00:00:00 ◼ ► from relay this is upgrade episode 550 today's show is brought to you by ecamm google gemini oracle and factor it is february 10th 2025 my name is mike hurley i'm joined by jason snow hi jason snow hi mike hurley 550 by the way it means we're halfway through
00:00:28 ◼ ► the uh the it's a halftime of our play through the draft of the ages for episode 600 and i went and i checked on that and uh it's not looking great but you know what there's 50 more weeks to go and so maybe other things will happen but we predicted a lot of things in episode 500 that have uh not come true so um you know roll on 2025 i guess i will put a link in the show notes to the scorecard
00:00:57 ◼ ► put together by friend of the show zach knox that is the uh episode 600 draft of the ages yeah it's not looking
00:01:05 ◼ ► it's not looking great but we have a lot of time left that can exceed the time all to play for so
00:01:10 ◼ ► that's up for the next 50 weeks yeah yep i have a snell talk question for you to start this week's
00:01:17 ◼ ► episode uh this is one of these questions that we've answered before but it's a question that i like to
00:01:22 ◼ ► re-answer we get these who knows it was probably like five years ago that we know it's 550 episodes
00:01:28 ◼ ► man i mean you've got to repeat some content sometimes darren wrote in to say jason with your
00:01:34 ◼ ► latest macbook purchase i was curious what policy you follow for device names do you just go with the
00:01:40 ◼ ► default like jason's macbook pro and if so do you append a number or a year to keep them unique
00:01:45 ◼ ► or do you use clever cute pet names is there a theme that you follow darren there is a theme that
00:01:51 ◼ ► i follow it is the word monkey yeah it's lost to history why okay it doesn't matter they are all
00:01:59 ◼ ► monkeys we have a monkey on our house too uh our house number is a little uh sign we actually bought
00:02:06 ◼ ► in the uk that has our house number and it has a monkey above it okay um because monkeys are cool
00:02:12 ◼ ► and fun and uh and our wi-fi is called monkey house because of course it is um and my all my stuff is
00:02:20 ◼ ► monkey so my my macbook pro is monkey book m4 max my previous laptop was monkey book m2 monkey book air
00:02:38 ◼ ► four yeah it just goes like okay so it's only kind of monkeys are mine halfway really right like you're
00:02:48 ◼ ► not every device is getting its own individual name no although my server my servers in my house have
00:02:55 ◼ ► been various monkeys and apes over the years okay different kinds okay my current server is called
00:03:00 ◼ ► mandrill yeah which is a kind of ape okay um and it was gibbon before that so you know it's a theme i
00:03:09 ◼ ► you know it's just like i i sort of was inspired by um adam and tanya eggs to do tidbits um and long
00:03:16 ◼ ► ago when we worked um closely with them on some stuff when i was back when i was at idg um and before
00:03:23 ◼ ► even um all of their computers were named after penguins okay and i thought that i was like oh
00:03:30 ◼ ► theme i i like it i like it so yeah no but all my personal devices are just to have a monkey in the
00:03:36 ◼ ► title that's it it's good i mean it could be anything that's just what it is so i keep going with it but
00:03:42 ◼ ► like the point is that way i don't have jason's macbook pro uh 8 in parentheses yeah i uh i have tried
00:03:50 ◼ ► over the years to give fun names and then kind of give up because i kept forgetting like i couldn't
00:03:55 ◼ ► think of new names within a theme and so now it's all just the most boring which is why my for some
00:04:00 ◼ ► reason my macbook air is just mike's macbook air 2 in parentheses so great i hate it nothing like a
00:04:08 ◼ ► parenthetical we all love it uh if you would like to send in a snell talk question of your own it's
00:04:13 ◼ ► very easy just go to upgradefeedback.com and send in yours to help start a future episode of the show
00:04:19 ◼ ► thank you to darren for that great question uh as some follow-up uh kieran healy has put together a
00:04:25 ◼ ► statistical analysis of the six colors report card uh the report card really is the content that just
00:04:31 ◼ ► keeps on giving right like we can it is and i'll just say okay i don't know this is probably a little
00:04:36 ◼ ► gosh i was so proud of last week's episode i think we knocked out of the park last week i was so happy
00:04:42 ◼ ► with it i think we we did a really good job i i really enjoyed it it was a good time uh but kieran
00:04:47 ◼ ► put this uh together there are a bunch of really good looking charts that i don't understand uh yeah i
00:04:54 ◼ ► do the way it works is uh the first time i did or not the first time one of the first times i did this
00:04:59 ◼ ► uh karen healy i think looked at my data or maybe asked me for data and made some charts and so now
00:05:06 ◼ ► i just sent him the data yep um and before i've even posted the report card and i say feel free
00:05:12 ◼ ► um and he just makes the charts that please him because he's a sociology professor uh he's written
00:05:18 ◼ ► books about charting um and i just i love it because some people will love it and because i love giving
00:05:27 ◼ ► kieran a little bit of a a uh a spot to do whatever pleases him about looking at the data why not why
00:05:35 ◼ ► not i should probably you know what i should do is i should probably just post the data somewhere
00:05:40 ◼ ► so that anybody can you know make weird charts about whatever um but because i don't i post all the
00:05:48 ◼ ► comments but i don't post like a list of the scores per person or anything even though it doesn't matter i i
00:05:54 ◼ ► could i just don't so maybe i'll do that down the road but i do send it to kieran at the very least
00:05:59 ◼ ► uh sigmund judge at the magic rays of light podcast is back on the ted lasso beat sharing some information
00:06:06 ◼ ► about ted lasso season four uh sigmund has said london filming is now set to begin in may or june
00:06:12 ◼ ► for focus shifting at afc richmond to the formation of its women's team which is a theory that i think you
00:06:18 ◼ ► have you brought up on the show could could be a possible thing that they could do for the show
00:06:22 ◼ ► uh at that point this is not ted lasso right like it's in the universe but it's not like surely can't
00:06:29 ◼ ► call it ted lasso at that point uh well so here's here's the thing i thought that it was very clear in
00:06:33 ◼ ► the last episode of season three when ted writes on the uh proof of the book about the lasso way
00:06:40 ◼ ► and ted specifically writes you know you should call call it about you know the afc richmond because
00:06:48 ◼ ► it's not it's not really about me i always felt like that was the show saying and jason sudeca saying
00:06:53 ◼ ► you could keep doing the show it doesn't have to be about ted anymore i think they could call the
00:06:58 ◼ ► show the lasso way and that would solve the problem it's a new thing it's still got lasso in the name
00:07:04 ◼ ► you know if i'm apple i want to retain the name recognition of ted lasso at all costs so i think
00:07:16 ◼ ► the reason you call it ted lasso season four and and honestly the reason you get jason sudecais on
00:07:19 ◼ ► board and he is apparently on board they have said yeah my theory all along has been that they're going
00:07:26 ◼ ► to tell well i i think they're going to tell a couple two three different interleaved stories would
00:07:32 ◼ ► be my guess that one of them will involve ted that would probably in the u.s yeah where we check in
00:07:41 ◼ ► on ted and there's a little bit of cross between the stories but it allows jason sudecais not to spend
00:07:46 ◼ ► many many months in the uk when his kids are in america yep and it lets it them plausibly call it ted lasso
00:07:55 ◼ ► and have a little bit of a mini arc for ted about sort of settling in and what happens to ted next
00:08:03 ◼ ► while also providing a spotlight on the other characters and maybe some new characters if they
00:08:10 ◼ ► if it's the afc richmond uh women's team right and and presumably rebecca and keely being involved with
00:08:17 ◼ ► that because i think that was a story thread that that has been sort of like put out there as a
00:08:21 ◼ ► possibility so that that's my prediction is that they will call it ted lasso or they'll call it
00:08:27 ◼ ► ted lasso something right like but but it'll still say ted lasso somewhere in it if he's in it they can
00:08:34 ◼ ► call that and what i've i've realizing like i'm over indexing on this piece of information clearly
00:08:38 ◼ ► sigmund is aware of what's happening in london right like he lives in london he has access to this
00:08:44 ◼ ► information clearly yeah um but that does not state what else could be happening in other places
00:08:50 ◼ ► exactly exactly so that's my guess and i would like that i think that would be good because you know
00:08:55 ◼ ► all sitcoms like this have multiple concurrent stories they don't need to be in the same physical
00:08:59 ◼ ► space and if i'm if i'm a producer just a random producer on ted lasso and i'm given these and these
00:09:07 ◼ ► pieces of information apple is going to back up a truck to jason sudeikis's house we are absolutely
00:09:11 ◼ ► making ted lasso season four but jason doesn't want to spend months in london and we deposited ted lasso
00:09:19 ◼ ► back at home at the end of season three what do i do with that that's what i just described is find a
00:09:28 ◼ ► way to keep jason mostly or entirely in america have a ted a ted thread to you know right and have and
00:09:35 ◼ ► have that because i think that would be nice i think fans of the show would really like to see
00:09:39 ◼ ► how does ted take his british experience back to america and how has he grown as a person and
00:09:47 ◼ ► and how does he apply that and what are his challenges i think there's something pretty rich
00:09:51 ◼ ► there but um also you don't want to leave all those characters that and that setting that everybody loves
00:09:58 ◼ ► back in the uk so that would be my pitch anyway would be let's get jason involved in a thread that we
00:10:04 ◼ ► shoot in the us we'll build a story thread or two that's in the uk and then we will build in some
00:10:10 ◼ ► crosses where ted talks to beard on the phone ted comes to see a game uh right special episode in the
00:10:18 ◼ ► middle of the season where ted shows up and everybody's happy to see ted and roy's been having a problem this
00:10:23 ◼ ► year as the manager and he asked ted for advice and like you can see it so that's that's my guess
00:10:30 ◼ ► it's possible that it's not that and it really is like ted lasso season four is actually afc richmond
00:10:37 ◼ ► season one essentially without ted in it but that's not what i would suggest and i'm pretty sure apple
00:10:45 ◼ ► would insist on having as much jason sudeikis as possible yep uh just well before we move on uh
00:10:52 ◼ ► no spoilers but my word severance oh boy is that show good wow wow wow i love it ortbo or not ortbo or
00:11:02 ◼ ► not they are really this is special television and i while it's killing me to wait every week i am happy
00:11:08 ◼ ► that i get to wait a week each time between each episode because they are real this is a very very
00:11:14 ◼ ► good series and if it you know if it got this good because they had to take this time i'm happy
00:11:20 ◼ ► they took the time uh but i don't know if you saw but in the in the past week ben still was like we're
00:11:25 ◼ ► already right in season three don't worry about it it's fine we're not gonna we're not gonna wait so
00:11:28 ◼ ► long so the story is that bo williman was brought on uh the showrunner to run season three right and
00:11:34 ◼ ► then they had problems with season two and so they actually re-shot a bunch of season two
00:11:38 ◼ ► and stiller did an interview last week that i thought was really good where he he talked about
00:11:43 ◼ ► and he and he said i mean it's pr so take it for what it's worth but what he said is because of the
00:11:48 ◼ ► strike just like because of covid we had a shutdown where and he said he he's not he's a non-writing
00:11:55 ◼ ► producer on the show and so during the strike he was editing episodes of season two and he had a lot
00:12:03 ◼ ► of time to consider what was in season two and he decided it wasn't good enough that there were some
00:12:09 ◼ ► problems and the things they needed to fix in reshoots and because they had the strike they actually had
00:12:14 ◼ ► the time to plan what they were going to do and then when the strike was over they did rewrites and
00:12:20 ◼ ► they did some reshoots now we could also say you know there are other reports that said they're really
00:12:24 ◼ ► unhappy with the guy who created the show although he's in all the pubs so like he obviously
00:12:29 ◼ ► didn't storm off he's saying at the end of each episode yeah he's in he's in all of those but um
00:12:36 ◼ ► but if if there if this was fraught it doesn't feel like it although i think some of the reports
00:12:42 ◼ ► were that it was sort of late season they were grappling with some issues but what ben stiller
00:12:47 ◼ ► said is there was stuff that happened late in the season and he thought wasn't properly set up and
00:12:52 ◼ ► that some of the characters needed to be given a little bit more earlier on so it sounds like maybe
00:12:56 ◼ ► that's what happened and that that stuff happens especially if you've got a long shoot you you do
00:13:01 ◼ ► have the chance to look back and and if you've got the budget and they have the budget from apple
00:13:07 ◼ ► especially a show like this where it's so heady yeah yeah you can go back and fix that stuff add a few
00:13:13 ◼ ► things ben stiller man who would have thought you know what i mean who knew he had it in him you know
00:13:18 ◼ ► the profile of him was really great where like he grew up with his so his parents were famous his
00:13:22 ◼ ► parents stiller and mara were a famous comedy team and of course then his dad was on seinfeld but
00:13:26 ◼ ► they were a famous comedy team i remember them as a comedy duo um and he said he was always
00:13:32 ◼ ► interested in being a filmmaker he wasn't interested in being a performer and then you know a funny thing
00:13:36 ◼ ► happened on the way to ben stiller being a director which is he became an actor who became famous
00:13:42 ◼ ► in movies and uh what he said is you know you get the opportunity you know it's not going to last but
00:13:49 ◼ ► it was an opportunity for him to do it to make money to learn about filmmaking um but what he says is
00:13:55 ◼ ► this is always what he wanted to be actually all from when he was a kid well was this being the being
00:14:02 ◼ ► the you know and that is he's not he's a non-writing producer on the show he's not writing the show but
00:14:07 ◼ ► he is creatively i think directing the show yeah yeah i mean and he is the director of many episodes
00:14:14 ◼ ► he is he is but i think i mean he's obviously your showrunner there's a clearly a lot of times
00:14:20 ◼ ► these days in modern tv there there are often two showrunners there's sort of like a showrunner who's
00:14:24 ◼ ► in charge of the writing and a showrunner who's charging the with being basically the director
00:14:28 ◼ ► and setting the stage a lot of times directors are for hire and they're they're basically not the
00:14:34 ◼ ► creative leads on show on shows but some of these shows especially more technical shows uh where there's
00:14:40 ◼ ► special effects and there's a real visual look you will sometimes have it be uh that there's a
00:14:45 ◼ ► showrunner writer and a showrunner director and they kind of collaborate and that's how i feel
00:14:50 ◼ ► severance probably is it's like i think like ben stiller ultimately is the boss um and he's not the
00:14:56 ◼ ► showrunner in the sense that he's not the writer but i get the feeling like he's the boss of the show
00:15:01 ◼ ► and that he's the one who hired bo williman and brought him in and he was he was uh erickson's
00:15:06 ◼ ► boss and like it's his it's his show even though he's not writing it yep kills the shots yeah i think
00:15:13 ◼ ► so this one's a bit of a throwback uh in march of last year we spoke about a story uh by somebody
00:15:20 ◼ ► the name andrew our day uh who was being sued by apple for leaking information to the wall street journal
00:15:28 ◼ ► uh now most of this information uh was about the journaling app so a report about the journaling
00:15:34 ◼ ► app came from this information and some stuff about the vision pro uh our day was using his work
00:15:39 ◼ ► issue device to send messages to a i think wall street journal reporter via signal um and i think
00:15:48 ◼ ► the homeboy was the name of the contact and the device it's always funny yeah and also again another
00:15:54 ◼ ► thing that remember my favorite detail of this story because it's so ludicrous uh it was that
00:15:58 ◼ ► when uh alde was found out he was taken into a meeting at apple he excused himself to go to the bathroom and
00:16:04 ◼ ► deleted quote significant amounts of evidence from his phone but it was a work device so they had some
00:16:09 ◼ ► evidence etc well yeah so it sounds like the the homeboy by the way is uh from is the reporter i'm
00:16:16 ◼ ► trying to look up his name from the information who then went on yes wall street journal yes good call
00:16:21 ◼ ► good call so this was a court case that has now been settled and part of this settlement is clearly an
00:16:29 ◼ ► apology because our day and issued an apology on x that i want to read because it is just a fascinating
00:16:36 ◼ ► look uh in behind the the curtain of these kinds of things so this is the apology i spent nearly eight
00:16:43 ◼ ► years as a software engineer at apple during that time i was given access to sensitive internal apple
00:16:49 ◼ ► information including what were then unreleased products and features but instead of keeping this
00:16:54 ◼ ► information secret i made the mistake of sharing this information with journalists who covered the
00:16:58 ◼ ► company i did not realize it at the time but this turned out to be a profound and expensive mistake
00:17:03 ◼ ► hundreds of professional relationships i had spent years building were ruined and my otherwise
00:17:08 ◼ ► successful career as a software engineer was derailed and it will likely be very difficult
00:17:13 ◼ ► to rebuild it leaking was not worth it i sincerely apologize to my former colleagues who not only
00:17:19 ◼ ► worked tirelessly on projects for apple but work hard to keep them secret they deserve better
00:17:24 ◼ ► uh oh by the way aaron tilley is the reporter at the waltz journal formerly of the information who was
00:17:30 ◼ ► apparently homeboy um yeah nothing like deleting your signal as a sign that something bad is going on
00:17:42 ◼ ► it's always a cover-up it's always the cover-up that's the uh that's the the thing um yeah interesting
00:17:48 ◼ ► okay so what's interesting about this is that apple chose to settle and have him issue an apology
00:17:53 ◼ ► and i think that this is apple calibrating their response for what they want apple employees to
00:17:59 ◼ ► hear which is first off apple didn't like try to get this guy put in jail or you know or or uh bankrupt
00:18:06 ◼ ► him or any of those things no but his career is over because now his name is incredibly googleable
00:18:13 ◼ ► maybe he can do open source uh anyway um yeah but but they get the apology which sends the message to
00:18:23 ◼ ► other apple leakers don't be like me um and that's i think that's the ultimate goal of stuff like this
00:18:30 ◼ ► is it's if apple doesn't try to find people who are leaking secret information there's no point in
00:18:36 ◼ ► in even trying to keep anything secret right so this is a this is a way of making people think twice before
00:18:42 ◼ ► they send that message to mark german or whoever yep yep also i'm very impressed that that this one
00:18:50 ◼ ► big public thing was not a mark german source and at least that we know of that we know and i think
00:18:58 ◼ ► that's really interesting and it makes me maybe it's chance or maybe it's just that mark german is
00:19:03 ◼ ► more careful with his sources i don't know well i think i spoke about it at a time but i have heard a
00:19:10 ◼ ► story of someone losing their job like within the last couple of years who was a mark german source
00:19:16 ◼ ► it happens ah it does happen when you said chance i thought you meant miller i was like no chance is
00:19:23 ◼ ► the source side eyes it's reporting from outside on the inside weird weird no that's no chance it's
00:19:29 ◼ ► chance's enemy no chance yeah uh so i am here on this episode today uh i am planning to be on next week's
00:19:41 ◼ ► uh yeah if you have questions for me send them in and we'll do some paternity focused ask upgrade
00:19:48 ◼ ► yeah or is this anything you want to know uh go to upgrade feedback.com and you can send it in because
00:19:53 ◼ ► from like my paternity leave should begin on the 24th of february right that it's like i'm gone that day
00:20:01 ◼ ► but uh who knows because we are we're in the window now like right right something could happen could
00:20:08 ◼ ► develop in the next week uh stephen hackett will be is that's how you know is is waiting uh he has been
00:20:16 ◼ ► scheduled and you know in case of podcast emergency break glass he is ready to step in next week if next
00:20:25 ◼ ► week's episode begins with from relay then you'll know you'll know what happened right that's that
00:20:31 ◼ ► will be it to be how you know it was doesn't it always start with from relay but i did i tried my
00:20:36 ◼ ► best at doing a southern accent now obviously from relay did not come across i see i see but what if i
00:20:42 ◼ ► do a little sneaky thing where i take one of your from relays from the past and put it in there and
00:20:47 ◼ ► then go yoink oh it's not mike anymore you could do that but it wasn't a very good impression
00:20:52 ◼ ► discord's very upset at me i didn't say it was a good impression all i can do is like our phone
00:20:56 ◼ ► that's all i can do about you wouldn't start the show that way you wouldn't start the show no look
00:21:00 ◼ ► if you if you want a bad impression ask stephen to do one of me you know what i mean and then we'll
00:21:05 ◼ ► find out what's happening he's catching strays now anyway it's it's um not looking forward to it
00:21:11 ◼ ► it'll be fun to have guests but again i'll be very sad to not have you here um so next week yes and
00:21:17 ◼ ► if you've got um sort of like pre-baby questions for mike sentiment and maybe he'll answer them
00:21:23 ◼ ► we've had a few that i've been holding onto uh so i was waiting for that episode to talk about but if
00:21:29 ◼ ► you have anything else like just send it in because as i said jason said if it's just anything you want
00:21:34 ◼ ► to hear from me because otherwise you're not going to hear from me for like two months so yeah other
00:21:38 ◼ ► than that one episode that will happen that will surprise you yes there's gonna be a couple of those
00:21:49 ◼ ► mike in chronological order next week's will be the last one for a while yeah this episode is brought
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00:22:33 ◼ ► much more ecamm live truly does it all i tuned in to the uh six colors report like as uh what is the
00:22:42 ◼ ► earnings report live stream that you and dan did i am going to guess that was ecamm live jason
00:22:47 ◼ ► absolutely ecamm live is my uh chosen and then and then that new zoom feature that is really
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00:24:30 ◼ ► all right these are for the rumors that have not been uh found out and made to apologize
00:24:42 ◼ ► uh mark german is reporting in bloomberg that the new iphone se could be coming this week
00:24:48 ◼ ► um within the next couple of days uh naturally this is something that would be announced of a press
00:24:54 ◼ ► release on the website they're not going to be holding an impromptu event for this um as well as
00:24:58 ◼ ► supporting the as well as playing apple intelligence via the a18 chip that will be found in this device
00:25:04 ◼ ► mark says that this is still expected to feature apple's first in-house cell modem this to me is the
00:25:11 ◼ ► story like if this is true i don't know how we'll find out someone will find out and we'll work it
00:25:17 ◼ ► out um because someone's going to do a tear down right and we'll we'll find this like i fix it or
00:25:21 ◼ ► whatever like someone's going to find out like what that chip is because apple will probably brand it in
00:25:25 ◼ ► some way to me this will be the the thing i'm most interested in is will do we get reports of the
00:25:32 ◼ ► iphone se not being able to connect to the internet you know like what is because this is an important
00:25:38 ◼ ► thing for apple they've been trying to make their own modems for a really long time they bought
00:25:43 ◼ ► intel's modem business about 100 years ago now and we have said many times it's become almost a it has
00:25:49 ◼ ► become a running joke on this show that every device apple has introduced within the last three or four
00:25:54 ◼ ► years is expected to be the first with their own modem so if this if they've actually done it now this is
00:25:59 ◼ ► something that they're going to want to roll out yeah and i will be excited to see what that looks
00:26:05 ◼ ► like so i also think um i don't think it's likely that it's going to be oh no the se iphone se doesn't
00:26:12 ◼ ► work it is possible that one of the things that they'll say is oh the performance doesn't match up
00:26:18 ◼ ► to qualcomm etc etc that's most likely yeah and if that's the case i think the answer will be
00:26:25 ◼ ► it's the iphone se yeah it's okay right it's okay it doesn't match up but that is that still tells us
00:26:34 ◼ ► if that's the case that still tells us they can't put it in the iphone 17 right exactly they can put
00:26:39 ◼ ► it in the ipad maybe they can put it in a mac if they wanted to but it wouldn't be quite there for
00:26:43 ◼ ► the rest of it so yeah something to watch in a product that is otherwise being made out of um
00:26:48 ◼ ► you know old parts because that's what the iphone se is that would be a new thing that would make it
00:26:53 ◼ ► interesting i'm also uh i'm i'm not interested in it i'm just going to say we will get another batch
00:26:59 ◼ ► of people talking and i'm i look i had an iphone mini oh um this is this will be the end of the small
00:27:06 ◼ ► phone era because the iphone se will be the size of the small existing iphones which is not that small
00:27:13 ◼ ► and so we'll get another round of that too as the report card had a bunch of that in it as well
00:27:19 ◼ ► um don't think apple's ever going to make a phone smaller than this honestly but uh anyway that we'll
00:27:25 ◼ ► get that hopefully what do you think it will be people saying hooray a small phone or like why
00:27:30 ◼ ► can't they make a small phone good yeah yeah that one which is like oh no the last small phone with
00:27:35 ◼ ► touch id is gone and i am mad and it's like it is the end of an era i'm just not looking forward to
00:27:42 ◼ ► that because it's inevitable and i i know what they're going to say and it doesn't matter because
00:27:47 ◼ ► it's inevitable uh mark german also reports in his newsletter uh that we should expect to see the
00:27:54 ◼ ► first developer beta of 18.4 either this week or early next week at the latest now the assumption
00:28:01 ◼ ► the assumption is 18.4 will have more apple intelligence features so the big ones that are left i think
00:28:12 ◼ ► is the quote smarter siri that would understand your personal context and also the control of apps
00:28:19 ◼ ► via app intense yep that's it that's it these are the two most interesting features and the hardest
00:28:25 ◼ ► features yes um that were announced last june and what it's february so yeah we're really i mean we're
00:28:33 ◼ ► really coming up on that year i mean not that it matters really because they've kind of gotten they've
00:28:38 ◼ ► actually got until september um but it will be it will be fascinating i don't think this will happen
00:28:43 ◼ ► but i said it before i'll say it again i think it will be fascinating if we see ios 19 before all the
00:28:51 ◼ ► ios 18 features have shipped yeah i don't i think that they'll probably all be in 18.4 and they'll ship but
00:28:57 ◼ ► i do think that the scale of them will be interesting my my guess is that we got very excited about these
00:29:01 ◼ ► when they were announced in june and that they're going to ship very limited because they're hard
00:29:05 ◼ ► yeah because they need to ship them and then they will and that they probably kicked a bunch of
00:29:10 ◼ ► features out of this into 19. yep that is always the way of wwdc that like you see something that
00:29:18 ◼ ► seems massive and then over time of the like the following weeks you understand as you get to use it
00:29:25 ◼ ► you kind of bring yourself down to earth and recalibrate they're like okay this is good but
00:29:30 ◼ ► it isn't the like life-changing thing or isn't the platform changing thing that i thought it could be
00:29:36 ◼ ► the problem is when it's this far removed like that is a i'm wondering what that's going to feel like
00:29:42 ◼ ► like i know when when smart siri uh comes out what is that going to be like and actually by the way
00:29:48 ◼ ► i had something that you know like i've been seeing a lot of people posting about this recently i think
00:29:51 ◼ ► a lot of it was coming from something paul kafarsis did or that was looking at sports scores yes all
00:29:58 ◼ ► the all the super bowl results yesterday i asked chet gpt what time the halftime show was going to be
00:30:06 ◼ ► and it gave me a very good answer and i asked i asked the same question to siri and it asked chet gpt
00:30:13 ◼ ► and gave me not the same answer but also a decent answer which and it was about this super bowl it
00:30:22 ◼ ► knew that kendrick lamar was playing and i found that interesting because i thought that they didn't
00:30:28 ◼ ► have that much access like to the current kind of data current events so i don't know if maybe they
00:30:33 ◼ ► tweak certain things like obviously the super bowl is one of them you would you would you want to get
00:30:37 ◼ ► that in but i just thought that was funny what i thought was interesting or maybe i don't fully
00:30:42 ◼ ► understand or like what the uh chet gpt api actually does have in it you know yeah well this is going to
00:30:49 ◼ ► be interesting to watch because it's another this is one of those areas where apple has an advantage
00:30:55 ◼ ► because they've built a a context uh in that you know on device that they can understand that allows
00:31:02 ◼ ► them to know more about your personal data set and um you know i think it's interesting it's not like
00:31:09 ◼ ► they're gonna necessarily succeed at this but this is one of those areas where apple has some advantages
00:31:13 ◼ ► that might benefit them as they try to catch up with the state of the art of llms yep and apple has
00:31:22 ◼ ► indeed been working on something that's kind of like a robot arm uh apple have released information
00:31:27 ◼ ► about a research project called e-l-e-g-n-t it's a elegant elegant which is a robot arm slash lamp that
00:31:37 ◼ ► acts and looks like the pixar lamp luxo like it's got some of that kind of vibe to it uh the lamp
00:31:44 ◼ ► essentially reacts to people and is controllable via gestures and clearly also integrates with siri
00:31:50 ◼ ► right that's like part of what you can do um i think that this is a research project that apple is
00:31:57 ◼ ► posting we're seeing more and more of this i think we spoke about this on connected a while back that
00:32:01 ◼ ► it's basically if apple want the best they have to let them publish because they have to let them
00:32:08 ◼ ► publish so we're finding out a little bit more about this kind of stuff at different kind of speeds i mean
00:32:13 ◼ ► this isn't necessarily this is not a product but i think is very clearly showing the kinds of smart
00:32:20 ◼ ► home products apple would like to be able to produce one day this video is worth watching
00:32:26 ◼ ► for the demos of expressive versus functional that's what the paper is about is basically
00:32:32 ◼ ► what's the difference and the difference in people's reactions to a robot arm moving in a purely
00:32:38 ◼ ► functional straight line and a robot arm having you know not moving in the most efficient way but
00:32:44 ◼ ► moving in a more organic way that a living creature might move and how would you build that
00:32:51 ◼ ► and how do people uh react to the difference in approach truly magical product development is what
00:32:58 ◼ ► this would be like if they pull something like this off my word this well this is the thing that's what
00:33:04 ◼ ► struck me about it is well first what struck me about it is that the expressive stuff was in many
00:33:09 ◼ ► cases far too expressive and if like i wanted my robot arm to point at an item on my table and it instead
00:33:15 ◼ ► kind of like looked at me and then kind of came over and didn't get it right and then kind of like had to
00:33:21 ◼ ► wiggle and then finally pointed at it while i sit there and watched it i would be frustrated but they're
00:33:25 ◼ ► kind of overdoing it in a lot of these examples but that is the apple-y kind of thing which is we could
00:33:32 ◼ ► make this robot arm purely functional but what their research shows is that people want it to feel a little
00:33:41 ◼ ► more like it like it flows like it's organic like it's alive in a way so the the purely move from point
00:33:51 ◼ ► a to point b will get you there the fastest but it also feels like a completely like a industrial robot
00:33:59 ◼ ► that you might not even want in your home so that being a little more gentle being a little more
00:34:03 ◼ ► expressive is a part of it and that's what this research is about and i thought that yeah i thought it
00:34:06 ◼ ► was really interesting my favorite part of the video demo is like that you could ask it to remind
00:34:12 ◼ ► you to drink water and there's a moment where the lamp is pushing the glass of water towards the user
00:34:18 ◼ ► yeah i was like that is just that is just right perfect kind of you're living inside a like a disney
00:34:24 ◼ ► movie or a pixar movie really that is very special so here's my question was mark german right
00:34:29 ◼ ► in his newsletter mark links to this and says he was yeah he patted himself on the back
00:34:34 ◼ ► first to report first to report uh about robots uh and says ultimately apple's tabletop robot is
00:34:42 ◼ ► likely to be something closer to a home pod smart speaker with a screen attached to a robotic limb
00:34:47 ◼ ► but it's worth watching the video to get a sense of why such a device might have appeal
00:34:51 ◼ ► so obviously he's got connections into the people who are doing robot research and that's why he keeps
00:34:57 ◼ ► talking about robots and he sort of doubled down in his newsletter where he's like oh robots robots
00:35:01 ◼ ► my problem is i feel like he either either he thinks this or he's saying this because of his sources but
00:35:09 ◼ ► he seems to imply a lot that robots are products and i think that this demo shows that robotics
00:35:16 ◼ ► are features that could be in products and in fact nobody says this will never be an apple product
00:35:25 ◼ ► like apple employees posting a video of a product right because if that was the product they wouldn't
00:35:33 ◼ ► post that video they would hold that paper until the product came out they're not making a lamp
00:35:39 ◼ ► they're confident that that thing is not what they're making but to mark's credit they are doing robotics
00:35:45 ◼ ► research and i think this is the way to think about it is not that apple's going to make robots but that
00:35:51 ◼ ► apple is thinking i mean maybe someday there is something that is more what we would call a robot
00:35:55 ◼ ► or john syracuse might call a robot we'll see who knows um a rumba is a robot so there's lots of things
00:36:01 ◼ ► that apple can make that could be robots um the the thing for me is robotics is a feature set
00:36:11 ◼ ► and a capability that apple needs to build up or thinks they they might want to build up and that's what this research
00:36:17 ◼ ► is about so that they can have it as a tool in their toolbox for products and i think that's great
00:36:26 ◼ ► because apple is great at hardware in fact you know it is the synthesis of software and hardware but apple
00:36:32 ◼ ► especially is killing it in hardware and this is a great example where they have robotic arm hardware
00:36:38 ◼ ► right but the question is yeah but what is the software that drives it and what's the best way to drive it
00:36:43 ◼ ► as mark german points out like if you've got a home pod speaker with a screen on an arm like a g4 imac
00:36:52 ◼ ► and it's meant to maybe move you would use this kind of technology to do that right and you'd say can we
00:37:01 ◼ ► put a little personality in it and you do the research to say is it worth engineering the personality or do
00:37:07 ◼ ► people hate that and the research seems to say people do like it they do like having a little
00:37:12 ◼ ► more personality in there and if you've got any other piece of hardware that can move itself
00:37:17 ◼ ► down the road you've now learned this lesson so you know again a lamp with a robotic arm obviously is not a
00:37:24 ◼ ► product and i don't think any tabletop uh you know home pod with a screen that looks like an imac
00:37:33 ◼ ► is going to is going to do what this thing does because it's kind of overly theatrical and all
00:37:41 ◼ ► yeah but that's not the point the point is apple is learning what are this is how they make that little
00:37:48 ◼ ► kind of magical moment where you're like oh did you notice that it did this thing and it didn't go
00:37:53 ◼ ► straight there but it overshot a little and came back did you notice that this is how they get there so
00:37:58 ◼ ► it's kind of fun to see to peer a little bit into this research of of how do we make something that
00:38:04 ◼ ► feels a little more natural and less like a you know again a piece of industrial equipment that might be
00:38:09 ◼ ► in a an automotive factory somewhere yep and it's just fascinating for all of us who have paid attention
00:38:15 ◼ ► to this for any amount of time just to see anything coming from them at all yeah at all uh is is kind of
00:38:22 ◼ ► fascinating sure this episode is brought to you by google gemini i used gemini for the first time the
00:38:31 ◼ ► other day and the most impressive thing to me was just talking to it you go live with it and then it's
00:38:37 ◼ ► like you're just having a conversation you can talk about your day you can have it explain something to
00:38:41 ◼ ► you or you can start brainstorming ideas i'm going to give you an example i pretended that i had a job
00:38:46 ◼ ► interview coming up and asked it to help me to prepare for that interview it immediately started
00:38:51 ◼ ► suggesting common questions that i might get asked then i started talking through my answers out loud
00:38:57 ◼ ► and it would give me feedback and it's all happening in real time like i'm talking to a career coach
00:39:03 ◼ ► that's just what i tried first but you can talk to it about anything and that's the magic of it how you
00:39:09 ◼ ► can have this back and forth and it's all seamless if you haven't tried it yet it's definitely worth
00:39:14 ◼ ► checking out you'll see what i mean our thanks to google gemini for their support of this show and all
00:39:19 ◼ ► of relay jason i want you to give me a moment here because uh there's some stuff going on in my in my
00:39:29 ◼ ► lands of here in the united kingdom of which i really didn't want to talk about i mean i posted this on
00:39:34 ◼ ► blue sky a couple of days ago i absolutely do not in my last couple of weeks on the show want to be
00:39:41 ◼ ► talking about encryption again but yet here we are especially with an issue coming from the uk
00:39:49 ◼ ► but our our our uk correspondent i am the uk correspondent so the washington post has reported
00:39:58 ◼ ► last week that the uk government is trying to force apple to allow them to access encrypted iCloud data
00:40:04 ◼ ► the government is attempting to do this under what is called the investigatory powers act which is a law
00:40:11 ◼ ► compels companies to work with law enforcement this is tangentially related but not the same thing as
00:40:18 ◼ ► what we were talking about previously um that was just all those laws that came in and then were kind
00:40:23 ◼ ► of like really significantly changed before they became law about giving over certain information and
00:40:29 ◼ ► trying to make backdoors into encryption there's actually a separate thing they're kind of related but
00:40:33 ◼ ► they're not the same uh under this law which is an existing law called the investigatory powers act it is
00:40:38 ◼ ► illegal for a company to even say the government has asked them so apple is declining to comment about it
00:40:45 ◼ ► the washington post's report says that the uk is looking for a quote blanket blanket capability to view
00:40:52 ◼ ► fully encrypted material not merely assistance in cracking a specific account now this is all related to
00:41:00 ◼ ► advanced data protection so this is something that was established a couple of years ago where like iCloud
00:41:07 ◼ ► by default iCloud backups are encrypted but apple holds a key so they can decrypt them uh this is done for
00:41:16 ◼ ► many reasons the key reason being apple can help you recover your account if you lose your password
00:41:22 ◼ ► if you turn on advanced data protection everything is completely encrypted there's also this asterisk
00:41:28 ◼ ► which i've spoken about a bunch of times about uh iCloud encrypt sorry uh message encryption you can turn on
00:41:35 ◼ ► end to end to end encryption with messages you can do this anyway but if there is an iCloud backup of your messages
00:41:41 ◼ ► it's stored in the encrypted backup that is accessible by apple but if you have advanced data protection turned on
00:41:49 ◼ ► like i do apple cannot recover it and it is a incredibly laborious process for turning it on uh you have to go through a ton
00:41:58 ◼ ► of steps which is great about trying to protect you and make sure you have all the recovery codes
00:42:01 ◼ ► and setting up someone who can help unlock your account for you it also adds in problems like we might i
00:42:08 ◼ ► think we're going to talk about we will talk about invites before the end of this episode the apple invites app
00:42:12 ◼ ► the links that people sent before i had the app installed they just wouldn't work because when you
00:42:19 ◼ ► try and access the icloud website it has to authenticate with another device it makes a lot of things more
00:42:25 ◼ ► complicated wherever icloud is involved so advanced data protection apple can't access users that have this
00:42:34 ◼ ► turned on if requested by law enforcement because they don't have the key the government wants access to
00:42:43 ◼ ► these users the same way that they can access other users now the washington post is the originating
00:42:49 ◼ ► source for this information and basically every other piece of every other article that i have read is is
00:42:57 ◼ ► referring to the washington post except for the bbc the bbc is the only outlet that for what i can see
00:43:06 ◼ ► has done their own reporting on this i've been reading a bunch of them and everybody's reporting the same
00:43:12 ◼ ► thing the bbc's reporting is different they are saying that the uk wants to have access to the data
00:43:18 ◼ ► and advanced data protection if it was needed in the same way that a law enforcement agency can request
00:43:25 ◼ ► icloud data from anyone where needed quote from the bbc it is believed that the government want access to
00:43:30 ◼ ► this data if there were a risk to national security in other words it would be targeting an individual
00:43:35 ◼ ► rather than using it for mass surveillance authorities would still have to follow a legal process have a
00:43:40 ◼ ► good reason and request permission for a specific account in order to access data just as they do now
00:43:46 ◼ ► with unencrypted data that is incredibly different to the washington post article which says it is a
00:43:52 ◼ ► blanket what did they say a blanket capability to view fully encrypted material not merely assistance in
00:44:00 ◼ ► cracking a specific account now i'm not saying which one of those is true but my opinion on this with common
00:44:08 ◼ ► common sense i think the bbc's reporting is closer to the truth because what the government is not asking
00:44:18 ◼ ► for it appears even from the washington post article is that they want this kind of uh access to non
00:44:27 ◼ ► advanced data protection accounts it doesn't appear that that request has changed because this is the case in base in
00:44:36 ◼ ► most places in the world that law enforcement agencies can go to apple or go to google and say hey we have
00:44:45 ◼ ► this person we have this warrant we need the information from this account and if apple can access it they
00:44:51 ◼ ► will this is the thing that is just known but if they can't they won't there have been a list of
00:45:04 ◼ ► i think if the uk still pushes on this subject when and what is being reported is it's most likely
00:45:12 ◼ ► apple will just pull advanced data protection from uk users like they'll just get rid of it however the
00:45:18 ◼ ► investigatory powers act states that the government can make these requests about individuals worldwide
00:45:22 ◼ ► which obviously they're i guess they're currently doing uh but that wouldn't be possible so i don't
00:45:28 ◼ ► really know what's going to happen here um this is very sticky and like even me saying that i think it's
00:45:37 ◼ ► this and not that i know some people are already in the discord everyone's upset i have advanced data
00:45:42 ◼ ► protection turned on because i want true end-to-end encryption because i believe everybody has the right to true
00:45:48 ◼ ► end-to-end encryption and i don't want anyone getting access to my data but i think that this story
00:45:57 ◼ ► is not necessarily being reported correctly is my feeling on this i think the bbc is closer to
00:46:07 ◼ ► the truth because this is what the government here and many other government governments are doing around
00:46:14 ◼ ► the world like governments request information from iCloud backups during investigations and they get
00:46:21 ◼ ► it and what they don't get is what apple can't give them and advanced data protection is a new example of
00:46:26 ◼ ► stuff that apple can't give them right um so i again listen to me carefully here all right i see whether
00:46:36 ◼ ► if this is the truth i understand why the government is asking for this because what they want is what they
00:46:41 ◼ ► think they're entitled to get which is access to users information if they commit a crime or they're
00:46:48 ◼ ► a threat to national security but i don't want apple to acquiesce on this but i also don't know where it
00:46:56 ◼ ► goes from here it's hard the worldwide thing it's hard to say right because the does the uk really have the
00:47:03 ◼ ► the right to say um anybody anywhere in the world we want this information well i think whether you like
00:47:09 ◼ ► it and i think the answer is yes because that is the law here and yeah they ask they always they always
00:47:15 ◼ ► ask and then apple will tell them yes or no i think that's the way it's always right i don't think that
00:47:19 ◼ ► is that i don't think this is any different i think it's already been that way and i will say i mean
00:47:25 ◼ ► look i know this is like this is this is good actually with me and you do you really believe the american
00:47:30 ◼ ► government doesn't do that too with apple like this isn't a uk thing like i just know but but leaving
00:47:36 ◼ ► aside but the difference is that uh if if you're end-to-end encrypted apple can't do anything correct
00:47:43 ◼ ► and if you make the law that you can't be end-to-end encrypted without apple holding a key
00:47:48 ◼ ► because we want to be able to ask you to use your key then that's not end-to-end encrypted anymore
00:47:55 ◼ ► right no it's it's it's encryption with apple having the ability to listen like it's the situation
00:48:00 ◼ ► we've we're already in yeah in so many other ways where apple has the ability to unlock that encryption
00:48:06 ◼ ► and unlock that account and um so i i have a couple of things i wanted to say here one is
00:48:13 ◼ ► it doesn't matter at all if the uk government says no no no no no no no this is just for individuals not
00:48:23 ◼ ► not for mass surveillance and we'll go through a legal process in secret and a court in secret
00:48:30 ◼ ► in order to get information oh yeah secret and nobody can say anything the difference between
00:48:36 ◼ ► that and being able to surveil everybody anywhere at any time is zero effectively it it's zero because
00:48:43 ◼ ► once the box is open the box is open so i find that funny that that's the i mean that's pr right
00:48:49 ◼ ► that's pr spin that's like oh no no no no it's just for bad actors in national security emergencies
00:48:55 ◼ ► it's like well you say that but as we have learned in the united states right there are lots of things
00:49:00 ◼ ► that you can say but there then people can just decide to do something else and that has happened uh
00:49:08 ◼ ► time and again and when it's all secret you know there's no scrutiny there's no way to say wait a second i
00:49:15 ◼ ► don't think that that was right because nobody even knows that it happened so that's kind of ridiculous
00:49:19 ◼ ► but but not my point is none of this is new like this is not no this is happening this is i i just
00:49:26 ◼ ► want to say that the government's making an argument here that is is silly and we can discount it because
00:49:31 ◼ ► it doesn't matter whether it's uh for a blanket capability for everything or whether it's targeted
00:49:35 ◼ ► on individuals i mean that's nice and all but if they want it to be if they want to look at whoever they
00:49:40 ◼ ► want for whatever reason once the box is open they can do that no matter what they say so that's one
00:49:45 ◼ ► thing and then the other thing is yeah what happens with with advanced data production and i think if i
00:49:52 ◼ ► had to make a guess if i look at what the uk is doing and i know that there are the you know it's the
00:49:56 ◼ ► five eyes like there's a connection to all the other kind of major western powers and that they share
00:50:00 ◼ ► they share a lot of intel i look at this um and i think to myself probably where we're headed is that
00:50:09 ◼ ► if you want an encrypted an encrypted cloud service from a major company they will have the key and
00:50:16 ◼ ► respond to requests from governments to unlock it yeah i think that's where we're going i think
00:50:23 ◼ ► it's going to be unavoidable that every tech giant every major company not even tech giants every major
00:50:30 ◼ ► company is going to be forced to be in that situation that like you said we've largely been in for a while
00:50:39 ◼ ► now where they hold a key and when a responsible government official comes to them and says unlock this
00:50:47 ◼ ► key or use this key to unlock this data they will say did you check the box did you is it signed got
00:50:54 ◼ ► it here's the data and that's it and if you're somebody who wants to to share data in secret
00:51:03 ◼ ► without somebody else having a key you're going to end up having to first you're going to go to
00:51:11 ◼ ► smaller companies that offer this and then they're going to be forced to do this and then you're going
00:51:16 ◼ ► going to go to kind of semi-random apps that are out there and then they're going to be forced to do
00:51:21 ◼ ► this or be removed from stores yep and that's where it's going to go until we're back where we were in
00:51:30 ◼ ► the 90s which is if you want to compile it from source you can do it but nobody's going to make it easy
00:51:38 ◼ ► and it's going to be more like pirating things it's going to be underground and it's going to be questionable
00:51:45 ◼ ► whether it's trustworthy or not and the net result of that is going to be that the people who they
00:51:50 ◼ ► really really really really really want to catch will go underground and use encryption yep and everybody
00:51:57 ◼ ► else will use encryption that's got a key and it'll be on it'll be unlockable by that and that'll be
00:52:06 ◼ ► every regular person yep and at that point you know we'll be back to the status quo which is in the name of
00:52:12 ◼ ► protecting the bad guys the good all the other non-bad guys will be wide open for whatever the
00:52:19 ◼ ► government wants to do and the real bad guys will find a way again the dumb there'll be some dumb bad
00:52:25 ◼ ► guys who still use it and think that they're totally protected and they'll get caught and there'll be
00:52:28 ◼ ► people who commit a crime in the heat of the moment and didn't ever have any you know security thoughts and
00:52:34 ◼ ► they'll get caught and that's fine right but like the worst of them you know your your global terrorist
00:52:42 ◼ ► organizations and things they'll just know that this isn't a way to store data if they don't already
00:52:48 ◼ ► know it frankly and we'll go somewhere else and that's that's just how it's going to be so like
00:52:55 ◼ ► you know as well like you know the i think you're right advanced data protection is probably going
00:52:59 ◼ ► to go away i think that's what's going to happen and i think like i remember do you remember before
00:53:04 ◼ ► this came around there was a story um it's it's impossible for me to try and find it by googling
00:53:08 ◼ ► right now because everything is just giving me this story where apple wanted to turn on encryption for
00:53:14 ◼ ► everyone but was stopped by the government the u.s government do you remember this story this
00:53:18 ◼ ► happened a couple of years ago that they this is what they wanted to do and were basically told
00:53:24 ◼ ► don't don't do that yeah that was a report i i don't know whether that was you know confirmed
00:53:28 ◼ ► or not but that was a report it sure like passes the sniff test though doesn't it right like for these
00:53:33 ◼ ► reasons because i think what i think you can do it please don't turn it on what i think will happen
00:53:39 ◼ ► here with the with the uk is either apple will turn off advanced data protection for the uk or what i
00:53:43 ◼ ► think will probably end up happening is this particular request goes away because the whole
00:53:48 ◼ ► point of what we're hearing now is the attempt at like trying to drum up some support for apple and
00:53:53 ◼ ► then you know people like us say you shouldn't do this and then also it will go through the same
00:53:57 ◼ ► thing that it went last time which is what you are asking for is impossible right we cannot give you
00:54:03 ◼ ► a key for users that have adp turned on because there isn't one so the only way to do this is to turn
00:54:10 ◼ ► it off so i think that's probably what will start and i guess you said look the uk is not like this uh
00:54:16 ◼ ► uh lone bad guy here toodling its mustache every government wants this maybe sure this is just the
00:54:23 ◼ ► first one to request it uh and the other thing that i find really funny about this is the like and
00:54:29 ◼ ► look i get it right trust me i get it the idea that it is illegal for apple to say they've been asked
00:54:37 ◼ ► yeah but how do we know how do we know right well how do we know what has happened like yes it is
00:54:45 ◼ ► illegal for apple to be to apple to say that they've been asked about this which is a terrible law but we
00:54:52 ◼ ► know about it so someone has told someone at the washington post who do you think that was i don't know i
00:54:59 ◼ ► mean it could it could be somebody in the uk who finds this development distressing right because
00:55:05 ◼ ► there's some technical people who might look at what the politicians are doing or what the law
00:55:08 ◼ ► enforcement people are doing and say oh god this is terrible um or it could be secondhand too it could
00:55:13 ◼ ► also be somebody who talked to somebody inside let's say the u.s government about what this was what
00:55:19 ◼ ► was going on and then that leaks to the washington post that seems like a place where it could leak
00:55:24 ◼ ► um but but it certainly yeah benefits apple to get this out there because in the general conversation
00:55:31 ◼ ► we get to have that like look the law enforcement is not above using scare tactics to get its way
00:55:41 ◼ ► it's not it's absolutely not a lot of this is a little bit this is a little bit like what we talk
00:55:47 ◼ ► when we talk about um why about like why does apple fear competition in the app store or whatever
00:55:53 ◼ ► and the answer is well you know what's better than competition is no competition zero competition
00:55:58 ◼ ► well you know what's better than trying to have to scare the public into going along with whatever
00:56:03 ◼ ► your ramped up security measures are is not telling them anything because it's secret right it's better
00:56:10 ◼ ► if it's secret then there's no story about it then there's no controversy then there's no chance
00:56:15 ◼ ► for a politician in your government to say wait a second maybe we need to rethink this because now it's
00:56:22 ◼ ► it's politically charged and even though you know i want to let my intelligence service do what they
00:56:28 ◼ ► want now we now i need to say you can't because it's become a political issue it's better if it's all in the
00:56:36 ◼ ► shadows so um if this was and this was in the shadows wasn't it and so somebody told somebody who told the
00:56:45 ◼ ► washington post maybe they use signal yeah they probably did uh so i will make it very clear i
00:56:51 ◼ ► think everyone should have the right to encryption i i because and i take advantage of that right and
00:56:58 ◼ ► want it to remain this way for me this story is interesting for the matter now because what the
00:57:04 ◼ ► thing i find most fascinating about this story is i have found two original reports that exactly conflict
00:57:10 ◼ ► each other i don't know i know what one i think i makes the most sense to me from a common sense
00:57:16 ◼ ► perspective which is the bbc's report but it is i think this is uh is an example of the kind of thing
00:57:24 ◼ ► that is only is already happening a lot is only going to happen a lot more which is like what do you
00:57:29 ◼ ► believe i know where i believe i don't know and everybody else can make up their own mind but i
00:57:36 ◼ ► thought that was fascinating and one of the ways i give my last piece of information for why i believe
00:57:41 ◼ ► what i think the bbc's reporting makes sense their article changed significantly over the last seven days
00:57:47 ◼ ► where initially it was it was kind of reporting on it giving some background and was kind of you know
00:57:55 ◼ ► just saying what the washington post had said now they say we have spoken to our sources and it's this
00:58:03 ◼ ► right so fascinating yeah yeah it's it's a it's an ongoing you know story of our time and i i think
00:58:14 ◼ ► i think there's been some hope that the internet and encryption means that it's easier to send coded you know
00:58:25 ◼ ► know coded messages essentially and have privacy in conversation with other people electronically and
00:58:31 ◼ ► to have privacy in your documents that are stored in the cloud because those are important to us
00:58:38 ◼ ► and and on your devices obviously but but i think the biggest issues are with communication and with
00:58:45 ◼ ► cloud storage and legally right i can say at least in the us legally there is some understanding of
00:58:55 ◼ ► like what is yours and should remain private that that you should remain private and the most extreme
00:59:04 ◼ ► version of this is the only thing private is what's in your head and and then there's a spectrum that
00:59:10 ◼ ► goes to or on your device or maybe goes to or is in your personal cloud files what this
00:59:17 ◼ ► you know i i agree i think the most likely scenario here is that globally if you're using a major provider
00:59:25 ◼ ► the governments of the world are all going to agree that your right to privacy your absolute right to
00:59:32 ◼ ► privacy that can't be uncracked is not going to be available for messaging or the cloud
00:59:40 ◼ ► that leaves you with your own personal device and we'll see what happens with your own personal device
00:59:47 ◼ ► right like the us government has wanted very badly to have apple have a way to unlock a suspect's phone yeah and
00:59:55 ◼ ► and apple has sort of resisted that and they use bugs to do it instead right um but there's nothing
01:00:02 ◼ ► stopping governments from saying well no apple you actually need to build in a key for us to unlock
01:00:08 ◼ ► those devices which the fbi certainly has said that it should do at which point we're back to sadly
01:00:14 ◼ ► the truth which is either you come up with your own code or use some sort of surreptitious encryption
01:00:20 ◼ ► that is not broadly available or you keep it in your own head and that's a shame because
01:00:26 ◼ ► our brains are offloaded into our phones these days but we may end up back there and that's unfortunate yep
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01:01:56 ◼ ► uh must i it really this is a hard one for me to have a take on really like look apple apple makes from
01:02:07 ◼ ► time to time apple makes apps yeah and i don't mind that i kind of like the idea this is like it's it's
01:02:15 ◼ ► almost exactly a year since the sports app right i i talked to eddie q the day after the super bowl
01:02:20 ◼ ► about the sports app right so it's almost exactly a year it's like from time to time maybe once a year
01:02:28 ◼ ► apple kind of randomly releases an app and it's weird because like why but there it almost feels like a
01:02:37 ◼ ► demo that's like and i wouldn't be surprised if this is what happened is it came out of
01:02:42 ◼ ► eddie q's group right and they're like what do we do to show best practices of like we've got all this
01:02:50 ◼ ► great stuff like playlists shared playlists and we've got our weather infrastructure now and we've got our
01:02:57 ◼ ► photo sharing infrastructure in icloud could we build something that like shows how all of those things can
01:03:04 ◼ ► be integrated in a wonderful way for something like an invitations app and i've heard some people say it feels
01:03:09 ◼ ► almost like a wwdc demo app polished all the way but you know i it's so on one level it's really weird that the
01:03:17 ◼ ► platform owner is doing this um and that i'm sure somebody out there is is grumpy about the fact that like
01:03:24 ◼ ► well you should just make all these apis available and let anybody do it which maybe they do i don't know they built it on iCloud as well because you've got to have a web service backing this um because not
01:03:33 ◼ ► because not everybody is going to have the app and you want to be able to invite those random people to
01:03:38 ◼ ► your kids birthday party anyway yeah um it seems fine it seems like a perfectly nice app um i i don't i mean it does the job and looks nice and doesn't force people to download an app in order to respond and so okay like i think it's weird that it requires iCloud plus so you have to pay you have to be a paying member of iCloud storage you can't just have the five free
01:04:02 ◼ ► five free gigabytes right to create but to create them right oh anybody can respond you don't have to even have an iPhone it doesn't matter just to risk to it's just to create them but you know like again it probably came out of that group it probably is a showcase for iCloud features that's probably why they built it i don't know like it's a thing that exists will they update it i don't know is it mission critical absolutely not is it meant to be a killer of other apps i don't think so
01:04:32 ◼ ► um i'm a little surprised that this isn't just part of calendar but you know i don't know i mean it's weird right like i doubt whoever worked on this was otherwise going to be working on apple intelligence though i will just say that i think this is more of the apple that is sort of trying to demonstrate some apps that it wants to exist and tie into its services and so you know fine it does a good job of that right like it as you say like i think it
01:05:02 ◼ ► feels like a wwdc demo because wwdc demo apps do this which is use all the system components and there aren't many apps that use all the system components but this one does and it does a good job of them uh it's a very nicely made application
01:05:16 ◼ ► it's just you know it's not one that i imagine using i don't have this i've heard from people yeah we spoke about this on connected and we got a wide variety of follow-up that we're going to talk about in the next episode
01:05:28 ◼ ► um ranging from like you have no idea what you're talking about to uh have you heard of this app or not
01:05:35 ◼ ► and it's like i don't send invites to things it's not a thing that i do i think uh there are certain stages of life in which it happens a lot
01:05:47 ◼ ► sure and that's why i keep coming up with your kid's birthday party is yeah you get a list of 20 kids and
01:05:53 ◼ ► their parents email addresses and you're you're inviting them to your birthday party and you do and you used to
01:05:58 ◼ ► use evite for that and it's kind of filled up with junk and this thing is from apple it has no ads in it
01:06:03 ◼ ► you can just put all of that in generate a link email it to all those people saying hey come to this
01:06:09 ◼ ► thing not have to worry about what their device is because it'll they'll be able to respond on the
01:06:13 ◼ ► website and it'll look nice and like why i'll say if i was in that position why wouldn't i use this app
01:06:21 ◼ ► it's there and it's fine it's not like there are lots of other options you could use but they made one
01:06:27 ◼ ► it's nice i you know as far as it goes it's fine it's it it there are times in your life
01:06:36 ◼ ► that you might do that um and you are about to enter one yeah so we'll see yeah i i mean i haven't
01:06:43 ◼ ► experienced what it is like for someone who's not an iphone user to to get this and so i i would be
01:06:50 ◼ ► i mean i would try it before if i was ever going to use it it's fine because you tap and it opens it in a
01:06:56 ◼ ► web page and it does an email verification so you put in your email and it sends you a a verification
01:07:02 ◼ ► link in your email yeah and you tap that it's typical passwordless login if you have an apple
01:07:07 ◼ ► id associated to your email they ask you to log in but otherwise you just tap and then you're in
01:07:12 ◼ ► my issue of all these kinds of things my issue with this thing is the same as with many which is
01:07:17 ◼ ► i'm always like so nervous to be that guy you know that like i'm gonna send the apple thing
01:07:24 ◼ ► like that if everybody else uses something else we've heard a lot about this and i've heard a lot
01:07:28 ◼ ► now about this app called partyful which is it does this this is their thing they do this and they have
01:07:35 ◼ ► apps on all platforms and so it's like if everybody inside of a group right let's say like everybody in
01:07:39 ◼ ► the kids classes like their parents are sending apps are sending invites via partyful i don't want
01:07:45 ◼ ► to be like hey gang let me introduce you to apple invites you know what i mean i think it'll be all
01:07:51 ◼ ► over the place though i think you're gonna get invites i think you're gonna get people who literally send
01:07:55 ◼ ► an email yeah i think you'll get whatsapp groups i think you'll get all sorts of different time yeah
01:08:01 ◼ ► right i i think i think all of those things are going to be out there because this is a very fractured
01:08:05 ◼ ► kind of space and this is just another one of those right that's the way i would view it i would
01:08:10 ◼ ► another option because i think it's actually like really nicely implemented like you know i've in the
01:08:15 ◼ ► past couple of days i've had reminders for a bunch of fake events that my friends set up a week ago
01:08:19 ◼ ► um and like i like stuff like you set up an event and it's like oh the weather will be like this
01:08:25 ◼ ► on this day most likely based on trends that apple weather has like all these little touches i just i
01:08:31 ◼ ► think are really nice um and then if you are in the apple ecosystem there's a bunch of stuff you
01:08:35 ◼ ► can do right like you can share the photos you can share the music and all that kind of stuff
01:08:39 ◼ ► together but if you're not it's just like hey here's your information i don't know about like
01:08:43 ◼ ► if it i have no idea like if you're not if you don't have the app installed like if you're an android
01:08:48 ◼ ► windows user does it do anything to remind you that the event is coming because like on the phone it
01:08:54 ◼ ► sends you a notification so i tested this there's a calendar link that will let you add it to a calendar
01:09:00 ◼ ► that's like a calendar link of a standard i think it's like an ics or whatever right that will let you
01:09:05 ◼ ► open it in your calendar and add it as an event you don't get like updates and stuff but i think
01:09:10 ◼ ► that's true maybe of it in general um although actually no you'll get an email because i what i
01:09:16 ◼ ► did is i i made a fake event called fun times you did for for the super bowl i invited a bunch of
01:09:21 ◼ ► people and then right before the super bowl i canceled it and everybody i invited got a notification
01:09:28 ◼ ► that it had been canceled it was sad so you it will i know well in the fun times were outlawed sorry no fun
01:09:33 ◼ ► turns out um but that is it was gonna be a flash mob it was gonna be at union square in san francisco
01:09:39 ◼ ► i was gonna be the only person there and i wasn't gonna go either so nobody was gonna be there i
01:09:43 ◼ ► canceled it um and they got notified so i think that once you get your email address in there like
01:09:48 ◼ ► they will keep you or you're or you're um doing it by text if you invite people by text it is notifying
01:09:53 ◼ ► you that there are changes happening to the event uh i don't think they can do the magic where they send
01:09:59 ◼ ► you a magic calendar link that like opens in your calendar and stays updated i don't think they're
01:10:03 ◼ ► doing anything like that because i don't think that exists but they are uh keeping you up to date in
01:10:09 ◼ ► whatever method they have of doing it so again it seems to be essentially like an evite or any of
01:10:16 ◼ ► these other apps or services that do this except this one happens to be from apple yeah uh this this
01:10:24 ◼ ► this discussion about invites was like the the tasty part inside of bad bread because we've got
01:10:32 ◼ ► another big another big thing to talk about we spoke about encryption and now we're going to talk about
01:10:37 ◼ ► notarization so last week alt store announced that they were adding an app called hot tub to all
01:10:45 ◼ ► store so alt store is is an alternative app marketplace in the eu run by the developers of
01:10:54 ◼ ► delta now hot tub is an app that lets you search for pornographic content from various websites it is
01:11:01 ◼ ► essentially an ag a native app which is an aggregator of adult content when alt store announced this
01:11:07 ◼ ► app and they announced it themselves and they did some interviews and they obviously sent out some
01:11:11 ◼ ► press releases they stated that it was the quote first apple approved porn app for the iphone which
01:11:18 ◼ ► of course angered apple who sent out a statement to any media outlet that would receive it saying they
01:11:25 ◼ ► are mine yes deeply concerned about the safety risks of such an app and that they do and they do not
01:11:36 ◼ ► required by the european commission to allow it alt store's response to this was to clarify and share
01:11:43 ◼ ► screenshots at their notarization request that says the app is quote approved which is unfortunate
01:11:50 ◼ ► and to point out that apple has rejected several apps from being allowed to be distributed by alt
01:11:57 ◼ ► store and they also said to be perfectly clear apple has not endorsed hot tub in any way however
01:12:02 ◼ ► they did approve it yeah they did not approve of it but they do approve it because their language says
01:12:08 ◼ ► they approve it yeah i i wrote this my headline was alt store pokes the bear because i think alt story is
01:12:16 ◼ ► well if i if i back up and think about it holistically i think app alt store knew that apple would make a big
01:12:25 ◼ ► big deal about this absolutely because we talked two years ago we talked about how it was inevitable
01:12:30 ◼ ► that something would happen in europe that apple didn't like and apple would use it as a way to
01:12:37 ◼ ► point out how unfair the european rules are because it prevents apple from fill in the blank and how
01:12:46 ◼ ► it makes european union customers less quote-unquote safe less safe i thought it might be malware yeah
01:12:54 ◼ ► or stolen information or something like that but i should have thought it's going to be porn that's
01:12:58 ◼ ► what it's going to be it always is but but but make no mistake apple has been waiting for this moment
01:13:05 ◼ ► anticipating this moment to go full out attacking this and decrying it because politically from a pr
01:13:14 ◼ ► standpoint this is their moment to say see what the mean people made us do and now there's porn on your
01:13:19 ◼ ► iphone they ruined it right that's what they're trying to do here if i'm alt store if i'm rally tested
01:13:26 ◼ ► and other people who work on alt store i know that they're going to do that so while i could say oh you
01:13:32 ◼ ► might not want to taunt apple by saying first apple approved porn app i can see the other side of it which is
01:13:41 ◼ ► they were going to make a big deal about it anyway so just lean into it it's probably not as a human
01:13:48 ◼ ► being probably not what i would do to to taunt apple with this apple pointed out like there's a line in
01:13:56 ◼ ► the notarization guidelines that says do not suggest or imply that apple is a source or supplier of the app
01:14:01 ◼ ► or that apple endorses any particular representation regarding quality or functionality then again apple
01:14:07 ◼ ► doesn't do that all they did was approve it for sale and and this is the point that really bugged me and
01:14:12 ◼ ► that i wrote about at length in this piece that i wrote last week and that all star also pointed out
01:14:18 ◼ ► apple has already used this pathway to block apps it should have approved because it didn't like them but
01:14:26 ◼ ► it let this one through why is that and i think the answer is i mean it's probably complicated but one of
01:14:32 ◼ ► the reasons is apple wants this to happen so they can point at it and say see what they made us do it's
01:14:39 ◼ ► funny because they did you know but i'm an emulator that lets you play old mac games or run ancient mac
01:14:45 ◼ ► software that they just said no we refuse which i would argue is against all the rules and they should
01:14:52 ◼ ► have put it through too but they didn't it's and i think that was a huge mistake because i think apple
01:14:59 ◼ ► first off ruined notarization as a concept because it was always since they introduced it for the mac
01:15:04 ◼ ► supposed to be neutral and now it's suddenly a lever that they can pull and when they just
01:15:10 ◼ ► essentially de facto rejected those emulators from all from alt store and from alternative
01:15:16 ◼ ► app distribution in the eu because they said so which is completely counter to what the dma is supposed
01:15:24 ◼ ► to do but then to have this happen and say oh no look they ruined the iphone with porn we couldn't stop
01:15:33 ◼ ► it our hands are tied it's like it's a lie they could stop it their hands aren't tied because they've pulled
01:15:40 ◼ ► the lever before it's just a lie and the why why did they lie about it it's because they want to be
01:15:45 ◼ ► seen as the victim of the dma in this instance which is the best one possible for them which is apple's
01:15:53 ◼ ► trying to protect your children from pornography and although apple made a statement apple also made a
01:15:58 ◼ ► bunch of things that were on background uh in that email and i'll just say that's where they say oh you
01:16:04 ◼ ► should know that like uh they've also got fortnight on on alt store and that means it's popular with
01:16:10 ◼ ► kids and now there's also porn there and porn is involved with human trafficking unbelievable that epic
01:16:16 ◼ ► epic catch catches a stray in this press release from apple oh and and alt store follow the money mike
01:16:23 ◼ ► alt store got that grant from epic so epic is behind the whole thing after all is the insinuation that
01:16:30 ◼ ► that on background a large tech company that's upset about this might make like it's all there
01:16:37 ◼ ► yeah and and so make no mistake apple was waiting for this moment it's the maximum leverage for them to
01:16:42 ◼ ► say that they are the victim of over regulation in the eu and now porn is on an app store and it ruins your
01:16:48 ◼ ► phone and it ruins your children and it ruins life as we know it no one can recover from this we're all soiled
01:16:56 ◼ ► and their hands are tied and there's nothing they can do except for the fact it's like they lift up
01:17:00 ◼ ► their hands to say look at our hands being tied and they're not tied because they're not tied they're
01:17:06 ◼ ► not tied legally they should have let the emulators through too and then if they had a problem with it
01:17:11 ◼ ► they should have sued or what or threatened or whatever to get them taken down or withdrawn by the
01:17:17 ◼ ► developer but instead they refuse notarization which is entirely not what is allowed legally in the eu and
01:17:26 ◼ ► entirely undercuts of their argument here so so in the end my take on this is apple apple absolutely
01:17:35 ◼ ► approved hot tub apple approved porn in an app store in the in the eu and the reason that it's doubly that
01:17:44 ◼ ► they approved it is there are other apps they haven't approved yep there are other apps that
01:17:48 ◼ ► they used notarization to kill and they didn't kill this one they didn't choose to kill it they let it
01:17:53 ◼ ► through why did they choose to let it through because because they've lost the ability to seem powerless
01:18:01 ◼ ► now and they screwed that up that was an enormous screw up on their part tactically and maybe nobody
01:18:05 ◼ ► cares about those dumb emulators for old mac stuff but like it entirely undercuts their argument here
01:18:11 ◼ ► yeah by you exactly what you're saying i agree completely by proving that they could reject it
01:18:28 ◼ ► the also team this is what they knew was going to happen everybody played it the way everybody thought
01:18:36 ◼ ► was the best thing for them so i believe also one of them like also did this thinking apple would approve
01:18:41 ◼ ► it or like hoping that they would approve it because then they could say all of this about notarization
01:18:46 ◼ ► and then apple gets it and they're like oh we go to approve this one we've been waiting for it
01:18:50 ◼ ► and yeah they both hilariously end up getting what they want but it's kind of i think apple loses here
01:18:58 ◼ ► really at least in they lose the pr game this actually may help their ground game i i don't know
01:19:05 ◼ ► right like i honestly don't think so i think this is so so let's leave aside the notarization
01:19:10 ◼ ► question which i think entirely undercuts apple's entire argument and makes their argument seem just that
01:19:15 ◼ ► much more um sad yeah um do we think that the world at large and europe in particular is going to be
01:19:25 ◼ ► convinced that a tech giant shouldn't be regulated because pornography exists especially since i can
01:19:36 ◼ ► think of well first off as people point out lots of gambling in the app store apple doesn't care
01:19:41 ◼ ► violent things in the app store they don't care porn they care but also x reddit tumblr full of porn
01:19:50 ◼ ► and also literally your web browser yeah which apple makes is full of pornography because the internet is
01:20:00 ◼ ► so is this the slam dunk that apple seems to think it might be i don't believe so i don't think that the
01:20:08 ◼ ► european commission is going to say you're right we shouldn't regulate this tech giant and have it
01:20:13 ◼ ► completely control its entire platform because things that are on the internet might also be in
01:20:17 ◼ ► an app store that's not apple's app store like it's a ridiculous argument anyway but it's undercut by the
01:20:23 ◼ ► fact that apple made the mistake of breaking the sacred i would almost say rules of notarization which is
01:20:32 ◼ ► they're only meant to be protection and they are not meant to enforce policy and they use them to
01:20:38 ◼ ► enforce their policies and arbitrarily reject some apps and so they got to own it with hot tub apple did
01:20:43 ◼ ► approve it it's the first apple approved porn app 100 that's what it is and you know that that's where we
01:20:50 ◼ ► are so apple can go ballistic on this and they did yeah they went by the way absolutely well i want i
01:20:58 ◼ ► want to mention something here i want to mention something important which is and this is me putting
01:21:02 ◼ ► my journalistic journalist hat on um i can't i replied to apple pr about this statement and specifically
01:21:10 ◼ ► asked them how it was different from the two previous examples of notarization which were withheld
01:21:16 ◼ ► and why hot tub was that why apple chose to approve notarization for hot tub versus those other apps
01:21:23 ◼ ► and how the policy differed and i'll let you know if i ever hear a word back from apple about that which
01:21:31 ◼ ► i'm telling you dear podcast listeners i didn't put this part in my story but i'll say it here they never
01:21:37 ◼ ► ever ever ever will because they have no good answer yeah because their whole argument is bogus
01:21:45 ◼ ► they have no good answer for this that does not exactly contradict the whole thing that they're
01:21:52 ◼ ► making this big song and dance about but i don't think it's i don't think the big song and dance even
01:21:57 ◼ ► is that big because it literally is like oh no pornography is on the internet and it's in an app store that's
01:22:02 ◼ ► not the app store but a different app store this is this is how it is supposed to work yes the the apple
01:22:09 ◼ ► standards don't have to be everyone's standards and if you disagree with apple on app store standards you
01:22:16 ◼ ► can choose a place that has maybe more is more aligned with your philosophy like that's the whole point but
01:22:24 ◼ ► apple apple's whole argument is like gah porn icky boo scary get it out of there that's why we're here to
01:22:31 ◼ ► protect you it's incredibly paternalistic and i think it entirely misses the point of the dma which is to say
01:22:37 ◼ ► you are welcome to have that opinion in your app store but not anywhere else on your platform where
01:22:44 ◼ ► other people get to decide what they want and so i mean again this this mike this incident
01:22:59 ◼ ► and that we've discussed here and it is apple's desire for complete control and a paternalistic
01:23:06 ◼ ► attitude toward what it wants to make on the app store and also let's just say it as a part of that
01:23:11 ◼ ► to make huge amounts of money by tariffing every single thing that happens in the app store that's
01:23:16 ◼ ► what's going on here so this is the worst of apple i think and this this statement is from that
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01:26:31 ◼ ► first comes from lee who says with deep seek we're seeing people running models locally on their mac minis
01:26:40 ◼ ► and looking to chain them together as it seems the mac mini at 599 pounds or lee is i guess from the uk
01:26:48 ◼ ► it's the cheapest way to get a 16 gigabit graphics card or a 64 gigabyte uh i'm i'm i'm really messing
01:26:55 ◼ ► i said 16 gigabit wow look at me go the 16 gigabyte card graphics cards don't exist graphics card no okay
01:27:04 ◼ ► all right so what okay what lee is saying so i've i've done a bad job of explaining this it is essentially
01:27:11 ◼ ► a 16 gigabytes graphics card because this unified system memory means you can access all of the ram
01:27:19 ◼ ► when you need it and like this is not a thing that exists so you can go 16 gigabytes you can go all the
01:27:24 ◼ ► way up to 64 gigabytes and it will cost less than an nvidia 5090 so what lee is asking so essentially that
01:27:31 ◼ ► is the premise of the question like you can have with unified system memory you can have a ton of ram
01:27:38 ◼ ► essentially thrown at a graphics card which is not a thing that you can do in the pc space because
01:27:42 ◼ ► they don't use unified system memory like a graphics card has its own onboard ram and it's usually not
01:27:48 ◼ ► very much compared to something like this so what lee is asking do you think apple could now push through
01:27:53 ◼ ► with an m4 ultra studio say with 192 gigabytes of ram and have a product capable of dominating the ai
01:28:00 ◼ ► training space that is the question yeah that's a lot of questions here's what i'm going to say
01:28:07 ◼ ► i'm going to not answer the question other than to say because i don't know a lot about the details
01:28:11 ◼ ► of specs of these various things i'm not sure how many people do i first off i don't think apple cares
01:28:16 ◼ ► about dominating the ai training space i don't think they care i think they would if they did
01:28:21 ◼ ► right yeah but i mean in i don't think dominating is going to happen but i do think that if apple would
01:28:27 ◼ ► be happy if there was a trend toward having um training that could happen on more affordable systems
01:28:34 ◼ ► because that might mean people started doing things like training things on max and that would
01:28:38 ◼ ► make them happy i think the most important thing about stuff like deep seek is that it opens the door to
01:28:45 ◼ ► being able to run ai instances also on lighter weight systems and that's great for apple because apple has
01:28:53 ◼ ► those and so you know the more uh on the on the running side the better and if yes you could be a developer who is
01:29:02 ◼ ► working with these models or trying to train these models and you can do that with cheaper
01:29:06 ◼ ► hardware and that cheaper hardware is a bunch of apple silicon max i'm sure apple would be happy about
01:29:10 ◼ ► that but i don't think that that is their primary um the primary thing about the deep seek uh model
01:29:17 ◼ ► being kind of being kind of low uh resources that interests me and i think interest apple which is
01:29:23 ◼ ► the idea that it gives apple an advantage on hardware that that more sophisticated things can be done
01:29:29 ◼ ► not in the cloud but on device so i have a friend who is pretty connected to this space like to the ai space
01:29:37 ◼ ► and uh something that he told me recently is like people are very excited about max now because of
01:29:46 ◼ ► the potential gains that something like deep seek can show so in the way that deep seek has upset the ai
01:29:54 ◼ ► world it's also looking great for apple because it is looking like now people will be able to do much more
01:30:01 ◼ ► more advanced stuff locally and having access like and running training runs more locally or with with
01:30:10 ◼ ► uh less intense machines less like less requirements for these hundreds of graphics cards thousands of
01:30:16 ◼ ► graphics cards and that max now seem more uh um interesting because you could potentially do more
01:30:24 ◼ ► you know you could get an m4 ultra studio with 100 190 gigs of ram and you now have a very capable
01:30:33 ◼ ► ai machine because it has access to all of it so it's interesting look so what apple you know universally
01:30:40 ◼ ► thought as being behind an ai uh one of the ways that apple could end up having some some advantages on
01:30:47 ◼ ► the field is that some of the assumptions about what ai was going to be and what resources it was going to
01:30:53 ◼ ► to take might be wrong and i think that that's what the deep seek stuff is is at least suggesting
01:30:58 ◼ ► as possible is that things that apple is not as good at might not be as relevant and things that apple is
01:31:06 ◼ ► good at might be more relevant and for a company that is trying to come from behind and is trying to figure out
01:31:12 ◼ ► where it it fits in this the more that the ai conversation plays to the shared ram plays to apple silicon
01:31:21 ◼ ► plays to the neural engine the more that the the the drift of the ai industry goes toward things apple
01:31:29 ◼ ► is good at obviously the better for apple doesn't mean that they don't have to execute doesn't mean
01:31:35 ◼ ► that they're not necessarily behind but you know i i do wonder sometimes that all the cloud companies are
01:31:42 ◼ ► like oh man ai is a cloud story we're gonna kill it in the cloud and i i do wonder if we are going to see
01:31:49 ◼ ► another version of what we saw when computers went from mainframes to personal computers
01:31:54 ◼ ► which is all the cloud companies are saying that because of course they're saying that but what
01:31:58 ◼ ► happens if in five years this stuff all to all just runs on your devices and you don't need the cloud for
01:32:05 ◼ ► it at all like or you need the cloud for only a small amount of it that would benefit apple
01:32:13 ◼ ► alan writes in and says i swear i remember there being a new feature in the home app where you can
01:32:18 ◼ ► pick the home hub you want to use but i have been unable to figure out how to do it it's really
01:32:22 ◼ ► annoying when it moves to a hub that is not near my front door and my home lock decides not to work
01:32:28 ◼ ► i have to unplug all the hubs except the one i want to use so i found this accidentally recently
01:32:34 ◼ ► uh so i'm going to give the steps you go to the home app you hit the little three dots on the top
01:32:39 ◼ ► right you go to home settings home hubs and bridges turn off automatic selection then you can choose your
01:32:46 ◼ ► hub now yeah it's worth noting home hubs now are only apple tvs or home pods they used to also be ipads
01:32:52 ◼ ► but that's not the case anymore it's apple tvs or home pods the reason i found this was um i have
01:32:59 ◼ ► i spoke about it before i have two eve radiator controls that like they actually turn on and off
01:33:06 ◼ ► a radiator valve in my studio i have two radiators here and they weren't responding and i didn't know
01:33:12 ◼ ► why and i was at home and it was cold in the studio and i wanted to warm it up before i got here so i was
01:33:17 ◼ ► playing around in the home app and i found this and essentially me changing home hub was almost like
01:33:22 ◼ ► rebooting it in a way and so it then re kind of like the home reconfigured itself and it found them so
01:33:31 ◼ ► that's how i found it and then i also ended up changing it to my uh home pod mini which is more reliable
01:33:36 ◼ ► than my home my original home pods so i also had this recently i had things that were showing up as
01:33:43 ◼ ► not connecting and i found that automatic selection had decided that the best home hub for me was a
01:33:51 ◼ ► home pod mini in my bathroom yes bad and i have an apple tv 4k connected via ethernet in my living room
01:33:59 ◼ ► directly into the switch that is on my internet and i thought what are you doing like what are you doing
01:34:07 ◼ ► so i turned off automatic selection put it on the apple tv it's been pretty much rock solid since then
01:34:12 ◼ ► so there you go alan i hope that helps and i hope that you're not locked out maybe do you think alan
01:34:17 ◼ ► was sending this from outside their house and like they're really hoping for a fast response
01:34:21 ◼ ► most most smart locks have like an alternative mode but not all i hope so mine has a keypad
01:34:32 ◼ ► maybe or maybe it's not that kind of lock right maybe it's not that kind of i had the first smart lock
01:34:38 ◼ ► i had it had a um it had a like what their question was what happens in an emergency if you lose if the
01:34:45 ◼ ► batteries die how do you get into your house now my current lock my current lock there's a key so you
01:34:52 ◼ ► could bring a key with you and and actually put it in the lock and turn the lock and it will it will
01:34:57 ◼ ► unlock it's great what i imagine i'm not saying you what i imagine most people do is get one of those
01:35:01 ◼ ► key rocks and put the key in the key rock and put it well that they might do that um what i did i
01:35:07 ◼ ► actually had this happen where the batteries died in it and i had to go to the store and buy batteries
01:35:10 ◼ ► but i couldn't lock my house so what did i do i took the key and i locked the door and then i left
01:35:15 ◼ ► with the key and went bought some batteries came back unlocked the door with the key put the batteries
01:35:19 ◼ ► in and then the lock fine my previous smart lock though had a at the very bottom underneath up against
01:35:25 ◼ ► the door it had two little circles that you could stick a nine volt battery and jump it you jump start
01:35:30 ◼ ► and you stick that nine volt battery in there and then it's powered and then you can unlock it you
01:35:34 ◼ ► get some cables you connect it to your car battery what are you doing unbelievable it's gonna blow that
01:35:39 ◼ ► door into kingdom come this one they just provide a key so uh it's great it's great step and asks
01:35:47 ◼ ► the discussion of the new iphone se coming and the constant sadness of iphone colors and the rumors
01:35:52 ◼ ► of a plastic apple watch se i have been wondering is it time for apple to attempt a plastic iphone again
01:35:58 ◼ ► what do you think um i mean they could that would be interesting i think apple feels like the metal look
01:36:05 ◼ ► is their metal and glass look is their branding for iphone now and that that's what says iphone and that
01:36:10 ◼ ► that that i i i think it would take a lot now because basically since the uh what the 5s and you know
01:36:21 ◼ ► before that it was a 3g and a 3gs like plastic phones don't say iphone so i think that they would
01:36:29 ◼ ► be very reluctant to ever do that i think as well that the problem you will always have here is people
01:36:35 ◼ ► they attribute weight to price and if you give them something very light and tell them it costs
01:36:45 ◼ ► nine hundred dollars there might be a bit like what you're talking about unless there is a reason that
01:36:50 ◼ ► like you can see it's super thin right super thin oh how nice and then it can be super light but if
01:36:55 ◼ ► you just give them like a plastic iphone 16 be like why is this thing so light what is going on here
01:37:02 ◼ ► like people have that like there is like a like a weight and a heft and and a value they kind of go
01:37:08 ◼ ► together and i think that would be difficult for them to try and shake it's not necessarily logical but
01:37:12 ◼ ► like you know you can logic this if you really wanted to but it's like it's perceived value and
01:37:18 ◼ ► it's the brand identity right those are the things that end up mattering and andrew writes in to say
01:37:23 ◼ ► the rumor is the iphone 17 line could be e sim only here in the uk we mostly still use physical sims
01:37:31 ◼ ► i'm with ee and could swap to an e sim but never have as i haven't needed to do you think apple will
01:37:37 ◼ ► force through the change here in the uk or still keep the physical sim option is it worth switching
01:37:42 ◼ ► to an e sim now to be ahead of the curve and what are the e sim advantages or disadvantages
01:37:47 ◼ ► so first off isn't the iphone se also rumored to be e sim only uh probably i think so so i think it's a
01:37:55 ◼ ► pilot program i think i wonder if apple's modem chip is actually part of the reason here but also
01:37:58 ◼ ► apple just wants to reduce its reliance on you know having to build a little card slot in where it could
01:38:05 ◼ ► not right ingress all that kind of stuff you know all of those reasons right so i do wonder about that
01:38:11 ◼ ► and for the iphone 17s as well uh unclear what they're going to be able to do but i would say maybe
01:38:16 ◼ ► the se is a pilot for that i i would also say like andrew is in this case where andrew's carrier
01:38:23 ◼ ► will do e sims and andrew just hasn't needed to well i was in that boat i used e sim or i used regular
01:38:30 ◼ ► sim cards for a long time and then one time i got a phone that didn't have they're like in the us we're
01:38:35 ◼ ► not doing that anymore here using e sim and i thought okay and i i switched so i think some of this may be
01:38:41 ◼ ► apple working with its partners probably way in advance talking about we're going to switch to a
01:38:50 ◼ ► a phone that does not have a sim card version what do you all need to do how long does this need to be
01:38:56 ◼ ► i would imagine this is a conversation that is not like i don't think there's a carrier is going to be
01:39:01 ◼ ► like what oh no right like i don't think that's the case i think that this stuff this tech has been out
01:39:05 ◼ ► there for a long time i think it's been going into the market i think apple has been talking to its
01:39:10 ◼ ► carrier partners and if apple is doing an e sim only phone it's probably that that's worldwide it's
01:39:16 ◼ ► probably because it's pretty confident that its partners are on this and in terms of e sim um i
01:39:22 ◼ ► haven't had a problem with it it works really great i've been able i was worried about being able to
01:39:26 ◼ ► transfer it back and forth between like my review phones and my phones that i own and back and forth
01:39:30 ◼ ► hasn't been a problem works it's very straightforward uh mostly can do it without any intervention with my
01:39:38 ◼ ► carrier at all you can just transfer it and it transfers just hasn't been a problem so i don't
01:39:44 ◼ ► think you necessarily need to switch now although if you're if you're planning on getting an e sim phone
01:39:49 ◼ ► down the road the advantage of being on an e sim now is that it will be that much easier to transfer
01:39:54 ◼ ► it later because you won't have be you won't have the the sim card and being like oh no what do i do and
01:39:59 ◼ ► that probably requires you to call your carrier but not necessarily you may be just be able to log in
01:40:05 ◼ ► and request one even then so it's not that big a deal it's come a long way it's the advantages are
01:40:11 ◼ ► that you can just transfer it digitally um and my favorite thing about e sims in general is that
01:40:16 ◼ ► you can have multiple and you can have apple supports you running a couple at once which allows you to do
01:40:22 ◼ ► things like travel and have a second thing active or if you have work number and a home number you
01:40:28 ◼ ► could actually put them on the same device if you wanted to i use an e sim and it's on ee in the uk so
01:40:34 ◼ ► andrew let me tell you it's fine because i i have a last couple of years few many years actually i've been
01:40:40 ◼ ► getting my iphones in america because they come out when i'm out there for saint jude um so i had to switch
01:40:46 ◼ ► over to an e sim the only problem i ever had was doing it the first time because it was very rare
01:40:52 ◼ ► for the uk because it was new in general um and then now it's super simple to do and like we even
01:40:59 ◼ ► did it for a dino too it's very easy to actually set it up and then the moving of it is it's actually
01:41:04 ◼ ► gotten better it was for the first few years i had to wait until i got home to do the transfer
01:41:09 ◼ ► but this year the transfer started working i i figured it wouldn't work because i wasn't in the
01:41:13 ◼ ► country but it even did that now so uh i think e sim is fantastic i recommend it and if you're
01:41:19 ◼ ► thinking about upgrading to an iphone that has it do it beforehand so you can uh make it even easier
01:41:25 ◼ ► for yourself apple has a good part of the um the setup process where it does it for you during the
01:41:29 ◼ ► setup process too now as well it's kind of included in the backup kind of thing it will yeah it's backup
01:41:34 ◼ ► and migration and it just transfers it over it's great yep yep if you would like to send in a
01:41:40 ◼ ► question for a future episode of the show and as i mentioned earlier at the top if you have any
01:41:44 ◼ ► questions related to me and not being around for a long time because i'm going on my paternity leave
01:41:50 ◼ ► go to upgradefeedback.com uh thank you to our members who support us of upgrade upgrade plus you can go to
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01:42:02 ◼ ► going to talk a little bit about the super bowl and some british airways follow-up uh which if you
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01:42:12 ◼ ► on youtube by searching for upgrade podcast where you can watch video versions of the show i want to