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626: Unprecedented Weirdness

 

00:00:00   from relay this is upgrade episode 626 the june 29th 2026 this episode is brought to you by keeper

00:00:17   century and claude my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike did you know

00:00:25   i want to ask you a question a little little mike talk to start the show okay

00:00:29   we are in the summer of betas as well as the summer of fun and i have found that now that apple names

00:00:38   every os after the year after they announced the os that i have completely lost track of what year it

00:00:44   is and i just keep keep saying and writing that it's 2027 now because i am in 27 mode i'm in 27

00:00:50   mode now as far as i'm concerned the new year starts the beginning of june apple says it's 27 now and i

00:00:57   go yes it is it is now 27 maybe we should do that now like we just we just run the calendar from june

00:01:04   to june and we just make model year yeah 27 that kind of stuff uh my the the biggest problem i'm having

00:01:11   is not so much that it is trying to remember i can never remember what the last version of ios was

00:01:19   before 26 before 26 before 26 yeah i know and i was at 18 i'm gonna just say yes because i don't know

00:01:25   and it's also made it significantly more complicated now for me to remember what iphone model it is as

00:01:33   well oh right i'm struggling with both of those it's 17 it's all those numbers what's the and what what the

00:01:39   a series processor is inside it they they have the opportunity to sync them up but they never took it

00:01:44   and i didn't and i wish that they they would and i think we're now too late because they're not going

00:01:49   to do it this year they're not going to do it next year because they're not going to call the iphone

00:01:53   20 the iphone 28 28 or whatever and so i think 29 i think we're past it i think the closest we have is

00:02:01   2030 which actually isn't that far away and that might be the closest we have but an iphone 30 sounds

00:02:07   terrible anyway so yeah it's all gone but anyway i have a snow talk question for you jason yoni wants

00:02:13   to know will you be lighting your house for the fourth of july and will the tube man be making an

00:02:18   appearance this weekend i have permanent lights so i just and and the people who make the lights have a

00:02:23   yeah so we will you will you light them with the with the colors you know well i mean yes the the people

00:02:28   who make the lights have a whole patriotic fourth of july set of pre-programmed things that i've put in

00:02:34   but i mean i it's it's lit up most nights honestly oh yeah i program it with various things that's fun

00:02:40   we got we got the pride rainbow going in june very good um we had we have some usa when the usa soccer

00:02:48   team is playing and then uh in the world cup and then uh yeah we're gonna we're gonna do uh third and

00:02:54   fourth of july will be patriotic patriotic observance and um and to answer the second part of the question

00:03:01   um why would i buy an american flag themed tube man if i were not to display him exactly around

00:03:08   independence day why why would i do that yeah so i gotta basically he's why don't you have him up for

00:03:14   the whole world cup well i mean he makes look the blower makes a lot of noise it's kind of annoying

00:03:23   i don't want it up there all the time um so it'll be yeah i'll i'll put him up on the fourth of july

00:03:29   that'll be good mr flag man will be out there flag tube man waving doing patriotic observance of

00:03:35   waving his arms around i would like that feels about right what is a more patriotic observance of america

00:03:40   right now than a uh a flailing armed tube man a flailing where's he going nobody knows

00:03:47   unpredictable does he have a plan probably not is he actually going anywhere or is he anchored to the

00:03:52   spot he's gonna make a big song and dance about it and really let you know about it and a lot of noise

00:03:57   so we're gonna know generating some noise yeah if you would like to send in a question to help us open

00:04:04   a future episode of the show go to upgradefeedback.com and you can do that jason the final days

00:04:10   remain in the designed in california kickstarter campaign this is the last time of gradients that

00:04:16   we will ask you to go to designed.fm to back our kickstarter campaign despite all of our saying very

00:04:25   nicely that uh we know that we stuck a bunch of extra free content featuring us in your feed but we're

00:04:31   gonna get out of your way now um we did get one angry person who was like why are you sticking all

00:04:37   this stuff in my feed i haven't seen that i you know i meant to mention this i did the mike i did

00:04:42   the mike hurley thing which is it was a really mean comment in the upgrade feedback and i just deleted it

00:04:46   you just got rid of it okay i just got rid of it because i didn't you didn't need to be burdened with

00:04:50   it i saw it it was just a mean person it's like well congratulations um we appreciate everybody's

00:04:57   patience as we said and uh we look suffice it to say we planned a bunch of stuff for the last week

00:05:04   of the campaign because we thought this is the thing that we're going to need to push us over the

00:05:08   top to sixty thousand dollars we're going to need it we're going to need jason's going to need to be

00:05:12   on the talk show and we're going to get daring fireball to chime in because he likes pushing

00:05:15   people over the top and we're going to put john syracuse in a regular episode and get them to talk

00:05:20   about that on atp and we need everybody pushing so that we can get to our goal um which when we met

00:05:25   our goal like on day one um all those plans remained intact so here we are but this is it uh

00:05:32   ends uh wednesday july 1st at at uh 8 a.m pacific yep uh we wanted to give ourselves again

00:05:40   enough time for this episode to get people in right under the under the wire um and then if you want to

00:05:47   wait longer actually post campaign you will be able to buy a membership at full price at full price so

00:05:54   if you want to if you want to get it for ten dollars off which is what it is on the on the

00:05:58   campaign you have until july 1st but after that if you missed it and you're kicking yourself because we

00:06:04   don't have the membership site up at relay yet for the proper once the podcast launches in the interim

00:06:09   there's like a post campaign pledge but it won't be at the at the at the kickstarter campaign

00:06:13   price it'll be ten dollars more yep now i'm just adding a to do that i need to get the uh member

00:06:19   for plans so up before the campaign ends we have someone send people we got a lot of plans there's

00:06:24   a lot of things happening but yes lots of things but anyway thank you for everybody's patience and

00:06:28   the exciting thing is um you're going to get me and mike uh twice a week in the fall and for a year

00:06:35   plus plus uh where we're going to talk about what what do you like to say mike we're going to talk

00:06:41   about what's what's happening on mondays we talk about where we are and where we're going and then

00:06:46   on whatever day let's say wednesday thursday we had a bunch of people write in say there's too many

00:06:51   podcasts on thursday yeah so we haven't decided yet so we'll just say wednesday for now we'll say and

00:06:55   on wednesday we'll talk about how we got here so that's that's the combo that you get from us now and

00:07:00   will be getting from us for upgrading design in california that's the mike hurley marketing prowess

00:07:06   right there and so since we last spoke uh to you all we passed our final stretch goal of 250 000

00:07:14   which is i've i've run out of words just understand that we're incredibly appreciative i don't have words

00:07:20   anymore we didn't have a 250 000 stretch goal our final stretch goal was 200 but we're at 264 now

00:07:26   wait did that happen in in a week since yeah okay i think it happened last monday my gosh okay yeah so

00:07:33   anyway that that means that we're going to do events in san francisco and london yep um and and we're we

00:07:40   got look we're we're working we're we're working hard and planning to work hard for the next year plus

00:07:46   to make this uh really good yeah so and we will fulfill our our promises and also make a good podcast

00:07:52   and just as one piece of follow-up uh so we ask people to write in with suggestions because we have

00:07:57   two feeds that we need to name for members right so the podcast is called design in california we have

00:08:03   the members feed which will have some kind of name like we have upgrade plus and then we're also going to

00:08:08   have a bonus feed where we will publish additional bonus content many people wrote in to suggest one

00:08:15   more thing as a name for the bonus feed we're going to use that because it's that's that's it that's the

00:08:20   name yeah we still need to work out something for the regular members feed chad wrote in and said

00:08:25   designed in california extended kind of like the apple extended keyboard which i thought was fun but

00:08:30   it doesn't work for this show because it won't be extended there isn't going to be bonus content

00:08:35   in the episodes like in the regular episodes right they'll be shorter because they won't have ads in

00:08:41   them and so we're still we're still going to work on that so if anybody has an idea for an so this will

00:08:46   be designing california something right yeah it might and it may just be plus or something people

00:08:54   should write that many people wrote in and said it's it is it's a shame for you to i think someone said

00:08:59   to dangle made in china or assembled in china in front of us and not give it i i agree with you

00:09:05   but we can't call the bucket it's not the name of the show and so like it would be a bit a bit odd

00:09:11   yeah so zoe said se which that is a a pretty good one i like that um yeah and that's um that's what i

00:09:19   use for incomparable is uh we the the members up version of the incomparable is the incomparable

00:09:24   special edition so if you have a suggestion write in with that upgrade feedback.com but please

00:09:30   if you want to support this show if you want to get the membership at a year at discount or any of our

00:09:35   physical rewards we're adding stickers for free to everybody that gets a physical reward so it'll be

00:09:39   like a little sticker pack now that is just as a thank you for helping us get so far um so go to

00:09:44   designed.fm you can back the kickstarter campaign i'm really like you know at some point i i think it

00:09:52   might be fun on the show to talk about like where does this money go like because people have asked these

00:09:57   kinds of questions because for us a lot of it is going into making the show better but it will make

00:10:01   more sense for us to talk about that down the line when we can show you the things that we're doing

00:10:05   yeah but the fact that we have had such incredible support means that this is a project that can grow

00:10:12   past what we had originally hoped it could be and and i think you're going to see that in the effort

00:10:18   that we put in so thank you so much to everybody who has shown their support for us um it really means

00:10:24   this is a lot this will not be the last time we talk about design in california that's for sure but

00:10:30   it's the last time that we'll ask on this show for you to go support it so thank you

00:10:34   should we do a little details jason uh i think my answer is perfect so 27.2 betas dropped during the

00:10:45   recording of the show last week and there's a series of refinements there isn't any kind of

00:10:49   groundbreaking thing in in this beta i would say that overall the performance of the operating i'm

00:10:57   using ios only is is very strong still like i i it doesn't feel like i'm using a beta honestly except

00:11:03   i have this random bug sometimes where the keyboard doesn't appear oh the keyboard is broken are you

00:11:10   having that too okay on the ipad the keyboard to open sideways sometimes it sticks that's the part

00:11:19   that kills me i used to have this as a bug like six months ago and it's back now in the betas where

00:11:22   you tap a key and then you let your finger come up and it stays tapped and it just sits there and the

00:11:29   entire device is is just paused while we find out what is going to happen to that key and if it's a key

00:11:36   with a um with a an accent underneath it then the accents pop up and that's the big reveal is that

00:11:43   it's going to be an accent instead but it's like yeah the keyboard there's lots of keyboard bugs that's

00:11:47   what i've discovered this time on the ipad certainly but um but generally um my my solution was actually

00:11:53   to install a couple third-party keyboards so that if i get really desperate and i'm in one of those

00:11:58   keyboard traps i will just switch to a third-party keyboard for a while and forget that i'm forget my

00:12:03   pain of the of the actual keyboard but generally yeah it works it works fine it works uh it works

00:12:08   pretty well i've got on my i got on all my devices at this point it's on my phone wow it's on my ipad

00:12:14   and it's on my mac so about your apple watch um and it's on my apple watch so you're doing the whole thing

00:12:19   the whole thing i'm all all the way in no time to wait gotta do it writing tools were added in 27.2

00:12:27   because they didn't exist uh in point in the point one beta the first beta uh so now there is a little

00:12:35   siri icon or write with siri prompts in the keyboard all the time which i think might be a little

00:12:40   aggressive um the amount that it shows what i haven't gotten yet is any kind of ui for good grammar

00:12:51   checking now there is an option to proofread text in the write with siri ui but i have not seemed to

00:12:58   be able to get it to work yet like it looks like it does something but then it doesn't offer me any

00:13:04   suggestions well isn't that a beta for you yeah and so it's this is what i want it still isn't doing it

00:13:11   but i still have my fingers crossed that i'm going to get it uh because it will i'm just gonna have to

00:13:16   wait and see how it goes and the one note that i have about uh i'm continuing to use siri ai a lot

00:13:23   like i'm using it a lot and i have been nothing but impressed so far um it is falling for some of the

00:13:32   typical traps that a lot of llms fall for um like i had to look up uh something idina wanted me to look

00:13:41   something up for her and i just asked siri ai and it gave me a list of companies that provided a

00:13:45   service we needed and she looked into a bit more she's like i can't find anything online about this

00:13:51   company one of the companies except for a blog post that they wrote giving a list of the top five

00:13:58   companies to provide that service where they put themselves at the top it's like this isn't a siri

00:14:02   problem that is an lm problem because that article was written to trick the ai right because ai's love

00:14:08   a list of a list and so they you know and it's like oh this one's the best it's like yes says the

00:14:13   company you know but that kind of stuff is like it just is what it is but overall i've been really

00:14:20   impressed and like i i asked it a question today that i so simple but i know old siri would not give

00:14:27   me i wanted because you know the kickstart is counting down right and i wanted to confirm the

00:14:32   time and it said like 56 hours left and so i asked what is the time 56 hours from now and it gave me the

00:14:39   answer that is the kind of thing that i know old siri would just be like here's the time right now

00:14:44   um and so i i continue to be impressed with the simple stuff and also some of the more complex stuff

00:14:50   i think it's uh i think it's really good i think it's really good yeah yeah um similarly it's i mean

00:14:56   it's a work in progress but um but i think it's going pretty well one of the things on the mac that

00:15:02   i've noticed is so they are apple is in a multi-year process that they aren't talking about but it's very

00:15:09   clear about where they're trying to sort of reform the mac menu bar which is funny because they should

00:15:14   have done it when they put the notch in the hardware and i think it is yet another thing we could put in

00:15:19   the list of disconnections between the hardware and software groups at apple like the touch bar being this

00:15:25   amazing invention of the hardware group and the software groups like yeah we're not interested

00:15:29   in that yeah it's just like you can't do that you can't manage it that way it's actually one of those

00:15:33   things about john turn is being put in charge though i think that's not going to happen again right

00:15:37   because he's got he got burned by it multiple times where they made hardware and then the software

00:15:41   people basically didn't care yeah so when they did the notch in the in the laptop screens they should

00:15:47   have had proper menu bar management built into the operating system now that they've got a clipboard

00:15:52   history it's the next one on the list of like why can you not do why are there all of these utilities

00:15:57   like bartender and there are many others now that allow you to manage your menu bar especially after

00:16:04   apple want people want developers to put more things in the menu bar right yes and so part of this is that

00:16:11   there's a new thing in control center for menu items that can live in control center or they can live in the

00:16:18   menu bar and that's that's the way forward but the problem is so many apps don't use that system

00:16:23   and apple has not supplied as far as i can tell a a simple way for people who have an existing menu

00:16:30   bar item to say can you make that be a thing that also fits the control center system because that would

00:16:36   solve this because then apple people don't know this i wrote about it last year like you can create

00:16:41   multiple icons in your menu bar using base apple os base mac os stuff and then put different items in

00:16:50   it from the control center or you can put them in the menu bar so they built a menu bar manager

00:16:54   that allows you to put things on the menu bar or allows you to put things in a sub menu off of the

00:16:59   menu bar but every menu bar item made before last year doesn't work with it but even if even with this

00:17:06   system i would still want things in my menu bar and it is a constant frustration to me that they're

00:17:11   hiding behind the notch yeah so so this this goes further so um one of the nice features of a lot of

00:17:18   these menu bar managers is the ability to create a collapsed area to the left of your key items so that

00:17:25   you can either mouse over or do a keyboard shortcut or click on an expander and see all of them but then

00:17:30   otherwise they go away um so in mac os 27 in golden gate there is at least some management of the menu

00:17:41   bar now happening involving things that are going to be hidden under the notch okay they have started

00:17:47   to make that a priority i would say how many years has it been five years too late five years that they've

00:17:55   been like yeah you know the notch is there whatever um so that's good but my other note here is it has

00:18:02   broken every menu bar based app to a certain degree and all the menu bar managers are broken

00:18:07   so like i'm using an app called melt um which is a um it's a melt i think it's called melt um

00:18:19   and it's it's a it's a fork of ice um yeah yeah it's it's called melt it's a fork of ice which was

00:18:28   a menu bar manager that was a free alternative to bartender that seems to have been abandoned but melt

00:18:33   has gotten picked up because it's open source and they're working on that and they are working on a

00:18:37   fix now they have a beta what running that runs on golden gate but like it broke um or is it thaw

00:18:45   maybe it's thaw there's melt and there's thaw yeah thaw is the one i'm using that's the one i'm using

00:18:49   okay thaw uh t-h-a-w and it's good and they're working on a beta that will fix it so so this is

00:18:56   just an example where like you can see like where apple touches the os sometimes those are the things

00:19:02   that just totally break for third-party apps and it's fine it's a beta third-party apps are going

00:19:07   to break don't get mad about it i see i see people getting mad about it and it's like don't get mad

00:19:11   about it you're in a beta things will break but i think it's interesting that i like that apple is

00:19:17   giving attention to the mac menu bar i wrote about this last year and said it's one of the unique

00:19:22   things about the mac they should pay attention to it they should care about it they should put some

00:19:27   modern os effort into a thing that's basically been laying there for 20 years great are they doing then

00:19:33   that that like what is the management options oh you know you're asking me the thing that i don't

00:19:39   actually know the details of because i haven't investigated it i think it does a little expand

00:19:44   collapse thing okay where if you if things are going to collide to the menu bar but they're making

00:19:49   an attempt to make it that the the notch doesn't break excellent your stuff because i i just but it's

00:19:55   broken everything in the meantime i stopped using a menu bar manager because they all kept breaking

00:20:00   and now i just suffer through when i'm using my mac in uh laptop mode because when i've got my studio

00:20:05   display i don't have so many menu bar icons that it's a problem but when i'm using it on my mac every

00:20:11   time i start a timer in timery timery just disappears it's just gone it's just gone uh because it's too

00:20:18   large for the for the for the preview that i have like for the yeah my um swift bar is behaving weirdly

00:20:24   um it works but it's you know it lives in the menu bar and it's behaving weirdly um but it's a uh yeah

00:20:33   it's it's i'm glad they're giving it attention but but again i have to say it like one it's great that

00:20:42   you've got this new system based on control center but at least for this first year nobody's using that

00:20:48   system like nobody's using that system and and i wonder if there is either a third-party opportunity

00:20:55   here or really for apple to find a way to allow classic menu bar items menu extras i think they're

00:21:03   called to be used in that way because then you've got menu bar management built into the os and you can

00:21:11   take a lot of your things that you need to look at occasionally but not all the time and you could

00:21:15   stash them in a sub menu and then you're you're not having that huge menu up there it may not be

00:21:20   technically possible but like that's that's my frustration is that is that they're very slowly

00:21:24   building this out i'm glad they are but it's happened way too late given the existence of the notch

00:21:30   and um it is breaking things in the meantime so that's my number one this that's this week's

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00:24:08   so last week on monday we spoke about the possibility of apple raising their prices and on thursday

00:24:16   they raised those prices yeah they did uh you probably don't need us to go into detail on this

00:24:23   now no um but essentially prices have been raised on a basically all product lines except the iphone and

00:24:30   apple watch anywhere from 15 to 50 percent yeah yeah but like yes airpods is another major max max

00:24:38   ipads apple tv vision pro all home pods home pods yeah uh so the it tracks anywhere from 15 to 50 percent

00:24:46   for the price increases depending on the product a couple of headlining ones the macbook neo is now

00:24:52   6.99 to start um many macs and ipads up by hundreds of dollars some more and the apple tv has been

00:25:00   increased in price by up to 50 percent yeah here's apple's full statement the consumer electronics

00:25:07   industry is facing an unprecedented challenge the rapid extent expansion of ai data centers has created an

00:25:13   extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage we have never seen a component price increase this much

00:25:20   this quickly we have shielded our customers from these increases so far but we have now reached a

00:25:25   point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products including today's increases for

00:25:30   ipad and mac we know this is not welcome news and we are working tirelessly to find solutions

00:25:36   there is i've started you're probably seeing this too but there is now a sentiment in wider media

00:25:41   that apple are being greedy and should cut into their profits to bear the brunt further have you seen this

00:25:47   much yeah sure um this is so i'll put a link in the show notes to a verge piece where they're kind of

00:25:55   making the comments on that they're kind of making the argument that argument and it is an argument that

00:26:02   is harder to defend considering the many record quarters that apple has experienced right like it's hard

00:26:07   to suggest that they couldn't cut their profit down a little bit couldn't couldn't is it's true they could

00:26:16   yeah i so yeah these these price increases stink nobody likes them although you could argue that given

00:26:26   inflation apple's been holding the line against price increases for five years at least that's that is a

00:26:31   choice that they decided to make right yes they could have been raising prices all along here and

00:26:36   they didn't but they finally are like okay we got to do it because they really like having stable prices

00:26:39   and having the the game be they increase their margins they maintain their margins even with the

00:26:45   stable prices because as they release products they have ways of like releasing some more expensive

00:26:50   products and changing the skews and there's games they play but they can't play that game anymore so

00:26:54   they did this uh or they won't play that game anymore it's reached a breaking point i i would boil down

00:27:00   this argument though this argument is i think is embedded in the idea that this is temporary but this

00:27:07   is this is a long-term change and it it doesn't just have to do with the ram prices but it also has to do

00:27:13   with inflation and the cost of technology and there may be a time when it's different but it's not going

00:27:18   to be for the next few years i i i'm not being cynical here i i want to i want to just take a step

00:27:26   back and say this is actually just the argument that apple products should cost less and apple should

00:27:32   make less profit that's the argument this is not an argument about in this in this economy right

00:27:38   in this economy you raise prices but you're so profitable this is a this is a an extraordinary

00:27:44   circumstance you should eat the margins and keep your products what they where they are even though

00:27:50   it'll eat your margins and could they yes could they yes but i would argue that the actual argument

00:27:57   being made here is apple products should just be cheaper than they shouldn't make as much money

00:28:02   and that's a valid argument they could choose to do that but what i would say is and they did for a bit

00:28:10   we think and they did and they did because they know it's better if the product the prices are stable

00:28:16   yeah but all the people in charge at apple are compensated with stock and this is a this is a

00:28:28   eating into your margins is not a thing that the stock market approves because stock market likes

00:28:34   the profile of apple is it's very profitable with high margins yeah if you have tuned in look i watch

00:28:40   financial television half an hour every quarter the half an hour before apple's results drop i watch

00:28:45   cnbc or bloomberg and oh those people love the profit margin number boy do they love it and on the call

00:28:54   on the earnings call afterward the analysts oh they love the profit margin number so much and the cfo loves

00:28:59   the profit margin there was a cfo exchange a year ago so it was luca maestri with an analyst who was

00:29:05   like hey i think this is a record profit margin for you and you could hear luca maestri break open a big

00:29:11   grin he was like thank you for noticing oh my god it was an enormous record profit margin for us so

00:29:19   very hard to get those people to ultimately say and and again i think this is how i would put it

00:29:25   they've been holding the line because they could do it in their model and it wouldn't kill their margins

00:29:32   and it allows them them to benefit from prices that they're comfortable with the fact that they did

00:29:37   this this break it's about that it's about the fact that if they if they continue to eat it they feel

00:29:43   like at this point they're breaking their traditional um margin numbers and that it's going to hurt their

00:29:49   long-term uh profit margin and they're not willing to do that so could they of course they could but

00:29:55   again i think it's not a realistic argument because the people in charge it is the argument to say

00:30:01   apple should just make less money and like apple's a profit seeking business that's publicly owned

00:30:06   it's owned by shareholders it is you're not going to get it right they've never been

00:30:12   affordable in fact i don't know how you felt this last week i'm like oh wow i hadn't felt i'll put it

00:30:20   this way i hadn't felt the apple is apple products are always way more expensive than you want them to be

00:30:29   vibe in a while and i didn't realize it i didn't realize it at the time there was a time five years

00:30:37   ago even when they would come out with a product and you're like oh i mean i want it but it's so

00:30:42   expensive oh and it's been a while that i felt that way in the era of a 999 or even 1099 i think the last

00:30:50   time i felt that way is when they came out with the m2 macbook air maybe so that was 2021 yeah but even

00:30:56   that computer was so impressive it was like it was so impressive but it was also but it was also like

00:31:01   1299 instead of 999 and that hurt but like this last week when i look at those prices i i think i did not

00:31:09   think to myself this is outrageous i've never seen prices like these on apple products actually what i

00:31:14   felt was oh i've got that old feeling back now of everything apple makes being a little too expensive

00:31:20   for me and for my preference i think they got like sneakily affordable over time in a lot of areas i think

00:31:27   that's exactly it is that by holding the line as long as they did and and like the macbook neo is a

00:31:33   great example apple loved it apple benefited from feeling more affordable they reached users and they

00:31:39   reached customers that they couldn't reach before i i will say i do still think 699 is still a very

00:31:44   good starting price like every every to be clear the macbook neo at 699 based on a year ago would be a

00:31:52   bummer it wouldn't even be a bummer it would be okay i think a lot of people thought it would be 699

00:31:56   yeah but all of its competition is going up in price too yeah because everything's going up in

00:32:03   price period so it's going to be 699 is a bummer but like the the products that's going up against

00:32:08   are all going to go up in price or down in quality or they already have jason or they already have

00:32:12   apple hasn't hasn't done it until now yeah it's it's it's interesting right like i have i have had that

00:32:21   feeling in the last few days of like oh i remember what this used to be like like i'm looking at the

00:32:26   prices now of ipads and especially the ipad pro like i don't i don't know like the ipad prices right now

00:32:38   are just way too high they are way too high and i don't know what's going to happen there like the ipad pro

00:32:46   what it starts like 1200 now or something yeah it's like that's too much so my look when this all

00:32:52   is over because some i think some of what they're doing here is prioritizing products based on the

00:32:58   ones that they think are important it's also why the iphone hasn't been dealt with yet which is

00:33:02   interesting yeah um i think i think the ipad is not super important to apple right now and that

00:33:08   they're okay with people not buying the ipad pro and they've got them and they're available but

00:33:11   they're not really willing to come down on margin on it i think in the long run though

00:33:15   when this surge of of component pricing ends you are going to have to have that moment if you're apple

00:33:23   where you look at something like the ipad and say oh ipad sales are in the tank uh ipad pro sales are

00:33:31   really bad ipad air sales are off what happened and you look at the pricing and you're like yeah these

00:33:36   are overpriced we can't do it and then they and then you maybe cut the price but that's not going

00:33:42   to happen until you're in a place where all of the ram kind of circulates freely and at a good price

00:33:50   uh because that's because that's the that's the pressure the downward pressure on price and part is

00:33:54   like if you can't sell it because it's too expensive nobody's buying it because it's just a bad deal

00:33:59   you gotta i mean two things are going to happen one is they're going to look at the price

00:34:03   and two is they're going to look at the the tech inside it and it may be that there's like an

00:34:07   expensive component that they thought that they were going to use in the next ipad pro and they're

00:34:10   like we can't do it yep we just can't do it yeah because i was thinking about that when you were

00:34:14   saying about like you know thinking about the earnings calls and stuff and it's like yeah your

00:34:19   profit margin is great to keep but what if you end up losing more money from lost sales like then was

00:34:25   it good to keep the margin like this is the the tightrope walk that the people in apple's finance

00:34:31   team have to be dealing with right now like trying to model out like will we still make money if we

00:34:38   drop if we increase the prices because we will definitely drop well will we drop some sales how

00:34:43   much will we drop that must be incredibly complicated to work out right yeah i don't know i don't know um

00:34:51   it's i think the other way they could go with some of the high-end products they just say look

00:34:59   high-end products exist to be awesome and so we're going to make them awesome and they're going to be

00:35:06   expensive and that that you know and then what you're going to see is the the ipad airs of the world

00:35:12   will be their focus on that yeah and that's okay like i think we all assume that that oled

00:35:17   macbook pro is going to be a high-end more expensive product anyway like that is one strategy is if you

00:35:24   want to look cool and cutting edge with the latest tech you put it in your i mean this has been apple

00:35:29   all along you put in your very expensive product and everybody else is like oh i want it but it's too

00:35:33   expensive and it's like that's okay that's okay because eventually that stuff will come down

00:35:37   and then there are some people who will buy it and then your focus is more on the mid-range because

00:35:42   it's more affordable now the ipad air is also very expensive but it's not seven hundred and forty

00:35:46   nine dollars time i mean it's it's ipad pro expensive old school ipad pro expensive so i don't know it's

00:35:54   um it's really interesting uh as a challenge for them but but i just want to say for people who are

00:36:00   like it's too expensive well it's going to slow buying cycles it's going to um

00:36:07   hurt sales it's not necessarily going to hurt revenue because the revenue is going to go up

00:36:12   but the sales will go down but they don't even report sales figures anymore they only report revenue

00:36:17   numbers so maybe it'll look okay on their bottom line but they will know that sales are down and that

00:36:23   the buying cycle has been elongated and in the long term that's not good for them they know that

00:36:28   so i wouldn't say like apple blindly put up the price right that's not what they did they know the

00:36:36   they know the ramifications of this no i think you can tell that because they tried to hold it

00:36:41   yeah and this and this is the breaking point in fact in fact what we're getting now is the shock

00:36:46   it's like bending bend bend bend bend until it snaps that's what happened here because also what should

00:36:52   be baked into these prices is some element of forecasting so they don't do it again right like

00:37:00   i feel like i feel like in the last few days i'm getting i'm seeing different headlines almost every day

00:37:07   for how long this situation could last for and it seems to either extend a contract but the trend line is

00:37:15   it's going to take this is going to take longer than you think for the ram prices to come down

00:37:19   but apple should have built into the price increases some level of we do this now and we can hold it for

00:37:27   x amount of time like you don't want to do this again this year say because that's not good but they

00:37:36   they also have no control over it right like if if prices multiply by another five times in a couple of

00:37:42   weeks what are you going to do i i my guess is that what they've done here is try to make their best

00:37:47   guess about a price that they can keep fixed yeah right yeah because they don't like to change prices

00:37:53   so it's probably a price they want to keep fixed and they're building in more margin than is necessary

00:38:01   because they anticipate more pain right and and so they're trying to do that also i think it's very

00:38:10   hard not to look at the home pod and apple tv prices and not think that they're pricing those

00:38:14   because that they know what the next one's going to be priced at yeah that they may be trying to price

00:38:19   it towards where it's going i would be shocked if there was an appreciable amount of margin recovery

00:38:27   required we'll put it for the apple tv and the home pod i i just i'm really skeptical not making more

00:38:33   apple tv right like surely they have all the ones they're going to need well i actually do i think

00:38:39   that that's one of the things that i think is going on here is that they've made all of the ones that

00:38:44   they're going to make and they're on to the next one and they're pricing those products because they

00:38:48   know what they're going to have to price the next one at um and i actually think that with the iphone

00:38:53   it's a very similar thing they're probably i mean the iphone 17 they're still going to make because

00:38:59   it's probably not going to be replaced until the spring but like they're stopped they're not making

00:39:04   iphone 17 pros anymore probably right they they're they're moving on to the 18 pro um and maybe that

00:39:10   gives them a little bit of latitude now i don't know i that i don't know but but the apple tv and the

00:39:15   home pod it sure feels to me like there's a new version of both of those coming that's apple intelligence

00:39:20   capable and they know what and and some new products too and they know what those prices are

00:39:26   going to have to be now and so these adjustments are almost like yeah that's what apple tv has to

00:39:32   cost now because the next one's going to cost that when you mentioned the iphone they didn't touch the

00:39:36   iphone why do you think they didn't do that do you think i don't know i i think i think they will

00:39:46   i do think they will kind of have to right i think maybe the economics are a little bit different and

00:39:53   maybe they feel like they can hold off until the fall for that one maybe it's just the most important

00:40:01   product yeah but do you want to announce the new iphone and that starting price is 200 more than the

00:40:09   like is that the way you want to introduce the iphone 19 i don't know and here's that's the

00:40:15   argument price it's yeah i don't know it seems interesting to me that they did it in two waves

00:40:22   i feel like now if you're going to do it now's the time to do it but maybe they're hoping for some kind

00:40:27   of magic between now and then like i don't know what it might be well actually i don't know if this

00:40:33   will help but my analysis last week spot on the financial times is reporting that apple is lobbying

00:40:39   the trump administration for an exemption to buy and use ram from chinese manufacturers so apple

00:40:46   specifically want to buy ram from a company called cxmt which is a company on the pentagon's blacklist

00:40:53   because of ties to the chinese military so it's actually not illegal for apple to buy ram from these

00:40:59   companies but it would carry significant complications in both procurement so getting

00:41:05   them into america or elsewhere and also reputational risk if they do it without working with the government

00:41:11   and apparently at according to the financial times apple started this effort a month ago working with

00:41:17   the government to try and say like we want to do this let us do this and this is this was your i mean

00:41:24   this is your take that the deal with like we're gonna we're gonna let intel we're gonna work with intel

00:41:28   yeah is they're trying to do a quid pro quo here of like look we're gonna do more american stuff but

00:41:34   right now we have a memory challenge and let us work with these guys yeah um i think one of the issues

00:41:38   too because so apple tried this a few years ago right and 2022 yeah and both parties in congress were

00:41:46   like you can't do this and a lot of the issue it's not even just the chinese military i think a lot of the

00:41:50   issues is is it is a it is viewed as a government propped up company and therefore doesn't one of

00:42:00   the big challenges with a lot of international trade stuff is you're not playing fair because your

00:42:05   government is making this product is subsidizing the making of this product it's not a it's not an

00:42:11   actual uh competitive company it's a company that you're like a great example of this is that for

00:42:18   years the u.s um yelled a lot about airbus the french-based airplane manufacturer obviously the

00:42:30   boeing their prime competitor is in the u.s and a lot of those arguments i remember seeing about

00:42:35   airbus were airbus gets subsidies from europe and from the european governments and therefore it's not

00:42:41   a it and so that they would say we are going to have sanctions on airbus because it's not fairly

00:42:48   competing with boeing you're you're propping it up and that that ruins the competition i get the sense

00:42:54   that that's part of the argument here is that this is this is not just a chinese company that makes ram

00:42:59   it's a company funded by the chinese military and government that makes ram but also look the u.s

00:43:06   both parties are are not immune from saber rattling about the chinese communist party or the chinese

00:43:13   military or china in general and so that's what's going on here i i do wonder if if uh donald trump

00:43:19   doesn't care because remember he he he has a very weird relationship with china where he's often

00:43:25   belligerent toward them but also talks about how great she is so go figure and if tim cook comes to

00:43:33   him and is like i'm let's so much of what trump does is transactional if he views this as a deal which is

00:43:39   i'm getting apple to invest in intel which we which the government owns a part of now um and it's going

00:43:45   to be about american manufacturer we can let them have the chinese chips and put like i said last

00:43:51   week i think put some restrictions on it like only for phones in china or not for phones in the u.s or

00:43:58   however you want to do it but it they're they're they need a solid now because because in 2022 crisis

00:44:04   they wanted to do this and sell these phones only in china and the american government just last part of

00:44:09   the same thing was like you cannot do you cannot allow right because you're going to be giving money

00:44:13   two and and propping up this company yeah so it's a it's a real challenge but you you did call it it

00:44:19   was it was cook mentioning it like it seemed so out of character right for him to just because it felt

00:44:25   to me like i'm reading that article that that was something that he brought up like it wasn't really a

00:44:33   question it just felt to me like maybe it's like you know someone slipped the report or a note but like

00:44:38   ask about chinese ram he's like oh great question like it seemed so strange for him to just be like

00:44:44   well everything's on the table like it just it was a very odd

00:44:48   exchange to me just in the way that it read and and then with the intel yeah it just seemed like this

00:44:54   was a thing that was going to happen and i reckon they'll get some it will work i reckon it will work

00:45:01   i don't know exactly what the shape of it will be but i think that we're in times where deals can be

00:45:08   made and also we're in this like unprecedented weirdness it's like you know i can imagine cook

00:45:14   being like well we won't sell as many iphones and you know that's not good for our economy like it's

00:45:20   going to be weird but we're in a very strange time so i uh i consider myself one of the lucky ones

00:45:27   i bought a macbook air the day the day before the price increase was announced i i'm going to take

00:45:33   some credit this i feel like i talked you into this oh absolutely you did for this reason so this is an

00:45:38   upgrade plus last week i was talking about some issues i'm having with my m2 macbook air that i felt like

00:45:42   it was getting really slow and creaky and was causing me issues and i was getting very frustrated with it

00:45:47   but i was trying to hold out for the macbook pro the touchscreen macbook pro and you basically said

00:45:53   you don't even know if you're going to like that machine which is true it might not be what i want

00:45:57   and turns out there's there's more truth in that that we'll get to yeah later and then you also said

00:46:04   uh if you buy that computer now the value will probably only go up so if you trade it in you you'll be

00:46:11   fine and uh i i bought a computer that went up 400 pounds in value the next day nothing holds its value

00:46:19   better than a device you buy for one price and then they raise it by 400 pounds and you know what's so

00:46:24   funny too like i did a comparison and like because i had an m2 right i paid essentially pretty much the

00:46:32   same amount of money for a vastly better spec to machine because the starting price of the m2 was more

00:46:38   expensive than the starting price of the m5 when i bought it yeah and so like i ended up getting like

00:46:43   i think two terabyte ssd and 36 gigabytes of ram uh i'm gonna have a great time with that computer

00:46:49   jamie's um some we bought my daughter who's going to be editing all the video for designing california

00:46:56   and loves it i i mentioned her last week and said that she loves it when we mentioned her on the show

00:47:01   and she texted me while she was editing the show and said yes i do i love it so hi jamie

00:47:05   there she is again uh she got a 15 inch m4 refurb uh 16 terabyte or 16 gig ram uh one terabyte drive

00:47:16   for a like a thousand and fifteen dollars

00:47:19   good deal good deal my my uh my book have will not arrive with me into august oh no no it's yeah it's

00:47:28   gonna take forever it'll take a while it might it might they might get it faster than that but like

00:47:32   it will see sometimes i order things like they'll refurb for jamie i was like it'll be a couple of

00:47:37   weeks and then they're like nope it'll be tomorrow okay all right whatever also the evening of the

00:47:44   price increase i got a text from my mom i had promised that i would get her an apple tv she just moved and

00:47:50   she's using like a this like chinese set top box thing like like dvr it's terrible it's really bad and i

00:47:59   said to her like because she was really very frustrated it's like i'm gonna buy you an apple

00:48:03   tv i'm gonna set you up and you'll just watch everything on demand like you're gonna have a

00:48:06   better time and she sent me a message and she was like i can't wait for you to to sort this apple tv

00:48:11   out for me because i hate this thing i was like oh my god the price just went up by 50 but i went to

00:48:17   amazon they hadn't changed the prices yet yeah got one at the old price so i feel like the luckiest

00:48:23   man alive walking i wonder how many people like went to costco the day the announcement happened

00:48:27   and picked up a macbook neo or a macbook air before they got to relabel the prices yep i don't i do not

00:48:33   know how i got that price at amazon without them having changed it um just as a side note i've been

00:48:38   thinking about this before we move on like i think the next couple of years are gonna be weird

00:48:46   like the yeah i i you know like i feel like there is going to be a new kind of like cloud over new

00:48:56   hardware that didn't exist right that like it's going to be way more expensive we're going to be

00:49:02   talking about price of stuff more than we have which is i think is a necessary but somewhat frustrating

00:49:08   kind of conversation to have and i also see a world where a lot of our audience keep their devices for

00:49:16   longer than they would have before and so the utility of talking about new stuff maybe diminishes a little

00:49:23   bit like we're obviously going to do it because it's interesting and exciting to talk about the new

00:49:28   products but i can just i i kind of see that there will be a need that we will meet of talking more

00:49:37   about software like the balance of hardware and software on the show might shift a little bit

00:49:43   sure and and i also hope that tech companies in general put more effort into their software over

00:49:53   the next few years to make their products nicer to use for longer for their customers because this is

00:49:59   a thing where customers are not going to be able to upgrade on the same cycles that they would have

00:50:03   wanted to before will not be willing to and so yeah i i can imagine i hope that for the general tech

00:50:09   industry that people focus on this but i just it will be a focus of mine over the next while in

00:50:16   thinking about the like the production of this show that we try and bring more more software into the

00:50:22   conversation than we would have before it's kind of like a thing i've been thinking about i think it's

00:50:25   going to be a necessary component of coverage so it'll be summer of fun for the next two years

00:50:32   do we need do we need like a is dongle town a place where you go when the prices are high or

00:50:44   something like that is there a concept there some kind of software related town net like a mountain

00:50:50   the old dongle town upgrade yeah but i feel like there's there's a different place right like dongle

00:50:56   oh interesting dongle town is is where you go when you need hardware right like that's the whole point

00:51:02   of it because you have less oh oh did you know here's a little fun fact about dongle town since we're

00:51:07   talking about where it was it's actually built it's on it's by the sea obviously yeah but it's it's built

00:51:14   um it's not very far from a very large military base the install base

00:51:20   i didn't know that yeah military base what an interesting choice so maybe there's like a like

00:51:29   a px on the on the install base where you can get bargain uh hardware and software something yeah you

00:51:35   know what that we're working on lower here it's like there's a t-shirt in there somewhere that's

00:51:39   all i'm saying there's a t-shirt in there somewhere in store base military supply yeah

00:51:44   yeah conveniently located near dongle town very super convenient for this yeah so this actually

00:51:51   places dongle town probably closer to san diego it's probably more like north san diego county near

00:51:56   camp pendleton except it's actually in the installed base there you go this episode is brought to you by

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00:53:46   for their support of this show and relay rumor roundup time jason snow on thursday last week

00:53:54   saddle prices are going up mike oh no and it's and you know it costs more to feed a horse than ever

00:54:01   than ever before than ever before poor mark he reported last week on thursday that apple will

00:54:06   be skipping the most powerful m6 chips in favor of jumping right to m7 according to marks yeah wild

00:54:15   yeah according to mark's sources m6 will only be available in its entry-level base chip products

00:54:22   right so like the iMac the Mac no m6 no m6 pro no m6 max no m6 ultra just an a base m6 and we'll go in the

00:54:30   machines that you would expect a macbook air uh everything that has an m5 yeah yeah maybe an

00:54:37   ipad maybe an ipad yeah maybe ipad pro an ipad pro for sure these products could start arriving the m6

00:54:44   products could start arriving this year the next pro max chips would be m7 pro and m7 max that will come

00:54:54   in 2027 at some point right these chips are said to have a stronger focus on uh ai capabilities which

00:55:01   is why apple is looking to fast track m7 and just skip m6 on one level i am fascinated by this because

00:55:10   of the chaos of it right it's like seems like such a break and if mark german's story is right that they

00:55:14   that they planned on doing an m6 and then they scrapped it and said the stuff in m7 is too good

00:55:21   they're reading the room they're like this is the fallout of of all those mac minis becoming ai machines

00:55:28   right is their realization of like oh we need to press this and they look at the m6 generation they're like

00:55:35   it's it's really not that great the m7 the m5 is great and the m7 is great and the m6 is kind of in

00:55:40   between why do why do we not just skip it and move and move everything ahead to the next one because the

00:55:46   next one because they know several generations out right so i think that's interesting if that's what

00:55:50   happened also potentially they're like maybe we're not going to sell that many m6 pro macbook pros

00:55:57   it may take it may take some time that's true we got we got some anonymous feedback from somebody who said

00:56:02   that mark german is full of it essentially and that they were never going to do an m6 pro or max

00:56:08   and that that was never the plan for the macbook pro with the touch screen i mean i had two reactions

00:56:15   that doesn't make sense to me that doesn't make sense i have two reactions to me i would love

00:56:20   confirmation of that from people who know because a random anonymous person could be anything and then

00:56:23   my second thing was i was like john gruber is that you because i know gruber's like down on german and

00:56:29   i'm like john is that you are you are you in the feedback form again you could text me it's okay

00:56:36   you could you know how to text me um but uh but assuming that it is true which i'm going to assume

00:56:43   for now unless unless told by um sources who know otherwise i like i like the idea that apple

00:56:50   and johnny sruji are are so dynamic in this moment that they're like you know the world has changed

00:56:58   when we made the m6 plans things were different we've got m7 we're really feeling really good about

00:57:03   it let's make a break here especially since we know that apple within apple there's a lot of

00:57:11   responsibility between like the the chip people and the hardware people we're like you know you don't ask

00:57:16   for a chip and then not ship it in the product right you know you don't you don't do that if

00:57:20   you're a hardware person you don't you don't demand a chip from the chip people and then say never mind

00:57:24   because that's you're letting them down they want everybody to be in sync making this chip decision

00:57:29   has impact on other hardware because we've been talking for the last six months or whatever about

00:57:36   what mark german's been reporting about the oled touchscreen macbook pro being the m6 generation macbook pro

00:57:42   which can't happen if there's no m6 pro and max processors which is why mark german posted this

00:57:49   story on thursday i think last week and everybody's like what about the laptop and then on friday he had

00:57:53   that story which is they're gonna apparently do the touchscreen oled macbook pro as an m5 and then as an m7

00:58:01   which again interesting right but i think it shows you how apple feels like from a chip perspective

00:58:10   they have an advantage that they want to press here and that's what i like about this decision is

00:58:15   not that it says oh boy apple's in disarray they killed the m5 pro and max no no it's the way it's

00:58:22   spun and the way that i would read it is apple would really rather go straight to m7 because m7 is going

00:58:27   to be great and so they're just going to get there they're going to they're going to they're going to

00:58:31   pay a little bit of a price now in order to jump straight to m7 that's interesting yeah and i feel like

00:58:36   this is part of the thing that i always want to see them exhibiting with the chip design which is

00:58:41   like if you're in complete control of it make decisions that you otherwise wouldn't make and

00:58:48   one of those decisions could be the world is changing the industry is changing demands on some of our

00:58:55   products are changing so we should accelerate the chip that will meet the change because why wait

00:59:02   like if you know the m7 chip is going to do a better job of what people want to be doing on

00:59:07   these machines right now especially when these machines are more expensive so they're potentially

00:59:13   could see that would want higher need from some market segments bring these chips we're talking about

00:59:20   macbook pro and max studio here and then also keep in mind while macbook pro would be interesting

00:59:25   because you get these new body macbook pro with the same chips that it has currently which is a little

00:59:29   weird but it's not unprecedented and they could do it and the oled and and a touchscreen make it

00:59:35   interesting regardless right but the other part of this is the max studio which is the one that

00:59:42   really i mean mac mini and max studio are the ones that people are really interested in haven't been

00:59:46   updated yet so they've got a whole other generation to come for those products where they go to m5

00:59:53   including according to mark german m5 ultra is going to happen yeah on the max studio yeah so

01:00:00   they're going to have an ai story in m5 generation they don't need and then they'll go to then they'll

01:00:06   jump to m7 the next year year and a half and that that works yep mark did say is i think this is

01:00:12   hilarious really in this in a very macabre way the m5 ultra which they will still bring out they're still

01:00:18   planning on bringing out for the mac studio had been tested to be able to support up to 768 gigabytes of

01:00:25   ram now it's just like no they're not gonna do that that's not happening oh my god it will cost a million

01:00:32   dollars per machine uh mark does say so you know this is the the m7 chips would be introduced in quote

01:00:40   relatively quick succession after the m6 basically at some point in the first half of 2027

01:00:47   now my thought is like the weird thing here so would they bring out m6

01:00:52   between now and the end of the year and then m7 like new base chips in the first six months i mean

01:00:58   they've done stuff like that before i mean they could they could but yeah imagine getting a mac an m6

01:01:04   macbook air in the fall and then an m7 macbook air in the spring well unless i think they've done this

01:01:09   before where they might just not update the m7 base until later in the year right so like you take

01:01:17   the m well yeah you could also take the m6 and put in the macbook air and take the m7 and put in the

01:01:22   macbook pro base model yeah or you and then you could do an m7 macbook air refresh in the fall again

01:01:28   like they don't have to go in order like sometimes they go in in weird order like that right and you

01:01:33   ultimately end up with an m7 ipad pro and an m6 yeah there was one where they did the ipad pro got

01:01:40   a base chip and then they brought out the pro max chips and then he didn't put that base chip into

01:01:45   something later on i don't remember what one this was where you know they do this kind of stuff they

01:01:49   have the ability to do that so the pro max versions of the m7 would come later in 2027 so it's all over

01:01:58   the place and then an m7 ultra in 2028 it might actually mean that you're going to get that oled

01:02:03   touchscreen macbook pro this fall after all and that then a year later you would get the m7 a year year

01:02:09   and a half later either late 27 or early 28 you'd get the the m7 version of it because mark says that

01:02:14   the the touchscreen macbook pro is still on track for the end of this year or the beginning of 2027

01:02:19   yeah yeah and if it's using the existing m5 chips that would strike me as being more more doable if

01:02:26   this is all um if this is all happening so you know we're we're we're taking mark german's word

01:02:31   his track record's been pretty good um especially about these kind of plans i think that most of his

01:02:38   reports have ended up being accurate so again i i'm much more confident about mark german as a reporter

01:02:44   it follows a common sense logic to me yeah right like i can see the chain of events that result in

01:02:51   this and there is a somewhat hopeful thinking from me of that they would do this kind of thing because

01:02:57   i think it's the right thing to do yeah you shouldn't just be kind of like nailed to a march that you

01:03:04   continue just because like we have to have an m6 pro because we have an m6 yeah the idea here is

01:03:13   it takes years it takes years to plan chips yeah and and the danger is that you get so far ahead

01:03:18   that you miss the moment and i think that's what happened right like apple look at wwdc you saw it

01:03:23   apple is happy to show off and boast about this fact that agents are running on mac minis and mac studios and

01:03:30   they had that demo experience where they had the four mac studios with a terabyte of collective memory

01:03:38   running ai models and that price just went up by ten thousand dollars right you can't buy it

01:03:43   i mean you can't you can't buy those those are ones you actually can't buy but they had them as a demo

01:03:47   um and they're very proud of it but let's be clear it was an accident it was it was a byproduct of

01:03:56   apple's investment in uh its chip technologies and building these systems with lots of really

01:04:03   interesting on board capabilities but it was an accident uh and if they're looking at their chip

01:04:09   uh future right and they're looking at the m5 m6 m7 generations the m5 isn't even out yet and they're

01:04:14   like how do we get on top like we've got and and now they've made adjustments and they're like m7 is

01:04:20   actually going to kill it for all of these uses but it's it's like three generations out this is this is

01:04:27   how you have to do it you have to be willing to make calls like this if you're going to be working

01:04:31   years out because otherwise you're not you're not able to turn the ship fast enough and so this is the

01:04:35   downside i suppose that's why i'm so enthusiastic about this conceptually is like i know you work out

01:04:42   years ahead but if in this case you're like no no no no we need to jump to this now and we can pull it

01:04:48   ahead a little bit by just foregoing the the one that was in the middle here let's do it and they did it

01:04:54   and you know if that's the case i think that's encouraging because it shows that they're going

01:04:58   to jump on this one because they see an advantage there of uh moving on from the the max there have

01:05:05   also been a flurry of reports signaling that the folding iphone is on track for september after some

01:05:11   previous concerns of delay so there's two reports from the elect one is that there have been problems

01:05:17   with the development of the hinge mechanism but these have now been resolved this has allowed the device

01:05:22   to go into test production which is the final step before mass production and that samsung display

01:05:28   have been given the approval by apple to start the production of the oled display apparently the order

01:05:33   that has been made is for three million panels for delivery this year okay so we're looking at still

01:05:42   september for this we have some element of a estimate for maybe what apple thinks it could sell or hopes it

01:05:48   could sell uh but we'll see how that goes yeah considering it is the summer of fun i wanted to

01:05:58   mention something here we want to jump on a bandwagon to free the icons jason yes so here at the upgrade

01:06:05   podcast we want to use our time in the summer of fun to fully endorse a movement spearheaded today by

01:06:11   rogue amoeba to free mac os icons from the squirkle jail so this this happened in tahoe where we lost the

01:06:20   the like inconsistent shapes of mac os icons they all put got if you had an inconsistent shape you were

01:06:27   shoved inside of a gray box yeah and in golden gate there have been some tweaks to some icons and

01:06:35   some of them have a little bit more detail in them again that they they'd lost so they look a little

01:06:40   bit better but we want them to break free of their boxes again i'm going to read from pork of us at

01:06:45   rogue amoeba apple's prohibition on shapes is a step backwards for both usability and creativity in app

01:06:52   icons icons are now harder to distinguish because they're no longer allowed to be distinctive but

01:06:58   there's no technical reason for it apple could and should once again allow icons to take on a wide

01:07:04   variety of shapes we want to agree and endorse this message yeah i also there was a um a link

01:07:11   made by um march and witchery at uh at uh unsung blog great blog by the way aries luna um

01:07:22   and he wrote that he wrote about this and and really made the case that the mac should be able

01:07:30   to burst out of the squircle like that there's actually some delight mac icon designers got really

01:07:36   good at just having things like pop out the edges and that's what was frustrating about tahoe is if you

01:07:41   went outside the edges at all your your whole icon including the box that was already there got put in

01:07:48   another box so then you got a box in a box which is the worst of all so like rogue amoeba's little

01:07:54   microphone in audio hijack pushed out the side uh automator robot's head pushed out the top and the

01:08:01   little pipe he's carrying pushed out the side it was cute very threatening um he's going to kill you

01:08:07   with a pipe no it's plumbing it's plumbing so um martin says this is a uh this is this is a thing they

01:08:15   should probably allow which i agree i think that they should probably allow it um i wonder if there

01:08:20   are technical things they did in the icon foundation that make it harder but yes uh forcing those gray

01:08:25   boxes is the worst it was the worst in tahoe it remains the worst um and what paul kafas has made

01:08:32   the point is like if you then do like an icon style that like takes away all the color or whatever

01:08:37   you know what are you left with like you can't differentiate on shape you have to differentiate

01:08:41   on the shape of the thing in the box instead of the shape and the the box breaks the silhouette so

01:08:49   you can't look at a silhouette anymore you have to then scan the box and it makes a lot of apps look

01:08:54   exactly the same uh even if they're full color but especially if you can't even differentiate based

01:08:59   on color which not everybody can do including yours truly but some of the time but like that's a good

01:09:04   point and then his other point that i thought was good and you really should be on somebody at apple's

01:09:09   wish list is right now we have friends who do this james thompson does this with p calc

01:09:14   lots of fun apps let you choose different icons right you can set custom icons in the app

01:09:22   for that app which lets you do stuff like color code like i've got a my um carrot weather is orange

01:09:29   um i've got some that are like six colors rainbows and stuff and and um martin's suggestion is

01:09:36   there ought to be an api for that from apple that lets you like when you're editing your home screen

01:09:42   scroll through all the available custom icons and pick one it's like that's such a good idea

01:09:48   it's such a good idea that why am i going into the settings of various apps and out of context

01:09:54   picking a custom icon and then going back and looking at it wouldn't it be better if i could

01:09:59   style my lock screen from the lock screen editor like oh that's actually a pretty good idea so there's

01:10:07   work to be done uh on all fronts but certainly on the mac it would be nice if there was a little more

01:10:11   freedom because the system just shaming apps with a gray box is just the worst and all the

01:10:18   apps look the same you know have the same shape icon now and it's just not on the mac it is really

01:10:23   not necessary so i'm glad we could bring it up again everybody file your feedbacks maybe we'll get

01:10:29   this addressed next year but probably not this year but no i think it's worth i think it's worth i think

01:10:35   it's worth talking about as apple is um bringing because apple's doing a lot of work on icons and that's

01:10:40   great but i think this is one of those cases where they need to rethink some of the things they're doing

01:10:43   this episode is brought to you in part by claude from anthropic claude is the ai for minds that don't

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01:11:49   then be able to take that image and have it not be a gif but have it be a web p video thing to be able to host

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01:12:06   with claude and i built a little mac app i now have a mac app that can do this i have a and it just it it

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01:12:19   built it with xcode and like you know to run well it it did all the work for me and i was able to build

01:12:25   and run it in xcode and i now have this app on my mac i have tons of adjustments it was making

01:12:30   suggestions to me like would you like to be able to do this like to be able to do that it really was

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01:13:14   of relay it is time for some ask upgrade questions

01:13:18   ashley wrote in and said i've been thinking of the commentary of the snow leopard like 27 os releases

01:13:27   mike said that ai focus could have given them the cover to do it so that apple focusing on siri ai

01:13:33   right was was one of the thing then you know they can in the background from an organizational

01:13:37   perspective and then everybody can go fix their bugs because they have this other big feature that's

01:13:41   out there they don't need to work on our os features that's the the context right that ashley's

01:13:45   getting it but ashley says what do you think of the idea that these performance improvements are

01:13:50   actually enabled by apple developers using ai tools these are exactly the kinds of bite-sized

01:13:56   features that i think a good engineer with good coding and model agents could just churn through

01:14:01   i think it's all related i think it's a very good point i think yeah i think it's all related i think

01:14:07   um the ai focus allowed apple to take the pressure off of everybody else to focus on performance and bug

01:14:18   fixes i think apple also prioritized bug fixes and performance issues that were going to be

01:14:24   required for the ai features to do their job right there's a lot of knock-on effects where

01:14:29   they're fixing spotlight so that siri ai can use it but also we all get to use it um but yeah let's

01:14:37   throw it in the mix because i think it's it's reasonable that part of this may be um that the

01:14:44   tools now the ai based tools that are whatever is allowed by apple engineers anyway to use

01:14:50   are um this is a thing they're good at is finding bugs highlighting bugs and performance issues and in

01:14:56   fact there was just um our friend marco arment just wrote about this that he um used i believe

01:15:05   previous sponsor claude um current recent sponsor like minutes minutes ago yeah um and basically said

01:15:14   here are four long-standing bugs that i haven't been able to fix look at my code and make some suggestions

01:15:19   and he says that in like 70 lines of code he was able to address those bugs that he said were so

01:15:26   subtle that he couldn't see him he wrote the code he couldn't see the bugs and so it's not a stretch

01:15:34   um to say that apple developers might also be using ai tools to analyze and and for people who are like

01:15:42   frustrated about like do i want ai writing code and all of that first off i think there's an argument to

01:15:47   be made i would make it the one thing that computers are good at is writing code for computers like

01:15:52   that's actually a real good use of them but even if you take the writing code part out and say it's the

01:15:58   analysis of the code find my bugs find my potential performance issues and then have a a trained

01:16:06   sophisticated engineer fix them but that you could use the ai to find them to spot them

01:16:13   much faster if not like making something that was impossible for somebody like marco to see

01:16:19   it's like at a very basic level how different is that to a spell checker

01:16:24   for a writer yeah i mean well especially if you're you're not using it to write sentences you're using

01:16:30   it to to find the bugs so i to answer ashley's point i i wouldn't be surprised if that is also part of

01:16:35   what's going on here i think it all is happening sort of together but it wouldn't it would not surprise me at

01:16:40   all if that is one of the ways that apple's developers can use ai tools is spot the bugs

01:16:46   um you know you get a feedback about something and you can't reproduce it and you basically say

01:16:52   here's the feedback and here's the code to somebody like claude and say how can this happen

01:16:57   it is what analyze this and have them say ah yes there is a bug in this line that does this and if you

01:17:05   change it to this it will work and then the developer that you know the programmer looks at and

01:17:08   there's like oh that's what it is and then they and then they're off that's huge that's a huge

01:17:13   productivity saver tom writes in and says everyone originally assumed that apple was going to white

01:17:20   label the gemini models from google and that they were paying a billion dollars for it now that we know

01:17:25   that instead they did some form of distillation of the gemini models or other google frontier models to

01:17:31   create the apple foundation model are the room and there and the rumors that anthropic said no

01:17:36   uh to the same ask is the thinking that google could have agreed this to do this to simply to hurt their

01:17:43   competition sure it does seem like apple got a very good deal here in in what they were able to do

01:17:50   yeah that was the competition obviously they're also going to be in google's data centers so that's a part

01:17:56   of the deal that we maybe didn't understand at the time um sure google google wants to like apple's a good

01:18:05   partner because it gives google's technology another place to be it blocks out at google's competitors

01:18:10   from potentially working with them um i mean it's all i i don't i think it's too simplistic to say

01:18:20   google agreed to this simply to hurt them google agreed to this for a lot of reasons but part of

01:18:25   competition is winning the contract and boxing out your competition and i've been saying here for

01:18:31   a couple years now that like if i'm open ai the last thing i want is for google to control

01:18:39   100 of smartphone ai and what they're doing with apple is not control but it's like google is the

01:18:47   partner there that's why open ai is so grumpy about apple right now is that you know it's it's tough

01:18:53   in the smartphone context you've got gemini on android and yet there are others there but like that's the

01:18:59   platform owner and then you've got apple stuff that is also powered at least to some degree by gemini

01:19:04   on all the apple stuff in terms of the smartphone market that's it this is probably one of their

01:19:09   motivators to hiring all of those hardware people to build their own whatever's that they're building

01:19:14   with johnny ive and company and all those former apple designers and uh engineers is one way you

01:19:22   i mean this is the problem with the duopoly of of android and iphone is if you're open ai

01:19:28   what do you do your competitor is one of your prime competitors is a platform owner and they've got the

01:19:39   other platform owner as a partner and and so you know we we all have opinions about johnny ive and

01:19:47   johnny ive's weird sam altman video where they had coffee in san francisco and all of that but like

01:19:52   i understand from a strategy perspective why you look at that and say if they've got this hold on

01:20:00   the smartphone our only possible approach on hardware is to either do our own smartphone or break the

01:20:11   smartphone yeah and so that's why they're doing what they're doing i don't know if they'll succeed at it

01:20:15   i'm skeptical but that's why they're doing the situation has gotten worse for open ai since

01:20:21   they made that arrangement right because now google and apple are so close it's like google is just

01:20:27   they're in all the platforms now like you know in in all the smartphones they're just that's the one

01:20:33   it's like they have a foothold in all of it it's like what are you gonna do

01:20:36   yeah rob writes in and says will the impasse around introducing apple intelligence features

01:20:44   to the eu affect the sale of rumored homepod devices or other siri dependent hardware in the eu

01:20:53   okay so my answer this is a good question my answer is

01:20:57   yes to the extent that that that these new products rely on talking to for example an iphone

01:21:06   yeah then yes because iphones don't have

01:21:13   siri ai in the eu yep but only some apple devices are gatekeepers that are under the dma

01:21:21   others aren't these devices aren't so they could they could use siri ai out of the box they are

01:21:27   not gatekeeper devices they could use it out of the box if you've got an apple tv that could be

01:21:33   used as a home hub and has more power but some of these will probably have power too it's not a

01:21:37   gatekeeper product i think the ipad is the ipad not a gatekeeper product i think it's not i think it

01:21:43   is now i think oh is it now i think that was one that they came on maybe maybe wrong because the mac

01:21:48   isn't like the mac will have siri ai because it's it's not a gatekeeper so my my guess is that the way

01:21:56   this is built is either that it's going to be resident on device and the most it's going to do

01:22:00   is look at your icloud or something um or it will have some features that will require a paired apple

01:22:06   device and those might not work yeah but that others will um and that it will be a lesser but not

01:22:15   incomplete device because remember again these devices can have siri ai however if they have to

01:22:21   talk to your iphone and get it to search your spotlight and this is all how they're built right

01:22:26   like how can there be a personal context at all or is the most that it can do to sync you know i mean

01:22:35   maybe maybe there are ways that it could be built to get some good information maybe all it's really

01:22:42   doing is asking the calendar for data like it's a smart watch or something and then that from the iphone

01:22:46   that might be allowed maybe yeah but like that's that's to me that's how this product can exist in

01:22:51   the eu is that it's primarily its own product talking to apple servers and it can do that without using

01:22:58   the gatekeeper product with that feature turned on but it's all about how they've created it right

01:23:02   like that's that's the ultimate thing it's like in theory yes it can work because tv os or home os or

01:23:10   whatever is not a gatekeeper so what i would say about that is if i have a home screen product in

01:23:16   my house and it's paired to somebody's phone and that person walks out the door it's got to still

01:23:20   work right it's got to still work so i think that there are ways that it would be structured so that

01:23:26   it would be functional without an iphone with apple intelligence on it yeah yeah and logan writes in

01:23:33   and says i've always been somebody that deletes my texts emails notes etc when i'm no longer needed

01:23:38   however the new search in siri makes me think it might be beneficial to archive emails and keep

01:23:43   texts forever would you recommend keeping these so siri has better context or am i thinking too much

01:23:49   about this i think you're thinking the exact right amount about this yeah you shouldn't delete things

01:23:55   anymore basically it's yeah siri will know more about you the less information you delete the more you

01:24:01   give it the more it knows well i think i think the real thing is when no longer needed here like if a

01:24:07   thing is truly disposable dispose of it disposing of it is fine but i'll point out cloud storage

01:24:12   is available our storage on our devices is available um i yes if you want to use these new features and

01:24:20   have a siri that can search through all of your old stuff and tell you things you've got to you got

01:24:25   to keep those things around that's the that's the bottom line of it and and i have i had a moment

01:24:31   my moment which is similar is that i started using gmail and i stopped filing um my email i used to file

01:24:39   my email i used to auto filter it or then transfer it to various mailboxes and stuff yeah and i realized

01:24:46   that with gmail if i need to find something i just search for it and i just gave up i just gave up it's a

01:24:51   little like that you're going to need to embrace the idea that you need to leave a track record behind

01:24:56   if you want to be able to use these features whether it's spotlight or siri ai to um search your track record

01:25:03   so my recommendation to you logan and to other people just stop deleting things don't create the mental

01:25:09   overhead in your life of should i keep that message just stop deleting stuff just let it build up

01:25:14   and you'll be able to take the benefit like i is it like the amount of information that an individual

01:25:21   message takes up is not that much now what i will say there is a problem with apple's devices and

01:25:26   message attachments which i think that they need to get better at like removing the attachments

01:25:32   a bit more like that needs to be a bit smarter because i have a very large i message database on my mac

01:25:38   like which i don't need ask the reason i know this is because of how much issue i've been having with storage

01:25:43   on my mac right so i need a new one because i have hundreds of gigabytes of i message attachments that

01:25:48   i'm not sure i need access to all the time um but they're there uh and i and i always get so nervous

01:25:54   anyway we don't need to worry about that for now but just stop deleting stuff just just let it build up

01:25:59   it's just text on a computer it can handle it if you would like to send in a question for us to answer

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01:26:46   week this week we're going to talk about jason saying goodbye to mac world maybe for the last time

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01:27:04   say goodbye jason snow goodbye mike early

01:27:22   Thank you.