you, Jason. You remember a while ago we spoke about there was a rumor that
0:07:35the Apple stores were going to start bringing this new technology in where they would be able
0:07:41to update the phones in the boxes? Right. Images of this machine have appeared online. So I have
0:07:49a link here from MacRumors. So this device is built to allow for this perfect placement. So you
0:07:54take the iPhone boxes and you put them in and the machine lights up. Once the machine detects that
0:08:00there's an iPhone, it is able to remotely boot up the iPhone while the iPhone is still sealed in the
0:08:05box, update the software and turn it off. It takes about 15 to 30 minutes for a phone update to
0:08:11complete. The device in the image looks like it can take six phones at a time and there are
0:08:16multiple devices stacked on top of each other. So my thinking on this is this is quite an
0:08:21interesting idea, but for the main time that this is most important, which is around iPhone launch
0:08:26time, this feels wholly impossible as a thing to achieve from when the phones arrive to when people
0:08:33will be taking them out of the store. It feels to me like this is an interesting idea, but that
0:08:40needs to be much, much faster than that time period or be able to take way more of these things. You
0:08:46know what I mean? Like half an hour per iPhone feels like a lot. Yeah, it's true. I wonder what
0:08:55the volume is and how many of these machines they're making and all of that. And I think that
0:08:58this is going to be limited to certain models that have an older version of software. Maybe it's less
0:09:05for the launch iPhones and it's more for the ongoing stock so that when you hand out an iPhone
0:09:10to somebody in March, it's not all the way back on the one when it was manufactured in December
0:09:19or whatever. I don't know, depending on the stock in the store. I don't know. I love this idea.
0:09:26Obviously, it's not ideal. You want it to be faster, but it's a software update.
0:09:30It's very clever that they're doing it all wirelessly. We talked about how this would
0:09:34be because people were like, "Oh, you can't do that." It's like, well, Apple makes the device.
0:09:39They absolutely can do that. They have a mode where it's either looking for a specific Wi-Fi
0:09:44or it's looking for a very specific NFC attachment and then it gets on a network or it's looking for
0:09:50a USB attachment. They've built this thing to do this. They built the iPhone and this device to
0:09:56work together to make this happen, which is cool. But you're right. How many iPhones move out the
0:10:01door in a day and how many are you going to be able to do this? And also that means somebody
0:10:06in the retail store is minding the oven the whole time. - I can imagine a scenario where you might
0:10:14be able to request it or they might be able to ask when you're picking up your device, like,
0:10:18would you like us to make sure this is up to date for you, that kind of thing. So there's definitely
0:10:22uses for it, but this kind of technology would be way better if it was built into the trucks
0:10:27that brought the iPhones. - Sure, on the planes. - Yeah, it can be done on the ship or in the
0:10:34factory or I guess the factory is too soon in the process. - That's before they're in the box.
0:10:38Whatever that they put on it at the factory is no longer current. And so, yeah, it may be for,
0:10:47I would imagine that the biggest issue is early on in the shipping, where they make a lot of them
0:10:51and they're old versions and that they need to get them up to the current version. But it's not
0:10:57scale. I love how clever it is, but you're right saying that what's the scale of this? And the photo
0:11:03that MacRumor has posted shows two of them stacked on top of each other. And it's like,
0:11:10well, you are already at the point now where you were like, oh, we'll make it with six. Six will
0:11:15be good, right? And then people are like, nope, get me more and I'll just put them in a stack.
0:11:19It does look a little like a pizza oven, or I was thinking it's like from Dune,
0:11:24like what's in the box? iPhones. Updates are the mind killer. Okay, all right, I'll put my iPhone
0:11:33in the box. It's fine. - But it's a cool idea. I mean, this is kind of one of those things where
0:11:37where could they take it, you know? And it is a cool idea. Maybe there's something in the future
0:11:42where maybe it doesn't need to do the full update and it takes like five minutes, but then the first
0:11:47time that it turned on, it completes the update. Like you're just like loading the package on.
0:11:52This has come from multiple iPhones that have launched now where the software that you need for
0:11:59that phone is not on that phone. - It's not on the phone. And you're trying to do a backup from your
0:12:04most recent iPhone, which is already on the new version. And they've improved that, right? Where
0:12:09they're like, ah, this is another version. It's newer. Would you like me to update my phone? Update
0:12:15me to that version and then restore? And you're like, yes, it does it. It's better. But the goal
0:12:20is that you walk out of the store without having to do a software update. - Yep, that's the goal.
0:12:24WWDC has been announced. WWDC 24, June 10th to 14th, 2024. It happened in the last couple of
0:12:36days. - It's the second week of June. Surprise some people. I did go look and see when schools
0:12:40get out here in California and it is that week and it never fails that they do it the week that
0:12:45everybody's got like and school things and graduations and stuff. So good job,
0:12:49Apple. You did it again. People at Apple don't have kids in school. I'm glad. I don't anymore,
0:12:55but I laughed. I actually went and looked up my local high school's school calendar and sure
0:13:00enough, that's their last week because of course it is. It's just very funny. I don't know why they
0:13:05do it that way. Also, interesting styling on the logo, right? It's more like triple V DC.
0:13:12Just interesting. - Yeah, I think they did this on some merch last year. I think like the tote bag
0:13:20had the W styled this way. Or maybe it didn't, but it's a fun look. It's a fun look. You know,
0:13:27Apple is really, this is like the admission that WWDC is too long. - It is. Shorten it up there.
0:13:37- That you can say worldwide developers conference with as many syllables, which is always fun.
0:13:42So yeah, it's happening June 10th, 14th. I also like that Apple have now created a developer page
0:13:50on YouTube where they're going to be uploading the sessions this year. - And they've got the old
0:13:54sessions up there. - Yeah, from 2023. So this makes things even more accessible than they were
0:14:00before. - And just to be clear, chances of Mike coming to California for WWDC are low? - Yeah,
0:14:06low. I mean, it's not definitely no right now. I'll know within a couple of weeks if it's like,
0:14:13if it's definitely no or maybe. That's where I am right now. - You got stuff going on. - Yeah,
0:14:18I got a lot of things going on and I'm just not sure if I can squeeze it into the schedule.
0:14:21- You already went to the US for a Vision Pro. - You already went, yep. Now we're going back for
0:14:28podcast of thumb. And it's not like I'm not going to be seeing my friends around that time.
0:14:32- It's true. It's true. - Everyone's coming to me for a change. - That's right. Finally.
0:14:37I mean, I've come to London and seen you what, three or four times now? - Yeah, more than most.
0:14:44- At least, yeah. - DMA today. - Today. - Maybe for the last time. - Last time,
0:14:51yeah. - As thank you to the literally hundreds of Upgradients who wrote in to help us pick a name
0:14:58for our new segment, which will be the combination of all potential regulation, whether it be DMA,
0:15:05DOJ, and what will inevitably come. This could have encapsulated Dutch dating apps when we were
0:15:11doing that for a while. - Yeah, any legal or regulatory proceedings involving Apple will
0:15:18here and after have their own segment. - Yep, which is going to be called Lawyer Up.
0:15:25That's going to be the new name. This was by far and away the most frequently suggested and also
0:15:34the best one. So thank you to everybody who suggested Lawyer Up. That will be the new name.
0:15:39We're having some new artwork made, which I'm very excited about, which is why this segment is still
0:15:46called DMA today, 'cause we don't have the artwork yet, but we will soon. I think the second best
0:15:53that I saw was Regulation Roundup, which I also love. - Also very funny. - But I don't wanna pollute
0:16:00the namespace. - It's not all regulation. It's like it's better this way. - We can't round
0:16:04everything up. If anything, we cannot round this up. The rumors, we can round them up.
0:16:09The regulation, we cannot round it up. - No, we just gotta lawyer up. That's what we gotta do.
0:16:12- I had a cool question I wanted to talk about from Francois, who wrote in to say,
0:16:17"I'm curious to know if Apple gets fined a monstrous amount, which could be at least
0:16:2110% of their global revenue, where does the money go? Could it make its way to social programs in the
0:16:30EU and their countries?" So this is a question where I looked at it and was like, "I don't have
0:16:36the answer for this." We get a lot of these kinds of questions. Should I understand? People ask
0:16:40questions that there's just no way that me or you could know the answer. I think sometimes what
0:16:44people are looking for is our opinion on such a thing. But for me, my opinion is like, "Yeah,
0:16:49I mean, it probably should." So I started Googling around and I couldn't find it. So I used a tool,
0:16:55this new AI tool that I like called Perplexity. I heard about this on the Hard Fork Podcast and
0:17:01I've been trying it out. And essentially what Perplexity does is it uses various models,
0:17:09but they tune the models to try and make it the best at answering questions,
0:17:15specifically. Effectively, better than a Google search is what they're going for. That's their
0:17:21idea. And they gave me the following, and I'll put a link in the show notes so people can see
0:17:25what it looks like. They say, "The search results that they've done do not explicitly state what the
0:17:30European Commission would do with the money it receives from fines related to the DMA.
0:17:35However, typically when the European Commission imposes fines, the money collected from these
0:17:40fines goes into the general budget of the European Union. This budget is used to fund various EU
0:17:46programs and activities across member states, which can range from agricultural subsidies
0:17:51to regional development projects, research and innovation programs, and more." So the idea is
0:17:56yes, in theory, any money that they would collect from DMA fines would and could go to the European
0:18:04people in some form. Yeah, whatever programs are being done by the EU. Yeah. So interesting
0:18:11questions, interesting thought exercise. Maybe this makes these kinds of things more appealing to
0:18:17EU citizens. I don't know. But there's a lot of conversation at the moment about the fines and
0:18:25how they equate to revenue. I don't really want to wade into that right now, but there you go.
0:18:33Thank you for the question, Francois. And hopefully next time we talk about this,
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0:21:05Room around up. Yeehaw. Mark Gurman is reporting that the new iPads that we did our draft on
0:21:13last week will be launching in May. Production is now being ramped up for these devices.
0:21:19Apparently they were supposed to launch in March or April, but there has been a delay on both
0:21:24finishing the version of iPadOS that will run on them as well as some production delays from the
0:21:28OLED panels. You know, some people might say, wow, you did that draft prematurely. And I'm going to
0:21:32say no. I actually kind of like this idea that we did a little message in a bottle from a time when
0:21:37there are fewer details that are clear, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do it is it felt
0:21:42like nobody is entirely sure about all the details, not even Mark Gurman. And that that would allow us
0:21:50to go in and really be uninformed when making our draft choices or only lightly informed.
0:21:57And I liked that. I felt like that was a good competitive, surprising sort of thing. And I
0:22:02honestly don't mind since we're pretty confident that there's going to be a big iPad release, right?
0:22:06To take a draft and then have it be a message in a bottle, toss it in the draft ocean, I don't know.
0:22:12It's like a time capsule. We'll open it up in May. This is something that would be hard to do
0:22:19like other times, but it really did feel that it was specifically iPads coming, right? And so this
0:22:26was an easier one to do. And I do like that basically this product launch will come and go
0:22:34and would maybe otherwise not have a draft and that would be a shame. So considering that there
0:22:39is interesting stuff with them. Right. We did this last year with one prospective draft where we
0:22:45recorded on a Monday, we thought they would announce an event or do a product release on
0:22:49like a Tuesday. And I forgot what it was. Was it Max? Anyway, we did it.
0:22:53It was the October event. And it worked, right? We did that. And I like that because otherwise
0:22:58we're missing drafts. So if we have some sort of confidence that there's going to be a product
0:23:02announcement and uncertainty about what it is, then doing a draft in the hopes that it will one
0:23:09day be cashed in, I think is perfectly fine. So I look, not that it's all about us. I'm also
0:23:14looking forward to having their be new iPads and I'm sorry that they're not coming sooner,
0:23:18but I look forward to them when they get here. Yeah, it's coming at some point, Sue.
0:23:22So this next topic, it's not a rumor, but I think is a conversation, a news story that is
0:23:31interesting to people who are interested in rumors. It's about what powers rumors. It's the
0:23:37behind the scenes, the thing that makes rumors happen, which is leaks. Yes. Last week, friend
0:23:45of the show, Joe Rossignol of MacRumors posted a report about Apple suing a former employee,
0:23:51Austin Aude, I've looked this up like three times and I think that's how I'm going to say it,
0:23:57Aude, for leaking confidential information to the media. This is a quote from Joe. Aude joined Apple
0:24:05as an iOS software engineer in 2016. Shortly after graduating college, he worked on optimizing
0:24:10battery performance, making him "privy to information regarding dozens of Apple's most
0:24:16sensitive projects." So I'll just stop there. I have heard and spoken to people in similar
0:24:23kind of career points as Aude was where they are not necessarily clued in on,
0:24:33you know, they're not like on that team, like they're not on like the Vision Pro team,
0:24:41but they are at a point in the funnel where they find out about so much stuff because of the thing
0:24:48that they work on. And how Apple is structured, right? Where you end up with these functional
0:24:53groups where instead of it just being the people on the iPad team who know about the iPad, it's
0:24:58like, well, the people who work on the chips for the iPad and the graphics for the iPad,
0:25:02you could just go through it. Well, they all know about what's happening with the iPad because they
0:25:06had to work on it, at least to a certain degree. One of the teams that I imagine is like very
0:25:12powerful or very late stage is the web team at Apple, right? Like people building the website,
0:25:18so maybe they don't get like, maybe they get like, oh, you got to be ready for two weeks here,
0:25:24and they don't know what it is until that point, but they have all the imagery, all the names,
0:25:29all the price, like the stuff are very helpful. Anyway, so there's a lot of these computers that
0:25:32are not on the internet that are in a locked room that they have to go in. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah,
0:25:36yeah. Yeah. At this point, I mean, after they accidentally put things on their CDN,
0:25:40at this point, they probably do. The saying about computers. And this is, I think,
0:25:46one of the weird parts of this. So the lawsuit alleges that Audé used his work-issued iPhone to
0:25:54leak sensitive information to journalists over a five-year period. This included details about
0:26:00the Vision Pro, the Journal app, as well as policies for product development and regulatory
0:26:05compliance. It appears that most of the leaks were given to two reporters, Aaron Tilly, who works at
0:26:11the Wall Street Journal and was previously at The Information, and another unnamed second reporter,
0:26:16who also worked at The Information. A lot of detail and screenshots are actually available
0:26:21in the lawsuit, which Joe went through and wrote about, that relate to Audé leaking information
0:26:25about the Journal app specifically. This is like one of the key parts of the complaint.
0:26:30And a quote from Joe, "Apple believes that Audé's actions were extensive and purposeful,
0:26:35with Audé allegedly admitting that he leaked information so he could kill products and features
0:26:42with which he took issue." This is why I wanted to talk about this on this show today. Because
0:26:48there have been multiple times in the past where Jason and I have been asked questions or spoken
0:26:52about, like, where does this information come from? Why do we know about this? And we find out
0:26:59about a lot of things. And I think that there is a consideration that needs to be taken into the
0:27:06provenance of a leak or a rumor. And that, I think, and I think we agree on this completely, a lot of
0:27:12the time, people, when you hear something that sounds strange or weird or like really negative,
0:27:18it is someone who is upset about the fact that their pet project was killed, or a thing that
0:27:25they care about was killed, or a thing that they don't like was released. They lost an argument.
0:27:30And so they want to put it out there. And you can see, like, there are these screenshots
0:27:35that are in the article where Audé's referencing, like, he says, "I can't wait for chaos to break
0:27:42out before Apple corporate people even wake up." So, like, it's, he clearly had an axe to grind.
0:27:50And maybe that was why he did this. Unfortunately, it was a company-owned axe that he was grinding.
0:27:56So let me just get this last piece out and we can talk about that. Apple found out about the leaks
0:28:02in late 2023. And Audé was fired during a meeting about these events during the misconduct process.
0:28:08Audé denied leaking information and excused himself to use the bathroom. He then deleted
0:28:12what, quote, "significant amounts of," he then deleted, quote, "significant amounts of evidence
0:28:18from his phone," which Apple knows about, and has some access to screenshots and information,
0:28:23because he was using his work phone, which is a managed device. So Apple issued these
0:28:28corporate-owned phones, but it means that they can, so many businesses do this, like,
0:28:33if you were to quit, they'll cut your phone off, right? And it was just dead. And, or they have
0:28:38access to this kind of stuff. And it is really wild that somebody would go to the lengths that
0:28:44Audé went to using the phone that Apple gave him. It's a very, very strange thing to do.
0:28:52Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, okay. It's, this is sort of amateur hour here. And, and, and that's
0:29:01why he got caught. Because lots of people leak stuff to Mark Gurman, and they haven't gotten
0:29:07caught so far as we can tell, right? So this is a, this is a leaker who was bad at leaking.
0:29:12But I want to go back to that, the point about why, why he did it. Kill products and features
0:29:18with which he took issue. And for me, that is something we should just underline here,
0:29:24which is we don't always do it with every item, because I do think that there are various
0:29:29psychologies involved in leaking, but one of them is trying to affect change. And this can be
0:29:36positive or negative. You can view it however you want. But when somebody inside Apple leaks
0:29:42something, sometimes it's because they think it's a mistake. They actually think the company is
0:29:50making a mistake in a strange way. They think they're helping Apple by doing this.
0:29:56That they think Apple maybe has lost its way or like that they have, um, they can see something
0:30:03that like their, their bosses can't see, and it's going to hurt the company. Apple, I mean,
0:30:08they think they're helping Apple because they think Apple has made a mistake. What Apple would say is
0:30:13we know we're doing this. We decided you're hurting us because you're trying to, uh, expose what we're
0:30:20doing to the outside. But I think it's fair to say, and, and, and we see this, um, this is actually not
0:30:26super different, except it's in advance to what we do, right? Where, where if we think,
0:30:32if we think something Apple is going to do or is reported to be doing is bad, we'll say it too. And
0:30:37I've always said, you know, the goal there is really to get attention on it so that maybe,
0:30:42uh, it gives somebody on the inside a stronger argument to say, maybe, you know, look, see,
0:30:47I told you, here's the proof that people agree with me. I'm not just shouting into the wilderness
0:30:50here. Uh, you know, we went, took this out to the general public and, and, uh, people are upset
0:30:55about it, but like there, there's a manipulation thing going on here. And I think that that's
0:30:58interesting, right? It's always, uh, this was the, the example I always like to give is that
0:31:03expensive NBC thing where somebody was like, Oh, it's all just going to be network, uh, quality
0:31:07content on TV plus. And, uh, it was, you know, my pet theory is still that that was a particular
0:31:13producer on a particular show that was actually originally intended to be at a more adult audience
0:31:19and was refigured as a younger audience show. And they were mad and felt like they blamed Apple for
0:31:24it because they thought that, and they extrapolated that to be all of Apple shows, which turns out
0:31:28wasn't true. It was that particular show. So always asking yourself the question as a consumer
0:31:33of, of, of content and of rumors and of all these things is who benefits from this? We should always
0:31:39ask those questions, who benefits and why are they doing it? Because a lot of times when we cover
0:31:44stuff that's being rumored, um, this is, this starts, it starts to smell like this. I'll put
0:31:51it that way where you're like, why, you know, this is a curious, as you said, kind of curious
0:31:55rumors of like, why, why now? Why this? And the answer is sometimes to somebody is, uh, unhappy
0:32:02with how it went inside Apple. And now they're going to, um, leak that in order to grind that axe.
0:32:07Obviously I don't know this person. I can't get into their head. I really don't understand the
0:32:12scenario where they were so mad about the journal app. Like, I don't know what it could have been
0:32:17that made them so mad, you know, that they felt like this thing had to be killed.
0:32:23I think this is a person who is, um, who has some very strong opinions and is also, I think,
0:32:28young and, um, and naive and, uh, takes things personally that he shouldn't and,
0:32:35and, and, uh, has ended up in a world of trouble now for, for this. But, um, yeah, it's,
0:32:42and you kind of inherent like that in the fact that we know about this because we only know about
0:32:50this because our day is denying a lot of stuff. So app and, and because of the destruction of
0:32:58evidence, Apple is unhappy with the amount of information he's provided them about what exactly
0:33:03he leaked into who. So they are now pursuing legal action to try and get more of the full scope.
0:33:08That's why we know about this because this stuff happens often. Like I've heard about it before,
0:33:13people that have been leaks and have been terminated and maybe it's in a similar way to
0:33:21this where it's done on a device that Apple has some level of access to. And maybe they have,
0:33:27you know, we've heard about the security team, right? Maybe they had like a, a, a reason to
0:33:32expect that someone was doing something and checked in on them and it turns out they were,
0:33:37or they gave them some information that, you know, we've heard about that before, right? Where like,
0:33:41they give incorrect information to someone and if it gets out, they know who they gave it to,
0:33:45but this one has gone to court because of all these things that we've mentioned,
0:33:52it's making it worse. And that's where we're at. Well, he's, they're making an example of him.
0:33:56Yeah. I mean, in the end, this, this comes out publicly. It's because Apple wants people inside
0:34:02Apple to know that Apple does care about this and that you can get in big trouble and have your
0:34:07career ruined and, and be liable for lots of money if you, if you are a leaker. Yeah.
0:34:17So I have one other thing. I had a comment. It's actually former employee Phil Schiller,
0:34:26actually Michael Gartenberg on Twitter, who asked the question, is it ethical for journalists to
0:34:31repost links knowing it's confidential information and the consumer really has no right to know this
0:34:35isn't Watergate or the Pentagon papers. And here's, here's, I, I responded to him. Here's
0:34:43a version of that, a podcast version of that. So it's fits in more than a tweet. So talking
0:34:48about like leaks that you get from a source or whatever, is it? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like,
0:34:53does as a journalist if you know that they're they're passing you confidential information,
0:35:00right? Like what's the, what's the ethics there. And from a journalism standpoint, here is where
0:35:06generally the ethical line is drawn, which is you are not supposed to, and in fact, it illegal for
0:35:10you to induce people to give you information that would require them to break the law or their
0:35:15contracts or something like that. So inducement, the idea that you approach somebody at Apple,
0:35:20who you know, or who you don't know and say, Hey, you got any info? You give me the info. I want,
0:35:25I want the info that is generally considered unethical. If they approach you and say,
0:35:30I have in for information for you, journalist about what's going on inside Apple. It is considered
0:35:36not unethical because it's not your job to keep Apple secrets, right? It's just not,
0:35:42it's their job. And they may be, you know, they're taking their own risk, but they're bringing you
0:35:46information. And in that way, it is Watergate or the Pentagon papers in the broadest sense of
0:35:51somebody comes with, comes to you with information and your job is information about Apple.
0:35:58And you are confident that it's correct. You checked it, all of those things.
0:36:02I don't really have a problem with it. However, I also, the implicit in this is the idea that this
0:36:10isn't Watergate or the Pentagon papers that he's saying it is important stuff to the, to the general
0:36:15important to know what Apple's doing. People are doing it for entertainment. I think that there's
0:36:20truth in that. And I have always thought that. So the way I put it on, on Twitter, which I don't
0:36:25spend a lot of time on, but he asked me directly and I was like, okay, I'll respond to this.
0:36:28I think the consumers need to know about the future of tech companies is overstated. Back in
0:36:35the day, when I started in this business, there was a weekly newspaper called Mac week. And they
0:36:43were often referred to as Mac leak because a lot of what they did was here's what Apple's doing
0:36:49next. Here's what other companies are doing next in advance of them announcing anything.
0:36:53And I always thought that was curious because at Mac user, we never did that.
0:36:57All we ever did was follow embargoes, announce things when they were announced, that was it.
0:37:02And in fact, one of the clever things our, our parent company did was keep these
0:37:07technology publications separate so that when Apple got mad at Mac week, they didn't get mad
0:37:11at Mac user theoretically because we followed the rules and they would talk to us, even though they
0:37:15wouldn't talk to Mac week for a large part because they were reporting on things before they were
0:37:20ready. Um, Mac week's argument was always, well, our audience is it's, it's a controlled circulation
0:37:28publication, which means that it's qualified people who read Mac week. This is in the print days,
0:37:34had to fill out a card about how many Macs basically they were, um, they were in charge
0:37:41of and what buying authority they had. The idea is these were volume buyers of Mac computers and
0:37:47accessories that they, they were making buying decisions. And the whole premise was the people
0:37:54making buying decisions had budgets and they were trying to plan their budgets and when to buy and
0:37:59when not to buy and advanced information about when Apple was coming out with new products
0:38:05directly impacted their buying decisions. That was the argument. And there's truth in it.
0:38:11I'm sure some tiny percentage of Mac week's readership were those people.
0:38:16Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine a publication being able to survive and be profitable purely with just
0:38:27that very specific audience. That seems really weird to me. I mean, the idea was that the
0:38:31advertisers were, and you got it for free, by the way, the advertisers knew they were reaching the
0:38:36people with the money who bought stuff and you're advertising the stuff and like that on one level,
0:38:42it's actually kind of a brilliant, it's an old business model, but at the time it was kind of
0:38:46brilliant, which is people wanted to get it, but they couldn't get it. But the advertisers knew,
0:38:49even though it was a small audience, it was a super select audience of the people who had the
0:38:53money to buy their products in volume. And they really wanted to reach those people. But you know,
0:39:00the truth is, and I thought this at the time I remember reading, so Mac, we would come out,
0:39:04I forget what day it was, and we would get them at our offices. We were down in Foster City
0:39:08on the peninsula. They were up in San Francisco. They even kept us geographically separate for a
0:39:13very long time. I remember the new Mac weeks would come in and this is before the web,
0:39:17or at least before they were on the web. And I would get the issue. And I remember walking to
0:39:21lunch, I go get a sandwich across, there was like a big circle pathway with lawn in the middle.
0:39:28And then on the other side of it was like a sandwich shop and a supermarket and stuff.
0:39:32It was a big office tower located in the suburbs. It was really sleepy. There's stuff there now,
0:39:37but not when I was there. And I would walk over and I would stand in line at Togo's and I would
0:39:43order my sandwich and they would make my sandwich and they would give me my sandwich. And then I
0:39:46would walk back. And all the while I'm reading the new issue of Mac week. It was fun. Even then,
0:39:53what struck me about it was this is for entertainment, right? Like this is gossip.
0:39:57This is for entertainment. And while there is a useful quality to it, and there is,
0:40:01even today's rumors have the effect of saying, don't buy a MacBook Air M2 right now. The M3
0:40:09is coming out and the M2 will probably go lower in price. Right? Like the Mac room is buying guide,
0:40:14right? That's exactly. Absolutely. Don't buy an iPad right now because in May there are going to
0:40:20be new iPads. It's absolutely true that that is a component of it, but let's also not kid ourselves
0:40:25that a component of it is Apple won't talk about what they're working on. And when it happens,
0:40:32there's a lot of detail and there's a lot of PR spin, and then we can talk about it then,
0:40:37but it's more fun to have it spread out and to talk about what Apple might be doing in advance.
0:40:41Right? It is. We have a draft. We have these rumor roundup segments. Like it is more fun.
0:40:46I think it's sometimes interesting because it gives us more space to wonder about why they're
0:40:51doing what they're doing because Apple will never say why, even when they come out with a product,
0:40:54they'll never say why. It gives a little more space, a little more time to think about it.
0:40:58And I like that. I like it. It helps me. I would even maybe make the argument that
0:41:03self-serving though it might be a little bit that it helps me think about all the aspects of the
0:41:09product before the product gets announced. So I can sort of like go on a little journey about
0:41:12what this product might be and where it fits and all of those things. But I think it's also fair
0:41:17to say it is not Watergate or the Pentagon Papers. It is in part, I mean, as much as Bloomberg will
0:41:23say, well, and then Apple stock changed in the hours after this report when it has no connection
0:41:28whatsoever. I do think it does. It is also about entertainment. So it's fair. It's fair, but at the
0:41:34same time, if somebody, I'm not in this business, but like if somebody comes to me or, you know,
0:41:38puts an anonymous thing in our feedback form, one of Mike's anonymous informants saying, here's a
0:41:43thing that's going on at Apple, or I get these, I get messages from people who are like, I work at
0:41:48Apple or I worked at Apple and I can explain a little bit of the backstory and that helps inform
0:41:53my understanding of the thing we're talking about. I can find that, I find that useful.
0:41:57I will accept it. I'm not going to be like, no, no, no, you shouldn't be talking about that friend.
0:42:02Hands off that information. I don't, I, the onus is not on me. Like it is their job to know what
0:42:07they can and can't say. And it's, it's not, I'm not going to go to them, but if they come and
0:42:13bring it to me and I will say this is generally accepted as the difference in journalism and you
0:42:18can like it or not. You could, you could argue like, Oh, one other piece about Michael Gartenberg's
0:42:25statement that I thought was interesting is he said, this guy really screwed Apple quite a bit.
0:42:29And this is what I would say to that. I also think Apple dramatically overstates the damage
0:42:33that leaks do. I think leaks do in, in, in like 90% of cases, 99% of cases do no damage to Apple.
0:42:40None at all. Apple wants to make a splash and have it be a surprise and all of that. But you know
0:42:44what? They seem to be doing okay. And almost every major Apple announcement of the last,
0:42:49I don't know, 20 years, 30 years has been reported in advance and it hasn't mattered.
0:42:56It doesn't really matter. So, uh, although I, so on that level, it's also a game that's being played
0:43:03that doesn't matter. And, and that would be my counter argument to Apple suing the guy who
0:43:07absolutely violated his conditions of employment is I don't think Apple really wants to talk about
0:43:14the tangible damage that was done because I don't think there really is any, I think Apple's
0:43:20doubling down on secrecy about product announcements is just as much about theater and
0:43:26entertainment as the leaks are about theater and entertainment. I would argue neither of them
0:43:31really matters. And while Apple absolutely has the right to roll out their products in the way that
0:43:35they choose, I am dubious that leaking something here and there really makes a difference.
0:43:41So I think one of the things that Gartenberg is getting at, which I'm intrigued what your opinion
0:43:48is on this is like this kid's career is over, right? And like he's maybe his entire professional
0:43:55career, especially depending on what the outcome of this, um, lawsuit is, is there a responsibility
0:44:03from the reporters or is there like, should the reporters feel, I hate to use this word,
0:44:09but guilty in any way about this? Or is it just like, well, this is just the way that it went down?
0:44:13No, I think, uh, look, I think this is a gray area that I think is worth considering, which is
0:44:21if you are the reporter on the receiving end of information from somebody and they're your source
0:44:28and you realize what they're doing is kind of, I mean, and you may not know, they may be really
0:44:32cloaked, but there is, there is potentially a moment where as the, as the receiver of the
0:44:39information, you have to say, am I protecting my sources or am I going to leave them hang,
0:44:46hung out to dry and know that they're going to burn out, but that's okay. There'll be another
0:44:50one later and this guy's going to be ruined. Um, but that's okay because there'll be another guy
0:44:56tomorrow and I don't care. Like I, I, I wouldn't want to live like that. Right. However, how do you
0:45:02tell? I think that's the problem is if, if I got a signal from a source, I do this now, I do this
0:45:09now when people send me stuff and I'm like, I'm not going to even, I'm not going to even, I'm going
0:45:12to, I'm going to obscure this a little bit because I think they were a little too specific here.
0:45:16I'm going to obscure this a little bit. And I honestly, I think Mark Gurman probably does that
0:45:20too, right. Where he, he's obscuring things that maybe he could get away with more specifics,
0:45:25but in doing so it's actually riskier for the source now that's self-serving as well.
0:45:29But like, I think that's one of the things that maybe, you know, like we've spoken about the way
0:45:32that Mark started speaking and writing differently at Bloomberg. And maybe that might've been a
0:45:38Bloomberg thing of like, this is our rules on how you protect your sources. Sure. So,
0:45:43so what I would say is I think there is an ethical issue where if you're, if you are as a reporter,
0:45:50um, in a position where you've been given something and you can report it and it's by
0:45:57a source that you trust. And I don't know how this would come up, but that in doing so, you
0:46:02think it's gonna, you know, if the, if not this time, then sometime soon it is going to
0:46:08reveal who the source is and they're going to get, you know, fired and sued.
0:46:16Honestly, I think most journalists would be motivated to protect them in the sense that
0:46:22they want to keep getting information from them. But certainly in terms of just a human being,
0:46:27you know, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to publish information that destroyed somebody's career.
0:46:32Right. Yeah. But how do you know? I mean, it is also one of the reasons I'm not in that business.
0:46:37Yes. Is that it's a really dangerous game to play. And like, and I'm, I'm not saying here that,
0:46:42that these reporters didn't do this, but like, you know, I would hope at least they learn now to be
0:46:47like, all right, we're talking a signal, but is this your personal phone or is this your work phone?
0:46:51Oh, 100%. Like if I were in the information.
0:46:55I feel like if you were establishing a long-term relationship with someone, right? Like it's not
0:46:58just a one-off leak. Surely you've got to, to have a conversation of like, how are we going to share
0:47:04this information? Like, I feel like that there has to be like, uh, you are, you should, that is like,
0:47:10it feels to me like the effective way in which you protect your source.
0:47:15Certainly everybody needs to change the FAQ for anonymous sources to say, look,
0:47:22you being on signal is not enough. Are you on signal on a device not managed by your employer?
0:47:28Like it's like, here's, here's some tips now. So you, so you've decided to be an informer.
0:47:36And then like, here are the ways that you don't get caught, right? That totally should be part of it.
0:47:42And my guess is that the people at the information who don't know who this guy is,
0:47:45presumably, or only vaguely know who this guy is. Um, I think there's probably an assumption that
0:47:50they know what they're doing, especially since they contacted through signal and all of that.
0:47:53How would you know that it was a managed device? Um, but that's why, that's why you're right. You,
0:47:59you want to start. And for all I know, they do this to some people, um, they maybe even did it
0:48:03to this guy and maybe Mark Gurman does this too. But that, that whole idea of like, if you've got
0:48:07a good source, one way you can help is to guide them to not getting caught, which again, I don't
0:48:14think is necessarily unethical because they came to you, but it could be argued, right?
0:48:20It could be argued that if you're making them a better leaker. Yeah. If you're making them a
0:48:24better leaker, let me tell you how to really never get caught. I'm not sure that that is ethical or
0:48:29not. The more that you, cause this is the weird gray area, right? And again, when there is no
0:48:33judgment on anyone here, we're just talking about this, but the more that you encourage someone,
0:48:39the worse you are making it for them when they inevitably get caught. Yes. And that, and that's,
0:48:44that's all part of the give and take. And, and it's one reason that I don't really want to,
0:48:48and have never really wanted to be in this, this particular business, but I think you can do it and
0:48:53be ethical. I really do. I think you can be, I don't think it's fundamentally unethical to report
0:48:57on some businesses secrets because they are not national security secrets as Michael Gartenberg
0:49:02says, but on the other hand, they're not national security secrets. Right? Like both of those things
0:49:08are true. Right? They're not important. They're not, but that cuts both ways. Yeah. So it's
0:49:14interesting. I would love, maybe one day we will chat to Mark Gurman about, not about what he's
0:49:20reporting and not about who his sources are, but about how he handles sources. Cause I'm not
0:49:26blaming him or the people of the information. This is hard and it's, it's really tricky. And I think
0:49:32there are ways to do this ethically. And you know, I'm, I, I wonder about that, but, but it is,
0:49:38there are lots of gray areas too, as you said. So anyway, my, my short version of this is,
0:49:42it's this guy's fault. It's not the information's fault. It's this guy's fault. And the information
0:49:49might be an accomplice or an accessory in a way, but really if it came over, unless they recruited
0:49:54him like a spy or something, if it came over the transom and it's not really their job to make sure
0:50:01he's not going to get caught, even though they might help, it's not their job. And, and while
0:50:07this information, I think is, I don't think, I don't, I don't think it's wrong to publish
0:50:13information like this. And I also question how dangerous it is to Apple and how vital it is to
0:50:21the public interest. I think those are also both true. Like just the sham of it being like important
0:50:26for business planning purposes, not that it can be that way, but that mostly it's about just the
0:50:32interest in finding out what Apple's doing next. But also at the same time, I don't think it really
0:50:36causes damage to Apple. I just don't, I don't believe that. I don't fundamentally Apple will
0:50:40tell you, we're doubling down on security on privacy. You know, we're doubling down on our
0:50:44product announcement security because we want to make it secret and then make a big stink. Like,
0:50:49I get that that's their PR approach, but I would argue that there is very little difference
0:50:57in most cases between an Apple product launch, where we know sort of what's going to happen and
0:51:03an Apple product launch where we don't know what's going to happen. In terms of the net effect to
0:51:08Apple, the net benefit to Apple. I, I, there's a little, but like it's overstated. It's deep. It's
0:51:14just completely overstated. So I have two, two points I want to make to finish this up. One,
0:51:20if you're a journalist listening to this show and you get this kind of information,
0:51:23please make sure that you have a thorough checklist that you're going through with your
0:51:26informants to make sure that they're not going to get caught in this manner. Two, I know we have a
0:51:32lot of young people that listen to the show. I know we have a lot of young people who listen to
0:51:35the show who work at Apple. Don't do this. It's not worth it. Like this guy's career is over. Like,
0:51:42you don't want to be in that scenario. Yeah. Don't do it. I know that sometimes it's fun and
0:51:48you want to share things with people. And like what I'll say to you is something that I've
0:51:52experienced, which I think is super great. Like I meet people and they're like, Hey, you know,
0:51:55that thing I worked on that thing. It's already out there. No one's going to get in trouble for
0:52:00that. Yeah. All right. That's what I was going to say is the people I talked to who are currently
0:52:04working at Apple, just to, just to be clear about this, they are incredibly diligent about this.
0:52:11I absolutely do hear from them after something comes out where they're like, Oh yeah, yep. I've
0:52:16been, I had one that was like literally vision pro got announced and like, Oh yeah, I've been
0:52:20using that for nine months. Oh my God. Where they won't say, cause they care. Yeah. I have a bunch
0:52:25of same as you. I have a bunch of personal friends, like good personal friends who work at Apple.
0:52:30They don't tell me what they work on and I don't ask because I don't want that on me. Yeah. And,
0:52:35and they, they, so generally I would say Apple employees very diligent about this. And when they,
0:52:40when I do talk to them about, you know, shop talk, it's generally about not only is it not
0:52:46about secrets, but it's generally ways that they allow me to be better informed so that I don't
0:52:52make mistakes about what Apple is doing, which is incredibly valuable. And I appreciate. So they're,
0:52:57they're very diligent and generally acting in Apple's best interests. And I, I I'm glad
0:53:03that they feel like they're able to do that, but they are, you know, they are, are they're
0:53:09taking care. They're, they're not trying to like, again, they have the ability to keep secrets.
0:53:16That would be very difficult. Like it must be painful, right. To hear a podcaster talking
0:53:21about a thing and you know, absolutely everything about it and can't say anything about it,
0:53:25but they do it because they know that those are the rules. Just send me a note, like everything
0:53:30you said was wrong. I'm not going to tell you what, but it was all wrong. Oh, well I'll get
0:53:34it next time. Oh well. And if, if you're going to use upgradefeedback.com to send us anonymous
0:53:40information, do it. Don't do it from Apple. Don't do it from inside the building or on an Apple
0:53:47managed device. Please do not do that. Just don't do it. Kids, please just don't. Like I, I want you
0:53:53all to have really long, successful careers. Yeah. There, there, there really isn't much
0:53:58worth to it. It's okay. It would not bother me if Rumor Roundup went away, you know, like I like
0:54:03this segment. I find it fun. If the rumors and leaks stopped, I'd also be okay. But it never will.
0:54:08But it never will. It just never, it never will. It never will. The supply chain at the very least,
0:54:12but it, it, you know, it just, it won't because people are people and, and the same stuff that
0:54:16was feeding Mac the knife in 1992 is feeding Mark Gurman now. And that's just how it is. It's the,
0:54:21not the same people. It's just the same dynamic. I really wish, I genuinely wish Austin nowaday the
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0:57:20So you wrote an article about immersive, a couple actually on immersive content on the vision pro
0:57:29sparked because we finally have more immersive video. So apple put out a selection of immersive
0:57:36videos when the vision pro launched. There was one about high wire, there was an Alicia Keys video,
0:57:42there was a dinosaur video, and there was like this sizzle reel video of like lots of different
0:57:47types of things that you could watch in an immersive environment. A lot of these things
0:57:53said like episode one. But there have been no more episodes in these shows. No, apple hasn't released
0:58:00any more immersive content since the launch of vision pro. And so then apple announced that there
0:58:04was going to be a, we knew about this a while ago actually, it was referenced in a press release
0:58:11about the MLS season pass reference to the fact that they were doing a highlight reel in immersive
0:58:18video for the 2023 MLS cup. The MLS cup, yes, which is like, is that a separate thing to the
0:58:26season? Like it's like the playoffs? It's the postseason. It's the playoffs. Okay, it's the
0:58:29playoffs. Okay, cool. So we knew this and then they announced it was coming. Oh great, here it is,
0:58:35it's gonna come out. And then we found out it was a five minute highlight package of the MLS season.
0:58:40Or of the playoffs. Of the playoffs, I'm sorry, the MLS cup. You ask a bunch of questions in your
0:58:47article that I'd like to talk about with you. The first being, why did it take three months to
0:58:51produce a package? Yeah. Which is a great question. More than three months to do a five minute
0:58:57highlight package. Because they obviously have had the cameras throughout the entire thing. So like,
0:59:01you know, is this how long this content takes? Was it not a priority? MLS cup final was like
0:59:07December 10th or something like that. And they didn't even get it ready for the season opener.
0:59:11Yep. So what's the holdup? And why have we not seen any other immersive videos? So the MLS cup
0:59:18took 100 days and there have been no other releases, even though we've seen clips in the
0:59:24sizzle reel, none of those have been released too. Yep. You and I've heard a couple of them who
0:59:30mentioned that the video is just not good. You didn't enjoy it? Yeah. So, you know, sometimes
0:59:36you have to make a judgment and not have talked to anybody else about it and just, you gotta be
0:59:43out on your own. And that was the case with me when I watched that immersive video. I watched it
0:59:47and I thought, oh, this is bad. And I was laughing because today I got Stratechery and Ben Thompson
0:59:53wrote about the sizzle reel and I'm like, oh boy, what does Ben think? And Ben was like, this is
0:59:58bad. And I'm like, yeah, all right. It's not just me. It's bad. It's bad, Mike. It's a bad choice.
1:00:05Yeah, I watched it too. It's bad. And why is it bad? I think is very instructive. I think it's
1:00:11really instructive. It is edited like a regular video highlight reel. It's lots of quick cuts.
1:00:16It's five minutes long, first off. Lots of quick cuts. It actually shows all of the potential of
1:00:23immersive video and fails at all of it. The moment that blew me away is there's a moment where
1:00:30you're watching somebody move toward the goal with the ball. And it's like you're on the sideline and
1:00:38you're seeing the artistry of the detailed technical skill of these soccer players that
1:00:43you don't see from far off. It's actually harder on TV. And so your eyes are watching the ball maybe,
1:00:51and then it cuts to a different angle. And you've only been there for a few seconds,
1:00:57but it cuts to a different angle. And where the ball and the player were is now
1:01:02some dude with an all access pass standing on the sideline behind the goal
1:01:13watching the action. And I'm like, "Why am I watching this dude?" So my point is, every time
1:01:19you make a cut, you have to reorient. And it takes seconds, right? Because now you're in a new place
1:01:24and you got to look around. And you missed the goals in the highlight reel. You missed the goals
1:01:29because they've cut from the side view to the behind the goal view, which is a better view of
1:01:34the actual goal. But in doing so, you missed the goal because they cut and didn't give you enough
1:01:39time to reorient. And this is the lesson that I'm very grateful that this video was released in this
1:01:43way, because it's a lesson that I've learned. I had hoped that they would have learned this
1:01:47while they were working on it, but that didn't happen. I have learned the lesson, which is
1:01:52immersive video takes time. You can't quick cut immersive video. The whole idea is immersion.
1:02:00So like, I love that shot behind the goal. I love the shot from the sideline. I love the shot from
1:02:06the field before the game where you're looking at a full stadium and fireworks are going off in the
1:02:10sky. I love the shot of the jacked up supporters in the stands with their wacky signs. And when
1:02:19they're pulling the big banner up over them, right? That just looks fun. Yeah, which is the
1:02:25Columbus fans put "Hell is real" on a banner, which is a whole story about the "Hell is real"
1:02:29sign. You can look it up. Each individual shot is like, "Oh yeah, this is what it's good for."
1:02:37But at no point in the video did I feel like I was at the event. Instead, I was constantly
1:02:42discombobulated. So great for me in that I got to learn about what not to do in immersive video.
1:02:50And great that I have now discovered that other people feel the same way. But it squandered the
1:02:57opportunity completely, which is you got to take your time. And the other videos that Apple has
1:03:02released, the high wire and all that, they take the time. That's the difference is they take the
1:03:07time and you settle in and now you're there. And that's the magic of it. So I don't want
1:03:12a highlight reel. I want to be courtside. I want to settle in and feel the excitement. And
1:03:20the occasional cut, of course, the Alicia Keys video is a great example. It cuts occasionally,
1:03:25but if it cut like a music video, it would be unwatchable. Because every time they cut,
1:03:31you're looking at the wrong thing. And then you got to look around and see where everything is.
1:03:34And part of the glory of immersive video is that you're seated in a spot and you can look around
1:03:39and you can explore what's around you and your surroundings and you become immersed in it.
1:03:43And you can never do that when there's a quick cut. So one, it's not very good. Two,
1:03:48why did it take so long? And three, is there nobody at Apple who looked at this video and said,
1:03:54"Oh no, this is bad actually." And maybe they did. And maybe the fact is the way it was shot,
1:04:00they can't go back to the MLS Cup playoffs. They can't. The footage they've got is the footage
1:04:05they've got. Maybe there was a technical reason why they couldn't really do something. But I
1:04:11assumed that that MLS Cup final would be a 15 minute long kind of immersion into the final.
1:04:22And it was actually like two minutes of the five minute video with a bunch of quick cuts.
1:04:26It's like, it's just a mistake. Maybe they were forced into a corner with some technical issues.
1:04:31I don't know, but I don't really want to make excuses for them. And so I don't know what's
1:04:35going on with Apple immersive video. It's a problem, right? They have no content and
1:04:39their latest release suggests a misunderstanding of what it's good at. - The video shows the
1:04:48promise. There are so many parts of it where I'm like, "This looks great." - There's a moment that
1:04:53it takes your breath away and then it's gone. And you don't get to spend time in it. - And it's not,
1:04:58there's that sizzle reel, which is fun because it's showing the promise of the sizzle reel,
1:05:04but I don't need to keep being shown promise. I've already seen what football can look like
1:05:12because it was in the sizzle reel. They had a shot, right? So I don't need this particularly.
1:05:18Oh, this would be fine if there was already more, right? If they had released another 10 videos,
1:05:27this would be like, "Okay, this one maybe wasn't great, but it's cool. I got to see some fun shots
1:05:36of the football. That's fine." - It still would be broken and you'd be like, "This is not how
1:05:40you do sports." - We wouldn't be talking about it specifically. - But we're desperate for content
1:05:46because there hasn't been any and this is what they got. So it's that double whammy of
1:05:51they haven't had any content and then the first thing they release is not good.
1:05:56It's funny too because I really expected my reaction to be, "Oh, okay." Either dazzled or
1:06:02like, "Oh, interesting. There are things that work about it and there are things that don't."
1:06:05I did not expect at all to watch five minutes of it and think, "Oh, this is just bad." Like, just
1:06:10bad. My short review of it is Quick Cuts is the wrong format for this and while it's not unwatchable,
1:06:17it's not good. It shows everything that's the promise and fails to deliver on all of the promise.
1:06:23It couldn't have done a better job of delineating what's the promise of sports immersive video
1:06:31and how not to do it. - I don't think I am as harsh on it as you or Ben Thompson,
1:06:38but I completely understand where you're coming from, right? But like for me, I do see it. I
1:06:44watched it and was like, "This looks good. I'm enjoying what I'm seeing," but can see that there
1:06:51is absolutely not enough of it and it's just the wrong format. And so what my assumption is that
1:06:58people that put this together, they are used to making that format. - Sports 2D, 16 by 9,
1:07:08HD sports highlight reels. It feels like that. It feels exactly like that. That this is not a demo
1:07:14of immersive video. It's a highlight reel that happens to be an immersive video, which is a
1:07:20classic mistake, right? It is the new medium mistake. It's like saying, "Hey, television
1:07:24was invented. So let's record stage plays with television cameras." It's like, "No, no, no, no,
1:07:30no. That's not what television is for." - And again, just to underscore what you're saying,
1:07:35start. Say you've got a three or four second clip and something catches your eye to the left
1:07:42and you look at it and you want to see what's going on, but then the clip changes. Now,
1:07:46if you're watching on something on a screen, that's fine because you're just following along
1:07:52with whatever the director is showing you at this moment. - And your field of view encompasses the
1:07:56entire image, right? - Yeah, but in the Vision Pro, you've moved your head. You're looking in
1:08:01the wrong direction from what's happening. - Yeah, looking at that guy standing on the sidelines
1:08:06instead of the goal because that's where the cut has left me. - Yeah, but when it was good, though,
1:08:13like, "Oh, I thought it was real good." Watching goals in that scenario is fantastic. Seeing
1:08:19the reactions, like, there's this one where you see the goalkeeper kind of slam his hands on the
1:08:24ground. You see the guy who just scored looking back at him with a smile on his face, like, "This
1:08:29is real good. I need more of this part." - Yeah, well, that is the contrast and that's why I think
1:08:38it's so fascinating is I think that as a package, it blows it, but the individual elements are
1:08:45amazing, right? Like, it is strangely a video that makes me desperately want more immersive
1:08:51sports video and at the same time, I think it's a failure. And so what does that mean? I mean,
1:08:58it means they did this one wrong, but boy, this is going to be great when they figure it out.
1:09:02And I'm a little frustrated that they hadn't figured it out. Like, I don't know.
1:09:07I don't know who watched this. And again, I don't know the backstory. I don't know who could watch
1:09:12this and say, "No, this is how it should look in immersive video." And again, the backstory may be
1:09:16they had to get it out. There were technical problems. They were very limited in what they
1:09:20could do. If it's a choice, it was just desperately the wrong creative choice, but it may be that
1:09:26there are complications here and that they're well aware of the limitations of this and on to the
1:09:32next one. But like the individual moments, like you mentioned the goals. The goals are amazing.
1:09:37The sideline view, the artistry. This is what I always feel about soccer is that, and I feel this
1:09:42way about baseball too, is like they reward closer viewing. When you are an in-depth fan,
1:09:49I think one of the reasons the NFL is popular is that the NFL is great on its surface. It's very
1:09:55exciting. It also rewards closer viewing if you understand how the game is being played at a high
1:10:00level. But if you don't understand it, it's just fun to watch it. Soccer is sort of fun to watch,
1:10:05but if you go into the details, it's amazing. Pitching and hitting in baseball and the
1:10:11confrontation between the pitcher and the catcher are fighting against the batter. The batter is
1:10:17trying to guess and they're trying to outwit the batter. If you dial into that level of the game
1:10:23and can see it, which TV does really well and it's much harder when you're in the upper deck,
1:10:30baseball can be really magical. Well, soccer, my point here is, unless you're at the event or
1:10:37you're watching real closely or in immersive video, you're right on the sideline, every
1:10:43foot placement, every body move that these soccer players do in order to get advantage on the
1:10:49defender, in order to move the ball into a position where they can put it somewhere else, the passes,
1:10:54the shots. The more of that you see from close up, it's really amazing. And that's in there.
1:11:03It's just so fleeting. And honestly, the fans, I'll say it again, the fans, the atmosphere,
1:11:08they have the Columbus stadium, they have the LA stadium, they have the stadium in Seattle. Packed,
1:11:14you're in a stadium, you're on the field in a stadium full of screaming fans, and then you
1:11:18see the fans. It's awesome. Unfortunately, none of it is enough. Every shot is individually brilliant
1:11:31and there's not enough of any of it. Plus I miss the goals because I'm looking somewhere else and
1:11:38that's just a mistake. You can't do it. I had to back up, which breaks the immersion, and then
1:11:47okay, I need to be looking over here in this shot, even though that's not what I want to look at,
1:11:51so I can see where the goal scorer is coming from. You just can't. You can't do that.
1:11:55But this isn't the only way to watch sports on the Vision Pro. The MLB app has been updated and it
1:12:03seems like you were expecting something cool that was not delivered. So I'm taking a journey here
1:12:09with MLB. I'm going to write a piece about some good things about MLB that I haven't written about.
1:12:14I wrote a couple pieces about this last week because it was opening day, the start of the
1:12:18season. They let the baseballs out. They let the baseballs out of the gate and on Friday we're
1:12:24going to the Giants game unless we get rained out and we'll get to watch the San Francisco
1:12:29baseballs be rolled out. Let's go Giants. Let's go Giants. Let's go Giants. Let's go Giants.
1:12:35Let's go Snell. Let's go Snell. Yeah, exactly. Let's go. By the way, I listened to the
1:12:44talk show. That story about Shohei Yutani, which is the first I'd heard of it, wild.
1:12:48It's bananas, right? It's just, yeah. And who better to talk about baseball and gambling than
1:12:53John Gruber? Yeah, incredible. So first off, I'll say the iPad app, just my iPad app of the MLB app
1:13:02just doesn't launch on my Mac anymore. They didn't update and I heard from a lot of people who say
1:13:05that that's the case, although I have since also heard from a couple people who say it doesn't
1:13:08crash on their Mac. I don't know what's going on there. Anyway, so that stinks. But that was just
1:13:13a side note to the vision pro app, which since the vision pro came out, there's been an MLB app,
1:13:18but all it does is play like game two of the world series from last fall. It's a demo. It's great.
1:13:23Good idea actually to have a demo on there. Well, they, they released the official live version
1:13:30for opening day and it feels very much like it's, um, it got rushed out the door for opening day and
1:13:36they weren't ready. So like the main window, you know how in vision pro you can put a window
1:13:42further away and everything, the content is still basically the same size. It's just further away in
1:13:47depth. MLB app isn't like that. If you put it further away, it gets really tiny. Like, what are
1:13:54you doing? And the control, the little close bar and, and, and, and handling bar at the bottom are
1:14:01like, I don't know about the length, but like they're way far below the window, which is weird.
1:14:06It's like, what's going, it's not like any other one. Um, start a video. There's some selection
1:14:12problems there. I had to get it really close before I could actually like properly select a
1:14:15video to stream. It opens a new window with that video, but the main window remains visible,
1:14:20which some apps do. Some apps don't, but I don't need the main window. I've got my video playing.
1:14:27So I do the close on the main window, the close box, the whole thing goes away. You can't close
1:14:33the main window, but the whole thing just quits. Okay, great. So I put the main window somewhere
1:14:38else and I'm watching. And first off, I don't see any game day information, which is this other mode
1:14:44that they put in. Turns out it is there, although I'm not sure it was there on the video I was
1:14:48looking at on day one, but it is there. Um, it's, uh, uh, on the video playing. So to get into game
1:14:56day mode, you have to be watching a video, which means that if you're blacked out on video, you
1:15:01can't watch it. Um, let me tell you what game day mode is because it's very clever. So it's, it's,
1:15:06it's an immersive space, which I don't like. I don't think it needs to be immersive. I,
1:15:10it precludes other apps from running along with it, which I don't like. Um, but what you get is
1:15:17you get like a big scoreboard that is the video and of the game playing and a bunch of information,
1:15:23like the pitch tracking and a lot of play by play data, lots of data. And then below it is a field.
1:15:30Well, you have two options. It's a, it's the home plate and the strike zone. And every pitch,
1:15:35you see the ball come in with the actual trajectory and whether it was a ball or a strike.
1:15:40But the other mode is a field, which I love. And it's the whole field, like on my floor. And every
1:15:48player is a little disc, a little, a little circle with their number on it. And as the game and the
1:15:55ball, like you see when the pitch is thrown, there's a little streak from the pitcher to
1:15:58the catcher. When a ball is hit up in the air, you see the ball go up in the air and it marks like
1:16:04the exit velocity and the apex, how high it was at the, at the top of the arc. And then where it
1:16:10comes down, that's all in there. Pretty awesome. Um, however, it would lose players. So I would
1:16:18frequently get in a position where like the left fielder was just gone. Third baseman was gone.
1:16:23Sometimes the, the, it would show the base runners. Sometimes it wouldn't show the base runners. The
1:16:27base runners were not a different color. So that was super confusing because you couldn't tell the
1:16:31second baseman from the runner on second base. Um, occasionally numbers, it would get confused
1:16:37and it never resolved it. So like a base runner would run down to first base and be very close to
1:16:41the first baseman, obviously. And then suddenly they would pop. There would just be one circle
1:16:46there. And the, and, and one of them had been, I don't know, assimilated and never came back. And
1:16:52you can never see that, that base runner again, but first baseman again, just buggy, just super buggy.
1:16:58Um, it's a hard, it feels like a hard thing to do because it requires, um, requires the live data
1:17:03and that kind of stuff. Like I can see how it's complicated. They have all the live data and I
1:17:08don't blame them. Like they're, they're trying to do cutting edge things, but it's super buggy. And
1:17:11I think it struck me that, um, that it was really buggy on day one. Um, I don't, for something like
1:17:19the 3d stuff, I don't blame them. That is a brand new technology that they're trying to do. However,
1:17:24the home window being broken, isn't great. The fact that if you close it, your video stops playing
1:17:30is bad. And then, you know how I love a quad box, Mike. Um, you can't play more than one video at
1:17:35a time. Nobody loves quad boxes more than you. No, I love watching more than one thing at a time.
1:17:40Right. And you can't do it. You can't say, I want to play this game and then put it over there. And
1:17:43then I want to play this game and I put it over there. It just won't do it. First game goes away.
1:17:47But come on guys. So hopefully they will get up to speed with it, but it was a real disappointment
1:17:52on opening day. I love their ambition, but, um, but it's, it's buggy and kind of broken and it's
1:17:59too bad. Um, I will say, I do want to throw in a positive note and I will write about this, which
1:18:04is the Apple TV app got updated to support the quad box. They have their own quad box. They used
1:18:10to be picture and picture only. Um, and it is in some ways the best quad box implementation I've
1:18:15seen on Apple TV in that it has a lot of clarity. Uh, it puts up like what buttons you need to push
1:18:22to change the modes, um, so that you don't get lost. Uh, Lauren was telling me how I do the quad
1:18:31box on the Fubo app on Apple TV, but she never does because she doesn't even know. Cause you got
1:18:35to do swipes and click and holds and stuff. And you got to become like an expert at driving that
1:18:40app. MLB app puts up a little thing in text. This is press this button to get the audio and press
1:18:46this button to bring it to the center. And, and there's a little strip you swipe down and there's
1:18:50a little strip of games and you like, it says click to add or click to remove. It's really
1:18:55well done. Um, and something that tells me about my expectations for software being bad, like it
1:19:06does what it should. And I was surprised by it, which is I'm in quad box or double box or triple
1:19:11box or whatever, multi view they call it. Right. And each game you can click to zoom in. And on
1:19:20that screen, it's got the game day view as an option and game day on the Apple TV, it like pulls
1:19:28the image back a little bit and it puts like the live pitch data and stuff around it. It's, it's
1:19:33cool. It's a lot of data, but if you're a certain kind of nerd, it's really awesome. And I thought,
1:19:39I can't believe I can enter game day from here, but I thought I bet I'm out of multi view now.
1:19:43Like it probably took me out of multi view. So I press the back button and it zooms back out to
1:19:47full screen and the game debut goes away. And I think what happens if I press the back button
1:19:53again and I press the back button and it zoomed it back out into multi view. And I thought, huh,
1:19:58like that's how it should work. Right. And yet I had zero expectations that it would do it the
1:20:05right way. I figured I had, I had silently left into a different mode and I was going to have to
1:20:09exit that and then re build my multi view and all that. No, they built it all. It's really great.
1:20:14My only complaint about multi view is that there aren't multiple layouts. If you want to watch four
1:20:18games at once, one of them is big. And then there are three on the side that are little,
1:20:22whereas Fubo lets you do the four up where it's literally four screens in a rectangle, one, two,
1:20:28three, four, um, filling your entire screen. They don't do that probably in part so that they can
1:20:33put up their little text and like help you use this feature. But I would love that. But otherwise,
1:20:39honestly, Apple TV app, pretty great. So thumbs up to them for that vision pro. I love their Moxie.
1:20:45I love that what they're trying. It's broken. It's busted. And I'd also really like the iPad app to
1:20:50launch on my Mac. That would be great. But anyway, um, I see the potential of,
1:20:55MLB has enormous amounts of data, live data about their games and that 3d field is a,
1:21:02is their attempt to display it. And if they can get that right, it will be amazing. Cause I was,
1:21:08I literally, Mike, I literally just got and sat down on my floor. Like I was a kid in kindergarten,
1:21:13like let's all get on the floor. But for me, I sat down on the floor. So I was next to my little
1:21:17magic model baseball stadium and I could watch the little baseballs get hit up into the sky and come
1:21:25down and the little circles ran around and stuff. And I thought, this is it's and you can look up at
1:21:30essentially the scoreboard where the video of the game was playing. It was pretty cool. It was
1:21:35pretty cool. There's some potential there. I had a similar experience. Uh, I tried out an app called
1:21:40Vroom for Formula One. This is a beta. I'll put a link in the show notes to a Vimeo video as the
1:21:47test flight link in there. It's actually developed by Chaos Tian who was the person who was the,
1:21:55they like, make a touch ID button. Yeah. This app requires F1 TV. Um, if you have F1 TV,
1:22:06which is a paid service, which is mostly available outside of the UK, don't ask, but yes,
1:22:13are you as able to use it and it's amazing. So you can have, you can watch the races, you can have
1:22:20all of the quad box kind of user on the outside of specific drivers. So you can see there on board
1:22:26cameras, which is the thing you can do in the F1 TV app for VisionOS as well. But this app also has
1:22:33a live track simulation. So you can see where all of the drivers are on the track at all times,
1:22:40going around the track. It's incredible. So good. I love it. So good. There have been a few of these
1:22:47kinds of things. I've seen a lot of mock-ups for VisionOS stuff. This is the first app that I've
1:22:51actually been able to use that does it. And, uh, F1 need to just do this. They just need to do this.
1:22:57This is really cool because they have all the data. F1 is very data focused and I use app,
1:23:05another app called BoxBox, which gives me a live activity of stuff that's happening. And
1:23:09you can know all the information in real time. It's all API based as well, especially F1 TV.
1:23:14It's so you can get access to all of this stuff. So it's very cool. So yeah, there's,
1:23:18especially sports with the Vision Pro, there is a lot of promise. We just need to see it realized,
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1:25:48their support of this show and Relay FM. Let's finish out with some Ask Upgrade Questions.
1:25:55First comes from Max who says, "Do you think the Walmart M1 MacBook Air deal is the truth behind
1:26:01of the strategy that replaces the rumors from last year that Apple was working on a less expensive
1:26:07laptop?" I don't think so. I think, I mean, strategy that replaces maybe, but like the rumors
1:26:15were about supply chain and they were about actually trying to engineer a lower cost MacBook.
1:26:22It's possible, I think it's also entirely possible that what is going on is that Apple is in the long
1:26:27run wanting to have a product in that space when the M1 MacBook Air can no longer be sold.
1:26:33Can they roll down the M2 into that space or do they really want to create a cheaper to produce
1:26:40laptop? The challenge there is any new laptop is not cheaper to produce because it's new
1:26:46and that's difficult for them. So that's why they roll down old models instead. So it might be
1:26:54related but I don't think it's what was motivating those rumors. Because the rumors were about
1:26:59engineering a new laptop not about making the M1 go to a different place. That's an old laptop.
1:27:04I can imagine a scenario where there were a few things on the board. One of them was making a new
1:27:13one but they ended up going with this. Which I actually think this is a pretty good strategy.
1:27:17Like I like this heavily discounted MacBook Air thing. I think it makes sense. Yeah, I think the
1:27:23question is, because also this isn't the end of it, right? That rumor, it's entirely possible that
1:27:28that's a product that even if they decided to go with it wouldn't be out for another year or two,
1:27:32right? It's not necessarily that they like did a bunch of work and said, "No, let's just sell the
1:27:37M1." I mean maybe but my guess is that it's a longer term kind of thing than that. But maybe
1:27:44they put it all together and realized that it didn't make sense and that the best thing to do
1:27:49was just to keep selling the old laptops for a while at a low price. I've got two questions
1:27:56here. I think they're two sides of the same coin so I'm reading both. Lee asks, "Is the
1:28:01Department of Justice case actually now in Tim Cook's legacy? Under his tenure, the actions and
1:28:07choices from Apple have led them to these moments of conflict with regulators. So rather than a car
1:28:12or the Vision Pro, is this Tim's legacy?" Albert asks, "Given Apple's handling of the DMA and AI,
1:28:19do you think it's reasonable to consider it is time for Tim Cook to step down?"
1:28:23So they're both sides of the same coin. You want me to flip a coin? Is that what's happening now?
1:28:28You asked me to flip a coin. Well, I think you understand what I'm saying,
1:28:32that both of these questions are of a similar thing of like, is Tim to blame for all of this?
1:28:38Is this what's going to follow him around? Duh duh duh duh duh.
1:28:41Yeah, I just wanted to talk about coin flipping.
1:28:43Oh, yeah, no, we don't let you flip coins. You're not allowed to flip coins.
1:28:50To be determined, I'm sorry to say it this way, but this is how it has to be, is what is the
1:28:58result? If the result is a nothing or an almost nothing, minor changes to Apple's business model
1:29:03that don't actually have major effects on Apple's future, then no, to all. If Apple ends up having
1:29:13its business model deeply disrupted in a way that everybody views as being avoidable,
1:29:19which is a question, right? Like it may be that if there's a deep disruption in Apple's business
1:29:24model, we'll look back and say, how would they have satisfied these people? How would they have
1:29:29changed their case? Because it's possible that all the things we've said, "Oh, this could have been
1:29:36avoided if you did all these things," it's possible that wouldn't have avoided it, that it was going
1:29:40to happen. They didn't make it better, but it's possible that this was unavoidable. If it goes
1:29:44badly and Apple ends up being broken up or their business model is invalidated because they have to
1:29:51start building APIs for everything that is integrated with their own products and that
1:29:56makes everything more difficult for them, and as a result, Apple as a business is kind of broken,
1:30:02absolutely it's part of Tim Cook's legacy. Dare I say the jury's still out? There is no jury yet,
1:30:08but there may be at a time in the future. I think those are the questions. History is not yet to be
1:30:13written on this point. It could be his legacy. Is it reasonable to consider if it's time for him
1:30:22to step down? Given Apple's handling of AI, you mean the thing that they haven't announced yet?
1:30:27Is it reasonable to say that Tim Cook should step down because Apple didn't have a large language
1:30:34model out there last year? No, it's not. That's stupid. It's stupid. History is not written if,
1:30:42in five years it turns out that AI completely changed how computing works and Apple never got
1:30:47there because they were sleeping too long. Then yes, then it's a great question. I just don't know.
1:30:53For both of these, I'd say the jury is still out. Right now, what I would say is that Tim Cook's
1:30:58legacy is that when he took over, Apple was a fraction of the size that it is now. Judged by
1:31:05market valuation and profits and revenue, Tim Cook's legacy is that Apple scaled up from a
1:31:13company that had a lot of potential to a company that had all the money. If I had to guess,
1:31:22that will be his legacy. But the truth is, legacy when? Legacy now? Legacy in five years? Legacy in
1:31:2920 years? Because it's possible from the vantage point of 20 years, we'll say, "Oh, Tim Cook,
1:31:34yeah, they made a lot of money then, but then they got in trouble and lost their way." Or we might
1:31:38say, "Oh, Tim Cook, yeah, they made a lot of money and then they went out of business or were regulated
1:31:43out of business." Or we might say, "Oh, yeah, Tim Cook, he really grew Apple to a whole new level
1:31:49and then they just kept going from there." But in five years and 20 years, the legacy is constantly
1:31:56being recalculated. But for right now, I'd say that people... Right now, the judgment would be
1:32:04that he took a business that was smaller and granted, had a lot of the pieces ready to go.
1:32:09People were like, "Oh, well, Steve Jobs got all that ready." It's like, he did get it all ready.
1:32:12But Tim Cook's the one who took all that stuff that he inherited from Steve Jobs and presided
1:32:20over this enormous expansion of Apple size and profitability and revenue generation.
1:32:25So, sorry to not give a straight answer to this question.
1:32:31- No, I actually think you've given the only right answer, which is that at this point,
1:32:38for both of these things, and the reason I point out these things, we've had a few questions like
1:32:43this. It is too soon to suggest that either of these things were a mistake. Currently,
1:32:51all of the things that have led to the DMA and the DOJ, they were a scenario of the exact right
1:32:57thing to do because Apple is massive, massive, and it makes so much money. And you can make a very
1:33:07good argument that Tim Cook did exactly what he was supposed to do, which was make the most money
1:33:13possible. - Yeah, and grow the company, and grow the stock price, and grow the valuation, and all
1:33:18those things. And it may be yet that the DMA or something, again, the DMA and the US regulations
1:33:27could break Apple. I think the most likely scenario is Apple, after protesting that a lot of the
1:33:35changes that are wanted are anathema to Apple's entire business model and its credo of protecting
1:33:43its customers. And we all say that it is actually because Apple wants to make more money, that the
1:33:52concessions Apple has to make to satisfy everybody are so limited that while Apple makes a little
1:33:58less money, they've already made that up in growth, and that no major changes to their
1:34:04business model are instituted, and they keep on going. I think that that's actually the most
1:34:08likely scenario, is that what changes is minor. But if I worked at Apple, I would be really worried
1:34:15about the risk that the change is going to be major and it's going to break our business. I
1:34:18would be. And I'm trying not to be cynical here, but I suspect that the way this will work is Apple
1:34:25will give in on things that turns out don't actually matter as much as Apple says they do,
1:34:30but they want a posture that they do so that they can be pained when they do it, so that it
1:34:36limits the scope. And that in other cases, they basically deal with a US system that is generally
1:34:44favoring big US companies anyway, so they can get away with even less. I think that's the most
1:34:51likely scenario, in which case Tim Cook's entire approach would be more or less vindicated. But
1:34:58it's too early for us to say. I certainly don't. If they get really, really, really, really shafted
1:35:04by the EU or by the United States, and it breaks their business, then it absolutely would be
1:35:12reasonable to say Tim Cook has to leave, because they're going to need to show some resignations
1:35:16and say, "We're changing our entire approach because you're right, and we're chastened,
1:35:21and we're going to be a different company now." But boy, we're a long way from that.
1:35:26- I don't think we're going to get there. I don't think so. There is a scenario in which
1:35:31one of these things could be so horrifically bad that really the only smart thing to do from a PR
1:35:38perspective is to have a new CEO. Yes, that could happen. I do not think that's going to happen.
1:35:44I don't think that compliance with the DMA or with the Department of Justice case,
1:35:52I don't even think it would massively impact the company. I think you would end up with a scenario
1:35:59where it's put to the test. What we're saying has been the case forever, which is people just want
1:36:05to buy iPhones and use their iPhones. And that complying with all of this stuff doesn't really
1:36:12make a material difference because people just want to use their iPhones. - Earlier in this podcast,
1:36:18we talked about how Apple, I think, overstates the value of secrecy in product announcements.
1:36:28I think Apple overstates the importance of lots of stuff, and they do it strategically.
1:36:35And this is a case where I think Apple has dramatically overstated, not that it isn't true,
1:36:43but that they overstate the impact of all sorts of things like what the EU is trying to do,
1:36:48the EC is trying to do, and what the US alleges. I think they've actually, behind the scenes,
1:36:54they've got a lot of stuff that they're willing to give on, and they know it's not going to make
1:36:57an impact or it's going to make a minor impact. Losing a little control, losing a little power
1:37:04is not necessarily something that ever shows up on a balance sheet. Losing a little money does,
1:37:10and it's going to hurt because Apple is a public company, and they might make a little less money,
1:37:16and that there are people at Apple who have a very strong incentive to prevent that from happening.
1:37:20But I, as an outside observer, can say even that doesn't really matter. If the spigot's still on,
1:37:26it's just flowing a little bit less, and it means you are a little less enormously profitable and a
1:37:31little less enormously valuable. I have a hard time envisioning scenarios. It doesn't mean they
1:37:37can't happen. The most likely scenario is that Apple gives up a little power, gives up a little
1:37:44control, but not as much as you think, and gives up a little bit of revenue in competing with others,
1:37:49and it doesn't really matter, and that they just continue steaming forward because they're so huge
1:37:56and so profitable that in the end it doesn't matter. If I had to predict, that's my prediction,
1:38:02is that this is not going to be the thing that stops Apple. Now, something else might stop Apple.
1:38:08The lesson of the Microsoft case is that it turns out that it was all kind of a waste of time
1:38:15in some ways because the next generation of stuff kind of rendered it irrelevant. We can argue that
1:38:22point. Were they distracted? Is that why they missed on mobile? Opening up the web allowed
1:38:27cross-platform to be better and it wouldn't have happened if IE was unconstrained? Okay, we can
1:38:32argue it, but my bigger point remains, which is what Apple is afraid of and Google and every other
1:38:38tech giant is missing the boat on the next big thing. That's the existential risk for Apple,
1:38:44I think, is not being regulated. I think they're going to still have lots of money.
1:38:47Like I said, if AI, it turns out, makes devices essentially irrelevant and apps and operating
1:38:56systems irrelevant because everything's going to be running on machine learning and we're just
1:38:59going to talk or tap or whatever to a model that's going to do what we want, that could potentially
1:39:05eliminate a huge amount of Apple's uniqueness in the market and therefore destroy their
1:39:11business model. That's a real existential threat, but I think it's unlikely that regulatory scrutiny
1:39:22is going to blow up Apple's business. It could happen, but I don't think it will.
1:39:26But we'll be tracking it the whole way through in lawyer up.
1:39:30Sure, exactly. Send us your anonymous secret. Nope, don't.
1:39:34You can if you like, but we're not going to be careful. Just be careful how you do it.
1:39:39And be careful. Don't use a company managed device, whatever you do.
1:39:43You can send us in that feedback or any questions you have for our various segments over at
1:39:47upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason's writing at sixcolors.com. You can hear his
1:39:53podcast at the incomparable.com and here on Relay FM, where you can listen to me too. And check out
1:39:58my work at cortexbrand.com. If you want to find us on social media, Jason is @jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L.
1:40:05I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can watch video clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
1:40:12We're @upgraderelay on there. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. You can
1:40:18get longer ad-free versions of the show at getupgradeplus.com. Thank you to our sponsors
1:40:23of this week's episode, ExpressVPN, Ooni, and SaneBox. And thank you for listening. I'll be
1:40:29back next week. Jason will be on vacation and I'll be having a guest host. Until the next time we
1:40:36speak to you, Jason. Say goodbye. - Bye everybody. Looking forward to that eclipse. See y'all in two
1:40:41weeks.