Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello, and welcome to this episode of Connected. It is episode 596, in fact. I have the absolute

00:00:14 ◼   ► honor of thanking our sponsors this week, Sentry and Fundera. And I'm just, like, pulling

00:00:19 ◼   ► this one out a little bit, stretching it, because I don't usually get much plaudits at

00:00:23 ◼   ► this point of the show. You know, like, I'm Mike, you'll know me, man of the people. And

00:00:27 ◼   ► I am very happy to introduce to you the keynote chairman, Federico Vatici. Hi, Federico.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Ah, an introduction from the common folk.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Yes, I've got to keep you grounded, you know?

00:00:39 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you, Mike. We're also joined by my illustrious

00:00:46 ◼   ► colleague, the annual chairman, Stephen Hackett. Hello, Stephen.

00:00:50 ◼   ► We're, like, are we president and vice president? Are we, like, we're co-chairmen?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Who's vice president? I'm throwing this one in the middle. Who's vice president?

00:01:00 ◼   ► I think keynote chairman is slightly below annual chairman.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Are you going to take that, Federico?

00:01:07 ◼   ► No, I think we are co-chairmen.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Co-chairmen?

00:01:10 ◼   ► Remember how BlackBerry...

00:01:11 ◼   ► No, no, no. You said co-chairman. He called you vice president.

00:01:15 ◼   ► We're, like... Federico's saying we're, like, BlackBerry that had two CEOs for a minute.

00:01:19 ◼   ► That's what I was going to say. That they had two CEOs. They were co-CEOs.

00:01:24 ◼   ► They were.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Which is an incredible concept.

00:01:26 ◼   ► If you've never seen that BlackBerry movie, by the way...

00:01:29 ◼   ► It's great.

00:01:30 ◼   ► ...really good movie.

00:01:30 ◼   ► It's great.

00:01:31 ◼   ► ...really good movie.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Very much recommended.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Same.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Really good.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Okay, we have some follow-up, and we have perhaps my favorite follow-up in years.

00:01:44 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:46 ◼   ► We were speaking about how many floppy disks it would take to play an episode of Connected,

00:01:51 ◼   ► and a friend of the show, D. Griffin Jones, basically compressed Connected down

00:02:00 ◼   ► to 1.3 megabyte chunk so you can play it on floppy disks.

00:02:07 ◼   ► You have to go look at this on Mastodon, and I'm going to have Jim play a little bit of it here

00:02:14 ◼   ► so you get an example.

00:02:16 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 594.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Century and Copeland.

00:02:30 ◼   ► I'm your senior chairman, Federico Vittici, and I'm joined by fellow annual chairman, Stephen Hackett.

00:02:36 ◼   ► We've never sounded better.

00:02:38 ◼   ► It sounded much better than I expected it would.

00:02:43 ◼   ► It's surprisingly recognizable.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Yes.

00:02:45 ◼   ► What is it?

00:02:46 ◼   ► Two kilobits per second?

00:02:48 ◼   ► I think so.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I figured it would be a nightmare, but no, you can just understand us.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Also, I'm going to put a link in the show notes.

00:02:57 ◼   ► D. Griffin also said, shared with us, that if you would like to download a zip file that

00:03:03 ◼   ► contains all 12 parts in 1.3 megabyte chunks so you could, I don't know, do whatever you

00:03:08 ◼   ► want with it, they also gave us that.

00:03:10 ◼   ► So I'm going to put that in the show notes too.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:12 ◼   ► It's incredible.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Maybe we should just put that in a feed somewhere so people can listen to the whole show.

00:03:20 ◼   ► What, like in 12 episodes?

00:03:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:24 ◼   ► This feels like something you might want to do on a Sunday, you know?

00:03:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:27 ◼   ► You know.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Do I have a copy of this zip file on my NAS?

00:03:31 ◼   ► I do.

00:03:33 ◼   ► We were talking about this in Connector Pro, uh, Steven's, uh, storage.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Desires.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Situation.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Desires.

00:03:42 ◼   ► It means I will never need to buy an 8 terabyte Mac again.

00:03:46 ◼   ► That's not true.

00:03:48 ◼   ► No, I'm down.

00:03:49 ◼   ► I have just 2 terabytes of stuff on this MacBook Pro now.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:52 ◼   ► But that's not true though.

00:03:54 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, I'll do a 4, but I'm not updating anytime soon.

00:03:57 ◼   ► No, but you will go to 8 again, you will.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Listener Steven, not me, wrote in, but they spelled their name correctly.

00:04:03 ◼   ► The PH, that's nice.

00:04:04 ◼   ► This is the ongoing feedback about how Mike is an iPod doc truther and doesn't think they're real.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I-pad, you did it again.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Did I say iPod again?

00:04:15 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:16 ◼   ► I think whenever the word doc appears, you say iPod.

00:04:20 ◼   ► I mean, that was a time, right?

00:04:22 ◼   ► iPod docks were like a thing for a long time.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Do you remember iPod lounge?

00:04:26 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:04:27 ◼   ► I think it became iLounge.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I do.

00:04:29 ◼   ► I read iPod lounge all the time.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Yep.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Anyways, so Steven wrote in, they did not end up going with the Sattachi dock because pluggable

00:04:40 ◼   ► makes an 8-in-1 dock that compromises USB speed, but makes up for it because it's adjustable.

00:04:49 ◼   ► Like the stand is adjustable.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Okay, but this is my point, right?

00:04:54 ◼   ► This is the exact point I was making.

00:04:56 ◼   ► It doesn't matter what you go with.

00:04:57 ◼   ► The point was, there are many options available, and I just did not think that this is actually

00:05:01 ◼   ► one, like, it's going to change the world.

00:05:03 ◼   ► So I will take this as a win.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Thank you, Steven.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Yes.

00:05:07 ◼   ► David wrote in and said, I have an upsetting thought regarding Lil' Finder Guy.

00:05:12 ◼   ► If Apple hasn't savagely taken down Steven's Lil' Finder Guy empire, does that mean Apple

00:05:18 ◼   ► has no plans to do anything with him except for the random cameos in TikTok videos?

00:05:24 ◼   ► If so, what was the point?

00:05:26 ◼   ► This is a very good thought experiment.

00:05:29 ◼   ► It's upsetting.

00:05:30 ◼   ► But, you know, I feel like Apple's pretty forgiving.

00:05:34 ◼   ► You know, there's websites with the word Mac in the name.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Do you?

00:05:38 ◼   ► That's what you think?

00:05:40 ◼   ► I mean, that's what I'm going to say.

00:05:41 ◼   ► Legally, they are a forgiving company.

00:05:42 ◼   ► I'm going to say that, not because they told me to say that, you know.

00:05:46 ◼   ► Right.

00:05:46 ◼   ► There's not someone sitting right next to me right now.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Holding an aluminum and glass knife.

00:05:54 ◼   ► I hope they continue using Lil' Finder.

00:05:57 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:06:00 ◼   ► We will see.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Well, there's been no sign of life so far.

00:06:04 ◼   ► No, no.

00:06:05 ◼   ► But I am getting pictures of people printing them and sharing them with me, which is fun.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:10 ◼   ► Sam wrote in and said, this is in regards to us talking about the AirPods Max 2 last time.

00:06:16 ◼   ► Sony released the foldable WH-1000XM4s a month before the first AirPods Max.

00:06:23 ◼   ► In the time between then and the AirPods Max 2, Sony released a non-foldable design for the

00:06:29 ◼   ► XM5, faced backlash, and released the foldable XM6s almost a year ago.

00:06:34 ◼   ► So it's very funny to be like, you know, Apple changed nothing.

00:06:36 ◼   ► And in that time, Sony did a thing and then backtracked on it and released another thing

00:06:43 ◼   ► in between.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:44 ◼   ► That's one of those things like, we're closer to World War II than World War II was to the

00:06:50 ◼   ► birth of Jesus.

00:06:51 ◼   ► You know, like one of those things.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Is that true?

00:06:53 ◼   ► Wow.

00:06:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:54 ◼   ► That's maybe an extreme example.

00:06:56 ◼   ► No, that one's wild.

00:06:57 ◼   ► That's really exciting.

00:06:58 ◼   ► I didn't know that.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Yeah, that's, man.

00:07:01 ◼   ► I saw some people ordering AirPods Max.

00:07:04 ◼   ► I guess the order went up yesterday.

00:07:07 ◼   ► And it's like, why?

00:07:09 ◼   ► Like, what are you doing?

00:07:10 ◼   ► I just, I don't know.

00:07:12 ◼   ► They're being professionals.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Why do you have a MacBook New York?

00:07:15 ◼   ► Because I need a downstairs computer.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Maybe they have the downstairs headphones.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Maybe they need downstairs AirPods Max, you know?

00:07:20 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:23 ◼   ► Okay.

00:07:23 ◼   ► Some follow-out.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Very exciting follow-out.

00:07:26 ◼   ► I got to be on MacBreak Weekly this week.

00:07:29 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Jason was hosting.

00:07:31 ◼   ► I got to join him and Andy and Christina.

00:07:36 ◼   ► And I think we had a great time.

00:07:37 ◼   ► The link will be in the show notes.

00:07:39 ◼   ► It's one of those moments.

00:07:40 ◼   ► I mean, MacBreak Weekly was like the first tech podcast I ever listened to.

00:07:45 ◼   ► And so to be on it.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Oh, I didn't know that.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Yeah, so to be on it all these years later was really fun.

00:07:50 ◼   ► I think we had some great conversations.

00:07:52 ◼   ► So you go check it out.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Episode 1017.

00:07:56 ◼   ► I know.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Unbelievable.

00:07:58 ◼   ► I know.

00:07:59 ◼   ► It's quite the run.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I had to, like, double-check that episode number when I linked to it.

00:08:03 ◼   ► It's like, oh, surely their URLs aren't the episode numbers.

00:08:06 ◼   ► Like, oh, yes, it is.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I like that you were really, you were playing to the crowd of your pick of the week

00:08:13 ◼   ► of a terminal command to hide the Tahoe menu icons.

00:08:16 ◼   ► You were really, you're going for it there.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I like it.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Appreciate that.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Do what I can.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Big news.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Apple, get this, is going to hold a developer conference this summer.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Well, this was actually surprising news because they announced it on Monday.

00:08:33 ◼   ► They did.

00:08:34 ◼   ► I kind of thought it would be Tuesday or Wednesday.

00:08:37 ◼   ► But I think they wanted to, obviously, they wanted to clear space for AirPods Max 2 pre-orders.

00:08:44 ◼   ► I mean, you know what?

00:08:46 ◼   ► I guess so, right?

00:08:48 ◼   ► They wanted to make sure the website could withstand all the traffic.

00:08:52 ◼   ► June 8th through 12th, it's going to follow the same format they've done since COVID, where

00:08:58 ◼   ► there's an in-person event with streaming, and the sessions will be online.

00:09:04 ◼   ► If you're a developer, you can apply for a ticket.

00:09:06 ◼   ► If you're press, you just have to wait until two days before to find out.

00:09:11 ◼   ► An interesting note, I think all three of us clocked this.

00:09:14 ◼   ► I'm going to read this from the newsroom release.

00:09:17 ◼   ► WBDC 26 will spotlight incredible updates for Apple platforms, including AI advancements and

00:09:26 ◼   ► exciting new software and developer tools.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:30 ◼   ► It's interesting they called it AI, right?

00:09:32 ◼   ► Not Apple Intelligence.

00:09:34 ◼   ► That's a choice that they've made.

00:09:36 ◼   ► Can't call it Apple Intelligence when it's made by Google.

00:09:39 ◼   ► Or I wonder if they're going to back away from that brand a little bit.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Because that brand is tainted.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Well, I guess so is Siri.

00:09:46 ◼   ► They're all tainted.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Well, I mean, we'll talk about it later, but it does seem like they're maybe thinking about

00:09:51 ◼   ► doing some of that kind of stuff anyway.

00:09:53 ◼   ► But I think it makes more sense to just call it AI, like to stop trying to make fetch happen

00:09:59 ◼   ► kind of scenario with Apple Intelligence.

00:10:00 ◼   ► It's like, you don't need to have your own brand for it at this point.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Because, I mean, I think when Apple introduced it as Apple Intelligence, they were trying

00:10:09 ◼   ► to be at a place of like, we are better than everyone else.

00:10:13 ◼   ► And they didn't ship any of the features.

00:10:14 ◼   ► So it kind of like takes the shine off the like, we're different and better.

00:10:19 ◼   ► It's like they didn't do anything ultimately, except a couple of things that most people don't

00:10:24 ◼   ► really seem to enjoy.

00:10:26 ◼   ► But it was interesting that they called it out.

00:10:28 ◼   ► I mean, I feel like they probably, considering where we are, right, and the fact that we still

00:10:35 ◼   ► have not got any of the features that were promised this year, I think they know we're not going

00:10:41 ◼   ► to get any of those features before WWDC.

00:10:43 ◼   ► And so why not call it out specifically here so that people know that we are still working

00:10:50 ◼   ► on this stuff.

00:10:51 ◼   ► That's kind of how I read it, because I don't know why they would be so specific.

00:10:56 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:10:56 ◼   ► They don't usually talk about like, oh, you know, we're going to have some great features

00:11:02 ◼   ► for continuity as part of the WWDC announcement.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Sure.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:05 ◼   ► I mean, they're trying to get out ahead of, I don't know.

00:11:08 ◼   ► The damage is so bad.

00:11:09 ◼   ► We actually talked about this on MacBook Weekly.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Like, they're in such a hole that they dug themselves with this stuff that they've, I

00:11:17 ◼   ► think they've got to go hard at it if it's ready.

00:11:21 ◼   ► And my word, if they promise something that they can't deliver again, I don't, I don't

00:11:28 ◼   ► even want to think.

00:11:28 ◼   ► I just think they don't make the promise, right?

00:11:30 ◼   ► Like, they just won't.

00:11:32 ◼   ► They won't promise.

00:11:32 ◼   ► But how do you do that?

00:11:33 ◼   ► You know, it's just, it's very interesting to think about how they could manage this.

00:11:40 ◼   ► There's a very fine balance to walk, I think, for them.

00:11:43 ◼   ► And I think it's going to be a very interesting time to see where they are.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But it's nice to have the date on the schedule.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Yep.

00:11:55 ◼   ► I'll be there.

00:11:55 ◼   ► I'm going to go hang out.

00:11:57 ◼   ► So.

00:11:57 ◼   ► Nice.

00:11:57 ◼   ► Say hi.

00:11:58 ◼   ► We'll be bringing my mother-in-law in so I can work as late as I want.

00:12:02 ◼   ► Nice.

00:12:02 ◼   ► Nice.

00:12:03 ◼   ► Maybe she wants to go to WWDC.

00:12:05 ◼   ► You know, you're keeping her from going.

00:12:08 ◼   ► That's a good question.

00:12:09 ◼   ► I will ask.

00:12:09 ◼   ► I'll say, were you interested?

00:12:11 ◼   ► Do you want to go hang out with Steven?

00:12:12 ◼   ► Then she can go.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:14 ◼   ► Yes.

00:12:15 ◼   ► That's it.

00:12:16 ◼   ► She's like, I want to go see Steven.

00:12:17 ◼   ► Does she know who I am?

00:12:18 ◼   ► Well, yeah.

00:12:19 ◼   ► I mean, she was at our wedding.

00:12:21 ◼   ► That's right.

00:12:22 ◼   ► You were at the wedding.

00:12:23 ◼   ► I was.

00:12:23 ◼   ► I was at the wedding.

00:12:26 ◼   ► That was a long time ago.

00:12:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:31 ◼   ► 10 years in 2020.

00:12:33 ◼   ► So it's eight years this year is another way of saying that.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:37 ◼   ► If you can remember what year it currently is.

00:12:40 ◼   ► That's true.

00:12:41 ◼   ► Then you would, then you would say that.

00:12:43 ◼   ► But if you don't, you just say what I said.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:46 ◼   ► I have a story about that for y'all.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Yep.

00:12:48 ◼   ► I was in a meeting the other day and we were just doing some planning and I definitely thought

00:12:55 ◼   ► for like two thirds of the meeting that we were in April and not in March.

00:12:59 ◼   ► I didn't say anything, but I was like, why does everyone keep like, keep messing these

00:13:04 ◼   ► things out?

00:13:04 ◼   ► Like, oh, next month, like April 17th is like, no, that's, I don't understand.

00:13:09 ◼   ► He's like, what a bunch of idiots.

00:13:10 ◼   ► What a bunch of morons.

00:13:12 ◼   ► And, uh, and then I glanced up at my menu bar.

00:13:15 ◼   ► It's like, oh, it's March.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Uh, very confusing.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Very confusing.

00:13:21 ◼   ► I know it's obvious and like we know, but I cannot believe we're like, we're already

00:13:26 ◼   ► looking towards WWDC.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Like it's happening.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:29 ◼   ► It's, you know, like nine weeks away.

00:13:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:31 ◼   ► It's like that it's coming up because, you know, I, I don't know if what you guys doing

00:13:37 ◼   ► on, on, but like the Apple at 50 stuff is occupying a lot of my time and attention right

00:13:42 ◼   ► now.

00:13:42 ◼   ► Yes.

00:13:42 ◼   ► And so like thinking about that and that's like the whole month essentially.

00:13:46 ◼   ► And then, then we're like into WWDC speculation time by the time all of that's done.

00:13:51 ◼   ► So it's like, yeah, I, um, yeah, Jason, I've been talking a lot about, about Apple at 50

00:13:58 ◼   ► and it's just, yeah, a lot going on.

00:14:02 ◼   ► I have found, I have found it to be intimidating to write about it.

00:14:05 ◼   ► Like I've tried a couple of times and I just don't, I just got nothing.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I mean, you are the history guy, so you probably should do something.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I know, but that's the thing.

00:14:13 ◼   ► It's like, it's so overwhelming.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:16 ◼   ► What do I pick?

00:14:17 ◼   ► You know, you should go take chips out of, you know, like just tiny chunks.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I think so.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Um, yeah, it's coming, coming up.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Did y'all see the news about ads coming to Apple maps?

00:14:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And I don't care because I don't use Apple maps.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Same.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And so to me, this is not like upsetting or surprising because I use Google maps and Google

00:14:39 ◼   ► maps has lots of ads in it.

00:14:41 ◼   ► So it's like, well, yeah, of course is the way that I expressed my feelings towards this,

00:14:46 ◼   ► but lots of other people online seem to be very annoyed about it.

00:14:50 ◼   ► I use Apple maps, uh, a lot and it's just a really nice experience and I understand why

00:14:58 ◼   ► they're doing it.

00:14:58 ◼   ► Uh, like you said, Google maps does it, you know, uh, if there's any other mapping platforms

00:15:03 ◼   ► out there, they probably do it.

00:15:04 ◼   ► I just, I, I just have the thought of like, can we just have one nice place, you know, but

00:15:10 ◼   ► that's okay.

00:15:10 ◼   ► I mean, you can have the nice place.

00:15:12 ◼   ► It's just going to be underneath a blue box now.

00:15:14 ◼   ► It's true.

00:15:15 ◼   ► And we'll just continue past that.

00:15:17 ◼   ► I do think my feelings about this are conflated with the increased ad load in the app store

00:15:22 ◼   ► that they've been doing so bad.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:15:24 ◼   ► It's so bad.

00:15:25 ◼   ► Just go search for something in the app store.

00:15:27 ◼   ► You got to add at the top and now you also get to add in the search results.

00:15:31 ◼   ► Now, you know, they're in a blue box.

00:15:32 ◼   ► They say ad, like they are distinguished, but I just, it's just such a huge amount of it,

00:15:41 ◼   ► of the, of the search screen now is, you know, you're, you're getting like two

00:15:47 ◼   ► scrolls and you get one result and then the rest are ads.

00:15:52 ◼   ► It's rough.

00:15:53 ◼   ► It's just rough.

00:15:54 ◼   ► It's rough.

00:15:54 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, look, I do think that there is a genuine story about small business with

00:16:03 ◼   ► the, with ads and mapping software.

00:16:05 ◼   ► And, and I, you know, I know that this is what they're talking about, but I actually do

00:16:10 ◼   ► think that that is a thing that could exist.

00:16:12 ◼   ► Like small businesses could be able to advertise themselves in their local neighborhood.

00:16:17 ◼   ► like that is a thing you could potentially do.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Um, and I do know that from a business perspective, search ads in the app store can be beneficial,

00:16:26 ◼   ► but it is just, it's just a lot of ads everywhere.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Um, and it is in conjunction with the new Apple business stuff where they're kind of taking

00:16:38 ◼   ► on Google workspace in a new way.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Um, heaven help you if you put your, your business email in iCloud, but you know,

00:16:45 ◼   ► I have not even, I have decided to not put an ounce of my energy into understanding what that's

00:16:52 ◼   ► like, I don't really want to know.

00:16:56 ◼   ► It's actually interesting.

00:16:57 ◼   ► I had two people, one in email, then one in real life sent me a text like, oh, hey, should

00:17:02 ◼   ► I like do this?

00:17:03 ◼   ► I'm like, no, just keep using Google workspace.

00:17:06 ◼   ► No, no, it's okay.

00:17:08 ◼   ► I mean, maybe eventually, but not straight away.

00:17:11 ◼   ► Like don't, don't do it right now.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Uh, I mean, the one thing I know about it is it's MDM and other stuff, right?

00:17:18 ◼   ► And so like, I guess if you're already using their MDM, like maybe this works for you to

00:17:24 ◼   ► add in calendars and email or whatever it probably is.

00:17:27 ◼   ► But yeah, it's just like, I don't know, man.

00:17:29 ◼   ► It's not for me.

00:17:30 ◼   ► What if you're using MDA?

00:17:31 ◼   ► It's a different thing.

00:17:33 ◼   ► What's that?

00:17:34 ◼   ► It's a drug.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I think.

00:17:35 ◼   ► No, MDMA.

00:17:36 ◼   ► No, that's an MDMA.

00:17:37 ◼   ► No, no, it was a joke.

00:17:38 ◼   ► It was like a joke though.

00:17:41 ◼   ► If you got the joke wrong, it's not a joke.

00:17:44 ◼   ► No, you said MDM and I said, what if you use MDA?

00:17:46 ◼   ► But it's MDMA.

00:17:48 ◼   ► If you can't tell anybody, it's an NDA.

00:17:51 ◼   ► It's MD, you need, you, you, the joke was there, but you, you took away a letter that

00:17:57 ◼   ► didn't need taking away.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Okay.

00:17:59 ◼   ► I think we're, I think we're passing like two ships in the night.

00:18:03 ◼   ► A little bit.

00:18:05 ◼   ► I think it's two and one ship because me and Federico are definitely in the same ship and

00:18:11 ◼   ► it's not the one that you're in, I'm afraid.

00:18:14 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Sentry.

00:18:18 ◼   ► Logs are messy.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Trying to grep through them and line up with traces and dashboards just to understand one

00:18:26 ◼   ► issue is in it.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Sentry, that's S-E-N-T-R-Y, has logs too, but they've made them usable.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Sentry's logs are trace connected and structured so you can follow the request flow and filter

00:18:39 ◼   ► by whatever matters.

00:18:41 ◼   ► And because Sentry surfaces the context right where you're debugging, the trace, the relevant

00:18:46 ◼   ► logs, the error, and even the session we play, they all land on one timeline.

00:18:51 ◼   ► So you're not trying to match timelines or hop between tools.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Frontend, mobile backend, whatever you're debugging, Sentry gives you the context you need so you

00:19:01 ◼   ► can fix the problem and move on.

00:19:03 ◼   ► More than 4.5 million developers use it, including teams at Anthropic, Disney+, and here at Relay.

00:19:10 ◼   ► We have a freelance developer.

00:19:12 ◼   ► He has limited time with us.

00:19:13 ◼   ► And Sentry really makes the most of his time.

00:19:17 ◼   ► Because if we have an issue, he can quickly get to the bottom of it.

00:19:21 ◼   ► We've been using Sentry for years, long before they were a sponsor, and they really have made

00:19:25 ◼   ► the upkeep and development of our custom CMS much easier.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So try it for free at Sentry.io.

00:19:34 ◼   ► That's S-E-N-T-R-Y, Sentry.io, and tell them that we sent you.

00:19:40 ◼   ► They have a free dev plan for listeners of Connected, so use the code CONNECTED26 to get

00:19:47 ◼   ► $100 in credit.

00:19:49 ◼   ► That's Sentry.io and the code CONNECTED26 to get $100 in Sentry credits.

00:19:56 ◼   ► My thanks to Sentry for their support of the show and Relay.

00:20:00 ◼   ► The information is reporting that Google is giving Apple full access to their Gemini model,

00:20:08 ◼   ► which Apple is using for something called distillation.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Essentially, Apple will be able to ask queries of Gemini.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I'm assuming this is the large model.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I'm also assuming that when I'm finished speaking, Federica will have numbers and statistics for this.

00:20:25 ◼   ► But essentially, Apple is able to ask queries of Gemini, get a full report of the reasoning

00:20:32 ◼   ► and the process that the model went through to get to the result, then take all of that information

00:20:37 ◼   ► and use it to train smaller on-device models that Apple can use.

00:20:42 ◼   ► To me, this feels like pretty significant access of Gemini.

00:20:47 ◼   ► What was your take on this, Federica?

00:20:50 ◼   ► Well, first of all, nice deal that Apple got in terms of having permission to run Gemini in their data centers

00:20:58 ◼   ► and also use it for distillation.

00:21:00 ◼   ► I think that's how you make alcohol.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Okay, I'm done.

00:21:05 ◼   ► I'll stop.

00:21:05 ◼   ► He's really trying.

00:21:06 ◼   ► What should we do with Steven today?

00:21:08 ◼   ► Do you have any ideas, Mike?

00:21:10 ◼   ► Any thoughts?

00:21:12 ◼   ► Any feedback?

00:21:13 ◼   ► I mean, we could...

00:21:15 ◼   ► Unfortunately, it's his meeting, so we can't kick him out.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Right, right, right.

00:21:19 ◼   ► So I guess we'll just have to push through.

00:21:22 ◼   ► We're just sort of wondering, you know, for the best course of action.

00:21:26 ◼   ► I think we just have to embrace it.

00:21:30 ◼   ► It's like, ha, ha, ha.

00:21:31 ◼   ► No, no, we love you, Steve.

00:21:33 ◼   ► We love you, Steve.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Yeah, we love you, too.

00:21:34 ◼   ► Most of the time.

00:21:34 ◼   ► We know you're trying.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:21:36 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Are you still on the call, Steven?

00:21:42 ◼   ► I am.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Okay.

00:21:44 ◼   ► We love you very much.

00:21:47 ◼   ► So first of all, I think it was not obvious that Apple would get the ability to also use Gemini output for distillation.

00:21:55 ◼   ► So distillation, I think we mentioned it before.

00:21:57 ◼   ► It's the idea that you're basically taking a teacher model, in this case, the big Gemini model that Apple can use,

00:22:07 ◼   ► and you're using a smaller, sort of more efficient model, we're going to call it the student model,

00:22:13 ◼   ► to transfer some of the knowledge from the teacher to the student.

00:22:17 ◼   ► And you mostly do this by sort of taking, there are many different ways to do this,

00:22:24 ◼   ► but in simplifying, you take the reasoning output from the bigger model,

00:22:30 ◼   ► and you use that to teach a smaller model how to get to the same results in a more efficient way.

00:22:37 ◼   ► And I assume this is like, I think both OpenAI and Anthropic have complained about, like, Asian companies doing.

00:22:46 ◼   ► Yes, absolutely.

00:22:46 ◼   ► This is what they're talking about when they make those complaints?

00:22:48 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:49 ◼   ► One of the popular, so, you know, Alibaba, they make a large language model called Quen, which is open source.

00:22:56 ◼   ► One of the more popular versions of Quen 3.5 lately is a version of Quen that is small enough to run on a bunch of, you know,

00:23:06 ◼   ► regular consumer-grade laptops, but it's been distilled from Opus 4.6.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And, you know, that makes Anthropic really, really happy, I bet.

00:23:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:17 ◼   ► But that's the idea.

00:23:18 ◼   ► So, obviously, like, interesting, but I have so many questions.

00:23:25 ◼   ► Because, first of all, like, what exactly are you distilling it into?

00:23:32 ◼   ► Like, are you taking Gemini output and using it for distillation of Apple Foundation models?

00:23:37 ◼   ► Like, is that what you're doing?

00:23:39 ◼   ► You're taking your own models and distilling Gemini 3.1 output?

00:23:44 ◼   ► Or is it going to be something else?

00:23:47 ◼   ► Not sure.

00:23:48 ◼   ► I assume that Apple is taking Gemini output to distill it into Apple Foundation models.

00:23:54 ◼   ► That's my assumption.

00:23:55 ◼   ► When I read this news, right, because I know there's been a lot of conversation about, like,

00:24:00 ◼   ► how long are Apple going to use Gemini, right?

00:24:04 ◼   ► And I have fallen into the camp of, I think this is a long, long, long-term partnership.

00:24:10 ◼   ► Because I just don't imagine Apple being able to produce something of this power

00:24:15 ◼   ► when all these other companies continue to move forward.

00:24:19 ◼   ► Right.

00:24:19 ◼   ► And when I see something like this, it's like, oh, this to me gives an example.

00:24:24 ◼   ► Like, it is another piece of evidence that Google at least believed this is a long-term partnership.

00:24:29 ◼   ► Because why would they let another company do this otherwise?

00:24:33 ◼   ► Because it seems like you're giving away what you're good at for free, essentially.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:40 ◼   ► My main concern is that what are these smaller models that are a result of distillation going

00:24:54 ◼   ► to be used for?

00:24:55 ◼   ► Because I have a really hard time thinking that you can use distillation to make a model

00:25:03 ◼   ► that is going to be at the center of app intents and coordinating tools.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Because even big models, like we're talking GPT 5.4, we're talking Opus, we're talking Gemini

00:25:16 ◼   ► size models.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Sometimes they struggle with too many tools, with too many potential integrations.

00:25:23 ◼   ► So I don't think they're using distillation to power the system that is going to handle

00:25:30 ◼   ► all the app intents, all the things they showed off in 2024.

00:25:33 ◼   ► So I think they're using distillation to make self-contained models for very specific tasks.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Like for example, maybe they're going to use distillation to improve the, to make a model

00:25:46 ◼   ► that only handles the cleanup in photos.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Or maybe they're going to use distillation to make a model that only handles audio transcription.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Like I think that's what they're doing, but for the more like high level coordination of

00:26:04 ◼   ► things like handling complex questions, handling app intents, coordinating across multiple

00:26:10 ◼   ► apps, I mean, happy to be proven wrong, but I would be really surprised if distillation is

00:26:17 ◼   ► used for that.

00:26:19 ◼   ► I think we're going to end up having a collection of self-contained small Apple foundation models

00:26:25 ◼   ► that each does one thing and they were distilled from Gemini.

00:26:29 ◼   ► And why does Gemini happen to be a great model for that?

00:26:33 ◼   ► Because at the moment, Gemini is the only big model from a big AI provider that is natively

00:26:42 ◼   ► multi-model.

00:26:43 ◼   ► It supports pictures, it supports video, it supports audio, it supports all kinds of file attachments,

00:26:49 ◼   ► and it even supports live conversations.

00:26:53 ◼   ► In fact, they just released a few minutes ago, Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, which is what's going

00:27:00 ◼   ► to power the live conversations.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Their names are so bad.

00:27:04 ◼   ► They're terrible names.

00:27:06 ◼   ► Just keep putting different descriptors on it and we'll get it.

00:27:10 ◼   ► I think a pretty good model to use for distillation if the goal is to have a bunch of smaller, dedicated

00:27:17 ◼   ► models for very different tasks that you want to run on a smartphone.

00:27:21 ◼   ► So, nice get from Apple, obviously.

00:27:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Speaking of Apple AI and what we might see, the rumor wizard Mark Gurman is reporting for Bloomberg

00:27:36 ◼   ► on what he is expecting to see at WWDC.

00:27:39 ◼   ► So, there's a bunch of things here.

00:27:40 ◼   ► So, first off is a standalone app for Siri.

00:27:46 ◼   ► So, very much a chatbot interface.

00:27:49 ◼   ► This is something that had been rumored before that Apple was potentially working on internally,

00:27:53 ◼   ► but it was unclear if it was something that they wanted to ship.

00:27:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:59 ◼   ► I think Craig Federighi kind of famously was against a chatbot interface, but that's what

00:28:05 ◼   ► all of this stuff, you know, a lot of this stuff has taken shape exactly like that.

00:28:09 ◼   ► And so, this version of, like, I guess it would probably be the Siri app is probably what they

00:28:14 ◼   ► will produce here.

00:28:16 ◼   ► It will display prior conversations that you can jump back in on.

00:28:19 ◼   ► You can pin favorite conversations, search across messages, or the kind of table stakes stuff

00:28:24 ◼   ► that you would expect.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And the UI will be very reminiscent to iMessage.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It was very funny to me that in the report, Mark is like, and it will support light and

00:28:32 ◼   ► dark mode.

00:28:33 ◼   ► It's like, really, Mark?

00:28:34 ◼   ► Cool.

00:28:34 ◼   ► Wow.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Wowzers.

00:28:37 ◼   ► What a detail.

00:28:38 ◼   ► It should be much more.

00:28:40 ◼   ► And also, just in general, they're trying to make Siri more conversational than before

00:28:45 ◼   ► in both text and voice.

00:28:47 ◼   ► A branding of, like, quote, ask Siri will be in lots of places throughout the operating

00:28:54 ◼   ► system as, like, a label or a button.

00:28:56 ◼   ► And it will be prompting you as the user to send content to Siri for assistance.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Like, if you were to highlight text, for example, there would be, like, a button that might pop

00:29:06 ◼   ► up, and you could do something with that.

00:29:08 ◼   ► Or you could do it with files.

00:29:10 ◼   ► You know, maybe you select a bunch of files, and then maybe you can ask Siri, hey, rename

00:29:13 ◼   ► these or something like that.

00:29:15 ◼   ► I'm going to read a quote here from the article.

00:29:17 ◼   ► The updated Siri, codenamed Campo, is designed to better control features within iPhones and

00:29:23 ◼   ► Macs and tap into personal data, like messages, notes, and emails, to fulfill requests.

00:29:28 ◼   ► It also will be able to complete tasks within apps, access news content, and search the open

00:29:34 ◼   ► web using Apple-built interfaces and models.

00:29:37 ◼   ► So they're still talking about this, like, controlling of devices and using your information.

00:29:45 ◼   ► Earlier on in the episode, I mentioned about, you know, when I think, I don't know which

00:29:51 ◼   ► one of you beautiful co-hosts it was suggested that maybe they're moving away from the Apple

00:29:54 ◼   ► intelligence branding.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Apple is considering a redesign of the glowing Siri interface that was introduced in iOS 18.

00:30:02 ◼   ► And they're considering moving the main animation to the dynamic island.

00:30:07 ◼   ► I read another quote.

00:30:08 ◼   ► When processing a request, a pill-shaped indicator labeled searching appears alongside a glowing

00:30:13 ◼   ► Siri icon.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Once results are ready, the interface expands into a larger translucent panel.

00:30:18 ◼   ► With Apple's liquid glass design, users can pull the menu down further to begin conversing

00:30:23 ◼   ► back and forth.

00:30:24 ◼   ► Seems like they're trying to get a bit of a break from the iOS 18 failures, I guess.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Start over again.

00:30:31 ◼   ► And in a couple of other bits, Spotlight could be replaced by Siri in 27 with a unified interface

00:30:38 ◼   ► that will use personal context to find out more.

00:30:41 ◼   ► And Mark says that the current beta of iOS 27 currently includes the personal context and

00:30:47 ◼   ► on-screen awareness features.

00:30:48 ◼   ► And it's still believed that they will ship this year, but unlikely before iOS 27, app intents

00:30:54 ◼   ► is still under development as well.

00:30:56 ◼   ► What do you boys think about this?

00:30:57 ◼   ► Stephen, I want to get your feelings on this first, actually.

00:31:00 ◼   ► What are you thinking about all of this?

00:31:01 ◼   ► I think it's good that Apple is willing to revisit decisions like the chatbot experience.

00:31:09 ◼   ► And I do think that unifying this stuff makes a lot of sense, like Siri and Spotlight, all

00:31:17 ◼   ► these things.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Like, I think when people search today, like, I think the line is blurrier than ever of like,

00:31:23 ◼   ► I'm searching my device, I'm searching the web, I'm asking for data that's on my device,

00:31:27 ◼   ► I'm asking for data that's on the web.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And I think Apple needs to respond to that stuff.

00:31:32 ◼   ► So I think for the most part, what is in here is encouraging to me.

00:31:38 ◼   ► And I think that while I'm sad about the gradient, the rainbow gradient going away,

00:31:45 ◼   ► I feel like that design is just really tied to what they did a couple of years ago.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And I think it's not that personable.

00:31:54 ◼   ► And if they're trying to make Siri more conversational, more friendly, which not everybody wants,

00:31:59 ◼   ► by the way, right?

00:31:59 ◼   ► Like a bunch of people in there prompting, like, just answer the question, don't glaze

00:32:03 ◼   ► me or whatever.

00:32:04 ◼   ► But if they're going to do that, it might need some more personality.

00:32:09 ◼   ► And so what that looks like, I don't know.

00:32:12 ◼   ► But it's interesting to think about.

00:32:15 ◼   ► My hope would be that it would respond to your tone.

00:32:18 ◼   ► But ultimately, none of these models really seem able to fully do that.

00:32:23 ◼   ► And like, you know, just like, this isn't right.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, of course it's not right.

00:32:27 ◼   ► I knew that all along.

00:32:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:32:28 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Federico, what do you think?

00:32:32 ◼   ► I think it's a great idea that they are reconsidering their opinion on the chat experience.

00:32:40 ◼   ► Obviously, a lot of, look, the simple truth is that a lot of people use chatbots, right?

00:32:49 ◼   ► And the UI clearly works for about, I mean, if you take it all together, just the big three,

00:32:59 ◼   ► OpenAI, so JGPT, Claude, and Gemini, let's say that we are in the ballpark of one and a half

00:33:06 ◼   ► to two billion people using these services on a monthly basis.

00:33:10 ◼   ► You know, there's something interesting recently.

00:33:14 ◼   ► I'm not sure if you two have encountered this, that there was this, like, NBC survey, and it

00:33:20 ◼   ► was saying that people don't like AI, right?

00:33:24 ◼   ► Yeah, people say that.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Yeah, but this is the point that I wanted to get to.

00:33:29 ◼   ► Like, I believe that that survey is correct, but I feel like I've been seeing a lot of,

00:33:33 ◼   ► like, assumptions made that, like, it means everybody hates AI.

00:33:37 ◼   ► And it's like, I understand that, but also, what about the hundreds of millions of people

00:33:41 ◼   ► that are using it all the time?

00:33:42 ◼   ► No, look, I see this with my friends all the time.

00:33:46 ◼   ► I kind of think, and stay with me here, I kind of think that using a chatbot is kind of

00:33:50 ◼   ► like watching porn, in the sense that a lot of people do it, but nobody talks about it.

00:33:55 ◼   ► I see this with my friends all the time.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Wait, what?

00:33:59 ◼   ► About the chatbots.

00:34:02 ◼   ► About the chatbots.

00:34:04 ◼   ► I'm very open.

00:34:05 ◼   ► No, look, I am dead serious right now.

00:34:09 ◼   ► They all have, and please forgive me, a lot of them even use Grok, okay?

00:34:17 ◼   ► They all have Chagipiti, Grok, Gemini, they all do it.

00:34:23 ◼   ► It's on their home screens.

00:34:25 ◼   ► I see their phones.

00:34:26 ◼   ► They make stuff with it.

00:34:28 ◼   ► But when you ask them, they're like, oh, man, AI.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Wow.

00:34:31 ◼   ► It's so evil.

00:34:32 ◼   ► I guess it's somewhat similar to like, people use Instagram and Facebook, but tell you they

00:34:42 ◼   ► hate methods.

00:34:42 ◼   ► Yes, that's what I mean.

00:34:44 ◼   ► That's what I mean.

00:34:45 ◼   ► It's a similar thing.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Everybody does it, but then when asked, imagine in a survey, you'd be like, oh, no, I hate AI.

00:34:53 ◼   ► And then on your phone, you have like three different AI apps.

00:34:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:34:57 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's what I meant.

00:34:59 ◼   ► There's a stigma, I guess.

00:35:00 ◼   ► There is a stigma.

00:35:02 ◼   ► People just don't think about it, but yeah, or, I mean, what's the alternative that all

00:35:07 ◼   ► of these companies are lying about user numbers?

00:35:09 ◼   ► That's also possible, right?

00:35:11 ◼   ► That OpenAI and Google.

00:35:12 ◼   ► Everyone's boosting it, but it still is being used by an unbelievable amount of people.

00:35:17 ◼   ► So let's say that instead of 2 billion people, let's say that 1 billion people are using it.

00:35:22 ◼   ► All right, cool.

00:35:22 ◼   ► So clearly there is, you could say, some user interest in chatbots.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So I think Apple is doing the right thing.

00:35:31 ◼   ► Now, I actually think, and this is potentially the, not even a hot take, but maybe a warm take,

00:35:38 ◼   ► that if they do this correctly, if they don't screw it up a second or third or how many versions

00:35:47 ◼   ► of Siri they've done time, they could actually be the one company that hasn't spent billions

00:35:57 ◼   ► billions upon billions upon billions upon billions on AI and data centers, but they end up having

00:36:03 ◼   ► the best experience on smartphones, especially when it comes to integrated AI.

00:36:09 ◼   ► They have spent the 1 billion with Google and they have spent, quote unquote spent, quote unquote, spent the 1 billion with Google.

00:36:21 ◼   ► And they have, I mean, they surely must have spent a sum of money on that data center that is currently sitting

00:36:30 ◼   ► unused with private cloud compute.

00:36:31 ◼   ► So they have spent some money.

00:36:35 ◼   ► They obviously have not spent nearly as much as OpenAI and Anthropic did with data centers and GPUs.

00:36:43 ◼   ► But there is a potential for them to end up having a really nice user experience for a chatbot product

00:36:52 ◼   ► that is deeply integrated with the system and actually works.

00:36:57 ◼   ► Because all of these other companies, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Google, and Google may be less than the others

00:37:06 ◼   ► because they do have Android, but all of these other AI labs, they wish they had a delivery platform like iOS or macOS, right?

00:37:18 ◼   ► And especially on iOS because of smartphones.

00:37:21 ◼   ► They have none of that and they wish they had it, right?

00:37:25 ◼   ► They could so deeply integrate with things like your camera.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Some of them are spending hundreds of millions of dollars for the potential hope of a risk of a chance of maybe one day having it.

00:37:34 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:37:35 ◼   ► Yeah, Horace Deju wrote about this a couple weeks ago.

00:37:38 ◼   ► And the sentence that jumped out at me is AI services are...

00:37:42 ◼   ► So he builds the case that about $650 billion has been spent, I think, in building these things out.

00:37:49 ◼   ► And he says, AI services generate roughly $35 billion in total revenue or 5% of what's being spent on infrastructure.

00:37:59 ◼   ► So when you tell me that Apple is considering having a dedicated app that lets you organize your chats, lets you have multiple views for your chats,

00:38:08 ◼   ► and maybe a new UI in the dynamic island where your Siri responses come up in the dynamic island,

00:38:14 ◼   ► but then you can expand them and you can continue the conversation.

00:38:17 ◼   ► And then they're going to deliver on that personal context and app intents that they promised.

00:38:21 ◼   ► Like, all of that, if it works, and it sounds like maybe this one time is going to work, like, it sounds incredible.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Like, to the point where I think if they deliver, and I cannot emphasize that if enough right now.

00:38:38 ◼   ► A lot of the people like me or John, like, folks who have really spent a lot of time over the past year, right?

00:38:46 ◼   ► Exploring AI, trying to understand AI for productivity, especially.

00:38:51 ◼   ► I think a lot of us will have to have a serious look at iOS and what Apple delivered and rethink some of our workflows.

00:39:03 ◼   ► Like, I was thinking about this.

00:39:05 ◼   ► How many things I do in Claude right now that are, like, these Ruby Goldberg machines of prompts and projects and schedules?

00:39:14 ◼   ► And they could easily be just simpler things integrated with Siri and my file manager, right?

00:39:25 ◼   ► I think if it works, this is going to be incredible.

00:39:28 ◼   ► And we may end up looking back at these past three years with OpenAI and Anthropic spending so much money and Apple coming in late, spending $1 billion and having the best system of them all as a quite amusing and ironic turn of events.

00:39:50 ◼   ► It would be an incredible save, you know, like, some people are like, oh, Apple planned it.

00:39:54 ◼   ► No, they didn't.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Like, go back to 2024.

00:39:57 ◼   ► This was not what they were thinking.

00:39:58 ◼   ► But if it's how it turns out, just like, boy, the universe smiled upon you in a way that was unexpected.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:05 ◼   ► Like, I could imagine, you know, like, I use different tools for different things.

00:40:10 ◼   ► And, like, my kind of, like, quote, unquote, chatbot experiences, which have been mostly using ChatGPT, I could imagine just not using that anymore.

00:40:19 ◼   ► But then some of the more work stuff that I've been doing with Claude, it doesn't seem like Apple's doing this.

00:40:25 ◼   ► And this is actually a thought that I was having, which, like, it feels like now there's a lot of stuff around coding and computer usage, right?

00:40:34 ◼   ► It feels like that is, like, this area that is being identified.

00:40:38 ◼   ► And I just wonder that come September, six months from now, where is this going to be?

00:40:45 ◼   ► And, like, will Apple's features still look innovative, right, on a three-month timeline?

00:40:52 ◼   ► Or are we still going to be in a scenario where we get to September and it's like, well, yeah, you have Siri on the Mac, but really what you still want is Claude.

00:41:01 ◼   ► And I don't know if that's important or not, but it's going to be interesting to see, like, how much computer use do they really enable?

00:41:10 ◼   ► Because I want it to be a lot, but I just don't know yet if that's what we're going to get.

00:41:16 ◼   ► I think you're right about the fact that there's a split between chatbot experience and the more, like, productive or some people call them agents, right, type of experience.

00:41:32 ◼   ► And I think short term, if the Apple system works, companies like Perplexity are in trouble.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And, I mean, it's not a surprise that even Perplexity is sort of pivoting to that, to be more Claude-like, right, with computer and personal computer that they're doing.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But I think the general chatbot experience, why would I use something else when a pretty good chatbot with web search is right there on my phone?

00:42:01 ◼   ► Whereas I may continue to use something like Claude or something like Perplexity Computer to do more productive things that Siri alone cannot do.

00:42:11 ◼   ► But still, even then, there's the question, okay, but what if that AppIntense system actually works?

00:42:21 ◼   ► Like, what if also there's a productivity story there?

00:42:25 ◼   ► Because the system that Apple talked about, it's actually pretty good.

00:42:28 ◼   ► What if I could say, hey, assistant, take my latest, I don't know, I'm just imagining things, but like, take the documents that I'm working on in Obsidian and save it to working copy in GitHub and send a link to John.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Like, something like that.

00:42:46 ◼   ► Is that going to work?

00:42:47 ◼   ► Because if it does, I mean, that entirely replaces a whole workflow that we built for Mac Stories around GitHub and Claude, for example.

00:42:56 ◼   ► Like, is that stuff actually going to work?

00:42:59 ◼   ► That's my big question right now.

00:43:00 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:43:01 ◼   ► But they've got to get this part right first.

00:43:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:05 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:43:06 ◼   ► Like, I know this is what I'm saying, what I would like them to do.

00:43:08 ◼   ► But if they don't do it and deliver everything else, I'll give them another video.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that's fine.

00:43:13 ◼   ► You know, it's like, please, just get it right.

00:43:15 ◼   ► Like, do what you're supposed to be doing and get it right.

00:43:20 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Fundera, powered by NerdWallet.

00:43:25 ◼   ► Running a small business is tough, and when it's time to get a loan, it can feel impossible to find a lender you actually trust.

00:43:33 ◼   ► Big banks say no.

00:43:35 ◼   ► And then the internet, well, it's full of sketchy offers with sky-high rates and fine print you can barely read.

00:43:41 ◼   ► It's super confusing out there for small businesses.

00:43:44 ◼   ► So whether you need help covering payroll, managing cash flow, or investing in growth, you deserve better.

00:43:51 ◼   ► And it should be simple.

00:43:53 ◼   ► You don't want this taking up a bunch of your time when you're already busy running your small business.

00:43:58 ◼   ► That's why you should check out the one small business marketplace that's designed for people like you.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Fundera, powered by NerdWallet.

00:44:08 ◼   ► It's a free, easy-to-use platform that lets you compare real financing offers from trusted lenders all in one place.

00:44:15 ◼   ► You just do one application.

00:44:18 ◼   ► They're realistic about small business.

00:44:20 ◼   ► You don't need perfect credit to get started.

00:44:22 ◼   ► There's no spam or no bait and switch.

00:44:25 ◼   ► Just personalized options that fit your business needs.

00:44:29 ◼   ► And it's just a soft credit check up front, which doesn't impact your credit score.

00:44:34 ◼   ► So you can check which loan fits you best without taking a hit there.

00:44:38 ◼   ► It's free for you to use.

00:44:40 ◼   ► And remember, they're not a lender.

00:44:41 ◼   ► So you can trust them to help you get paired up with the right solution.

00:44:45 ◼   ► I've run a small business for a long time.

00:44:49 ◼   ► And if we were in a position where we needed to take a loan, I would want it to be this easy.

00:44:53 ◼   ► And here's the best part.

00:44:55 ◼   ► For a limited time, when you visit nerdwallet.com slash connected and fill out the no-obligation form,

00:45:02 ◼   ► you're going to get VIP treatment and talk to a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Go to nerdwallet.com slash connected to find the funding you deserve.

00:45:16 ◼   ► Fundera Inc.

00:45:17 ◼   ► NMLS ID number 1240038.

00:45:22 ◼   ► My thanks to Fundera, powered by NerdWallet, for their support of the show and all of Relay.

00:45:30 ◼   ► So Mark Gurman also published, I think this was last week, a profile of sorts of John Ternus.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Another one.

00:45:39 ◼   ► I feel like this is more and more and more of these happening over time, which I just think continues to lend credence to the thing that Mark has been talking about for years now,

00:45:49 ◼   ► that John Ternus is next in line to be the CEO of Apple.

00:45:53 ◼   ► And so I've got some quotes that I want to read out, some parts of it, and we can kind of talk about it as we go.

00:45:58 ◼   ► Starting off, John Ternus has taken a bigger role in Apple's product marketing, sometimes personally editing copy for the website and product event materials.

00:46:06 ◼   ► That feels really annoying.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Right?

00:46:09 ◼   ► That feels really annoying.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Like, leave me alone.

00:46:12 ◼   ► I write the website copy.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Go away.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:15 ◼   ► Jaws is just in there in like a pages document and then turns his little head, pops up, and he's like, hey!

00:46:20 ◼   ► This is me.

00:46:21 ◼   ► I'm just deleting everything you write.

00:46:22 ◼   ► It's like, that feels like micromanaging.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I'm not sure what that was meant to, I think this is meant, like, it's like taking a bigger role, like editing copy on the website.

00:46:32 ◼   ► It's like, no, I don't think those two things go together, but fine.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Okay, I'm going to make a meta comment up front.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Like, people are like, oh, this is boring, and I don't necessarily think that.

00:46:40 ◼   ► I don't agree with that at all.

00:46:42 ◼   ► I do think that German basically just reporting like a bunch of anecdotes, and there's not a real story in this profile, but yeah, whatever.

00:46:52 ◼   ► The story is I was right, right?

00:46:55 ◼   ► That he's good.

00:46:56 ◼   ► From Mark.

00:46:56 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, I thought he meant you.

00:46:57 ◼   ► That Ternus will be the next CEO.

00:46:59 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, for sure.

00:46:59 ◼   ► That's what he's saying.

00:47:00 ◼   ► It's like, here's more stuff, more anecdotes that I have about him from people he's working with currently and has worked with in the past.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Like, that's kind of what he's, Mark is building a big case for himself here, and I'll tell you, if he got this one right, if this happens, man, this is bigger than the MacBook leak that he got.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Like, he called this a long time ago and just followed it up the whole way through.

00:47:22 ◼   ► Coworkers describe him as a good communicator who empowers employees, a management style that echoes cooks.

00:47:32 ◼   ► Apparently, Ternus knows he needs Boulder products as part of his leadership.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Like, that's what he's looking at.

00:47:38 ◼   ► And so, at the moment, the list of Boulder products that John Ternus is looking over is AI-powered home devices.

00:47:46 ◼   ► This is something that he has taken charge of after previously thinking this category would not catch on.

00:47:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:51 ◼   ► He was not a fan of the HomePod, for example.

00:47:53 ◼   ► And the person who was in charge of that just left for Aura.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And so, something happened there, for sure.

00:48:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:01 ◼   ► Smart glasses, smart AirPods, and a smart pendant.

00:48:05 ◼   ► We've heard about these before.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And, quote, he's been a proponent of the development of a nearly 20-inch wide foldable iPad.

00:48:13 ◼   ► Yes.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Holy moly.

00:48:15 ◼   ► Yes, John.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Yes.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Yes, he is.

00:48:17 ◼   ► John, do it.

00:48:18 ◼   ► I dare you to do it, John.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Do it.

00:48:21 ◼   ► I'm going to read this as a longer quote.

00:48:23 ◼   ► In the early days of the iPad, Ternus argued the device's hardware capabilities weren't used to the fullest

00:48:29 ◼   ► because its software platform wasn't taking advantage of the tablet's more powerful processor and bigger screen.

00:48:34 ◼   ► No kidding.

00:48:34 ◼   ► He pushed internally for a new operating system and eventually persuaded Federighi to build it.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Ternus was also instrumental in creating iPad accessories, such as stylus and a keyboard,

00:48:45 ◼   ► as well as their magnetic charging and pairing systems.

00:48:49 ◼   ► This, I think, is the most interesting part of Gurman's whole reporting.

00:48:55 ◼   ► To me, it shows that Ternus is thinking about products holistically, and he's not just the hardware guy.

00:49:02 ◼   ► Which is, that's really good, isn't it?

00:49:04 ◼   ► It is really good.

00:49:05 ◼   ► This is the most encouraging thing that I've read on Ternus, maybe ever.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if it's a good thing or not to kind of stay in your lane in an environment like this, right?

00:49:16 ◼   ► Like, should he leave the software people alone and focus on hardware?

00:49:21 ◼   ► Like, I don't, you know, I can imagine that's the thing that some people would say.

00:49:25 ◼   ► But at Apple, it feels like this stuff's supposed to work together.

00:49:29 ◼   ► So it feels like if you're on an executive level, you should have an opinion about everything.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:33 ◼   ► And so, yeah, I thought this was good.

00:49:36 ◼   ► I mean, I assume you think it's very good, Federico.

00:49:38 ◼   ► You probably wanted to be CEO more than another.

00:49:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:42 ◼   ► What are we waiting for again?

00:49:44 ◼   ► Well, John Ternus was a driving force behind the touch bar and the bar flaky board.

00:49:48 ◼   ► So it's not all good.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Sure.

00:49:51 ◼   ► I mean, yeah.

00:49:52 ◼   ► I mean, if you're in charge of something, the good and the bad fall to you.

00:49:57 ◼   ► So there's also this part in the article that talks about Ternus sometimes having a leadership

00:50:03 ◼   ► style that has been unconventional for an Apple executive.

00:50:07 ◼   ► So this is a story that late in the development of the Vision Pro, it was discovered that the

00:50:13 ◼   ► AirPods Pro were missing a wireless frequency that would give them the ability to stream low

00:50:19 ◼   ► latency audio, which was why Apple ended up shipping that USB-C version when they did.

00:50:25 ◼   ► So they shipped it a little earlier than they would have otherwise.

00:50:28 ◼   ► Remember, it's like, oh, here's USB-C and it will enable low latency audio with the AirPods

00:50:33 ◼   ► Pro.

00:50:33 ◼   ► That was supposed to be in the AirPods Pro 2, just shipping.

00:50:36 ◼   ► But it wasn't done right.

00:50:38 ◼   ► And apparently, Ternus took this on as a bit of a mission to find the person responsible for

00:50:43 ◼   ► the error, which is a style of management that was considered a little old school for Apple.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Apparently, some people appreciated it.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Others did not.

00:50:53 ◼   ► But then the article does also say this is not typical for him, but it was something that

00:50:57 ◼   ► stood out.

00:50:58 ◼   ► And he is considered a nice guy and tends to, quote, see mistakes as systematic problems that

00:51:04 ◼   ► can be solved by better leadership instead of putting the onus on engineers, which all of

00:51:09 ◼   ► this seems very conflicting.

00:51:11 ◼   ► And so, like, I would like, you know, in a report like this, I would like to know, does

00:51:15 ◼   ► Ternus do this stuff a lot?

00:51:17 ◼   ► Why did he do this?

00:51:18 ◼   ► Like, why was this such a thing for him?

00:51:20 ◼   ► I mean, that's a pretty big screw up, I think.

00:51:22 ◼   ► Like, you had to ship a whole new product to fix it, but...

00:51:25 ◼   ► Oh, I agree.

00:51:26 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, maybe he took it a little too personally or whatever, but I don't think

00:51:30 ◼   ► it's bad if you try to figure out where a mistake was made and if people get in trouble for it.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Like, you know, I see.

00:51:39 ◼   ► I mean, I see how that could be viewed as old school.

00:51:42 ◼   ► That's a little, maybe more Jobsian than Cookian, but I don't think that's awful either.

00:51:50 ◼   ► No, because ultimately, it meant that people like us who spent $3,000 on a Vision Pro then

00:51:56 ◼   ► had to spend another $300 on AirPods Pro.

00:51:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:00 ◼   ► So, like, it's a good thing to be like, this was bad.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Like, this shouldn't have happened because we've now put our customers in a very awkward

00:52:07 ◼   ► position.

00:52:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:10 ◼   ► So, I think people kind of fixated on this, but I don't think it's a sign that, you know,

00:52:16 ◼   ► he shouldn't be CEO.

00:52:17 ◼   ► Maybe it's a sign he should be CEO, honestly.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Yes, my thought is that maybe there are times when this kind of thing is necessary.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Like...

00:52:26 ◼   ► I mean, why...

00:52:27 ◼   ► I mean...

00:52:27 ◼   ► Okay.

00:52:28 ◼   ► Well, what's wrong with trying to find a person responsible for something?

00:52:31 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I guess it's what happens next, right, is the thing.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Like, was this person fired or demoted?

00:52:38 ◼   ► Was that worth it, right?

00:52:39 ◼   ► These are the details that we don't have.

00:52:41 ◼   ► Well, I mean, we all have responsibilities.

00:52:42 ◼   ► If I screw up something, people are, you know, people are going to find me for something.

00:52:47 ◼   ► I mean, it seems like at least in recent times, this appears to be not the way Apple has worked.

00:52:53 ◼   ► Maybe it should work that way.

00:52:54 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe it should.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Yes, I agree.

00:52:56 ◼   ► Maybe it should, you know?

00:52:57 ◼   ► Maybe people should have to take responsibility for something.

00:53:01 ◼   ► And like, sometimes it just means that you go, gang, this is my problem, and now I'm going

00:53:05 ◼   ► to fix it.

00:53:05 ◼   ► Right?

00:53:06 ◼   ► And like, that's how you take responsibility for it or whatever.

00:53:08 ◼   ► And like, maybe that is what happened.

00:53:10 ◼   ► And maybe then this person involved was able to very quickly get this new version ready.

00:53:15 ◼   ► Maybe this was quicker than they would have had it.

00:53:17 ◼   ► And maybe that was the way it was resolved.

00:53:19 ◼   ► But like, it's a scenario like this of like, oh, well, this got screwed up.

00:53:22 ◼   ► So I'm going to find the person responsible.

00:53:23 ◼   ► And then they're going to be tasked with fixing this problem.

00:53:26 ◼   ► Like, maybe that is the whole story, but we don't have the whole story.

00:53:29 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, everything that I read about Ternus is like, it encourages me.

00:53:39 ◼   ► And I wonder what Apple will be like.

00:53:46 ◼   ► Like, what are the things that he will and will not focus on?

00:53:51 ◼   ► And like, you know, a lot of it talks about like, obviously, he has been, he has earned

00:53:54 ◼   ► the trust of Tim and Tim's lieutenants.

00:53:56 ◼   ► So there must be some similarities between their leadership styles and maybe some of the things

00:54:01 ◼   ► they do and don't care about.

00:54:02 ◼   ► But it surely would be a different company run by someone who came from the product side

00:54:10 ◼   ► of the organization rather than the operations side of the organization.

00:54:14 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:54:18 ◼   ► Which is interesting because for a long time, everyone believed that Jeff Williams was the

00:54:23 ◼   ► stand-in, right?

00:54:24 ◼   ► If Tim Cook got sick or got hit by a bus on a workout, then Williams would step in.

00:54:30 ◼   ► That didn't happen.

00:54:31 ◼   ► Jeff Williams retired, like good for him.

00:54:34 ◼   ► But it's just like, there's a shift there somehow.

00:54:39 ◼   ► Maybe the plan wasn't for Williams to be the permanent CEO if something happened to Cook,

00:54:43 ◼   ► right?

00:54:43 ◼   ► Maybe it's, or maybe the plan was if Williams has to step in, that Ternus would be after

00:54:49 ◼   ► Williams.

00:54:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:54:50 ◼   ► There's something there, I think.

00:54:51 ◼   ► But I do think the company would benefit from a product person at the top.

00:54:58 ◼   ► That's not slander on my part against Tim Cook, but I think you can see that there are areas

00:55:05 ◼   ► that the company has maybe struggled with a little bit because of that.

00:55:09 ◼   ► I mean, anything like this, you know, over time there can be a desire or a benefit to

00:55:17 ◼   ► a bit of reinvention, kind of reprioritizing.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Again, Mark does talk about the continued expectation that Tim Cook would essentially remain the company's

00:55:27 ◼   ► chief diplomat, even in this scenario.

00:55:29 ◼   ► And the company's made in Tim Cook's image now, right?

00:55:33 ◼   ► The company is not going to suddenly shrink back down in size or, you know, all these things

00:55:41 ◼   ► that have happened in the last, what is it, 15 years almost?

00:55:44 ◼   ► Like, Apple is what Apple is now.

00:55:48 ◼   ► And Ternus is not inheriting the Steve Jobs Apple.

00:55:52 ◼   ► He's inheriting the Tim Cook Apple.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And whatever he does will build atop that, not a rose-colored version of the past.

00:55:59 ◼   ► I mean, with that idea that they're going to keep Tim Cook around as, like, the diplomatic figure,

00:56:04 ◼   ► like, how long can that really be sustainable?

00:56:08 ◼   ► Ten years?

00:56:11 ◼   ► For how many administrations that was going to be like, oh, there's a new president, let's

00:56:15 ◼   ► roll out grandpa and go to the White House.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Like, is that...

00:56:18 ◼   ► I mean, I think a 10-year period is feasible.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Isn't he 65?

00:56:23 ◼   ► I get, like, look, I get it.

00:56:27 ◼   ► Your president's, like, 95.

00:56:29 ◼   ► It's true.

00:56:29 ◼   ► No, it's true.

00:56:30 ◼   ► I get it.

00:56:31 ◼   ► But, like, at some point, it also, it should also be the CEO's responsibility to handle these things.

00:56:39 ◼   ► I agree, but I think those things, they need...

00:56:41 ◼   ► If you're going to do them in the right way, you do them slowly, right?

00:56:45 ◼   ► So, like, Turnus takes over, Tim Cook remains as, like, egg roll, whatever it is.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And in that role, he is dealing with political figures.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And after a while, Turnus starts coming too, right?

00:56:57 ◼   ► And you start to build these long-term relationships, so then Tim can fully retire.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that considering Apple's size and scale and the delicateness of the way that they interact with governments around the world,

00:57:10 ◼   ► I think it would be a bad move to just be, like...

00:57:14 ◼   ► Especially when some of the countries that they're working in, there's not going to be a new president, right?

00:57:21 ◼   ► Maybe there's one.

00:57:22 ◼   ► No, I'm not making that joke, but, like, I'm looking at China, right?

00:57:27 ◼   ► There's not going to be a new figure that is going to, in, like, two years' time or whatever, right?

00:57:33 ◼   ► Like, that's not...

00:57:34 ◼   ► So, there's long-term relationships that are beneficial.

00:57:37 ◼   ► And so, building kind of Turnus as, like, an apprentice in that area, I can see the reason in doing that.

00:57:44 ◼   ► And it's, like, because I'm reading Apple in China right now, it's fantastic, but what I'm getting from that book is it took Tim Cook a long time to learn it.

00:57:51 ◼   ► And he had no one to guide him.

00:57:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:54 ◼   ► And so, I'm sure that he is aware of the delicacy...

00:57:58 ◼   ► Delicateness?

00:57:59 ◼   ► Not delicate...

00:57:59 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:58:00 ◼   ► What?

00:58:01 ◼   ► I'm going to say delicacy.

00:58:02 ◼   ► He's aware of the delicacy of trying to, like, establish those relationships, and that it might not be beneficial for him just to be like,

00:58:09 ◼   ► Oh, Xi Jinping, I'm gone now.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Here's the new guy.

00:58:13 ◼   ► Okay.

00:58:13 ◼   ► That's complicated.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:16 ◼   ► I have a question for both of you, and this is a serious question, so you can...

00:58:21 ◼   ► I have an answer, so you can think about a serious answer if nothing jumps to their mind.

00:58:24 ◼   ► What, is this a game?

00:58:25 ◼   ► It's not a game.

00:58:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:58:27 ◼   ► If you, you know, if something doesn't jump to mind immediately, I can say mine.

00:58:31 ◼   ► You're put in charge of Apple.

00:58:34 ◼   ► What is the first thing that you do to make an impact?

00:58:38 ◼   ► To make an impact?

00:58:40 ◼   ► To be like, to establish yourself as the CEO.

00:58:43 ◼   ► So you're like, this is my time now, right?

00:58:47 ◼   ► Like, what is the thing that you come in and say, I'm doing this?

00:58:51 ◼   ► And it helps establish, like, what you want the company to look like.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Discontinue the Mac Pro.

00:58:56 ◼   ► That is a great one.

00:58:58 ◼   ► I like that.

00:58:59 ◼   ► Let's get that out of there.

00:59:00 ◼   ► No one needs it.

00:59:01 ◼   ► Steven, do you have something?

00:59:02 ◼   ► I would return design to an SVP position.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Oh, can I give a serious answer?

00:59:09 ◼   ► Wait, what does that mean?

00:59:09 ◼   ► So right now, design, industrial design and human interface design is a vice president position.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Make it an SVP.

00:59:18 ◼   ► Make them SVPs.

00:59:19 ◼   ► So both of them are SVPs?

00:59:20 ◼   ► You're not going to put, like, one person in charge of both?

00:59:23 ◼   ► No.

00:59:23 ◼   ► I think it's fine.

00:59:23 ◼   ► They're separate.

00:59:24 ◼   ► They are different things.

00:59:25 ◼   ► If we've learned anything, they're different things.

00:59:27 ◼   ► But elevating them to the level under the CEO says a lot about how Apple, like, thinks about design and values it.

00:59:36 ◼   ► And I think that would be a big statement.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Do you have one, Federico?

00:59:40 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:41 ◼   ► Dual boot, macOS, and iPadOS on the iPad.

00:59:45 ◼   ► Love it.

00:59:46 ◼   ► Mine is sweeping changes to the App Store cut.

00:59:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:51 ◼   ► Like, massive changes.

00:59:53 ◼   ► It's, like, 10% and then, but disincentivizes in-app purchases in games in some way.

01:00:01 ◼   ► So, like, not to make less of a cut there.

01:00:03 ◼   ► But that's, I would be, like, huge changes.

01:00:05 ◼   ► We're going to get rid of all this regulatory trouble.

01:00:09 ◼   ► We're going to make it super fair.

01:00:11 ◼   ► And that would be my thing.

01:00:13 ◼   ► Just, like, let's just stop worrying about this for the amount of money that it would be in our balance sheet,

01:00:19 ◼   ► which is small compared to everything else that we're doing.

01:00:23 ◼   ► And let's just get rid of this Monopoly stuff.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Let's just not, let's get this out of our lives so we can focus on other things.

01:00:28 ◼   ► That would be my thing.

01:00:30 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's why we'll never be in charge of Apple.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:32 ◼   ► These things feel too sane.

01:00:35 ◼   ► You know.

01:00:35 ◼   ► And it suggests maybe we'll make less money.

01:00:38 ◼   ► I think Stevens is the only one where they don't have to worry about the money.

01:00:43 ◼   ► So, it's more likely that yours will happen.

01:00:45 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure SVP comes with a raise, but, you know, it's not.

01:00:48 ◼   ► It's not, like, $200 million a year.

01:00:51 ◼   ► No, no.

01:00:52 ◼   ► We're saving, yeah, it's more than $200 million, I'm sure, if they got rid of the App Store thing.

01:00:57 ◼   ► That is a good thing because he is inheriting a bunch of legal mess around the world.

01:01:04 ◼   ► And so, they could do the App Store changes.

01:01:08 ◼   ► They could open up things.

01:01:09 ◼   ► Like, things that the EU has demanded open them up worldwide.

01:01:13 ◼   ► The fact that the iOS version that some people get is, like, fundamentally different in the way that it interacts with things like smartwatches.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Yep.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Other people have.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Like, that doesn't make any sense.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Like, Apple should take those things and make them.

01:01:26 ◼   ► Or that there are just, like, features in macOS that just aren't available in certain parts of the world.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:31 ◼   ► So, that's good.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I think that's much more meaningful than, like, a product decision, although the product decisions are fun.

01:01:40 ◼   ► The legal mess is clearly a big deal.

01:01:44 ◼   ► I think that's it.

01:01:46 ◼   ► John Ternis, if you want to come on the show, the invitation is open.

01:01:52 ◼   ► You're welcome.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Anytime.

01:01:54 ◼   ► We'll send you a Zoom link.

01:01:55 ◼   ► You could just arrive whenever you like, but you don't even need to warn us.

01:01:59 ◼   ► We'll just send you the Zoom link.

01:02:00 ◼   ► You'd show up on any episode.

01:02:02 ◼   ► That's right.

01:02:02 ◼   ► If you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about this week, head on over to relay.fm slash connected slash 596.

01:02:10 ◼   ► There's a couple other links in the show notes.

01:02:12 ◼   ► You can leave feedback.

01:02:14 ◼   ► That can be anonymous.

01:02:15 ◼   ► You can tell us secrets.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Or you can write us a poem.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Or you can tell us about the difference between iPod Docs and iPad Docs.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Whatever you want to do.

01:02:25 ◼   ► You can also join and get Connected Pro, which is the longer, ad-free version of the show.

01:02:30 ◼   ► We do it each and every week.

01:02:32 ◼   ► This week, we spoke about our current storage situations, spring cleaning, our computer setups, that sort of thing.

01:02:38 ◼   ► So you go check that out.

01:02:41 ◼   ► You can find us online.

01:02:42 ◼   ► Prince Flexi Federico is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Related to that, they just updated their setups on the setup page.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Go look at that.

01:02:51 ◼   ► Your desk is very beautiful, Federico.

01:02:53 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:02:54 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Mike.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Just Mike.

01:02:59 ◼   ► He's the host of many shows here on Relay.

01:03:02 ◼   ► You can check out his work at Cortex Brand and his blogging at TheEnthusiast.net.

01:03:06 ◼   ► I've been your Attorney General Flexi.

01:03:10 ◼   ► You can find my writing at 512pixels.net.

01:03:13 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Century and Fundera.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And until next week, guys, say goodbye.

01:03:19 ◼   ► Adios.

01:03:20 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Bye, y'all.